535 research outputs found
Synthesis and characterization of atomically-thin graphite films on a silicon carbide substrate
This paper reports the synthesis and detailed characterization of graphite
thin films produced by thermal decomposition of the (0001) face of a 6H-SiC
wafer, demonstrating the successful growth of single crystalline films down to
approximately one graphene layer. The growth and characterization were carried
out in ultrahigh vacuum (UHV) conditions. The growth process and sample quality
were monitored by low-energy electron diffraction, and the thickness of the
sample was determined by core level x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy.
High-resolution angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy shows constant energy
map patterns, which are very sharp and fully momentum-resolved, but nonetheless
not resolution limited. We discuss the implications of this observation in
connection with scanning electron microscopy data, as well as with previous
studies
Cold extrusion and cold drawing of polymeric rod: The influence on subsequent tensile and compressive mechanical properties
Nylon 6-6, polycarbonate and high density polyethylene were extruded and drawn through a 40% reduction die in one pass at room temperature. Certain mechanical properties of the extrudate were measured by subsequent tension and compression tests. For both forming processes and for all three polymers, the tensile true stress-true strain curve is raised compared with the behavior of the original material while the comparable compressive curve is lowered. It was also found that the onset of tensile instability was extended to larger tensile strains when these polymers were first cold worked by extruding or drawing. The elastic modulus was increased when PC was extruded or drawn while this property exhibited a decrease, due to cold working, for both other polymers.All three materials exhibited pronounced directional effects when subjected to compressive loading both parallel to and perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the extrudate. In a qualitative manner this seems to correlate with greater chain alignment brought about by the forced flow through the die throat.Exploratory temperature measurements indicate that a maximum rise of 20 deg F resulted for this severe reduction of area; this would not cause the glass transition temperature of the PC and Nylon to be exceeded.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/34200/1/0000489.pd
On the tensile behavior of high density polyethylene subjected to cold rolling
High density polyethylene was cold rolled to produce a series of specimens having from zero to 50% cold work. For those worked beyond 20%, the absolute thickness recovery was relatively constant. X-Ray diffraction studies indicated that significant changes in the original structure also occurred in specimens cold worked beyond 20% and that increasing c-axis orientation was coincident with greater cold work.From the fully recovered specimens, tensile behavior was studied for two strain rates. The early portions of the true stress-true strain curves vary as the degree of initial cold rolling increases; this is reflected in different values of the elastic modulus which exhibits a minimum with material cold rolled about 25%.Tensile instability or necking is delayed as the degree of initial cold working increases but little variation was observed in regard to the tensile strength. The findings pertain for both strain rates. Regarding specimens of similar "structural" condition, say for example 15% cold work, higher strain rates correlate with greater strength and lower strain at instability.In a qualitative manner, comparative behavior between this polymer and ductile metals is discussed.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/34199/1/0000488.pd
Measurement of Cosmic-ray Muon-induced Spallation Neutrons in the Aberdeen Tunnel Underground Laboratory
AbstractMuon-induced neutrons are one of the major backgrounds to various underground experiments, such as dark matter searches, low-energy neutrino oscillation experiments and neutrino-less double beta-decay experiments. Previous experiments on the underground production rate of muon-induced neutrons were mostly carried out either at shallow sites or at very deep sites. The Aberdeen Tunnel experiment aims to measure the neutron production rate at a moderate depth of 611 meters water equivalent. Our apparatus comprises of six layers of plastic-scintillator hodoscopes for tracking the incident cosmic-ray muons, and 760 L of gadolinium-doped liquid-scintillator for both neutron production and detection targets. In this paper, we describe the design and the performance of the apparatus. The preliminary result on the measurement of neutron production rate is also presented
Shrinking a large dataset to identify variables associated with increased risk of Plasmodium falciparum infection in Western Kenya
Large datasets are often not amenable to analysis using traditional single-step approaches. Here, our general objective was to apply imputation techniques, principal component analysis (PCA), elastic net and generalized linear models to a large dataset in a systematic approach to extract the most meaningful predictors for a health outcome. We extracted predictors for Plasmodium falciparum infection, from a large covariate dataset while facing limited numbers of observations, using data from the People, Animals, and their Zoonoses (PAZ) project to demonstrate these techniques: data collected from 415 homesteads in western Kenya, contained over 1500 variables that describe the health, environment, and social factors of the humans, livestock, and the homesteads in which they reside. The wide, sparse dataset was simplified to 42 predictors of P. falciparum malaria infection and wealth rankings were produced for all homesteads. The 42 predictors make biological sense and are supported by previous studies. This systematic data-mining approach we used would make many large datasets more manageable and informative for decision-making processes and health policy prioritization
Global Search for New Physics with 2.0/fb at CDF
Data collected in Run II of the Fermilab Tevatron are searched for
indications of new electroweak-scale physics. Rather than focusing on
particular new physics scenarios, CDF data are analyzed for discrepancies with
the standard model prediction. A model-independent approach (Vista) considers
gross features of the data, and is sensitive to new large cross-section
physics. Further sensitivity to new physics is provided by two additional
algorithms: a Bump Hunter searches invariant mass distributions for "bumps"
that could indicate resonant production of new particles; and the Sleuth
procedure scans for data excesses at large summed transverse momentum. This
combined global search for new physics in 2.0/fb of ppbar collisions at
sqrt(s)=1.96 TeV reveals no indication of physics beyond the standard model.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures. Final version which appeared in Physical Review D
Rapid Communication
Observation of Orbitally Excited B_s Mesons
We report the first observation of two narrow resonances consistent with
states of orbitally excited (L=1) B_s mesons using 1 fb^{-1} of ppbar
collisions at sqrt{s} = 1.96 TeV collected with the CDF II detector at the
Fermilab Tevatron. We use two-body decays into K^- and B^+ mesons reconstructed
as B^+ \to J/\psi K^+, J/\psi \to \mu^+ \mu^- or B^+ \to \bar{D}^0 \pi^+,
\bar{D}^0 \to K^+ \pi^-. We deduce the masses of the two states to be m(B_{s1})
= 5829.4 +- 0.7 MeV/c^2 and m(B_{s2}^*) = 5839.7 +- 0.7 MeV/c^2.Comment: Version accepted and published by Phys. Rev. Let
Measurement of the Bottom-Strange Meson Mixing Phase in the Full CDF Data Set
We report a measurement of the bottom-strange meson mixing phase \beta_s
using the time evolution of B0_s -> J/\psi (->\mu+\mu-) \phi (-> K+ K-) decays
in which the quark-flavor content of the bottom-strange meson is identified at
production. This measurement uses the full data set of proton-antiproton
collisions at sqrt(s)= 1.96 TeV collected by the Collider Detector experiment
at the Fermilab Tevatron, corresponding to 9.6 fb-1 of integrated luminosity.
We report confidence regions in the two-dimensional space of \beta_s and the
B0_s decay-width difference \Delta\Gamma_s, and measure \beta_s in [-\pi/2,
-1.51] U [-0.06, 0.30] U [1.26, \pi/2] at the 68% confidence level, in
agreement with the standard model expectation. Assuming the standard model
value of \beta_s, we also determine \Delta\Gamma_s = 0.068 +- 0.026 (stat) +-
0.009 (syst) ps-1 and the mean B0_s lifetime, \tau_s = 1.528 +- 0.019 (stat) +-
0.009 (syst) ps, which are consistent and competitive with determinations by
other experiments.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, Phys. Rev. Lett 109, 171802 (2012
Search for the standard model Higgs boson decaying to a pair in events with no charged leptons and large missing transverse energy using the full CDF data set
We report on a search for the standard model Higgs boson produced in
association with a vector boson in the full data set of proton-antiproton
collisions at TeV recorded by the CDF II detector at the
Tevatron, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 9.45 fb. We
consider events having no identified charged lepton, a transverse energy
imbalance, and two or three jets, of which at least one is consistent with
originating from the decay of a quark. We place 95% credibility level upper
limits on the production cross section times standard model branching fraction
for several mass hypotheses between 90 and . For a Higgs
boson mass of , the observed (expected) limit is 6.7
(3.6) times the standard model prediction.Comment: Accepted by Phys. Rev. Let
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