13,188 research outputs found
Critical slowing down and hyperuniformity on approach to jamming
Hyperuniformity characterizes a state of matter that is poised at a critical
point at which density or volume-fraction fluctuations are anomalously
suppressed at infinite wavelengths. Recently, much attention has been given to
the link between strict jamming and hyperuniformity in frictionless
hard-particle packings. Doing so requires one to study very large packings,
which can be difficult to jam properly. We modify the rigorous linear
programming method of Donev et al. [J. Comp. Phys. 197, 139 (2004)] in order to
test for jamming in putatively jammed packings of hard-disks in two dimensions.
We find that various standard packing protocols struggle to reliably create
packings that are jammed for even modest system sizes; importantly, these
packings appear to be jammed by conventional tests. We present evidence that
suggests that deviations from hyperuniformity in putative maximally random
jammed (MRJ) packings can in part be explained by a shortcoming in generating
exactly-jammed configurations due to a type of "critical slowing down" as the
necessary rearrangements become difficult to realize by numerical protocols.
Additionally, various protocols are able to produce packings exhibiting
hyperuniformity to different extents, but this is because certain protocols are
better able to approach exactly-jammed configurations. Nonetheless, while one
should not generally expect exact hyperuniformity for disordered packings with
rattlers, we find that when jamming is ensured, our packings are very nearly
hyperuniform, and deviations from hyperuniformity correlate with an inability
to ensure jamming, suggesting that strict jamming and hyperuniformity are
indeed linked. This raises the possibility that the ideal MRJ packings have no
rattlers. Our work provides the impetus for the development of packing
algorithms that produce large disordered strictly jammed packings that are
rattler-free.Comment: 15 pages, 11 figures. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.
Ceramic-ceramic shell tile thermal protection system and method thereof
A ceramic reusable, externally applied composite thermal protection system (TPS) is proposed. The system functions by utilizing a ceramic/ceramic upper shell structure which effectively separates its primary functions as a thermal insulator and as a load carrier to transmit loads to the cold structure. The composite tile system also prevents impact damage to the atmospheric entry vehicle thermal protection system. The composite tile comprises a structurally strong upper ceramic/ceramic shell manufactured from ceramic fibers and ceramic matrix meeting the thermal and structural requirements of a tile used on a re-entry aerospace vehicle. In addition, a lightweight high temperature ceramic lower temperature base tile is used. The upper shell and lower tile are attached by means effective to withstand the extreme temperatures (3000 to 3200F) and stress conditions. The composite tile may include one or more layers of variable density rigid or flexible thermal insulation. The assembly of the overall tile is facilitated by two or more locking mechanisms on opposing sides of the overall tile assembly. The assembly may occur subsequent to the installation of the lower shell tile on the spacecraft structural skin
Dark energy models toward observational tests and data
A huge amount of good quality astrophysical data converges towards the
picture of a spatially flat universe undergoing the today observed phase of
accelerated expansion. This new observational trend is commonly addressed as
Precision Cosmology. Despite of the quality of astrophysical surveys, the
nature of dark energy dominating the matter-energy content of the universe is
still unknown and a lot of different scenarios are viable candidates to explain
cosmic acceleration. Methods to test these cosmological models are based on
distance measurements and lookback time toward astronomical objects used as
standard candles. I discuss the characterizing parameters and constraints of
three different classes of dark energy models pointing out the related
degeneracy problem which is the signal that more data at low (z= 0- 1), medium
(1<z<10) and high (10 <z< 1000) redshift are needed to definitively select
realistic models.Comment: 17 pages, 9 figures, Lectures for 42nd Karpacz Winter School of
Theoretical Physics: Current Mathematical Topics in Gravitation and
Cosmology, Ladek, Poland, 6-11 Feb 200
Health in my community: Conducting and evaluating photovoice as a tool to promote environmental health and leadership among Latino/a youth
BackgroundThe PhotoVoice method has shown substantial promise for work with youth in metropolitan areas, yet its potential for use with Latino youth from agricultural areas has not been well documented.ObjectivesThis project was designed to teach environmental health to 15 high school youth while building their individual and community capacity for studying and addressing shared environmental concerns. The project also aimed to test the utility of PhotoVoice with Latino agricultural youth.MethodsFifteen members of the Youth Community Council (YCC), part of a 15-year project with farmworker families in Salinas, CA, took part in a 12-week PhotoVoice project. Their pictures captured the assets and strengths of their community related to environmental health, and were then analyzed by participants. A multi-pronged evaluation was conducted.ResultsYCC members identified concerns such as poor access to affordable, healthy foods and lack of safe physical spaces in which to play, as well as assets, including caring adults and organizations, and open spaces in surrounding areas. Participants presented their findings on radio, television, at local community events, and to key policy makers. The youth also developed two action plans, a successful 5K run/walk and a school recycling project, still in progress. Evaluation results included significant changes in such areas as perceived ability to make presentations, leadership, and self-confidence, as well as challenges including transportation, group dynamics, and gaining access to people in power.ConclusionThe PhotoVoice method shows promise for environmental health education and youth development in farmworker communities
Electrodynamic modeling of strong coupling between a metasurface and intersubband transitions in quantum wells
Strong light-matter coupling has recently been demonstrated in sub-wavelength
volumes by coupling engineered optical transitions in semiconductor
heterostructures (e.g., quantum wells) to metasurface resonances via near
fields. It has also been shown that different resonator shapes may lead to
different Rabi splittings, though this has not yet been well explained. In this
paper, our aim is to understand the correlation between resonator shape and
Rabi splitting, and in particular determine and quantify the physical
parameters that affect strong coupling by developing an equivalent circuit
network model whose elements describe energy and dissipation. Because of the
subwavelength dimension of each metasurface element, we resort to the
quasi-static (electrostatic) description of the near-field and hence define an
equivalent capacitance associated to each dipolar element of a flat
metasurface, and we show that this is also able to accurately model the
phenomenology involved in strong coupling between the metasurface and the
intersubband transitions in quantum wells. We show that the spectral properties
and stored energy of a metasurface/quantum-well system obtained using our model
are in good agreement with both full-wave simulation and experimental results.
We then analyze metasurfaces made of three different resonator geometries and
observe that the magnitude of the Rabi splitting increases with the resonator
capacitance in agreement with our theory, providing a phenomenological
explanation for the resonator shape dependence of the strong coupling process.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figure
Microtremor response of a mass movement in Federal District of Brazil
The present study provides a brief description of the ambient noise recorded at a slow moving mass movement in Ribeirão Contagem Basin. The area is an interesting natural laboratory as river detachment processes in a number of different stages can be identified and are easily accessible. We investigate the site dynamic characteristics of the study area by recording ambient noise time-series at nine points, using portable nine three-component short period seismometers. The time-series are processed to give both horizontal to vertical spectral ratio (HVSR) curves as well as time-frequency plots of noise power spectral density (SPD). The HVSR curves illustrate and quantify aspects of site resonance effects due to underlying geology. Probability density function (PDF) shows that noise level lies well between new high noise model (NHNM) and new lower noise model (NLNM) and their probabilities are higher above 2 Hz. HVSR curves present a uniform lithologically controlled peak at 2 Hz. Directional properties of the wavefield are determined by beamforming method. The f-k analysis results in the E-W component show that at 5 Hz phase velocities are close to 1700 m/s while at 10 Hz dropped to 250 m/s. We observed that between 5 and 16 Hz the incoming wavefield arrive from 260 degrees. Further studies will apply a detailed noise analysis for the understanding of dynamics of the mass movement, which is triggered by the river erosion
Densest local packing diversity. II. Application to three dimensions
The densest local packings of N three-dimensional identical nonoverlapping
spheres within a radius Rmin(N) of a fixed central sphere of the same size are
obtained for selected values of N up to N = 1054. In the predecessor to this
paper [A.B. Hopkins, F.H. Stillinger and S. Torquato, Phys. Rev. E 81 041305
(2010)], we described our method for finding the putative densest packings of N
spheres in d-dimensional Euclidean space Rd and presented those packings in R2
for values of N up to N = 348. We analyze the properties and characteristics of
the densest local packings in R3 and employ knowledge of the Rmin(N), using
methods applicable in any d, to construct both a realizability condition for
pair correlation functions of sphere packings and an upper bound on the maximal
density of infinite sphere packings. In R3, we find wide variability in the
densest local packings, including a multitude of packing symmetries such as
perfect tetrahedral and imperfect icosahedral symmetry. We compare the densest
local packings of N spheres near a central sphere to minimal-energy
configurations of N+1 points interacting with short-range repulsive and
long-range attractive pair potentials, e.g., 12-6 Lennard-Jones, and find that
they are in general completely different, a result that has possible
implications for nucleation theory. We also compare the densest local packings
to finite subsets of stacking variants of the densest infinite packings in R3
(the Barlow packings) and find that the densest local packings are almost
always most similar, as measured by a similarity metric, to the subsets of
Barlow packings with the smallest number of coordination shells measured about
a single central sphere, e.g., a subset of the FCC Barlow packing. We
additionally observe that the densest local packings are dominated by the
spheres arranged with centers at precisely distance Rmin(N) from the fixed
sphere's center.Comment: 45 pages, 18 figures, 2 table
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