239 research outputs found
A proposed experimental method to determine -sensitivity of splitting between ground and 7.6 eV isomeric states in Th-229
The 7.6 eV electromagnetic transition between the nearly degenerate ground
state and first excited state in the Th-229 nucleus may be very sensitive to
potential changes in the fine-structure constant, .
However, the sensitivity is not known, and nuclear calculations are currently
unable to determine it. We propose measurements of the differences of atomic
transition frequencies between thorium atoms (or ions) with the nucleus in the
ground state and in the first excited (isomeric) state. This will enable
extraction of the change in nuclear charge radius and electric quadrupole
moment between the isomers, and hence the -dependence of the isomeric
transition frequency with reasonable accuracy.Comment: More details, some changes to notatio
Exact Free Energy Functional for a Driven Diffusive Open Stationary Nonequilibrium System
We obtain the exact probability of finding a
macroscopic density profile in the stationary nonequilibrium state of
an open driven diffusive system, when the size of the system .
, which plays the role of a nonequilibrium free energy, has a very
different structure from that found in the purely diffusive case. As there,
is nonlocal, but the shocks and dynamic phase transitions of the
driven system are reflected in non-convexity of , in discontinuities in
its second derivatives, and in non-Gaussian fluctuations in the steady state.Comment: LaTeX2e, RevTeX4, PiCTeX. Four pages, one PiCTeX figure included in
TeX source fil
Re-Examination of Generation of Baryon and Lepton Number Asymmetries by Heavy Particle Decay
It is shown that wave function renormalization can introduce an important
contribution to the generation of baryon and lepton number asymmetries by heavy
particle decay. These terms, omitted in previous analyses, are of the same
order of magnitude as the standard terms. A complete cancellation of leading
terms can result in some interesting cases.Comment: 12 pages, 2 Feynman graphs (not included), UPR-055
Pulsar kicks from neutrino oscillations
Neutrino oscillations can explain the observed motion of pulsars. We show
that two different models of neutrino emission from a cooling neutron star are
in good quantitative agreement and predict the same order of magnitude for the
pulsar kick velocity, consistent with the data.Comment: revtex; 4 page
Dynamics of fluctuations in a fluid below the onset of Rayleigh-B\'enard convection
We present experimental data and their theoretical interpretation for the
decay rates of temperature fluctuations in a thin layer of a fluid heated from
below and confined between parallel horizontal plates. The measurements were
made with the mean temperature of the layer corresponding to the critical
isochore of sulfur hexafluoride above but near the critical point where
fluctuations are exceptionally strong. They cover a wide range of temperature
gradients below the onset of Rayleigh-B\'enard convection, and span wave
numbers on both sides of the critical value for this onset. The decay rates
were determined from experimental shadowgraph images of the fluctuations at
several camera exposure times. We present a theoretical expression for an
exposure-time-dependent structure factor which is needed for the data analysis.
As the onset of convection is approached, the data reveal the critical
slowing-down associated with the bifurcation. Theoretical predictions for the
decay rates as a function of the wave number and temperature gradient are
presented and compared with the experimental data. Quantitative agreement is
obtained if allowance is made for some uncertainty in the small spacing between
the plates, and when an empirical estimate is employed for the influence of
symmetric deviations from the Oberbeck-Boussinesq approximation which are to be
expected in a fluid with its density at the mean temperature located on the
critical isochore.Comment: 13 pages, 10 figures, 52 reference
Supersymmetric One-family Model without Higgsinos
The Higgs potential and the mass spectrum of the N=1 supersymmetric extension
of a recently proposed one-family model based on the local gauge group , which is a subgroup of the electroweak-strong
unification group , is analyzed. In this model the slepton multiplets play
the role of the Higgs scalars and no Higgsinos are needed, with the consequence
that the sneutrino, the selectron and six other sleptons play the role of the
Goldstone bosons. We show how the problem is successfully addressed in
the context of this model which also predicts the existence of a light CP-odd
scalar.Comment: REVTeX 4, 10 pages. Included discussions about constraints coming
from the rho-parameter and from Muon (g-2). References added. Version to
appear in Phys. Rev.
Signatures of arithmetic simplicity in metabolic network architecture
Metabolic networks perform some of the most fundamental functions in living
cells, including energy transduction and building block biosynthesis. While
these are the best characterized networks in living systems, understanding
their evolutionary history and complex wiring constitutes one of the most
fascinating open questions in biology, intimately related to the enigma of
life's origin itself. Is the evolution of metabolism subject to general
principles, beyond the unpredictable accumulation of multiple historical
accidents? Here we search for such principles by applying to an artificial
chemical universe some of the methodologies developed for the study of genome
scale models of cellular metabolism. In particular, we use metabolic flux
constraint-based models to exhaustively search for artificial chemistry
pathways that can optimally perform an array of elementary metabolic functions.
Despite the simplicity of the model employed, we find that the ensuing pathways
display a surprisingly rich set of properties, including the existence of
autocatalytic cycles and hierarchical modules, the appearance of universally
preferable metabolites and reactions, and a logarithmic trend of pathway length
as a function of input/output molecule size. Some of these properties can be
derived analytically, borrowing methods previously used in cryptography. In
addition, by mapping biochemical networks onto a simplified carbon atom
reaction backbone, we find that several of the properties predicted by the
artificial chemistry model hold for real metabolic networks. These findings
suggest that optimality principles and arithmetic simplicity might lie beneath
some aspects of biochemical complexity
Hydrodynamic interactions in colloidal ferrofluids: A lattice Boltzmann study
We use lattice Boltzmann simulations, in conjunction with Ewald summation
methods, to investigate the role of hydrodynamic interactions in colloidal
suspensions of dipolar particles, such as ferrofluids. Our work addresses
volume fractions of up to 0.20 and dimensionless dipolar interaction
parameters of up to 8. We compare quantitatively with Brownian
dynamics simulations, in which many-body hydrodynamic interactions are absent.
Monte Carlo data are also used to check the accuracy of static properties
measured with the lattice Boltzmann technique. At equilibrium, hydrodynamic
interactions slow down both the long-time and the short-time decays of the
intermediate scattering function , for wavevectors close to the peak of
the static structure factor , by a factor of roughly two. The long-time
slowing is diminished at high interaction strengths whereas the short-time
slowing (quantified via the hydrodynamic factor ) is less affected by the
dipolar interactions, despite their strong effect on the pair distribution
function arising from cluster formation. Cluster formation is also studied in
transient data following a quench from ; hydrodynamic interactions
slow the formation rate, again by a factor of roughly two
Evidence for Unusual Dynamical Arrest Scenario in Short Ranged Colloidal Systems
Extensive molecular dynamics simulation studies of particles interacting via
a short ranged attractive square-well (SW) potential are reported. The
calculated loci of constant diffusion coefficient in the
temperature-packing fraction plane show a re-entrant behavior, i.e. an increase
of diffusivity on cooling, confirming an important part of the high
volume-fraction dynamical-arrest scenario earlier predicted by theory for
particles with short ranged potentials. The more efficient localization
mechanism induced by the short range bonding provides, on average, additional
free volume as compared to the hard-sphere case and results in faster dynamics.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Structural efficiency of percolation landscapes in flow networks
Complex networks characterized by global transport processes rely on the
presence of directed paths from input to output nodes and edges, which organize
in characteristic linked components. The analysis of such network-spanning
structures in the framework of percolation theory, and in particular the key
role of edge interfaces bridging the communication between core and periphery,
allow us to shed light on the structural properties of real and theoretical
flow networks, and to define criteria and quantities to characterize their
efficiency at the interplay between structure and functionality. In particular,
it is possible to assess that an optimal flow network should look like a "hairy
ball", so to minimize bottleneck effects and the sensitivity to failures.
Moreover, the thorough analysis of two real networks, the Internet
customer-provider set of relationships at the autonomous system level and the
nervous system of the worm Caenorhabditis elegans --that have been shaped by
very different dynamics and in very different time-scales--, reveals that
whereas biological evolution has selected a structure close to the optimal
layout, market competition does not necessarily tend toward the most customer
efficient architecture.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure
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