43,317 research outputs found
Gas-phase and heat-exchange effects on the ignition of high- and low-exothermicity porous solids subject to constant heating
This article investigates the ignition of low-exothermicity reactive porous solids exposed to a maintained source of heat (hotspot), without oxygen limitation. The gas flow within the solid, particularly in response to pressure gradients (Darcy’s law), is accounted for. Numerical experiments related to the ignition of low-exothermicity porous materials are presented. Gas and solid products of reaction are included. The first stage of the paper examines the (pseudo-homogeneous) assumption of a single temperature for both phases, amounting to an infinite rate of heat exchange between the two. Isolating the effect of gas production and flow in this manner, the effect of each on the ignition time is studied. In such cases, ignition is conveniently defined by the birth of a self-sustained combustion wave. It is found that gas production decreases the ignition time, compared to equivalent systems in which the gas-dynamic problem is effectively neglected. The reason for this is quite simple; the smaller heat capacity of the gas allows the overall temperature to attain a higher value in a similar time, and so speeds up the ignition process. Next, numerical results using a two-temperature (heterogeneous) model, allowing for local heat exchange between the phases, are presented. The pseudo-homogeneous results are recovered in the limit of infinite heat exchange. For a finite value of heat exchange, the ignition time is lower when compared to the single-temperature limit, decreasing as the rate of heat exchange decreases. However, the decrease is only mild, of the order of a few percent, indicating that the pseudo-homogeneous model is in fact a rather good approximation, at least for a constant heat-exchange rate. The relationships between the ignition time and a number of physico-chemical parameters of the system are also investigated
Prediction of the capacitance lineshape in two-channel quantum dots
We propose a set-up to realize two-channel Kondo physics using quantum dots.
We discuss how the charge fluctuations on a small dot can be accessed by using
a system of two single electron transistors arranged in parallel. We derive a
microscopic Hamiltonian description of the set-up that allows us to make
connection with the two-channel Anderson model (of extended use in the context
of heavy-Fermion systems) and in turn make detailed predictions for the
differential capacitance of the dot. We find that its lineshape, which we
determined precisely, shows a robust behavior that should be experimentally
verifiable.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
The effect of oxygen starvation on ignition phenomena in a reactive solid containing a hot-spot
In this paper, we explore the effect of oxygen supply on the conditions necessary to sustain a self-propagating front from a spherical source of heat embedded in a much larger volume of solid. The ignition characteristics for a spherical hot-spot are investigated, where the reaction is limited by oxygen, that is, reactant + oxygen ? product. It is found that over a wide range of realistic oxygen supply levels, constant heating of the solid by the hot-spot results in a self-propagating combustion front above a certain critical hot-spot power; this is clearly an important issue for industries in which hazard prevention is important. The ignition event leading to the formation of this combustion wave involves an extremely sensitive balance between the heat generated by the chemical reaction and the depletion of the reactant. As a result, for small hot-spot radii and infinite oxygen supply, not only is there a critical power above which a self-sustained combustion front is initiated there also exists a power beyond which no front is formed, before a second higher critical power is found. The plot of critical power against hot-spot radius thus takes on a Z-shape appearance. The corresponding shape for the oxygen-limited reaction is qualitatively the same when the ratio of solid thermal diffusion to oxygen mass diffusion (N) is small and we establish critical conditions for the initiation of a self-sustained combustion front in that case. As N gets larger, while still below unity, we show that the Z-shape flattens out. At still larger values of N, the supercritical behaviour becomes increasingly difficult to define and is supplanted by burning that depends more uniformly on power. In other words, the transition from slow burning to complete combustion seen at small values of N for some critical power disappears. Even higher values of N lead to less solid burning at fixed values of power
Hidden Order in
We review current attempts to characterize the underlying nature of the
hidden order in . A wide variety of experiments point to the
existence of two order parameters: a large primary order parameter of unknown
character which co-exists with secondary antiferromagnetic order. Current
theories can be divided into two groups determined by whether or not the
primary order parameter breaks time-reversal symmetry. We propose a series of
experiments designed to test the time-reversal nature of the underlying primary
order in and to characterize its local single-ion physics
Pose consensus based on dual quaternion algebra with application to decentralized formation control of mobile manipulators
This paper presents a solution based on dual quaternion algebra to the
general problem of pose (i.e., position and orientation) consensus for systems
composed of multiple rigid-bodies. The dual quaternion algebra is used to model
the agents' poses and also in the distributed control laws, making the proposed
technique easily applicable to time-varying formation control of general
robotic systems. The proposed pose consensus protocol has guaranteed
convergence when the interaction among the agents is represented by directed
graphs with directed spanning trees, which is a more general result when
compared to the literature on formation control. In order to illustrate the
proposed pose consensus protocol and its extension to the problem of formation
control, we present a numerical simulation with a large number of free-flying
agents and also an application of cooperative manipulation by using real mobile
manipulators
Optimizing photon indistinguishability in the emission from incoherently-excited semiconductor quantum dots
Most optical quantum devices require deterministic single-photon emitters.
Schemes so far demonstrated in the solid state imply an energy relaxation which
tends to spoil the coherent nature of the time evolution, and with it the
photon indistinguishability. We focus our theoretical investigation on
semiconductor quantum dots embedded in microcavities. Simple and general
relations are identified between the photon indistinguishability and the
collection efficiency. The identification of the key parameters and of their
interplay provides clear indications for the device optimization
Ultrafast Magnetization Dynamics in Diluted Magnetic Semiconductors
We present a dynamical model that successfully explains the observed time
evolution of the magnetization in diluted magnetic semiconductor quantum wells
after weak laser excitation. Based on the pseudo-fermion formalism and a second
order many-particle expansion of the exact p-d exchange interaction, our
approach goes beyond the usual mean-field approximation. It includes both the
sub-picosecond demagnetization dynamics and the slower relaxation processes
which restore the initial ferromagnetic order in a nanosecond time scale. In
agreement with experimental results, our numerical simulations show that,
depending on the value of the initial lattice temperature, a subsequent
enhancement of the total magnetization may be observed within a time scale of
few hundreds of picoseconds.Comment: Submitted to PR
Cataract How Important Is Age of Intervention?
Purpose: To study effect of age of intervention on visual outcome following treatment of pediatric patients with cataract.
Setting: Tertiary eye care centre in Dahod at the trijunction of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan states in central western India.
Participants: 705 eyes of 1047 patients
Methods: This is a prospective cohort study. We studied a consecutive series of pediatric patients with congenital, developing, or COMPLICATED
cataracts who underwent surgery between January, 1999 and April, 2012 at our center. Patient demographics, cataract type, presenting symptoms, surgical intervention, postoperative visual acuity, and follow-up refractive changes were recorded.
Primary Outcome measures: vision.
Results: In total, 1305 eyes of 1047 children were included: unilateral cataracts were present in 786 (60.2%) eyes. There were 600 (46.7%) traumatic and 705 (53.3%) non-traumatic cases. Ages at surgery ranged from 1 to 215 months. Eyes were grouped by the age of surgical intervention performed: Group 1,</= 5 years including 177 (25.1%) eyes, and Group 2, >5 years, including 528 (74.9%) eyes either by anterior or pars plana route ± IOL placement. The mean follow-up time was 117 days. Ultimately, 128 (18.2%) Group 1 and 213 (30.2%)
Group 2 patients achieved a visual acuity better than 20/80 (P < 0.001). Age at intervention was significantly related (all P < 0.001) to visual outcome.
Conclusions: Age of intervention affects visual outcome significantly (p<0.001)
Large-amplitude chirped coherent phonons in tellurium mediated by ultrafast photoexcited carrier diffusion
We report femtosecond time-resolved reflectivity measurements of coherent
phonons in tellurium performed over a wide range of temperatures (3K to 296K)
and pump laser intensities. A totally symmetric A coherent phonon at 3.6
THz responsible for the oscillations in the reflectivity data is observed to be
strongly positively chirped (i.e, phonon time period decreases at longer
pump-probe delay times) with increasing photoexcited carrier density, more so
at lower temperatures. We show for the first time that the temperature
dependence of the coherent phonon frequency is anomalous (i.e, increasing with
increasing temperature) at high photoexcited carrier density due to
electron-phonon interaction. At the highest photoexcited carrier density of
1.4 10cm and the sample temperature of 3K, the
lattice displacement of the coherent phonon mode is estimated to be as high as
0.24 \AA. Numerical simulations based on coupled effects of optical
absorption and carrier diffusion reveal that the diffusion of carriers
dominates the non-oscillatory electronic part of the time-resolved
reflectivity. Finally, using the pump-probe experiments at low carrier density
of 6 10 cm, we separate the phonon anharmonicity to
obtain the electron-phonon coupling contribution to the phonon frequency and
linewidth.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figures, submitted to PR
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