Effects of a giant impact on Uranus

The effects of a giant impact on Uranus with respect to the axis tilt of Uranus and its satellites are discussed. The simulations of possible giant impacts were carried out using Cray supercomputers. The technique used is called smooth particle hydrodynamics (SPH). In this technique, the material in the proto-Uranus planet and in the impactor is divided into a large number of particles which can overlap one another so that local averages over these particles determine density and pressure in the problem, and the particles themselves have their own temperatures and internal energies. During the course of the simulation, these particles move around under the influence of the forces acting on them: gravity and pressure gradients. The results of model simulations are presented

Dislocation-Mediated Melting: The One-Component Plasma Limit

The melting parameter $\Gamma_m$ of a classical one-component plasma is estimated using a relation between melting temperature, density, shear modulus, and crystal coordination number that follows from our model of dislocation-mediated melting. We obtain $\Gamma_m=172\pm 35,$ in good agreement with the results of numerous Monte-Carlo calculations.Comment: 8 pages, LaTe

The Quark-Gluon-Plasma Liquid

The quark-gluon plasma close to the critical temperature is a strongly interacting system. Using strongly coupled, classical, non-relativistic plasmas as an analogy, we argue that the quark-gluon plasma is in the liquid phase. This allows to understand experimental observations in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions and to interpret lattice QCD results. It also supports the indications of the presence of a strongly coupled QGP in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, final version, to bepublished in J. Phys.

Skilled deaf readers have an enhanced perceptual span in reading

Recent evidence suggests that, compared with hearing people, deaf people have enhanced visual attention to simple stimuli viewed in the parafovea and periphery. Although a large part of reading involves processing the fixated words in foveal vision, readers also utilize information in parafoveal vision to preprocess upcoming words and decide where to look next. In the study reported here, we investigated whether auditory deprivation affects low-level visual processing during reading by comparing the perceptual span of deaf signers who were skilled and less-skilled readers with the perceptual span of skilled hearing readers. Compared with hearing readers, the two groups of deaf readers had a larger perceptual span than would be expected given their reading ability. These results provide the first evidence that deaf readers' enhanced attentional allocation to the parafovea is used during complex cognitive tasks, such as reading

An equation of state from cool-dense fluids to hot gases for mixed elements

An equation of state for the domain extending from hot gases to cool-dense fluids is formulated for a hydrogen-helium mixture. The physical processes take account of temperature ionization and dissociation, electron degeneracy, Coulomb coupling and pressure ionization. Pressure ionization and Coulomb coupling are studied with simple and comprehensive modeling. A single and complete algorithm is achieved with explicit expressions available for the whole domain from hot gases to cool dense fluids ($T>10^2$). Pressure ionization and Coulomb coupling have been examined for their contributions to the pressure and internal energy. The result reveals that their contributions smooth the variation of the pressure and internal energy in the region of pressure ionization even at very low temperatures.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, ApJ, accepted, E-mail: [email protected]

Dynamical Properties and Plasmon Dispersion of a Weakly Degenerate Correlated One-Component Plasma

Classical Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations for a one-component plasma (OCP) are presented. Quantum effects are included in the form of the Kelbg potential. Results for the dynamical structure factor are compared with the Vlasov and RPA (random phase approximation) theories. The influence of the coupling parameter $\Gamma$, degeneracy parameter $\rho \Lambda^3$ and the form of the pair interaction on the optical plasmon dispersion is investigated. An improved analytical approximation for the dispersion of Langmuir waves is presented.Comment: 23 pages, includes 7 ps/eps-figures and 2 table

Evidence for Parton kT Effects in High pT Particle Production

Inclusive pizero and direct-photon cross sections in the kinematic range 3.5 < pT < 12 GeV/c with central rapidities are presented for 530 and 800 GeV/c proton beams and a 515 GeV/c pi- beam incident on beryllium targets. Current Next-to-Leading-Order perturbative QCD calculations fail to adequately describe the data for conventional choices of scales. Kinematic distributions from these hard scattering events provide evidence that the interacting partons carry significant initial-state parton transverse momentum (kT). Incorporating these kT effects phenomenologically greatly improves the agreement between calculations and the measured cross sections.Comment: 11 pages including 6 pages of figures with caption

Reactive-Atom Scattering from Liquid Crystals at the Liquid-Vacuum Interface : [C12mim][BF4] and 4-Cyano-4′-Octylbiphenyl (8CB)

Two complementary approaches were used to study the liquid-vacuum interface of the liquid-crystalline ionic liquid 1-dodecyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate ([C12mim][BF4]) in the smectic A (SmA) and isotropic phases. O atoms with two distinct incident translational energies were scattered from the surface of [C12mim][BF4]. Angle-dependent time-of-flight distributions and OH yields, respectively, were recorded from high- and low-energy O atoms. There were no significant changes in the measurements using either approach, nor the properties derived from them, accompanying the transition from the SmA to the isotropic phase. This indicates that the surface structure of [C12mim][BF4] remains essentially unchanged across the phase boundary, implying that the bulk order and surface structure are not strongly correlated for this material. This effect is ascribed to the strong propensity for the outer surfaces of ionic liquids to be dominated by alkyl chains, over an underlying layer rich in anions and cation head groups, whether or not the bulk material is a liquid crystal. In a comparative study, the OH yield from the surface of the liquid crystal, 8CB, was found to be affected by the bulk order, showing a surprising step increase at the SmA-nematic transition temperature, whose origin is the subject of speculation

Phase Transitions in Rotating Neutron Stars

As rotating neutron stars slow down, the pressure and the density in the core region increase due to the decreasing centrifugal forces and phase transitions may occur in the center. We extract the analytic behavior near the critical angular velocity $\Omega_0$, where the phase transitions occur in the center of a neutron star, and calculate the moment of inertia, angular velocity, rate of slow down, braking index, etc. For a first order phase transition these quantities have a characteristic behavior, e.g., the braking index diverges as $\sim(\Omega_0-\Omega)^{-1/2}$. Observational consequences for first, second and other phase transitions are discussed.Comment: 5 pages, one figure included, revtex latex styl