22,703 research outputs found
Hot ion plasma heating experiments in SUMMA
Initial results are presented for the hot-ion plasma heating experiments conducted in the new SUMMA (superconducting magnetic mirror apparatus) at NASA Lewis Research Center. A discharge is formed by applying a radially inward dc electric field between cylindrical anodes and hallow cathodes located at the peak of the mirrors. Data were obtained at midplane magnetic field strengths from 1.0 to 3.5 tesla. Charge-exchange neutral particle energy analyzer data were reduced to ion temperatures using a plasma model that included a Maxwellian energy distribution superimposed on an azimuthal drift, finite ion orbits, and radial variations in density and electric field. The best ion temperatures in a helium plasma were 5 keV and in hydrogen the H2(+) and H(+) ions were 1.2 keV and 1 keV respectively. Optical spectroscopy line broadening measurements yielded ion temperatures about 50 percent higher than the charge-exchange neutral particle analyzer results. Spectroscopically obtained electron temperature ranged from 3 to 30 eV. Ion temperature was found to scale roughly linearly with the ratio of power input-to-magnetic field strength, P/B
Thermoelectric properties of Zn_5Sb_4In_(2-δ)(δ=0.15)
The polymorphic intermetallic compound Zn_5Sb_4In_(2−δ) (δ = 0.15(3)) shows promising thermoelectric properties at low temperatures, approaching a figure of merit ZT of 0.3 at 300 K. However, thermopower and electrical resistivity changes discontinuously at around 220 K. Measurement of the specific heat locates the previously unknown temperature of the order-disorder phase transition at around 180 K. Investigation of the charge carrier concentration and mobility by Hall measurements and infrared reflection spectroscopy indicate a mixed conduction behavior and the activation of charge carriers at temperatures above 220 K. Zn_5Sb_4In_(2−δ) has a low thermal stability, and at temperatures above 470 K samples decompose into a mixture of Zn, InSb, and Zn_4Sb_3
Soliton blue-shift in tapered photonic crystal fiber
We show that solitons undergo a strong blue shift in fibers with a dispersion
landscape that varies along the direction of propagation. The experiments are
based on a small-core photonic crystal fiber, tapered to have a core diameter
that varies continuously along its length, resulting in a zero-dispersion
wavelength that moves from 731 nm to 640 nm over the transition. The central
wavelength of a soliton translates over 400 nm towards shorter wavelength. This
accompanied by strong emission of radiation into the UV and IR spectral region.
The experimental results are confirmed by numerical simulation.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure
A New Template Family For The Detection Of Gravitational Waves From Comparable Mass Black Hole Binaries
In order to improve the phasing of the comparable-mass waveform as we
approach the last stable orbit for a system, various re-summation methods have
been used to improve the standard post-Newtonian waveforms. In this work we
present a new family of templates for the detection of gravitational waves from
the inspiral of two comparable-mass black hole binaries. These new adiabatic
templates are based on re-expressing the derivative of the binding energy and
the gravitational wave flux functions in terms of shifted Chebyshev
polynomials. The Chebyshev polynomials are a useful tool in numerical methods
as they display the fastest convergence of any of the orthogonal polynomials.
In this case they are also particularly useful as they eliminate one of the
features that plagues the post-Newtonian expansion. The Chebyshev binding
energy now has information at all post-Newtonian orders, compared to the
post-Newtonian templates which only have information at full integer orders. In
this work, we compare both the post-Newtonian and Chebyshev templates against a
fiducially exact waveform. This waveform is constructed from a hybrid method of
using the test-mass results combined with the mass dependent parts of the
post-Newtonian expansions for the binding energy and flux functions. Our
results show that the Chebyshev templates achieve extremely high fitting
factors at all PN orders and provide excellent parameter extraction. We also
show that this new template family has a faster Cauchy convergence, gives a
better prediction of the position of the Last Stable Orbit and in general
recovers higher Signal-to-Noise ratios than the post-Newtonian templates.Comment: Final published version. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.
Geometrical Optics of Beams with Vortices: Berry Phase and Orbital Angular Momentum Hall Effect
We consider propagation of a paraxial beam carrying the spin angular momentum
(polarization) and intrinsic orbital angular momentum (IOAM) in a smoothly
inhomogeneous isotropic medium. It is shown that the presence of IOAM can
dramatically enhance and rearrange the topological phenomena that previously
were considered solely in connection to the polarization of transverse waves.
In particular, the appearance of a new-type Berry phase that describes the
parallel transport of the beam structure along a curved ray is predicted. We
derive the ray equations demonstrating the splitting of beams with different
values of IOAM. This is the orbital angular momentum Hall effect, which
resembles Magnus effect for optical vortices. Unlike the recently discovered
spin Hall effect of photons, it can be much larger in magnitude and is inherent
to waves of any nature. Experimental means to detect the phenomena is
discussed.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure
Synchrotron X-ray structure refinement of Zn_4Sb_3
The structure of the thermoelectric Zn_4Sb_3 is refined using synchrotron X-ray powder diffraction data collected at
wavelengths both near to and relatively far from the Zn
adsorption edge. In agreement with earlier studies, the
compound crystallized in a trigonal structure, space group
R3c with a = 12.2406(3)Ã…, c = 12.4361(3)Ã… at room
temperature, and there are three primary sites in the
asymmetric unit. Each site contains only one atomic species,
in contrast to many previous studies. The primary Zn (36f)
site is slightly less than fully occupied, whereas the two Sb sites (18e and 12c) are fully occupied. In addition, several Zn interstitial sites (36f) with low occupancies (>5%) are also present. The results are in agreement with the model proposed by Snyder [1], as opposed to that originally proposed by Mayer [2] and more recently by Mozharivskyj [3]. The refined site occupancies yield an overall stoichiometry which is consistent with that measured experimentally. The presence of interstitial Zn can be understood in terms of charge balance requirements and is likely responsible for the exceptionally low thermal conductivity of this material
Solitons in nonlocal nonlinear media: exact results
We investigate the propagation of one-dimensional bright and dark spatial
solitons in a nonlocal Kerr-like media, in which the nonlocality is of general
form. We find an exact analytical solution to the nonlinear propagation
equation in the case of weak nonlocality. We study the properties of these
solitons and show their stability.Comment: 9 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.
Dissipation-driven quantum phase transitions in collective spin systems
We consider two different collective spin systems subjected to strong
dissipation -- on the same scale as interaction strengths and external fields
-- and show that either continuous or discontinuous dissipative quantum phase
transitions can occur as the dissipation strength is varied. First, we consider
a well known model of cooperative resonance fluorescence that can exhibit a
second-order quantum phase transition, and analyze the entanglement properties
near the critical point. Next, we examine a dissipative version of the
Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick interacting collective spin model, where we find that
either first- or second-order quantum phase transitions can occur, depending
only on the ratio of the interaction and external field parameters. We give
detailed results and interpretation for the steady state entanglement in the
vicinity of the critical point, where it reaches a maximum. For the first-order
transition we find that the semiclassical steady states exhibit a region of
bistability.Comment: 12 pages, 16 figures, removed section on homodyne spectr
- …