44,288 research outputs found
Layering Transitions and Solvation Forces in an Asymmetrically Confined Fluid
We consider a simple fluid confined between two parallel walls (substrates),
separated by a distance L. The walls exert competing surface fields so that one
wall is attractive and may be completely wet by liquid (it is solvophilic)
while the other is solvophobic. Such asymmetric confinement is sometimes termed
a `Janus Interface'. The second wall is: (i) purely repulsive and therefore
completely dry (contact angle 180 degrees) or (ii) weakly attractive and
partially dry (the contact angle is typically in the range 160-170 degrees). At
low temperatures, but above the bulk triple point, we find using classical
density functional theory (DFT) that the fluid is highly structured in the
liquid part of the density profile. In case (i) a sequence of layering
transitions occurs: as L is increased at fixed chemical potential (mu) close to
bulk gas--liquid coexistence, new layers of liquid-like density develop
discontinuously. In contrast to confinement between identical walls, the
solvation force is repulsive for all wall separations and jumps discontinuously
at each layering transition and the excess grand potential exhibits many
metastable minima as a function of the adsorption. For a fixed temperature
T=0.56Tc, where Tc is the bulk critical temperature, we determine the
transition lines in the L, mu plane. In case (ii) we do not find layering
transitions and the solvation force oscillates about zero. We discuss how our
mean-field DFT results might be altered by including effects of fluctuations
and comment on how the phenomenology we have revealed might be relevant for
experimental and simulation studies of water confined between hydrophilic and
hydrophobic substrates, emphasizing it is important to distinguish between
cases (i) and (ii).Comment: 16 pages, 13 figure
Helical Symmetry in Linear Systems
We investigate properties of solutions of the scalar wave equation and
Maxwell's equations on Minkowski space with helical symmetry. Existence of
local and global solutions with this symmetry is demonstrated with and without
sources. The asymptotic properties of the solutions are analyzed. We show that
the Newman--Penrose retarded and advanced scalars exhibit specific symmetries
and generalized peeling properties.Comment: 11 page
S190 interpretation techniques development and application to New York State water resources
The author has identified the following significant results. The program has demonstrated that Skylab imagery can be utilized to regularly monitor eutrophication indices of lakes, such as chlorophyll concentration and photic zone depth. The relationship between the blue to green reflectance ratio and chlorophyll concentration was shown, along with changes in lake properties caused by chlorophyll, lignin, and humic acid using reflectance ratios and changes. A data processing technique was developed for detecting atmospheric fluctuations occurring over a large lake
Reconstruction of Black Hole Metric Perturbations from Weyl Curvature II: The Regge-Wheeler gauge
Perturbation theory of rotating black holes is described in terms of the Weyl
scalars and ; each satisfying the Teukolsky's complex master
wave equation with spin , and respectively representing outgoing and
ingoing radiation. We explicitly construct the metric perturbations out of
these Weyl scalars in the Regge-Wheeler gauge in the nonrotating limit. We
propose a generalization of the Regge-Wheeler gauge for Kerr background in the
Newman-Penrose language, and discuss the approach for building up the perturbed
spacetime of a rotating black hole. We also provide both-way relationships
between waveforms defined in the metric and curvature approaches in the time
domain, also known as the (inverse-) Chandrasekhar transformations, generalized
to include matter.Comment: 22 pages, no figure
Two-parameter non-linear spacetime perturbations: gauge transformations and gauge invariance
An implicit fundamental assumption in relativistic perturbation theory is
that there exists a parametric family of spacetimes that can be Taylor expanded
around a background. The choice of the latter is crucial to obtain a manageable
theory, so that it is sometime convenient to construct a perturbative formalism
based on two (or more) parameters. The study of perturbations of rotating stars
is a good example: in this case one can treat the stationary axisymmetric star
using a slow rotation approximation (expansion in the angular velocity Omega),
so that the background is spherical. Generic perturbations of the rotating star
(say parametrized by lambda) are then built on top of the axisymmetric
perturbations in Omega. Clearly, any interesting physics requires non-linear
perturbations, as at least terms lambda Omega need to be considered. In this
paper we analyse the gauge dependence of non-linear perturbations depending on
two parameters, derive explicit higher order gauge transformation rules, and
define gauge invariance. The formalism is completely general and can be used in
different applications of general relativity or any other spacetime theory.Comment: 22 pages, 3 figures. Minor changes to match the version appeared in
Classical and Quantum Gravit
Challenging the weak cosmic censorship conjecture with charged quantum particles
Motivated by the recent attempts to violate the weak cosmic censorship
conjecture for near-extreme black-holes, we consider the possibility of
overcharging a near-extreme Reissner-Nordstr\"om black hole by the quantum
tunneling of charged particles. We consider the scattering of spin-0 and
spin-1/2 particles by the black hole in a unified framework and obtain
analytically, for the first time, the pertinent reflection and transmission
coefficients without any small charge approximation. Based on these results, we
propose some gedanken experiments that could lead to the violation of the weak
cosmic censorship conjecture due to the (classically forbidden) absorption of
small energy charged particles by the black hole. As for the case of scattering
in Kerr spacetimes, our results demonstrate explicitly that scalar fields are
subject to (electrical) superradiance phenomenon, while spin-1/2 fields are
not. Superradiance impose some limitations on the gedanken experiments
involving spin-0 fields, favoring, in this way, the mechanisms for creation of
a naked singularity by the quantum tunneling of spin-1/2 charged fermions. We
also discuss the implications that vacuum polarization effects and quantum
statistics might have on these gedanken experiments. In particular, we show
that they are not enough to prevent the absorption of incident small energy
particles and, consequently, the formation of a naked singularity.Comment: 9 pages; Final version to appear in PR
The Measure Problem in Cosmology
The Hamiltonian structure of general relativity provides a natural canonical
measure on the space of all classical universes, i.e., the multiverse. We
review this construction and show how one can visualize the measure in terms of
a "magnetic flux" of solutions through phase space. Previous studies identified
a divergence in the measure, which we observe to be due to the dilatation
invariance of flat FRW universes. We show that the divergence is removed if we
identify universes which are so flat they cannot be observationally
distinguished. The resulting measure is independent of time and of the choice
of coordinates on the space of fields. We further show that, for some
quantities of interest, the measure is very insensitive to the details of how
the identification is made. One such quantity is the probability of inflation
in simple scalar field models. We find that, according to our implementation of
the canonical measure, the probability for N e-folds of inflation in
single-field, slow-roll models is suppressed by of order exp(-3N) and we
discuss the implications of this result.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figures. Revised version with clarifying remarks on
meaning of adopted measure, extra references and minor typographical
correction
NASA/RAE collaboration on nonlinear control using the F-8C digital fly-by-wire aircraft
Design procedures are reviewed for variable integral control to optimize response (VICTOR) algorithms and results of preliminary flight tests are presented. The F-8C aircraft is operated in the remotely augmented vehicle (RAV) mode, with the control laws implemented as FORTRAN programs on a ground-based computer. Pilot commands and sensor information are telemetered to the ground, where the data are processed to form surface commands which are then telemetered back to the aircraft. The RAV mode represents a singlestring (simplex) system and is therefore vulnerable to a hardover since comparison monitoring is not possible. Hence, extensive error checking is conducted on both the ground and airborne computers to prevent the development of potentially hazardous situations. Experience with the RAV monitoring and validation procedures is described
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