642 research outputs found
An assessment of the lattice strain in the CrMnFeCoNi high-entropy alloy
The formation of single phase solid solutions from combinations of multiple principal elements, with differing atomic radii, has led to the suggestion that the lattices of high-entropy alloys (HEAs) must be severely distorted. To assess this hypothesis, total scattering measurements using neutron radiation have been performed on the CrMnFeCoNi alloy and compared with similar data from five compositionally simpler materials within the same system. The Bragg diffraction patterns from all of the studied materials were similar, consistent with a face-centered cubic structure, and none showed the pronounced dampening that would be expected from a highly distorted lattice. A more detailed evaluation of the local lattice strain was made by considering the first six coordination shells in the pair distribution functions (PDF), obtained from the total scattering data. Across this range, the HEA exhibited the broadest PDF peaks but these widths were not disproportionately larger than those of the simpler alloys. In addition, of all the materials considered, the HEA was at the highest homologous temperature, and hence the thermal vibrations of the atoms would be greatest. Consequently, the level of local lattice strain required to rationalise a given PDF peak width would be reduced. As a result, the data presented in this study do not indicate that the local lattice strain in the equiatomic CrMnFeCoNi HEA is anomalously large.The authors would like to thank the EPSRC/Rolls-Royce Strategic Partnership for funding (EP/M005607/1 and EP/H022309).This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Elsevier via https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actamat.2016.09.03
Empowerment for Continuous Agent-Environment Systems
This paper develops generalizations of empowerment to continuous states.
Empowerment is a recently introduced information-theoretic quantity motivated
by hypotheses about the efficiency of the sensorimotor loop in biological
organisms, but also from considerations stemming from curiosity-driven
learning. Empowemerment measures, for agent-environment systems with stochastic
transitions, how much influence an agent has on its environment, but only that
influence that can be sensed by the agent sensors. It is an
information-theoretic generalization of joint controllability (influence on
environment) and observability (measurement by sensors) of the environment by
the agent, both controllability and observability being usually defined in
control theory as the dimensionality of the control/observation spaces. Earlier
work has shown that empowerment has various interesting and relevant
properties, e.g., it allows us to identify salient states using only the
dynamics, and it can act as intrinsic reward without requiring an external
reward. However, in this previous work empowerment was limited to the case of
small-scale and discrete domains and furthermore state transition probabilities
were assumed to be known. The goal of this paper is to extend empowerment to
the significantly more important and relevant case of continuous vector-valued
state spaces and initially unknown state transition probabilities. The
continuous state space is addressed by Monte-Carlo approximation; the unknown
transitions are addressed by model learning and prediction for which we apply
Gaussian processes regression with iterated forecasting. In a number of
well-known continuous control tasks we examine the dynamics induced by
empowerment and include an application to exploration and online model
learning
Particle Acceleration in Cosmic Sites - Astrophysics Issues in our Understanding of Cosmic Rays
Laboratory experiments to explore plasma conditions and stimulated particle
acceleration can illuminate aspects of the cosmic particle acceleration
process. Here we discuss the cosmic-ray candidate source object variety, and
what has been learned about their particle-acceleration characteristics. We
identify open issues as discussed among astrophysicists. -- The cosmic ray
differential intensity spectrum is a rather smooth power-law spectrum, with two
kinks at the "knee" (~10^15 eV) and at the "ankle" (~3 10^18 eV). It is unclear
if these kinks are related to boundaries between different dominating sources,
or rather related to characteristics of cosmic-ray propagation. We believe that
Galactic sources dominate up to 10^17 eV or even above, and the extragalactic
origin of cosmic rays at highest energies merges rather smoothly with Galactic
contributions throughout the 10^15--10^18 eV range. Pulsars and supernova
remnants are among the prime candidates for Galactic cosmic-ray production,
while nuclei of active galaxies are considered best candidates to produce
ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays of extragalactic origin. Acceleration processes
are related to shocks from violent ejections of matter from energetic sources
such as supernova explosions or matter accretion onto black holes. Details of
such acceleration are difficult, as relativistic particles modify the structure
of the shock, and simple approximations or perturbation calculations are
unsatisfactory. This is where laboratory plasma experiments are expected to
contribute, to enlighten the non-linear processes which occur under such
conditions.Comment: accepted for publication in EPJD, topical issue on Fundamental
physics and ultra-high laser fields. From review talk at "Extreme Light
Infrastructure" workshop, Sep 2008. Version-2 May 2009: adjust some wordings
and references at EPJD proofs stag
Accretion, Outflows, and Winds of Magnetized Stars
Many types of stars have strong magnetic fields that can dynamically
influence the flow of circumstellar matter. In stars with accretion disks, the
stellar magnetic field can truncate the inner disk and determine the paths that
matter can take to flow onto the star. These paths are different in stars with
different magnetospheres and periods of rotation. External field lines of the
magnetosphere may inflate and produce favorable conditions for outflows from
the disk-magnetosphere boundary. Outflows can be particularly strong in the
propeller regime, wherein a star rotates more rapidly than the inner disk.
Outflows may also form at the disk-magnetosphere boundary of slowly rotating
stars, if the magnetosphere is compressed by the accreting matter. In isolated,
strongly magnetized stars, the magnetic field can influence formation and/or
propagation of stellar wind outflows. Winds from low-mass, solar-type stars may
be either thermally or magnetically driven, while winds from massive, luminous
O and B type stars are radiatively driven. In all of these cases, the magnetic
field influences matter flow from the stars and determines many observational
properties. In this chapter we review recent studies of accretion, outflows,
and winds of magnetized stars with a focus on three main topics: (1) accretion
onto magnetized stars; (2) outflows from the disk-magnetosphere boundary; and
(3) winds from isolated massive magnetized stars. We show results obtained from
global magnetohydrodynamic simulations and, in a number of cases compare global
simulations with observations.Comment: 60 pages, 44 figure
A Measurement of the Branching Ratio of
We report on a study of the decay carried out as
a part of the KTeV/E799 experiment at Fermilab. The 1997 data yielded a sample
of 1543 events, including an expected background of events. An
effective form factor was determined from the observed distribution of the
invariant mass. Using this form factor in the calculation of the
detector acceptance, the branching ratio was measured to be .Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
Interstellar MHD Turbulence and Star Formation
This chapter reviews the nature of turbulence in the Galactic interstellar
medium (ISM) and its connections to the star formation (SF) process. The ISM is
turbulent, magnetized, self-gravitating, and is subject to heating and cooling
processes that control its thermodynamic behavior. The turbulence in the warm
and hot ionized components of the ISM appears to be trans- or subsonic, and
thus to behave nearly incompressibly. However, the neutral warm and cold
components are highly compressible, as a consequence of both thermal
instability in the atomic gas and of moderately-to-strongly supersonic motions
in the roughly isothermal cold atomic and molecular components. Within this
context, we discuss: i) the production and statistical distribution of
turbulent density fluctuations in both isothermal and polytropic media; ii) the
nature of the clumps produced by thermal instability, noting that, contrary to
classical ideas, they in general accrete mass from their environment; iii) the
density-magnetic field correlation (or lack thereof) in turbulent density
fluctuations, as a consequence of the superposition of the different wave modes
in the turbulent flow; iv) the evolution of the mass-to-magnetic flux ratio
(MFR) in density fluctuations as they are built up by dynamic compressions; v)
the formation of cold, dense clouds aided by thermal instability; vi) the
expectation that star-forming molecular clouds are likely to be undergoing
global gravitational contraction, rather than being near equilibrium, and vii)
the regulation of the star formation rate (SFR) in such gravitationally
contracting clouds by stellar feedback which, rather than keeping the clouds
from collapsing, evaporates and diperses them while they collapse.Comment: 43 pages. Invited chapter for the book "Magnetic Fields in Diffuse
Media", edited by Elisabete de Gouveia dal Pino and Alex Lazarian. Revised as
per referee's recommendation
Search for Neutral Higgs Bosons of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model in e+e- Interactions at \sqrt{s} = 189 GeV
A search for the lightest neutral scalar and neutral pseudoscalar Higgs
bosons in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model is performed using 176.4
pb^-1 of integrated luminosity collected by L3 at a center-of-mass energy of
189 GeV. No signal is observed, and the data are consistent with the expected
Standard Model background. Lower limits on the masses of the lightest neutral
scalar and pseudoscalar Higgs bosons are given as a function of tan(beta).
Lower mass limits for tan(beta)>1 are set at the 95% confidence level to be m_h
> 77.1 GeV and m_A > 77.1 GeV
Search for Extra Dimensions in Boson and Fermion Pair Production in e+e- Interactions at LEP
Extra spatial dimensions are proposed by recent theories that postulate the
scale of gravity to be of the same order as the electroweak scale. A sizeable
interaction between gravitons and Standard Model particles is then predicted.
Effects of these new interactions in boson and fermion pair production are
searched for in the data sample collected at centre-of-mass energies above the
Z pole by the L3 detector at LEP. In addition, the direct production of a
graviton associated with a Z boson is investigated. No statistically
significant hints for the existence of these effects are found and lower limits
in excess of 1 TeV are derived on the scale of this new theory of gravity
Measurement of the Probability of Gluon Splitting into Charmed Quarks in Hadronic Z Decays
We have measured the probability, n(g->cc~), of a gluon splitting into a
charm-quark pair using 1.7 million hadronic Z decays collected by the L3
detector. Two independent methods have been applied to events with a three-jet
topology. One method relies on tagging charmed hadrons by identifying a lepton
in the lowest energy jet. The other method uses a neural network based on
global event shape parameters. Combining both methods, we measure n(g->cc~)=
[2.45 +/- 0.29 +/- 0.53]%
Measurement of Triple-Gauge-Boson Couplings of the W Boson at LEP
We report on measurements of the triple-gauge-boson couplings of the W boson
in e+e- collisions with the L3 detector at LEP. W-pair, single-W and
single-photon events are analysed in a data sample corresponding to a total
luminosity of 76.7 pb^{-1} collected at centre-of-mass energies between 161 GeV
and 183 GeV. CP-conserving as well as both C- and P-conserving
triple-gauge-boson couplings are determined. The results, in good agreement
with the Standard-Model expectations, confirm the existence of the self
coupling among the electroweak gauge bosons and constrain its structure
- âŠ