The relationship between induced fluid structure and boundary slip in nanoscale polymer films

The molecular mechanism of slip at the interface between polymer melts and weakly attractive smooth surfaces is investigated using molecular dynamics simulations. In agreement with our previous studies on slip flow of shear-thinning fluids, it is shown that the slip length passes through a local minimum at low shear rates and then increases rapidly at higher shear rates. We found that at sufficiently high shear rates, the slip flow over atomically flat crystalline surfaces is anisotropic. It is demonstrated numerically that the friction coefficient at the liquid-solid interface (the ratio of viscosity and slip length) undergoes a transition from a constant value to the power-law decay as a function of the slip velocity. The characteristic velocity of the transition correlates well with the diffusion velocity of fluid monomers in the first fluid layer near the solid wall at equilibrium. We also show that in the linear regime, the friction coefficient is well described by a function of a single variable, which is a product of the magnitude of surface-induced peak in the structure factor and the contact density of the adjacent fluid layer. The universal relationship between the friction coefficient and induced fluid structure holds for a number of material parameters of the interface: fluid density, chain length, wall-fluid interaction energy, wall density, lattice type and orientation, thermal or solid walls.Comment: 33 pages, 14 figure

High magnetic field pulsars and magnetars: a unified picture

We propose a unified picture of high magnetic field radio pulsars and magnetars by arguing that they are all rotating high-field neutron stars, but have different orientations of their magnetic axes with respective to their rotation axes. In strong magnetic fields where photon splitting suppresses pair creation near the surface, the high-field pulsars can have active inner accelerators while the anomalous X-ray pulsars cannot. This can account for the very different observed emission characteristics of the anomalous X-ray pulsar 1E 2259+586 and the high field radio pulsar PSR J1814-1744. A predicted consequence of this picture is that radio pulsars having surface magnetic field greater than about $2\times 10^{14}$ G should not exist.Comment: 5 pages, emulateapj style, accepted for publication in the ApJ Letter

Slip boundary conditions for shear flow of polymer melts past atomically flat surfaces

Molecular dynamics simulations are carried out to investigate the dynamic behavior of the slip length in thin polymer films confined between atomically smooth thermal surfaces. For weak wall-fluid interactions, the shear rate dependence of the slip length acquires a distinct local minimum followed by a rapid growth at higher shear rates. With increasing fluid density, the position of the local minimum is shifted to lower shear rates. We found that the ratio of the shear viscosity to the slip length, which defines the friction coefficient at the liquid/solid interface, undergoes a transition from a nearly constant value to the power law decay as a function of the slip velocity. In a wide range of shear rates and fluid densities, the friction coefficient is determined by the product of the value of surface induced peak in the structure factor and the contact density of the first fluid layer near the solid wall.Comment: 27 pages, 11 figure

Interferometric Observations of V838 Monocerotis

We have used long-baseline near-IR interferometry to resolve the peculiar eruptive variable V838 Mon and to provide the first direct measurement of its angular size. Assuming a uniform disk model for the emission we derive an apparent angular diameter at the time of observations (November-December 2004) of $1.83 \pm 0.06$ milli-arcseconds. For a nominal distance of $8\pm2$ kpc, this implies a linear radius of $1570 \pm 400 R_{\odot}$. However, the data are somewhat better fit by elliptical disk or binary component models, and we suggest that the emission may be strongly affected by ejecta from the outburst.Comment: 12 pages, 1 two-part encapsulated postscript figure. Accepted by ApJL. Added a table of observation

Magnetars and pulsars: a missing link

There is growing evidence that soft gamma-ray repeaters (SGRs) and anomalous X-ray pulsars (AXPs) are isolated neutron stars with superstrong magnetic fields, i.e., magnetars, marking them a distinguished species from the conventional species of spindown-powered isolated neutron stars, i.e., radio pulsars. The current arguments in favor of the magnetar interpretation of SGR/AXP phenomenology will be outlined, and the two energy sources in magnetars, i.e. a magnetic dissipation energy and a spindown energy, will be reviewed. I will then discuss a missing link between magnetars and pulsars, i.e., lack of the observational evidence of the spindown-powered behaviors in known magnetars. Some recent theoretical efforts in studying such behaviors will be reviewed along with some predictions testable in the near future.Comment: Invited talk at the Sixth Pacific Rim Conference on Stellar Astrophysics, a tribute to Helmut A. Abt, July 11-17, 2002, Xi'an. To appear in the proceedings (eds. K. S. Cheng, K. C. Leung & T. P. Li

Magnetic Photon Splitting: Computations of Proper-time Rates and Spectra

The splitting of photons in the presence of an intense magnetic field has recently found astrophysical applications in polar cap models of gamma-ray pulsars and in magnetar scenarios for soft gamma repeaters. Numerical computation of the polarization-dependent rates of this third order QED process for arbitrary field strengths and energies below pair creation threshold is difficult: thus early analyses focused on analytic developments and simpler asymptotic forms. The recent astrophysical interest spurred the use of the S-matrix approach by Mentzel, Berg and Wunner to determine splitting rates. In this paper, we present numerical computations of a full proper-time expression for the rate of splitting that was obtained by Stoneham, and is exact up to the pair creation threshold. While the numerical results derived here are in accord with the earlier asymptotic forms due to Adler, our computed rates still differ by as much as factors of 3 from the S-matrix re-evaluation of Wilke and Wunner, reflecting the extreme difficulty of generating accurate S-matrix numerics for fields below about \teq{4.4\times 10^{13}}Gauss. We find that our proper-time rates appear very accurate, and exceed Adler's asymptotic specializations significantly only for photon energies just below pair threshold and for supercritical fields, but always by less than a factor of around 2.6. We also provide a useful analytic series expansion for the scattering amplitude valid at low energies.Comment: 13 pages, AASTeX format, including 3 eps figures, ApJ in pres

Positronium collapse and the maximum magnetic field in pure QED

A maximum value for the magnetic field is determined, which provides the full compensation of the positronium rest mass by the binding energy in the maximum symmetry state and disappearance of the energy gap separating the electron-positron system from the vacuum. The compensation becomes possible owing to the falling to the center phenomenon. The maximum magnetic field may be related to the vacuum and describe its structure.Comment: 4 pages, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Letter

Halo Excitation of 6^6He in Inelastic and Charge-Exchange Reactions

Four-body distorted wave theory appropriate for nucleon-nucleus reactions leading to 3-body continuum excitations of two-neutron Borromean halo nuclei is developed. The peculiarities of the halo bound state and 3-body continuum are fully taken into account by using the method of hyperspherical harmonics. The procedure is applied for A=6 test-bench nuclei; thus we report detailed studies of inclusive cross sections for inelastic $^6$He(p,p')$^6$He$^*$ and charge-exchange $^6$Li(n,p)$^6$He$^*$ reactions at nucleon energy 50 MeV. The theoretical low-energy spectra exhibit two resonance-like structures. The first (narrow) is the excitation of the well-known $2^+$ three-body resonance. The second (broad) bump is a composition of overlapping soft modes of multipolarities $1^-, 2^+, 1^+, 0^+$ whose relative weights depend on transferred momentum and reaction type. Inelastic scattering is the most selective tool for studying the soft dipole excitation mode.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev. C., 11 figures using eps

Electric field of a pointlike charge in a strong magnetic field and ground state of a hydrogenlike atom

In an external constant magnetic field, so strong that the electron Larmour length is much shorter than its Compton length, we consider the modification of the Coulomb potential of a point charge owing to the vacuum polarization. We establish a short-range component of the static interaction in the Larmour scale, expressed as a Yukawa-like law, and reveal the corresponding "photon mass" parameter. The electrostatic force regains its long-range character in the Compton scale: the tail of the potential follows an anisotropic Coulomb law, decreasing away from the charge slower along the magnetic field and faster across. In the infinite-magnetic-field limit the potential is confined to an infinitely thin string passing though the charge parallel to the external field. This is the first evidence for dimensional reduction in the photon sector of quantum electrodynamics. The one-dimensional form of the potential on the string is derived that includes a delta-function centered in the charge. The nonrelativistic ground-state energy of a hydrogenlike atom is found with its use and shown not to be infinite in the infinite-field limit, contrary to what was commonly accepted before, when the vacuum polarization had been ignored. These results may be useful for studying properties of matter at the surface of extremely magnetized neutron stars.Comment: 45 pages, 6 figures, accepted to Phys. Rev.