A new scenario of dynamical heterogeneity in supercooled liquid and glassy states of 2D monatomic system

Via analysis of spatio-temporal arrangements of atoms based on their dynamics in supercooled liquid and glassy states of 2D monatomic system with a double-well Lennard-Jones-Gauss (LJG) interaction potential, we find a new scenario of dynamical heterogeneity. Atoms with the same or very close mobility have a tendency to aggregate into clusters. Number of atoms with high mobility (and size of their clusters) increases with decreasing temperature passing over a maximum before decreasing downto zero. Position of the peak moves toward a lower temperature if mobility of atoms in clusters is lower together with an enhancement of height of the peak. In contrast, number of atoms with very low mobility or solidlike atoms (and size of their clusters) has a tendency to increase with decreasing temperature and then it suddenly increases in the vicinity of glass transition temperature leading to the formation of a glassy state. A sudden increase in the number of strongly correlated solidlike atoms in the vicinity of a glass transition temperature ( ) may be an origin of a drastical increase in viscosity of the glass-forming systems approaching glass transition. The fact, we find that diffusion coefficient decays exponentially with fraction of solidlike atoms exhibiting a sudden decrease in the vicinity of glass transition region

Pade/renormalization-group improvement of inclusive semileptonic B decay rates

Renormalization Group (RG) and optimized Pade-approximant methods are used to estimate the three-loop perturbative contributions to the inclusive semileptonic b \to u and b \to c decay rates. It is noted that the \bar{MS} scheme works favorably in the b \to u case whereas the pole mass scheme shows better convergence in the b \to c case. Upon the inclusion of the estimated three-loop contribution, we find the full perturbative decay rate to be 192\pi^3\Gamma(b\to u\bar\nu_\ell\ell^-)/(G_F^2| V_{ub}|^2) = 2065 \pm 290{\rm GeV^5} and 192\pi^3\Gamma(b\to c\ell^-\bar\nu_\ell)/(G_F^2|V_{cb}|^2)= 992 \pm 198 {\rm GeV^5}, respectively. The errors are inclusive of theoretical uncertainties and non-perturbative effects. Ultimately, these perturbative contributions reduce the theoretical uncertainty in the extraction of the CKM matrix elements |V_{ub}| and |V_{cb}| from their respective measured inclusive semileptonic branching ratio(s).Comment: 3 pages, latex using espcrc2.sty. Write-up of talk given at BEACH 2002, UBC, Vancouve

Acceleration of small astrophysical grains due to charge fluctuations

We discuss a novel mechanism of dust acceleration which may dominate for particles smaller than $\sim0.1~\mu$m. The acceleration is caused by their direct electrostatic interactions arising from fluctuations of grain charges. The energy source for the acceleration are the irreversible plasma processes occurring on the grain surfaces. We show that this mechanism of charge-fluctuation-induced acceleration likely affects the rate of grain coagulation and shattering of the population of small grains.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, revised version, submitted to Astrophysical Journa

Combined effects of a simulated marine heatwave and an algal toxin on a tropical marine aquaculture fish cobia (Rachycentron canadum)

Ongoing global warming is one of the major challenges for the development of aquaculture in the tropical regions where species are already cultured in the water temperature close to their upper physiological thresholds. Furthermore, warming can trigger blooms of toxic algae, yet we do not know how extreme warming such as a marine heatwave (MHW) and algal toxins may affect marine aquaculture species. To address this issue, we investigated the effects of a simulated MHW in combination with exposure to trans-4-trans-decadienal (PUA), a diatom-derived toxin, on survival, growth, development and biochemical composition of cobia larvae and juveniles. Cobia larvae were exposed for 48 hr to one of two temperatures (29 vs. 34°C) and two PUA treatments (0 vs. 0.5 µM). Surviving larvae from each treatment were divided into two subsets: three replicates were used for the feeding test and five replicates were used for the recovery test in a non-contaminated environment at the respective temperatures of 29 or 34°C. Survival of cobia larvae was reduced by 16% in either MHW or PUA, but it dropped by 60% when both stressors were present, indicating a synergistic effect. MHW, but not PUA, reduced the feeding of cobia larvae. PUA had no delayed effects on growth rate and biochemical composition of the fish. MHW strongly reduced specific growth rate, body protein and lipid contents in cobia. Our results provide the first empirical evidence of how MHW and toxic algae may interact and challenge cobia and marine aquaculture production in tropical countries.publishedVersio

Rhad: A program for the evaluation of the hadronic R-ratio in the perturbative regime of QCD

This paper describes the fortran program rhad which performs a numerical evaluation of the photon-induced hadronic R-ratio, R(s), related to the cross section for electron-positron annihilation, for a given center-of-mass energy \sqrt{s}. In rhad the state-of-the-art perturbative corrections to R(s) are implemented and the running and decoupling of the strong coupling constant and the quark masses is automatically treated consistently. Several options allow for a flexible use of the program.Comment: 40 pages, LaTeX. 18 ps-files included. Typos fixed, references updated. The program and this paper are available from http://www.rhad.de

CAMELLIA QUYNHII (THEACEAE, SECT. STEREOCARPUS), A NEW YELLOW SPECIES FROM THE CENTRAL HIGHLANDS, VIETNAM

Camellia quynhii is described and illustrated as a new species of section Stereocarpus (Pierre) Sealy from 12th village, Vu Bon Commune, Krong Pak District, Dak Lak Province. C. quynhii resembles C. dormoyana (Pierre) Sealy but differs in several morphological characteristics: sepals 6–7; petals about 12–15; filaments tomentose at the base; style 3(–4), basally united; capsule 3(–4) locular, 2–6 seeds in each locule. Information on its phenology, distribution, ecology, and conservation status is also provided.Camellia quynhii is described and illustrated as a new species of section Stereocarpus (Pierre) Sealy from 12th village, Vu Bon Commune, Krong Pak District, Dak Lak Province. C. quynhii resembles C. dormoyana (Pierre) Sealy but differs in several morphological characteristics: sepals 6–7; petals about 12–15; filaments tomentose at the base; style 3(–4), basally united; capsule 3(–4) locular, 2–6 seeds in each locule. Information on its phenology, distribution, ecology, and conservation status is also provided

Skeleton-stabilized ImmersoGeometric Analysis for incompressible viscous flow problems

A Skeleton-stabilized ImmersoGeometric Analysis technique is proposed for incompressible viscous flow problems with moderate Reynolds number. The proposed formulation fits within the framework of the finite cell method, where essential boundary conditions are imposed weakly using a Nitsche-type method. The key idea of the proposed formulation is to stabilize the jumps of high-order derivatives of variables over the skeleton of the background mesh. The formulation allows the use of identical finite-dimensional spaces for the approximation of the pressure and velocity fields in immersed domains. The stability issues observed for inf-sup stable discretizations of immersed incompressible flow problems are avoided with this formulation. For B-spline basis functions of degree $k$ with highest regularity, only the derivative of order $k$ has to be controlled, which requires specification of only a single stabilization parameter for the pressure field. The Stokes and Navier-Stokes equations are studied numerically in two and three dimensions using various immersed test cases. Oscillation-free solutions and high-order optimal convergence rates can be obtained. The formulation is shown to be stable even in limit cases where almost every elements of the physical domain is cut, and hence it does not require the existence of interior cells. In terms of the sparsity pattern, the algebraic system has a considerably smaller stencil than counterpart approaches based on Lagrange basis functions. This important property makes the proposed skeleton-stabilized technique computationally practical. To demonstrate the stability and robustness of the method, we perform a simulation of fluid flow through a porous medium, of which the geometry is directly extracted from 3D $\mu{CT}$ scan data

RG/Pade Estimate of the Three-Loop Contribution to the QCD Static Potential Function

The three renormalization-group-accessible three-loop coefficients of powers of logarithms within the \bar{MS} series momentum-space for the QCD static potential are calculated and compared to values obtained via asymptotic Pad\'e-approximant methods. The leading and next-to-leading logarithmic coefficients are both found to be in exact agreement with their asymptotic Pad\'e-predictions. The predicted value for the third RG-accessible coefficient is found to be within 7% relative |error| of its true value for n_f leq 6, and is shown to be in exact agreement with its true value in the n_f \to \infty limit. Asymptotic Pad\'e estimates are also obtained for the remaining (RG-inaccessible) three-loop coefficient. Comparison is also made with recent estimates of the three-loop contribution to the configuration-space static-potential function.Comment: 13 pages, LaTeX, additional discussion on the result