1,645 research outputs found
Scrambled and Unscrambled Turbulence
The linked fluid dynamics videos depict Rayleigh-Taylor turbulence when
driven by a complex acceleration profile involving two stages of acceleration
interspersed with a stage of stabilizing deceleration. Rayleigh-Taylor (RT)
instability occurs at the interface separating two fluids of different
densities, when the lighter fluid is accelerated in to the heavier fluid. The
turbulent mixing arising from the development of the miscible RT instability is
of key importance in the design of Inertial Confinement Fusion capsules, and to
the understanding of astrophysical events, such as Type Ia supernovae. By
driving this flow with an accel-decel-accel profile, we have investigated how
structures in RT turbulence are affected by a sudden change in the direction of
the acceleration first from destabilizing acceleration to deceleration, and
followed by a restoration of the unstable acceleration. By studying turbulence
under such highly non-equilibrium conditions, we hope to develop an
understanding of the response and recovery of self-similar turbulence to sudden
changes in the driving acceleration.Comment: 3 pages article, Two videos are include
Tricritical point in strongly coupled U(1) gauge theory with fermions and scalars
We investigate the tricritical point in the lattice fermion--gauge--scalar
model with U(1) gauge symmetry. In the vicinity of this point, in the phase
with the broken chiral symmetry, we observe the scaling behavior of the chiral
condensate and of the masses of composite fermion and composite scalar,
indicating the existence of an interesting continuum limit of the model at this
point.Comment: Contribution to Lattice 95, LaTeX file (4 pages), 5 ps-figures
appended (uuencoded
Strong Purifying Selection at Synonymous Sites in D. melanogaster
Synonymous sites are generally assumed to be subject to weak selective
constraint. For this reason, they are often neglected as a possible source of
important functional variation. We use site frequency spectra from deep
population sequencing data to show that, contrary to this expectation, 22% of
four-fold synonymous (4D) sites in D. melanogaster evolve under very strong
selective constraint while few, if any, appear to be under weak constraint.
Linking polymorphism with divergence data, we further find that the fraction of
synonymous sites exposed to strong purifying selection is higher for those
positions that show slower evolution on the Drosophila phylogeny. The function
underlying the inferred strong constraint appears to be separate from splicing
enhancers, nucleosome positioning, and the translational optimization
generating canonical codon bias. The fraction of synonymous sites under strong
constraint within a gene correlates well with gene expression, particularly in
the mid-late embryo, pupae, and adult developmental stages. Genes enriched in
strongly constrained synonymous sites tend to be particularly functionally
important and are often involved in key developmental pathways. Given that the
observed widespread constraint acting on synonymous sites is likely not limited
to Drosophila, the role of synonymous sites in genetic disease and adaptation
should be reevaluated
Synthetic Approaches to Complex Natural Coumarins
The first example of a successful para-Claisen rearrangement of a 1,1-dimethylallyl aryl ether has been realised. The rearrangement product, a natural coumarin, on methylation gave another natural coumarin, furopinnarin
Perturbative nonequilibrium dynamics of phase transitions in an expanding universe
A complete set of Feynman rules is derived, which permits a perturbative
description of the nonequilibrium dynamics of a symmetry-breaking phase
transition in theory in an expanding universe. In contrast to a
naive expansion in powers of the coupling constant, this approximation scheme
provides for (a) a description of the nonequilibrium state in terms of its own
finite-width quasiparticle excitations, thus correctly incorporating
dissipative effects in low-order calculations, and (b) the emergence from a
symmetric initial state of a final state exhibiting the properties of
spontaneous symmetry breaking, while maintaining the constraint . Earlier work on dissipative perturbation theory and spontaneous symmetry
breaking in Minkowski spacetime is reviewed. The central problem addressed is
the construction of a perturbative approximation scheme which treats the
initial symmetric state in terms of the field , while the state that
emerges at later times is treated in terms of a field , linearly related
to . The connection between early and late times involves an infinite
sequence of composite propagators. Explicit one-loop calculations are given of
the gap equations that determine quasiparticle masses and of the equation of
motion for and the renormalization of these equations is
described. The perturbation series needed to describe the symmetric and
broken-symmetry states are not equivalent, and this leads to ambiguities
intrinsic to any perturbative approach. These ambiguities are discussed in
detail and a systematic procedure for matching the two approximations is
described.Comment: 22 pages, using RevTeX. 6 figures. Submitted to Physical Review
Nonequilibrium perturbation theory for spin-1/2 fields
A partial resummation of perturbation theory is described for field theories
containing spin-1/2 particles in states that may be far from thermal
equilibrium. This allows the nonequilibrium state to be characterized in terms
of quasiparticles that approximate its true elementary excitations. In
particular, the quasiparticles have dispersion relations that differ from those
of free particles, finite thermal widths and occupation numbers which, in
contrast to those of standard perturbation theory evolve with the changing
nonequilibrium environment. A description of this kind is essential for
estimating the evolution of the system over extended periods of time. In
contrast to the corresponding description of scalar particles, the structure of
nonequilibrium fermion propagators exhibits features which have no counterpart
in the equilibrium theory.Comment: 16 pages; no figures; submitted to Phys. Rev.
Strongly coupled U(1) lattice gauge theory as a microscopic model of Yukawa theory
Dynamical chiral symmetry breaking in a strongly coupled U(1) lattice gauge
model with charged fermions and scalar is investigated by numerical simulation.
Several composite neutral states are observed, in particular a massive fermion.
In the vicinity of the tricritical point of this model we study the effective
Yukawa coupling between this fermion and the Goldstone boson. The perturbative
triviality bound of Yukawa models is nearly saturated. The theory is quite
similar to strongly coupled Yukawa models for sufficiently large coupling
except the occurrence of an additional state -- a gauge ball of mass about half
the mass of the fermion.Comment: 4 page
- …