23,673 research outputs found
Anomalous low temperature specific heat of He-3 inside nanotube bundles
Helium atoms and hydrogen molecules can be strongly bound inside interstitial
channels within bundles of carbon nanotubes. An exploration of the low energy
and low temperature properties of He-3 atoms is presented here. Recent study of
the analogous He-4 system has shown that the effect of heterogeneity is to
yield a density of states N(E) that is qualitatively different from the
one-dimensional (1D) form of N(E) that would occur for an ideal set of
identical channels. In particular, the functional form of N(E) is that of a 4D
gas near the very lowest energies and a 2D gas at somewhat higher energies.
Similar behavior is found here for He-3. The resulting thermodynamic behavior
of this fermi system is computed, yielding an anomalous form of the heat
capacity and its dependence on coverage.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figure
A kiloparsec-scale nuclear stellar disk in the milky way as a possible explanation of the high velocity peaks in the galactic bulge
The Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment has measured the stellar velocities of red giant stars in the inner Milky Way. We confirm that the line of sight velocity distributions (LOSVDs) in the mid-plane exhibit a second peak at high velocities, whereas those at | b| =2^\circ do not. We use a high resolution simulation of a barred galaxy, which crucially includes gas and star formation, to guide our interpretation of the LOSVDs. We show that the data are fully consistent with the presence of a thin, rapidly rotating, nuclear disk extending to ∼1 kpc. This nuclear disk is orientated perpendicular to the bar and is likely to be composed of stars on x2 orbits. The gas in the simulation is able to fall onto such orbits, leading to stars populating an orthogonal disk
Age, Metallicity, and the Distance to the Magellanic Clouds From Red Clump Stars
We show that the luminosity dependence of the red clump stars on age and
metallicity can cause a difference of up to < ~0.6 mag in the mean absolute I
magnitude of the red clump between different stellar populations. We show that
this effect may resolve the apparent ~0.4 mag discrepancy between red
clump-derived distance moduli to the Magellanic Clouds and those from, e.g.,
Cepheid variables. Taking into account the population effects on red clump
luminosity, we determine a distance modulus to the LMC of 18.36 +/- 0.17 mag,
and to the SMC of 18.82 +/- 0.20 mag. Our alternate red clump LMC distance is
consistent with the value (m-M){LMC} = 18.50 +/- 0.10 adopted by the HST
Cepheid Key Project. We briefly examine model predictions of red clump
luminosity, and find that variations in helium abundance and core mass could
bring the Clouds closer by some 0.10--0.15 mag, but not by the ~0.4 mag that
would result from setting the mean absolute I-magnitude of the Cloud red clumps
equal to the that of the Solar neighborhood red clump.Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, AASTeX
4.0, 10 pages, 1 postscript figur
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Metallic Hydrogen: The Most Powerful Rocket Fuel Yet To Exist
Wigner and Huntington first predicted that pressures of order 25 GPa were required for the transition of solid molecular hydrogen to the atomic metallic phase. Later it was predicted that metallic hydrogen might be a metastable material so that it remains metallic when pressure is released. Experimental pressures achieved on hydrogen have been more than an order of magnitude higher than the predicted transition pressure and yet it remains an insulator. We discuss the applications of metastable metallic hydrogen to rocketry. Metastable metallic hydrogen would be a very light-weight, low volume, powerful rocket propellant. One of the characteristics of a propellant is its specific impulse, . Liquid (molecular) hydrogen-oxygen used in modern rockets has an Isp of ; metallic hydrogen has a theoretical of 1700s! Detailed analysis shows that such a fuel would allow single-stage rockets to enter into orbit or carry economical payloads to the moon. If pure metallic hydrogen is used as a propellant, the reaction chamber temperature is calculated to be greater than 6000 K, too high for currently known rocket engine materials. By diluting metallic hydrogen with liquid hydrogen or water, the reaction temperature can be reduced, yet there is still a significant performance improvement for the diluted mixture.Physic
The New Vulnerability Of Higher Education
Shifts in attitudes toward the academy is a product of changes in the American political economy, especially the rapid expansion of the white-collar sector and corporate takeover, and social movements of the post-war era in which people previously without power began to assert themselves
The cosmological origin of the Tully-Fisher relation
We use high-resolution cosmological simulations that include the effects of
gasdynamics and star formation to investigate the origin of the Tully-Fisher
relation in the standard Cold Dark Matter cosmogony. Luminosities are computed
for each model galaxy using their full star formation histories and the latest
spectrophotometric models. We find that at z=0 the stellar mass of model
galaxies is proportional to the total baryonic mass within the virial radius of
their surrounding halos. Circular velocity then correlates tightly with the
total luminosity of the galaxy, reflecting the equivalence between mass and
circular velocity of systems identified in a cosmological context. The slope of
the relation steepens slightly from the red to the blue bandpasses, and is in
fairly good agreement with observations. Its scatter is small, decreasing from
\~0.45 mag in the U-band to ~0.34 mag in the K-band. The particular
cosmological model we explore here seems unable to account for the zero-point
of the correlation. Model galaxies are too faint at z=0 (by about two
magnitudes) if the circular velocity at the edge of the luminous galaxy is used
as an estimator of the rotation speed. The Tully-Fisher relation is brighter in
the past, by about ~0.7 magnitudes in the B-band at z=1, at odds with recent
observations of z~1 galaxies. We conclude that the slope and tightness of the
Tully-Fisher relation can be naturally explained in hierarchical models but
that its normalization and evolution depend strongly on the star formation
algorithm chosen and on the cosmological parameters that determine the
universal baryon fraction and the time of assembly of galaxies of different
mass.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures included, submitted to ApJ (Letters
Evolution of topological order in Xe films on a quasicrystal surface
We report results of the first computer simulation studies of a physically
adsorbed gas on a quasicrystalline surface, Xe on decagonal Al-Ni-Co. The grand
canonical Monte Carlo method is employed, using a semi-empirical gas-surface
interaction, based on conventional combining rules, and the usual Lennard-Jones
Xe-Xe interaction. The resulting adsorption isotherms and calculated structures
are consistent with the results of LEED experimental data. The evolution of the
bulk film begins in the second layer, while the low coverage behavior is
epitaxial. This transition from 5-fold to 6-fold ordering is temperature
dependent, occurring earlier (at lower coverage) for the higher temperatures
Radial Redshift Space Distortions
The radial component of the peculiar velocities of galaxies cause
displacements in their positions in redshift space. We study the effect of the
peculiar velocities on the linear redshift space two point correlation
function. Our analysis takes into account the radial nature of the redshift
space distortions and it highlights the limitations of the plane parallel
approximation. We consider the problem of determining the value of \beta and
the real space two point correlation function from the linear redshift space
two point correlation function. The inversion method proposed here takes into
account the radial nature of the redshift space distortions and can be applied
to magnitude limited redshift surveys that have only partial sky coverage.Comment: 26 pages including 11 figures, to appear in Ap
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