632 research outputs found
Energy stores and switches for rail-launcher systems
An overview of existing switch and power supply technology applicable to space launch, a new candidate pulsed power supply for Earth-to-space rail launcher duty, the inverse railgun flux compressor, and a set of switching experiments to study further the feasibility of Earth-to-space launch are discussed
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The railplug: Development of a new ignitor for internal combustion engines
The goal of the railplug project is to commercialize this miniaturized railgun as an engine technology as rapidly as possible. To improve the technology transfer process, a board of industrial advisors was established. A list of representatives is included at the end of this annual report. The Railplug External Advisory Board (REAB) met in Austin on March 17--18, 1991 to discuss the project plan. A list of comments from the REAB is included at the end of this progress report, along with our written response to those comments. An alternate first'' meeting with some representatives of the REAB was held on July 9, 1991. This meeting was attended by most of the board members who were unable to attend the first meeting. The second meeting of the REAB was held in Toronto, Canada, on October 10, 1991. A list of the board members comments from this meeting is included at the end of this report, along with our written response to those comments. These meetings have proven to be most useful in assuring that this project is conducted as efficiently as possible. The railplug project is essentially divided into three main tasks: (1) Railplug system development; (2) application of railplugs to engines; and (3) railplug durability. The status of each of these tasks is described below
Non-linear electromagnetic interactions in thermal QED
We examine the behavior of the non-linear interactions between
electromagnetic fields at high temperature. It is shown that, in general, the
log(T) dependence on the temperature of the Green functions is simply related
to their UV behavior at zero-temperature. We argue that the effective action
describing the nonlinear thermal electromagnetic interactions has a finite
limit as T tends to infinity. This thermal action approaches, in the long
wavelength limit, the negative of the corresponding zero-temperature action.Comment: 7 pages, IFUSP/P-111
Two mechanisms for the elimination of pinch singularities in out of equilibrium thermal field theories
We analyze ill-defined pinch singularities characteristic of out of
equilibrium thermal field theories. We identify two mechanisms that eliminate
pinching even at the single self-energy insertion approximation to the
propagator: the first is based on the vanishing of phase space at the singular
point (threshold effect). It is effective in QED with a massive electron and a
massless photon. In massless QCD, this mechanism fails, but the pinches cancel
owing to the second mechanism, i.e., owing to the spinor/tensor structure of
the single self-energy insertion contribution to the propagator. The
constraints imposed on distribution functions are very reasonable.Comment: 24 pages, Latex, no figures, revised version, many minor changes and
correction
Thin-film flow in helically wound rectangular channels with small torsion
Laminar gravity-driven thin-film flow down a helically-wound channel of rectangular cross-section with small torsion in which the fluid depth is small is considered. Neglecting the entrance and exit regions we obtain the steady-state solution that is independent of position along the axis of the channel, so that the flow, which comprises a primary flow in the direction of the axis of the channel and a secondary flow in the cross-sectional plane, depends only on position in the two-dimensional cross-section of the channel. A thin-film approximation yields explicit expressions for the fluid velocity and pressure in terms of the free-surface shape, the latter satisfying a non-linear ordinary differential equation that has a simple exact solution in the special case of a channel of rectangular cross-section. The predictions of the thin-film model are shown to be in good agreement with much more computationally intensive solutions of the small-helix-torsion Navier–Stokes equations. The present work has particular relevance to spiral particle separators used in the mineral-processing industry. The validity of an assumption commonly used in modelling flow in spiral separators, namely that the flow in the outer region of the separator cross-section is described by a free vortex, is shown to depend on the problem parameters
Can Van Hove singularities be observed in relativistic heavy-ion collisions ?
Based on general arguments the in-medium quark propagator in a quark-gluon
plasma leads to a quark dispersion relation consisting of two branches, of
which one exhibits a minimum at some finite momentum. This results in a
vanishing group velocity for collective quark modes. Important quantities such
as the production rate of low mass lepton pairs and mesonic correlators depend
inversely on this group velocity. Therefore these quantities, which follow from
self energy diagrams containing a quark loop, are strongly affected by Van Hove
singularities (peaks and gaps). If these sharp structures could be observed in
relativistic heavy-ion collisions it would reveal the physical picture of the
QGP as a gas of quasiparticles.Comment: 12 pages including nine figures and style files, invited talk given
at the ICPAQGP-2001, November 26-30, 2001, Jaipur, Indi
Absence of resonant enhancements in some inclusive rates
A toy model is defined and solved perturbatively with the aim of examining
some claimed "resonant" enhancements of certain reaction rates that enter
popular models of leptogenesis. We find: a) that such enhancements are absent;
and b) that the perturbative solution, as done correctly using finite-
temperature field theory, is well defined without the "resumming" procedures
found in the literature. The pathologies that led to the perceived need for
these procedures are an artifact of uncritical use of weighted vacuum cross-
sections in the determination of rates, without adequate attention to the
effects of the medium upon the single particle states within it.Comment: 11 pages, no figures. Some typos corrected. More typos correcte
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.
Exact Effective Action for (1+1 Dimensional) Fermions in an Abelian Background at Finite Temperature
In an effort to further understand the structure of effective actions for
fermions in an external gauge background at finite temperature, we study the
example of 1+1 dimensional fermions interacting with an arbitrary Abelian gauge
field. We evaluate the effective action exactly at finite temperature. This
effective action is non-analytic as is expected at finite temperature. However,
contrary to the structure at zero temperature and contrary to naive
expectations, the effective action at finite temperature has interactions to
all (even) orders (which, however, do not lead to any quantum corrections). The
covariant structure thus obtained may prove useful in studying 2+1 dimensional
models in arbitrary backgrounds. We also comment briefly on the solubility of
various 1+1 dimensional models at finite temperature.Comment: A few clarifying remarks added;21 page
Axino dark matter from thermal production
The axino is a promising candidate for dark matter in the Universe. It is
electrically and color neutral, very weakly interacting, and could be - as
assumed in this study - the lightest supersymmetric particle, which is stable
for unbroken R-parity. In supersymmetric extensions of the standard model, in
which the strong CP problem is solved via the Peccei-Quinn mechanism, the axino
arises naturally as the fermionic superpartner of the axion. We compute the
thermal production rate of axinos in supersymmetric QCD. Using hard thermal
loop resummation, we obtain a finite result in a gauge-invariant way, which
takes into account Debye screening in the hot quark-gluon-squark-gluino plasma.
The relic axino abundance from thermal scatterings after inflation is
evaluated. We find that thermally produced axinos could provide the dominant
part of cold dark matter, for example, for an axino mass of 100 keV and a
reheating temperature of 10^6 GeV.Comment: 33 pages, 7 figures, 1 table, erratum adde
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