Solving the Solar Neutrino Problem 2 km Underground -- the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory

The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) is capable of measuring simultaneously the flux of electron-type neutrinos and the total flux of all active flavours of neutrinos originating from the Sun. A model-independent test of neutrino flavour transformation was performed by comparing these two measurements. Assuming an undistorted neutrino energy spectrum, this transformation has been definitively demonstrated in the pure D2O phase of the SNO experiment. In the second phase with dissolved NaCl in the D2O, the total active solar neutrino flux was measured without any assumption on the energy dependence of flavour transformation. In this talk, results from these measurements, their physics implications and the current status of the SNO experiment are presented.Comment: Proceedings of the 8th ICATPP Conference on Astroparticle, Particle, Space Physics, Detectors and Medical Physics Applications (Como, Italy, Oct 6-10, 2003) 10 pages, 3 figures, 2 table

Coarsening to Chaos-Stabilized Fronts

We investigate a model for pattern formation in the presence of Galilean symmetry proposed by Matthews and Cox [Phys.\ Rev.\ E \textbf{62}, R1473 (2000)], which has the form of coupled generalized Burgers and Ginzburg-Landau-type equations. With only the system size $L$ as a parameter, we find distinct "small-$L$" and "large-$L$" regimes exhibiting clear differences in their dynamics and scaling behavior. The long-time statistically stationary state contains a single $L$-dependent front, stabilized globally by spatiotemporally chaotic dynamics localized away from the front. For sufficiently large domains, the transient dynamics include a state consisting of several viscous shock-like structures which coarsens gradually, before collapsing to a single front when one front absorbs the others.Comment: 4 pages, 7 figures; submitte

Recent Results from the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory

The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) measures both the flux of the electron-type neutrinos and the total flux of all active flavours of neutrinos originating from the Sun. A model-independent test of neutrino flavour transformation was performed by comparing these two measurements. In 2002, this flavour transformation was definitively demonstrated. In this talk, results from these measurements and the current status of the SNO detector are presented.Comment: Proceedings of the International Europhysics Conference on High Energy Physics (EPS2003) 3 pages, 2 figures, 2 table

Enhanced superconductivity and lattice instability in Nb-Rh alloys

Superconductivity with transition temperature above 10 °K has been observed in a new Nb-Rh intermediate phase. The new metastable phase is obtained by liquid quenching the binary alloy or by the addition of a small percentage of carbon to form a stable ternary alloy

Bulk and wetting phenomena in a colloidal mixture of hard spheres and platelets

Density functional theory is used to study binary colloidal fluids consisting of hard spheres and thin platelets in their bulk and near a planar hard wall. This system exhibits liquid-liquid coexistence of a phase that is rich in spheres (poor in platelets) and a phase that is poor in spheres (rich in platelets). For the mixture near a planar hard wall, we find that the phase rich in spheres wets the wall completely upon approaching the liquid demixing binodal from the sphere-poor phase, provided the concentration of the platelets is smaller than a threshold value which marks a first-order wetting transition at coexistence. No layering transitions are found in contrast to recent studies on binary mixtures of spheres and non-adsorbing polymers or thin hard rods.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Polydispersity Effects in Colloid-Polymer Mixtures

We study phase separation and transient gelation in a mixture consisting of polydisperse colloids and non-adsorbing polymers, where the ratio of the average size of the polymer to that of the colloid is approximately 0.063. Unlike what has been reported previously for mixtures with somewhat lower colloid polydispersity, the addition of polymers does not expand the fluid-solid coexistence region. Instead, we find a region of fluid-solid coexistence which has an approximately constant width but an unexpected re-entrant shape. We detect the presence of a metastable gas-liquid binodal, which gives rise to two-stepped crystallization kinetics that can be rationalized as the effect of fractionation. Finally, we find that the separation into multiple coexisting solid phases at high colloid volume fractions predicted by equilibrium statistical mechanics is kinetically suppressed before the system reaches dynamical arrest.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure

Chemotactic predator-prey dynamics

A discrete chemotactic predator-prey model is proposed in which the prey secrets a diffusing chemical which is sensed by the predator and vice versa. Two dynamical states corresponding to catching and escaping are identified and it is shown that steady hunting is unstable. For the escape process, the predator-prey distance is diffusive for short times but exhibits a transient subdiffusive behavior which scales as a power law $t^{1/3}$ with time $t$ and ultimately crosses over to diffusion again. This allows to classify the motility and dynamics of various predatory bacteria and phagocytes. In particular, there is a distinct region in the parameter space where they prove to be infallible predators.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure