Reflection and transmission coefficients of a thin bed

The study of thin-bed seismic response is an important part in lithologic and methane reservoir modeling, critical for predicting their physical attributes and/or elastic parameters. The complex propagator matrix for the exact reflections and transmissions of thin beds limits their application in thin-bed inversion. Therefore, approximation formulas with a high accuracy and a relatively simple form are needed for thin-bed seismic analysis and inversion. We have derived thin-bed reflection and transmission coefficients, defined in terms of displacements, and approximated them to be in a quasi-Zoeppritz matrix form under the assumption that the middle layer has a very thin thickness. We have verified the approximation accuracy through numerical calculation and concluded that the errors in PP-wave reflection coefficients RPP are generally smaller than 10% when the thin-bed thicknesses are smaller than one-eighth of the PP-wavelength. The PS-wave reflection coefficients RPS have lower approximation accuracy than RPP for the same ratios of thicknesses to their respective wavelengths, and the RPS approximation is not acceptable for incident angles approaching the critical angles (when they exist) except in the case of extremely strong impedance difference. Errors in phase for the RPP and RPS approximation are less than 10% for the cases of thicknesses less than one-tenth of the wavelengths. As expected, a thinner middle layer and a weaker impedance difference would result in higher approximation accuracy

Comment on "Modified Coulomb Law in a Strongly Magnetized Vacuum"

This is a comment on Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 180403 (2007) [arXiv:0704.2162].Comment: 1 page, comment on arXiv:0704.2162, published versio

Experimental and computational investigation of confined laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy

This paper presents an experimental and computational study on laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) for both unconfined flat surface and confined cavity cases. An integrated LIBS system is employed to acquire the shockwave and plasma plume images. The computational model consists of the mass, momentum, and energy conservation equations, which are necessary to describe shockwave behaviors. The numerical predictions are validated against shadowgraphic images in terms of shockwave expansion and reflection. The three-dimensional (3D) shockwave morphology and velocity fields are displayed and discussed

A More Precise Extraction of |V_{cb}| in HQEFT of QCD

The more precise extraction for the CKM matrix element |V_{cb}| in the heavy quark effective field theory (HQEFT) of QCD is studied from both exclusive and inclusive semileptonic B decays. The values of relevant nonperturbative parameters up to order 1/m^2_Q are estimated consistently in HQEFT of QCD. Using the most recent experimental data for B decay rates, |V_{cb}| is updated to be |V_{cb}| = 0.0395 \pm 0.0011_{exp} \pm 0.0019_{th} from B\to D^{\ast} l \nu decay and |V_{cb}| = 0.0434 \pm 0.0041_{exp} \pm 0.0020_{th} from B\to D l \nu decay as well as |V_{cb}| = 0.0394 \pm 0.0010_{exp} \pm 0.0014_{th} from inclusive B\to X_c l \nu decay.Comment: 7 pages, revtex, 4 figure

Periodicities in Solar Coronal Mass Ejections

Mid-term quasi-periodicities in solar coronal mass ejections (CMEs) during the most recent solar maximum cycle 23 are reported here for the first time using the four-year data (February 5, 1999 to February 10, 2003) of the Large Angle Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO) onboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). In parallel, mid-term quasi-periodicities in solar X-ray flares (class >M5.0) from the Geosynchronous Operational Environment Satellites (GOES) and in daily averages of Ap index for geomagnetic disturbances from the World Data Center (WDC) at the International Association for Geomagnetism and Aeronomy (IAGA) are also examined for the same four-year time span. Several conceptual aspects of possible equatorially trapped Rossby-type waves at and beneath the solar photosphere are discussed.Comment: Accepted by MNRAS, 6 figure