17 research outputs found

    Measuring Cosmic Defect Correlations in Liquid Crystals

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    From the theory of topological defect formation proposed for the early universe, the so called Kibble mechanism, it follows that the density correlation functions of defects and anti-defects in a given system should be completely determined in terms of a single length scale ξ\xi, the relevant domain size. Thus, when lengths are expressed in units of ξ\xi, these distributions should show universal behavior, depending only on the symmetry of the order parameter, and space dimensions. We have verified this prediction by analyzing the distributions of defects/anti-defects formed in the isotropic-nematic phase transition in a thin layer of nematic liquid crystals. Our experimental results confirm this prediction and are in reasonable agreement with the results of numerical simulations.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures, minor changes, few new references adde

    The Physics of the B Factories

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    The BaBar detector: Upgrades, operation and performance

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    Contains fulltext : 121729.pdf (preprint version ) (Open Access
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