Mass retention efficiencies of He accretion onto carbon-oxygen white dwarfs and type Ia supernovae

Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) play a crucial role in studying cosmology and galactic chemical evolution. They are thought to be thermonuclear explosions of carbon-oxygen white dwarfs (CO WDs) when their masses reach the Chandrasekar mass limit in binaries. Previous studies have suggested that He novae may be progenitor candidates of SNe Ia. However, the mass retention efficiencies during He nova outbursts are still uncertain. In this article, we aim to study the mass retention efficiencies of He nova outbursts and to investigate whether SNe Ia can be produced through He nova outbursts. Using the stellar evolution code Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics, we simulated a series of multicycle He-layer flashes, in which the initial WD masses range from 0.7 to 1.35 Msun with various accretion rates. We obtained the mass retention efficiencies of He nova outbursts for various initial WD masses, which can be used in the binary population synthesis studies. In our simulations, He nova outbursts can increase the mass of the WD to the Chandrasekar mass limit and the explosive carbon burning can be triggered in the center of the WD; this suggests that He nova outbursts can produce SNe Ia. Meanwhile, the mass retention efficiencies in the present work are lower than those of previous studies, which leads to a lower birthrates of SNe Ia through the WD + He star channel. Furthermore, we obtained the elemental abundances distribution at the moment of explosive carbon burning, which can be used as the initial input parameters in studying explosion models of SNe Ia.Comment: 8 pages, 12 figures, 2 tables, published in Astronomy & Astrophysics (A&A 604, A31, 2017

Brueckner-Hartree-Fock and its renormalized calculations for finite nuclei

We have performed self-consistent Brueckner-Hartree-Fock (BHF) and its renormalized theory to the structure calculations of finite nuclei. The $G$-matrix is calculated within the BHF basis, and the exact Pauli exclusion operator is determined by the BHF spectrum. Self-consistent occupation probabilities are included in the renormalized Brueckner-Hartree-Fock (RBHF). Various systematics and convergences are studies. Good results are obtained for the ground-state energy and radius. RBHF can give a more reasonable single-particle spectrum and radius. We present a first benchmark calculation with other {\it ab initio} methods using the same effective Hamiltonian. We find that the BHF and RBHF results are in good agreement with other $\it{ab}$ $\it{initio}$ methods

Thermal conductivity and rheology behavior of aqueous nanofluids containing alumina and carbon nanotubes

This paper was presented at the 4th Micro and Nano Flows Conference (MNF2014), which was held at University College, London, UK. The conference was organised by Brunel University and supported by the Italian Union of Thermofluiddynamics, IPEM, the Process Intensification Network, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, the Heat Transfer Society, HEXAG - the Heat Exchange Action Group, and the Energy Institute, ASME Press, LCN London Centre for Nanotechnology, UCL University College London, UCL Engineering, the International NanoScience Community, www.nanopaprika.eu.In this study, thermal conductivity and rheology behavior of aqueous alumina and multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) nanofluids were measured and compared with several analytical models. Both thermal conductivity and viscosity of the two nanofluids increase with increasing volume fraction. The experimental thermal conductivity data for the two nanofluids are located near the lower Hashin-Shtrikman bound and far away from the upper Hashin-Shtrikman bound. Therefore there is still enough room for thermal conductivity enhancement. Further conductivity enhancement of the nanofluids can be achieved by manipulating particle or agglomeration distribution and morphology. The structure-property relationship was checked for the nanofluids. Possible agglomeration size and interfacial thermal resistance were obtained and partially validated. Based on the Chen et al. model, a revised model was developed by incorporating the effects of interfacial thermal resistance into the Hamilton-Crosser model. The revised model can accurately reproduce the experimental data based on the agglomeration size extracted from the rheology analysis. In addition, thermal conductivity change of the alumina/water nanofluid with elapsed time was also investigated. The average thermal conductivity decreases with elapsed time. Besides, thermal conductivity measurements were conducted for nanofluid mixtures of alumina/water and MWCNT/water nanofluids

Reversible Embedding to Covers Full of Boundaries

In reversible data embedding, to avoid overflow and underflow problem, before data embedding, boundary pixels are recorded as side information, which may be losslessly compressed. The existing algorithms often assume that a natural image has little boundary pixels so that the size of side information is small. Accordingly, a relatively high pure payload could be achieved. However, there actually may exist a lot of boundary pixels in a natural image, implying that, the size of side information could be very large. Therefore, when to directly use the existing algorithms, the pure embedding capacity may be not sufficient. In order to address this problem, in this paper, we present a new and efficient framework to reversible data embedding in images that have lots of boundary pixels. The core idea is to losslessly preprocess boundary pixels so that it can significantly reduce the side information. Experimental results have shown the superiority and applicability of our work

Effect of surfactant on flow boiling heat transfer of ethylene glycol/water mixtures in a mini-tube

This paper was presented at the 4th Micro and Nano Flows Conference (MNF2014), which was held at University College, London, UK. The conference was organised by Brunel University and supported by the Italian Union of Thermofluiddynamics, IPEM, the Process Intensification Network, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, the Heat Transfer Society, HEXAG - the Heat Exchange Action Group, and the Energy Institute, ASME Press, LCN London Centre for Nanotechnology, UCL University College London, UCL Engineering, the International NanoScience Community, www.nanopaprika.eu.In this study, the effect of adding a surfactant (sodium dodeobcylbenzene sulfonate, SDBS) to ethylene glycol/water mixtures boiling in a vertical mini-tube was studied. Experiments were done using solutions containing 300 ppm by weight of surfactant and the results were compared with those for pure mixture. Local heat transfer coefficient was measured and found to be dependent on the mass quality. Addition of surfactant significantly enhanced the evaporation of saturated liquid, so that the difference between outlet fluid temperature and outlet bubble point temperature of SDBS solutions was much higher than that of ethylene glycol/water mixture. Though the surfactant intensifies the vaporization process, it does not necessarily enhance the heat transfer coefficient. The heat transfer coefficients at two different mass fluxes were compared, and the result could be explained based on the local flow pattern and heat transfer mechanism. After a critical quality, higher quality will deteriorate the heat transfer due to intermittent dryout, therefore adding surfactant to generate more vapor may have a negative effect on the heat transfer of flow boiling in a mini-tube, which is contrast to the experience of enhancing nucleate pool boiling heat transfer with trace surfactant

X-Ray Flares from Postmerger Millisecond Pulsars

Recent observations support the suggestion that short-duration gamma-ray bursts are produced by compact star mergers. The X-ray flares discovered in two short gamma-ray bursts last much longer than the previously proposed postmerger energy release time scales. Here we show that they can be produced by differentially rotating, millisecond pulsars after the mergers of binary neutron stars. The differential rotation leads to windup of interior poloidal magnetic fields and the resulting toroidal fields are strong enough to float up and break through the stellar surface. Magnetic reconnection--driven explosive events then occur, leading to multiple X-ray flares minutes after the original gamma-ray burst.Comment: 10 pages, published in Scienc

Modeling and optimization of the multichannel spark discharge

This paper reports a novel analytic model of this multichannel spark discharge, considering the delay time in the breakdown process, the electric transforming of the discharge channel from a capacitor to a resistor induced by the air breakdown, and the varying plasma resistance in the discharge process. The good agreement between the experimental and the simulated results validated the accuracy of this model. Based on this model, the influence of the circuit parameters on the maximum discharge channel number (MDCN) is investigated. Both the input voltage amplitude and the breakdown voltage threshold of each discharge channel play a critical role. With the increase of the input voltage and the decrease of the breakdown voltage, the MCDN increases almost linearly. With the increase of the discharge capacitance, the MDCN first rises and then remains almost constant. With the increase of the circuit inductance, the MDCN increases slowly but decreases quickly when the inductance increases over a certain value. There is an optimal value of the capacitor connected to the discharge channel corresponding to the MDCN. Finally, based on these results, to shorten the discharge time, a modified multichannel discharge circuit is developed and validated by the experiment. With only 6-kV input voltage, 31-channels discharge is achieved. The breakdown voltage of each electrode gap is larger than 3 kV. The modified discharge circuit is certain to be widely used in the PSJA flow control field