A maximum spreading speed for magnetopause reconnection

Past observations and numerical modeling find magnetic reconnection to initiate at a localized region and then spread along a current sheet. The rate of spreading has been proposed to be controlled by a number of mechanisms based on the properties within the boundary. At the Earth's magnetopause the spreading speed is also limited by the speed at which a shocked solar wind front can move along the magnetopause boundary. The speed at which a purely north to south rotational discontinuity propagates through the magnetosheath and contacts the magnetopause is measured here using the Block‐Adaptive‐Tree Solar Wind Roe‐Type Upwind Scheme global magnetohydrodynamics model. The propagation speed along the magnetopause is fastest near the nose of the magnetopause and decreases with distance from the subsolar point. The average propagation speed along the dayside magnetopause is 847 km/s. This is significantly larger than observed rates of reconnection spreading at the magnetopause of 30–40 km/s indicating that, for the observed conditions, the speed of front propagation along the magnetopause does not limit or control the spreading rate of reconnection.Published versio

ISM gas studies towards the TeV PWN HESS J1825-137 and northern region

HESS J1825-137 is a pulsar wind nebula (PWN) whose TeV emission extends across ~1 deg. Its large asymmetric shape indicates that its progenitor supernova interacted with a molecular cloud located in the north of the PWN as detected by previous CO Galactic survey (e.g Lemiere, Terrier & Djannati-Ata\"i 2006). Here we provide a detailed picture of the ISM towards the region north of HESS J1825-137, with the analysis of the dense molecular gas from our 7mm and 12mm Mopra survey and the more diffuse molecular gas from the Nanten CO(1-0) and GRS $^{13}$CO(1-0) surveys. Our focus is the possible association between HESS J1825-137 and the unidentified TeV source to the north, HESS J1826-130. We report several dense molecular regions whose kinematic distance matched the dispersion measured distance of the pulsar. Among them, the dense molecular gas located at (RA, Dec)=(18.421h,-13.282$^{\circ}$) shows enhanced turbulence and we suggest that the velocity structure in this region may be explained by a cloud-cloud collision scenario. Furthermore, the presence of a H$\alpha$ rim may be the first evidence of the progenitor SNR of the pulsar PSR J1826-1334 as the distance between the H$\alpha$ rim and the TeV source matched with the predicted SNR radius R$_{\text{SNR}}$~120 pc. From our ISM study, we identify a few plausible origins of the HESS J1826-130 emission, including the progenitor SNR of PSR J1826-1334 and the PWN G018.5-0.4 powered by PSR J1826-1256. A deeper TeV study however, is required to fully identify the origin of this mysterious TeV source.Comment: 19 figures, 27 pages, accepted by MNRA

MEASUREMENT OF PLANTAR PRESSURE DURING HIGH IMPACT-SHORT CONTACT TIME SPORTS ACTIVITIES

INTRODUCTION Force Measurement is an important part of biomechanical research. Until now the measurement of plantar force during the more dynamic sports events have been primarily limited to the laboratory because the available systems capable of accurately measuring 'high impact-short contact-time' forces are not very portable. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the use of soft Parotec pressure sensors inside the shoe as a means of portable and reliable force measurement during jumping sport movements. METHODS The subjects (n =14) performed a series of 'depth jump' exercises simulated by a falling pendulum. Force curves were generated with the use of 4 soft Parotec force sensors (data collection rate 1000 Hz) which were held to the underside of the right fore-foot (Hallux, Metatarsals 1, 3, and 5) using tape and gymnastic shoes. Force curves were simultaneously generated using Kistler force sensors (data collection rate 1000Hz) which were used as control in evaluating the accuracy of the Parotec sensors. The following temporal aspects of the force curves were compared: total contact time (CT), time to first peak (TI), and time to second peak (T2). Further parameters were force at first peak(Fl), force at the saddle (FS) between the first and second peaks, and maximum force (F2). The times between initial contact and T1 and T2 were consistently (approx 70%) identical (+I- Oms) for both systems, although a variance of lms in either direction was seen in approximately 30% of the trials for both values. Although the time of initial contact was consistantly recorded the same by both systems the comparison of the exact total contact time was not usually possible because indistinct 'take-off' times were often measured by Parotec due to residual pressure in the shoe. As expected the force measured by the Parotec sensors recorded considerably less of the total force than the Kistler system. The Parotec sensors recorded force most accurately for the FS and F1 values where they captured up to 48% and 47% respectively of the force measured by the Kistler sensors. For the F2 force values they captured up to 32% of the force measured by Kistler. Greater discrepancies in force values were seen at higher total force values. CONCLUSIONS The comparison of the force curves in this study indicate that Parotec sensors, as used in the above described configuration for high impact-short contact time movements, are accurate in measuring important force parameters. This accuracy was best for the various time measurements. More experimentation is required in the of number of sensors and sensor placement to better measure the force for these type of movements

Exciton mediated one phonon resonant Raman scattering from one-dimensional systems

We use the Kramers-Heisenberg approach to derive a general expression for the resonant Raman scattering cross section from a one-dimensional (1D) system explicitly accounting for excitonic effects. The result should prove useful for analyzing the Raman resonance excitation profile lineshapes for a variety of 1D systems including carbon nanotubes and semiconductor quantum wires. We apply this formalism to a simple 1D model system to illustrate the similarities and differences between the free electron and correlated electron-hole theories.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figure

On The Complexity and Completeness of Static Constraints for Breaking Row and Column Symmetry

We consider a common type of symmetry where we have a matrix of decision variables with interchangeable rows and columns. A simple and efficient method to deal with such row and column symmetry is to post symmetry breaking constraints like DOUBLELEX and SNAKELEX. We provide a number of positive and negative results on posting such symmetry breaking constraints. On the positive side, we prove that we can compute in polynomial time a unique representative of an equivalence class in a matrix model with row and column symmetry if the number of rows (or of columns) is bounded and in a number of other special cases. On the negative side, we show that whilst DOUBLELEX and SNAKELEX are often effective in practice, they can leave a large number of symmetric solutions in the worst case. In addition, we prove that propagating DOUBLELEX completely is NP-hard. Finally we consider how to break row, column and value symmetry, correcting a result in the literature about the safeness of combining different symmetry breaking constraints. We end with the first experimental study on how much symmetry is left by DOUBLELEX and SNAKELEX on some benchmark problems.Comment: To appear in the Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming (CP 2010

Unravelling the chemical inhomogeneity of PNe with VLT FLAMES integral-field unit spectroscopy

Recent weak emission-line long-slit surveys and modelling studies of PNe have convincingly argued in favour of the existence of an unknown component in the planetary nebula plasma consisting of cold, hydrogen-deficient gas, as an explanation for the long-standing recombination-line versus forbidden-line temperature and abundance discrepancy problems. Here we describe the rationale and initial results from a detailed spectroscopic study of three Galactic PNe undertaken with the VLT FLAMES integral-field unit spectrograph, which advances our knowledge about the small-scale physical properties, chemical abundances and velocity structure of these objects across a two-dimensional field of view, and opens up for exploration an uncharted territory in the study and modelling of PNe and photoionized nebulae in general.Comment: 4 pages; 3 figures; invited paper to appear in proceedings of IAU Symp. No. 234, 2006, Planetary Nebulae in our Galaxy and Beyond (held in Hawaii, April 2006

Family enterprise and technological innovation

Family enterprises in China have significant impact on China’s social and economic development. Yet did technological innovation in Chinese family enterprise play a role on this impact? We examine the role that technology innovation played in the rise in importance of Chinese family businesses. We analyze the impact of family enterprises on companies’ technological innovation through both family ownership and family management involvement. We further scrutinize how Chinese family-owned business internationalization strategies affected their technological innovation activities. The authors show that family ownership without family management involvement has a negative relations with companies’ technical innovation. We further demonstrate that family ownerships with family management involvement have a positive relations with enterprises’ technical innovation. Our study provides some effective measures to increase the investment in firms’ technical innovation and minimize the disadvantages of family business. The research result has practical significance in the governance of family enterprises

Chirality dependence of the radial breathing phonon mode density in single wall carbon nanotubes

A mass and spring model is used to calculate the phonon mode dispersion for single wall carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) of arbitrary chirality. The calculated dispersions are used to determine the chirality dependence of the radial breathing phonon mode (RBM) density. Van Hove singularities, usually discussed in the context of the single particle electronic excitation spectrum, are found in the RBM density of states with distinct qualitative differences for zig zag, armchair and chiral SWNTs. The influence the phonon mode density has on the two phonon resonant Raman scattering cross-section is discussed.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Chemical abundances in the protoplanetary disc LV 2 (Orion) - II. High-dispersion VLT observations and microjet properties

Integral field spectroscopy of the LV 2 proplyd is presented taken with the Very Large Telescope (VLT)/FLAMES Argus array at an angular resolution of 0.31 × 0.31 arcsec2 and velocity resolutions down to 2 km s-1 pixel-1. Following subtraction of the local M42 emission, the spectrum of LV 2 is isolated from the surrounding nebula. We measured the heliocentric velocities and widths of a number of lines detected in the intrinsic spectrum of the proplyd, as well as in the adjacent Orion nebula falling within a 6.6 × 4.2 arcsec2 field of view. It is found that far-ultraviolet to optical collisional lines with critical densities, Ncr, ranging from 103 to 109 cm-3 suffer collisional de-excitation near the rest velocity of the proplyd correlating tightly with their critical densities. Lines of low Ncr are suppressed the most. The bipolar jet arising from LV 2 is spectrally and spatially well detected in several emission lines. We compute the [O III] electron temperature profile across LV 2 in velocity space and measure steep temperature variations associated with the red-shifted lobe of the jet, possibly being due to a shock discontinuity. From the velocity-resolved analysis the ionized gas near the rest frame of LV 2 has Te= 9200 ± 800 K and Ne∼ 106 cm-3, while the red-shifted jet lobe has Te≈ 9000–104 K and Ne∼ 106–107 cm-3. The jet flow is highly ionized but contains dense semineutral clumps emitting neutral oxygen lines. The abundances of N+, O2+, Ne2+, Fe2+, S+and S2+ are measured for the strong red-shifted jet lobe. Iron in the core of LV 2 is depleted by 2.54 dex with respect to solar as a result of sedimentation on dust, whereas the efficient destruction of dust grains in the fast microjet raises its Fe abundance to at least 30 per cent solar. Sulphur does not show evidence of significant depletion on dust, but its abundance both in the core and the jet is only about half solar