3,500 research outputs found
Active and Passive Fields in Turbulent Transport: the Role of Statistically Preserved Structures
We have recently proposed that the statistics of active fields (which affect
the velocity field itself) in well-developed turbulence are also dominated by
the Statistically Preserved Structures of auxiliary passive fields which are
advected by the same velocity field. The Statistically Preserved Structures are
eigenmodes of eigenvalue 1 of an appropriate propagator of the decaying
(unforced) passive field, or equivalently, the zero modes of a related
operator. In this paper we investigate further this surprising finding via two
examples, one akin to turbulent convection in which the temperature is the
active scalar, and the other akin to magneto-hydrodynamics in which the
magnetic field is the active vector. In the first example, all the even
correlation functions of the active and passive fields exhibit identical
scaling behavior. The second example appears at first sight to be a
counter-example: the statistical objects of the active and passive fields have
entirely different scaling exponents. We demonstrate nevertheless that the
Statistically Preserved Structures of the passive vector dominate again the
statistics of the active field, except that due to a dynamical conservation law
the amplitude of the leading zero mode cancels exactly. The active vector is
then dominated by the sub-leading zero mode of the passive vector. Our work
thus suggests that the statistical properties of active fields in turbulence
can be understood with the same generality as those of passive fields.Comment: 13 pages, 13 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.
Pressure-induced polarization reversal in multiferroic
The low-temperature ferroelectric polarization of multiferroic is
completely reversed at a critical pressure of 10 kbar and the phase transition
from the incommensurate to the commensurate magnetic phase is induced by
pressures above 14 kbar. The high-pressure data correlate with thermal
expansion measurements indicating a significant lattice strain at the
low-temperature transition into the incommensurate phase. The results support
the exchange striction model for the ferroelectricity in multiferroic
compounds and they show the importance of magnetic frustration as
well as the spin-lattice coupling
Quasinormal Modes of Dirty Black Holes
Quasinormal mode (QNM) gravitational radiation from black holes is expected
to be observed in a few years. A perturbative formula is derived for the shifts
in both the real and the imaginary part of the QNM frequencies away from those
of an idealized isolated black hole. The formulation provides a tool for
understanding how the astrophysical environment surrounding a black hole, e.g.,
a massive accretion disk, affects the QNM spectrum of gravitational waves. We
show, in a simple model, that the perturbed QNM spectrum can have interesting
features.Comment: 4 pages. Published in PR
Scaling of impact fragmentation near the critical point
We investigated two-dimensional brittle fragmentation with a flat impact
experimentally, focusing on the low impact energy region near the
fragmentation-critical point. We found that the universality class of
fragmentation transition disagreed with that of percolation. However, the
weighted mean mass of the fragments could be scaled using the pseudo-control
parameter multiplicity. The data for highly fragmented samples included a
cumulative fragment mass distribution that clearly obeyed a power-law. The
exponent of this power-law was 0.5 and it was independent of sample size. The
fragment mass distributions in this regime seemed to collapse into a unified
scaling function using weighted mean fragment mass scaling. We also examined
the behavior of higher order moments of the fragment mass distributions, and
obtained multi-scaling exponents that agreed with those of the simple biased
cascade model.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figure
Perturbative Approach to the Quasinormal Modes of Dirty Black Holes
Using a recently developed perturbation theory for uasinormal modes (QNM's),
we evaluate the shifts in the real and imaginary parts of the QNM frequencies
due to a quasi-static perturbation of the black hole spacetime. We show the
perturbed QNM spectrum of a black hole can have interesting features using a
simple model based on the scalar wave equation.Comment: Published in PR
Unconventional Gravitational Excitation of a Schwarzschild Black Hole
Besides the well-known quasinormal modes, the gravitational spectrum of a
Schwarzschild black hole also has a continuum part on the negative imaginary
frequency axis. The latter is studied numerically for quadrupole waves. The
results show unexpected striking behavior near the algebraically special
frequency . This reveals a pair of unconventional damped modes very
near , confirmed analytically.Comment: REVTeX4, 4pp, 6 EPS figure files. N.B.: "Alec" is my first, and
"Maassen van den Brink" my family name. v2: better pole placement in Fig. 1.
v3: fixed Refs. [9,20]. v4: added context on "area quantum" research; trimmed
one Fig.; textual clarification
The significance of work allocation in the professional apprenticeship of solicitors
It is a peculiarity of the solicitors’ profession that it has historically relied on methods of pre-qualification ‘training’ by way of apprenticeship and that an entirely respectable non-graduate route into the profession remains. In a political context, however, where the profession is called upon positively to demonstrate its standards of performance, the professional regulator seeks to attach a competence framework to the existing model; shifting the focus from how the trainee learns to what the trainee learns. This paper will explore the period of traineeship from the perspective of the trainees themselves, drawing on two small qualitative studies, focussing on the fundamental context factor of the allocation and structuring of their work. In the first study the context for this evaluation is the set of outcomes being tested by the professional regulator and in the second, the perceptions of qualified individuals looking back at their apprenticeship, The paper concludes that there remains work for the profession to do not only in fostering supportive and expansive apprenticeships, but in attending, however, supportive the surrounding environment, to the work being carried out by trainees and its relationship with the work carried out by newly qualified solicitors
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