Thermal-induced slippage of soft solid films

The dynamics of interfacial slippage of entangled polystyrene (PS) films on an adsorbed layer of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) on silicon was studied from the surface capillary dynamics of the films. By using PS with different molecular weights, we observed slippage of the films in the viscoelastic liquid and rubbery solid state respectively. Remarkably, all our data can be explained by the linear equation, J = -M∇P and a single friction coefficient, ξ, where J is the unit-width current, M is mobility and P is Laplace pressure. For viscous films, M is accountable by using conventional formulism. For rubbery films, M takes on different expressions depending on whether the displacements associated with the slip velocity, v (~∇P/ξ), dominate or elastic deformations induced by ∇P dominate. For viscoelastic liquid films, M is the sum of the mobility of the films in the viscous and rubbery states.Accepted manuscrip

Astrophysics and cosmology with a deci-hertz gravitational-wave detector: TianGO

We present the astrophysical science case for a space-based, deci-Hz gravitational-wave (GW) detector. We particularly highlight an ability in inferring a source's sky location, both when combined with a network of ground-based detectors to form a long triangulation baseline, and by itself for the early warning of merger events. Such an accurate location measurement is the key for using GW signals as standard sirens for constraining the Hubble constant. This kind of detector also opens up the possibility of testing type Ia supernovae progenitor hypotheses by constraining the merger rates of white dwarf binaries with both super- and sub-Chandrasekhar masses separately. We will discuss other scientific outcomes that can be delivered, including the precise determination of black hole spins, the constraint of structure formation in the early Universe, and the search for intermediate-mass black holes

Excitation of f-modes during mergers of spinning binary neutron star

Tidal effects have important imprints on gravitational waves (GWs) emitted during the final stage of the coalescence of binaries that involve neutron stars (NSs). Dynamical tides can be significant when NS oscillations become resonant with orbital motion; understanding this process is important for accurately modeling GW emission from these binaries, and for extracting NS information from GW data. In this paper, we carry out a systematic study on the tidal excitation of fundamental modes of spinning NSs in coalescencing binaries, focusing on the case when the NS spin is anti-aligned with the orbital angular momentum-where the tidal resonance is most likely to take place. We first expand NS oscillations into stellar eigen-modes, and then obtain a Hamiltonian that governs the tidally coupled orbit-mode evolution. We next find a new approximation that can lead to analytic expressions of tidal excitations to a high accuracy, and are valid in all regimes of the binary evolution: adiabatic, resonant, and post-resonance. Using the method of osculating orbits, we obtain semi-analytic approximations to the orbital evolution and GW emission; their agreements with numerical results give us confidence in on our understanding of the system's dynamics. In particular, we recover both the averaged post-resonance evolution, which differs from the pre-resonance point-particle orbit by shifts in orbital energy and angular momentum, as well as instantaneous perturbations driven by the tidal motion. Finally, we use the Fisher matrix technique to study the effect of dynamical tides on parameter estimation. We find that the dynamical tides may potentially provide an additional channel to study the physics of NSs. The method presented in this paper is generic and not restricted to f mode; it can also be applied to other types of tide

Excitation of f-modes during mergers of spinning binary neutron star

Tidal effects have important imprints on gravitational waves (GWs) emitted during the final stage of the coalescence of binaries that involve neutron stars (NSs). Dynamical tides can be significant when NS oscillations become resonant with orbital motion; understanding this process is important for accurately modeling GW emission from these binaries and for extracting NS information from GW data. In this paper, we use semianalytic methods to carry out a systematic study on the tidal excitation of fundamental modes (f-modes) of spinning NSs in coalescencing binaries, focusing on the case when the NS spin is antialigned with the orbital angular momentum—where the tidal resonance is most likely to take place. We first expand NS oscillations into stellar eigenmodes, and then obtain a Hamiltonian that governs the tidally coupled orbit-mode evolution. (Our treatment is at Newtonian order, including a gravitational radiation reaction at quadrupole order.) We then find a new approximation that can lead to analytic expressions of tidal excitations to a high accuracy, and are valid in all regimes of the binary evolution: adiabatic, resonant, and postresonance. Using the method of osculating orbits, we obtain semianalytic approximations to the orbital evolution and GW emission; their agreements with numerical results give us confidence in our understanding of the system’s dynamics. In particular, we recover both the averaged postresonance evolution, which differs from the preresonance point-particle orbit by shifts in orbital energy and angular momentum, as well as instantaneous perturbations driven by the tidal motion. Finally, we use the Fisher matrix technique to study the effect of dynamical tides on parameter estimation. We find that, for a system with component masses of (1.4,1.4) M_⊙ at 100 Mpc, the constraints on the effective Love number of the (2,2) mode at Newtonian order can be improved by a factor of 3 ∼ 4 if spin frequency is as high as 500 Hz. The relative errors are 0.7 ∼ 0.8 in the Cosmic Explorer, and they might be further improved by post-Newtonian effects. The constraints on the f-mode frequency and the spin frequency are improved by factors of 5 ∼ 6 and 19 ∼ 27, respectively. In the Cosmic Explorer case, the relative errors are 0.2 ∼ 0.4 and 0.7 ∼ 1.0, respectively. Hence, the dynamical tides may potentially provide an additional channel to study the physics of NSs. The method presented in this paper is generic and not restricted to f-mode; it can also be applied to other types of tides