Sub-surface damage issues for effective fabrication of large optics

A new ultra precision large optics grinding machine, BoX®has been developed at Cranfield University. BoX®islocated at the UK's Ultra Precision Surfaces laboratory at the OpTIC Technium. This machine offers a rapidand economic solution for grinding large off-axis aspherical and free-form optical components.This paper presents an analysis of subsurface damage assessments of optical ground materials produced usingdiamond resin bonded grinding wheels. The specific materials used, Zerodur®and ULE®are currently understudy for making extremely large telescope (ELT) segmented mirrors such as in the E-ELT project.The grinding experiments have been conducted on the BoX®grinding machine using wheels with grits sizes of76 μm, 46 μm and 25 μm. Grinding process data was collected using a Kistler dynamometer platform. Thehighest material removal rate (187.5 mm3/s) used ensures that a 1 metre diameter optic can be ground in lessthan 10 hours. The surface roughness and surface profile were measured using a Form Talysurf. The subsurfacedamage was revealed using a sub aperture polishing process in combination with an etching technique.These results are compared with the targeted form accuracy of 1 μm p-v over a 1 metre part, surface roughnessof 50-150 nm RMS and subsurface damage in the range of 2-5 μm. This process stage was validated on a 400mm ULE®blank and a 1 metre hexagonal Z

Fluctuation-Induced Transitions in a Bistable Surface Reaction: Catalytic CO Oxidation on a Pt Field Emitter Tip

Fluctuations which arise in catalytic CO oxidation on a Pt field emitter tip have been studied with field electron microscopy as the imaging method. Fluctuation-driven transitions between the active and the inactive branch of the reaction are found to occur sufficiently close to the bifurcation point, terminating the bistable range. The experimental results are modeled with Monte Carlo simulations of a lattice-gas reaction model incorporating rapid CO diffusion

Limit theorems for random point measures generated by cooperative sequential adsorption

We consider a finite sequence of random points in a finite domain of a finite-dimensional Euclidean space. The points are sequentially allocated in the domain according to a model of cooperative sequential adsorption. The main peculiarity of the model is that the probability distribution of a point depends on previously allocated points. We assume that the dependence vanishes as the concentration of points tends to infinity. Under this assumption the law of large numbers, the central limit theorem and Poisson approximation are proved for the generated sequence of random point measures.Comment: 17 page

Catalytic CO Oxidation on Nanoscale Pt Facets: Effect of Inter-Facet CO Diffusion on Bifurcation and Fluctuation Behavior

We present lattice-gas modeling of the steady-state behavior in CO oxidation on the facets of nanoscale metal clusters, with coupling via inter-facet CO diffusion. The model incorporates the key aspects of reaction process, such as rapid CO mobility within each facet, and strong nearest-neighbor repulsion between adsorbed O. The former justifies our use a "hybrid" simulation approach treating the CO coverage as a mean-field parameter. For an isolated facet, there is one bistable region where the system can exist in either a reactive state (with high oxygen coverage) or a (nearly CO-poisoned) inactive state. Diffusion between two facets is shown to induce complex multistability in the steady states of the system. The bifurcation diagram exhibits two regions with bistabilities due to the difference between adsorption properties of the facets. We explore the role of enhanced fluctuations in the proximity of a cusp bifurcation point associated with one facet in producing transitions between stable states on that facet, as well as their influence on fluctuations on the other facet. The results are expected to shed more light on the reaction kinetics for supported catalysts.Comment: 22 pages, RevTeX, to appear in Phys. Rev. E, 6 figures (eps format) are available at http://www.physik.tu-muenchen.de/~natali

New limits on di-nucleons decay into invisible channels

Data of the radiochemical experiment [E.L.Fireman, 1978] with 1.7 t of KC_2H_3O_2, accumulated deep underground during ~1 yr, were reanalyzed to set limits on di-nucleons (nn and np) decays into invisible channels (disappearance, decay into neutrinos, etc.). The obtained lifetime bounds tau_np > 2.1 10^25 yr and tau_nn > 4.2 10^25 yr (at 90% C.L.) are better (or competitive) than those established in the recent experiments.Comment: 3 pages, accepted in JETP Letter

Diffusion algebras

We define the notion of "diffusion algebras". They are quadratic Poincare-Birkhoff-Witt (PBW) algebras which are useful in order to find exact expressions for the probability distributions of stationary states appearing in one-dimensional stochastic processes with exclusion. One considers processes in which one has N species, the number of particles of each species being conserved. All diffusion algebras are obtained. The known examples already used in applications are special cases in our classification. To help the reader interested in physical problems, the cases N=3 and 4 are listed separately.Comment: 29 pages; minor misprints corrected, few references adde

Phase Separation and Coarsening in One-Dimensional Driven Diffusive Systems: Local Dynaimcs Leading to Long-Range Hamiltonians

A driven system of three species of particle diffusing on a ring is studied in detail. The dynamics is local and conserves the three densities. A simple argument suggesting that the model should phase separate and break the translational symmetry is given. We show that for the special case where the three densities are equal the model obeys detailed balance and the steady-state distribution is governed by a Hamiltonian with asymmetric long-range interactions. This provides an explicit demonstration of a simple mechanism for breaking of ergodicity in one dimension. The steady state of finite-size systems is studied using a generalized matrix product ansatz. The coarsening process leading to phase separation is studied numerically and in a mean-field model. The system exhibits slow dynamics due to trapping in metastable states whose number is exponentially large in the system size. The typical domain size is shown to grow logarithmically in time. Generalizations to a larger number of species are discussed.Comment: Revtex, 29 Pages, 7 figures, uses epsf.sty, submitted to Phys. Rev.

On an Asymptotic Series of Ramanujan

An asymptotic series in Ramanujan's second notebook (Entry 10, Chapter 3) is concerned with the behavior of the expected value of $\phi(X)$ for large $\lambda$ where $X$ is a Poisson random variable with mean $\lambda$ and $\phi$ is a function satisfying certain growth conditions. We generalize this by studying the asymptotics of the expected value of $\phi(X)$ when the distribution of $X$ belongs to a suitable family indexed by a convolution parameter. Examples include the problem of inverse moments for distribution families such as the binomial or the negative binomial.Comment: To appear, Ramanujan

Metabolic crosstalk: molecular links between glycogen and lipid metabolism in obesity.

Glycogen and lipids are major storage forms of energy that are tightly regulated by hormones and metabolic signals. We demonstrate that feeding mice a high-fat diet (HFD) increases hepatic glycogen due to increased expression of the glycogenic scaffolding protein PTG/R5. PTG promoter activity was increased and glycogen levels were augmented in mice and cells after activation of the mechanistic target of rapamycin complex 1 (mTORC1) and its downstream target SREBP1. Deletion of the PTG gene in mice prevented HFD-induced hepatic glycogen accumulation. Of note, PTG deletion also blocked hepatic steatosis in HFD-fed mice and reduced the expression of numerous lipogenic genes. Additionally, PTG deletion reduced fasting glucose and insulin levels in obese mice while improving insulin sensitivity, a result of reduced hepatic glucose output. This metabolic crosstalk was due to decreased mTORC1 and SREBP activity in PTG knockout mice or knockdown cells, suggesting a positive feedback loop in which once accumulated, glycogen stimulates the mTORC1/SREBP1 pathway to shift energy storage to lipogenesis. Together, these data reveal a previously unappreciated broad role for glycogen in the control of energy homeostasis