Analytical and numerical studies of the thermocapillary flow in a uniformly floating zone

The microgravity environment of an orbiting vehicle permits crystal growth experiments in the presence of greatly reduced buoyant convection in the liquid melt. Crystals grown in ground-based laboratories do not achieve their potential properties because of dopant variations caused by flow in the melt. The floating zone crystal growing system is widely used to produce crystals of silicon and other materials. However, in this system the temperature gradient on the free sidewall surface of the melt is the source of a thermocapillary flow which does not disappear in the low-gravity environment. The idea of using a uniform rotation of the floating zone system to confine the thermocapillary flow to the melt sidewall leaving the interior of the melt passive is examined. A cylinder of fluid with an axial temperature gradient imposed on the cylindrical sidewall is considered. A half zone and the linearized, axisymmetric flow in the absence of crystal growth is examined. Rotation is found to confine the linear thermocapillary flow. A simplified model is extended to a full zone and both linear and nonlinear thermocapillary flows are studied theoretically. Analytical and numerical methods are used for the linear flows and numerical methods for the nonlinear flows. It was found that the linear flows in the full zone have more complicated and thicker boundary layer structures than in the half zone, and that these flows are also confined by the rotation. However, for the simplified model considered and for realistic values for silicon, the thermocapillary flow is not linear. The fully nonlinear flow is strong and unsteady (a weak oscillation is present) and it penetrates the interior. Some non-rotating flow results are also presented. Since silicon as a large value of thermal conductivity, one would expect the temperature fields to be determined by conduction alone. This is true for the linear and weakly nonlinear flows, but for the stronger nonlinear flow the results show that temperature advection is also important. Uniform rotation may still be a means of confining the flow and the results obtained define the procedure to be used to examine this hypothesis

Two-dimensional state sum models and spin structures

The state sum models in two dimensions introduced by Fukuma, Hosono and Kawai are generalised by allowing algebraic data from a non-symmetric Frobenius algebra. Without any further data, this leads to a state sum model on the sphere. When the data is augmented with a crossing map, the partition function is defined for any oriented surface with a spin structure. An algebraic condition that is necessary for the state sum model to be sensitive to spin structure is determined. Some examples of state sum models that distinguish topologically-inequivalent spin structures are calculated.Comment: 43 pages. Mathematica script in ancillary file. v2: nomenclature of models and their properties changed, some proofs simplified, more detailed explanations. v3: extended introduction, presentational improvements; final versio

Decoherence at zero temperature

Most discussions of decoherence in the literature consider the high-temperature regime but it is also known that, in the presence of dissipation, decoherence can occur even at zero temperature. Whereas most previous investigations all assumed initial decoupling of the quantum system and bath, we consider that the system and environment are entangled at all times. Here, we discuss decoherence for a free particle in an initial Schr\"{o}dinger cat state. Memory effects are incorporated by use of the single relaxation time model (since the oft-used Ohmic model does not give physically correct results)

Comparisons of elastic and creep deformation linearly dependent upon stress

The theory of linear elasticity provides a complete description of reversible deformation under small stresses for both isotropic and anisotropic solids. At elevated temperatures, creep deformation sometimes occurs at a rate that is linearly dependent upon stress. When this form of creep arises from vacancy movement, there is possibility of anisotropic behaviour through the orientational dependence of average grain dimensions. This indicates that the elasticity theory may be utilised to provide comparable descriptions of such creep deformation, with creep strain built up of equal increments of strain occurring in equal intervals of time. The extent of this analogy is explored with the conclusion that its usefulness is substantial when grains are small in relation to geometrical features of the component but it is no longer applicable when the grains approach the size of these features and where there is a high gradient of stress

Time-dependent kinetic energy metrics for Lagrangians of electromagnetic type

We extend the results obtained in a previous paper about a class of Lagrangian systems which admit alternative kinetic energy metrics to second-order mechanical systems with explicit time-dependence. The main results are that a time-dependent alternative metric will have constant eigenvalues, and will give rise to a time-dependent coordinate transformation which partially decouples the system