Curvature Fields, Topology, and the Dynamics of Spatiotemporal Chaos

The curvature field is measured from tracer particle trajectories in a two-dimensional fluid flow that exhibits spatiotemporal chaos, and is used to extract the hyperbolic and elliptic points of the flow. These special points are pinned to the forcing when the driving is weak, but wander over the domain and interact in pairs at stronger driving, changing the local topology of the flow. Their behavior reveals a two-stage transition to spatiotemporal chaos: a gradual loss of spatial and temporal order followed by an abrupt onset of topological changes.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

Superconducting Diamagnetic Fluctuations in MgB2

The fluctuating diamagnetic magnetization Mfl at constant field H as a function of temperature and the isothermal magnetization Mfl vs H are measured in MgB2, above the superconducting transition temperature. The expressions for Mfl in randomly oriented powders are derived in the Gaussian approximation of local Ginzburg-Landau theory and used for the analysis of the data. The scaled magnetization Mfl/H^{1/2}*T is found to be field dependent. In the limit of evanescent field the behaviour for Gaussian fluctuations is obeyed while for H>~ 100 Oe the field tends to suppress the fluctuating pairs, with a field dependence of Mfl close to the one expected when short wavelength fluctuations and non-local electrodynamic effects are taken into account. Our data, besides providing the isothermal magnetization curves for T>Tc(0) in a BCS-type superconductor such as MgB2, evidence an enhancement of the fluctuating diamagnetism which is related to the occurrence in this new superconductor of an anisotropic spectrum of the superconducting fluctuations.Comment: Tex file, 4 pages, 3 ps figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. Let

Dynamic Topology in Spatiotemporal Chaos

By measuring the tracks of tracer particles in a quasi-two-dimensional spatiotemporally chaotic laboratory flow, we determine the instantaneous curvature along each trajectory and use it to construct the instantaneous curvature field. We show that this field can be used to extract the time-dependent hyperbolic and elliptic points of the flow. These important topological features are created and annihilated in pairs only above a critical Reynolds number that is largest for highly symmetric flows. We also study the statistics of curvature for different driving patterns and show that the curvature probability distribution is insensitive to the details of the flow

Temporal Modulation of the Control Parameter in Electroconvection in the Nematic Liquid Crystal I52

I report on the effects of a periodic modulation of the control parameter on electroconvection in the nematic liquid crystal I52. Without modulation, the primary bifurcation from the uniform state is a direct transition to a state of spatiotemporal chaos. This state is the result of the interaction of four, degenerate traveling modes: right and left zig and zag rolls. Periodic modulations of the driving voltage at approximately twice the traveling frequency are used. For a large enough modulation amplitude, standing waves that consist of only zig or zag rolls are stabilized. The standing waves exhibit regular behavior in space and time. Therefore, modulation of the control parameter represents a method of eliminating spatiotemporal chaos. As the modulation frequency is varied away from twice the traveling frequency, standing waves that are a superposition of zig and zag rolls, i.e. standing rectangles, are observed. These results are compared with existing predictions based on coupled complex Ginzburg-Landau equations

Discovery potential for a charged Higgs boson decaying in the chargino-neutralino channel of the ATLAS detector at the LHC

We have investigated charged Higgs boson production via the gluon-bottom quark mode, gb -> tH+, followed by its decay into a chargino and a neutralino. The calculations are based on masses and couplings given by the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) for a specific choice of MSSM parameters. The signature of the signal is characterized by three hard leptons, a substantial missing transverse energy due to the decay of the neutralino and the chargino and three hard jets from the hadronic decay of the top quark. The possibility of detecting the signal over the Standard Model (SM) and non-SM backgrounds was studied for a set of tanBeta and mA. The existence of 5-sigma confidence level regions for H+ discovery at integrated luminosities of 100 fb-1 and 300 fb-1 is demonstrated, which cover also the intermediate region 4 < tanBeta < 10 where H+ decays to SM particles cannot be used for H+ discovery