Gambling in Great Britain:a response to Rogers

A recent issue of Practice: Social Work in Action featured a paper by Rogers that examined whether the issue of problem gambling was a suitable case for social work. Rogers’ overview was (in various places) out of date, highly selective, contradictory, presented unsupported claims and somewhat misleading. Rogers’ paper is to be commended for putting the issue of problem gambling on the social work agenda. However, social workers need up-to-date information and contextually situated information if they are to make informed decisions in helping problem gamblers

Analysis of a Three Phase Induction Motor Directly from Maxwell's Equations

The torque developed in a three phase AC squirrel cage motor is usually expressed in terms of resistances and reactances of the stator, the rotor, and the motor as a whole. We use Maxwell's equations to find the torque in terms of geometrical parameters. This allows us to estimate the torque developed by a motor without knowing the details of its circuitry

Reply to "Comment(s) on `Preacceleration without radiation: The non-existence of preradiation phenomenon," by J. D. Jackson [Am. J. Phys. 75, 844-845 (2007)] and V. Hnizdo [Am. J. Phys. 75, 845-846 (2007)

This paper replies the comments by J. D. Jackson [Am. J. Phys. 75, 844-845 (2007)] and V. Hnizdo [Am. J. Phys. 75, 845-846 (2007)].Comment: 9 pages. See also the related paper: "E. Eriksen and O. Gron, Does preradiation exist? [Phys. Scr. 76, 60-63 (2007)].

Preacceleration without radiation: the non-existence of preradiation phenomenon

An unexpected prediction of classical electrodynamics is that a charge can accelerate before a force is applied. We would expect that a preaccelerated charge would radiate so that there would be spontaneous preradiation, an acausal phenomenon. We reexamine the subtle relation between the Larmor formula for the power radiated by a point charge and the Abraham-Lorentz equation and find that for well-behaved external forces acting for finite times, the charge does not radiate in time intervals where there is preacceleration. That is, for these forces preradiation does not exist even though the charge is preaccelerated. The radiative energy is emitted only in time intervals when the external force acts on the charge.Comment: Equation (37) of the published paper in AJP has been correcte

The quantum Gaussian well

Different features of a potential in the form of a Gaussian well have been discussed extensively. Although the details of the calculation are involved, the general approach uses a variational method and WKB approximation, techniques which should be familiar to advanced undergraduates. A numerical solution of the Schr\"odinger equation through diagonalization has been developed in a self-contained way, and physical applications of the potential are mentioned.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures, To be published in American Journal of Physic

On the parameters of the Kerr-NUT-(anti-)de Sitter space-time

Different forms of the metric for the Kerr-NUT-(anti-)de Sitter space-time are being widely used in its extension to higher dimensions. The purpose of this note is to relate the parameters that are being used to the physical parameters (mass, rotation, NUT and cosmological constant) in the basic four dimensional situation.Comment: 4 pages. To appear as a Note in Classical and Quantum Gravit

Carbon Nanotubes in Helically Modulated Potentials

We calculate effects of an applied helically symmetric potential on the low energy electronic spectrum of a carbon nanotube in the continuum approximation. The spectrum depends on the strength of this potential and on a dimensionless geometrical parameter, P, which is the ratio of the circumference of the nanotube to the pitch of the helix. We find that the minimum band gap of a semiconducting nanotube is reduced by an arbitrarily weak helical potential, and for a given field strength there is an optimal P which produces the biggest change in the band gap. For metallic nanotubes the Fermi velocity is reduced by this potential and for strong fields two small gaps appear at the Fermi surface in addition to the gapless Dirac point. A simple model is developed to estimate the magnitude of the field strength and its effect on DNA-CNT complexes in an aqueous solution. We find that under typical experimental conditions the predicted effects of a helical potential are likely to be small and we discuss several methods for increasing the size of these effects.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures. Accepted for publication in Physical Review B. Image quality reduced to comply with arxiv size limitation

Quantum probe and design for a chemical compass with magnetic nanostructures

Magnetic fields as weak as Earth's may affect the outcome of certain photochemical reactions that go through a radical pair intermediate. When the reaction environment is anisotropic, this phenomenon can form the basis of a chemical compass and has been proposed as a mechanism for animal magnetoreception. Here, we demonstrate how to optimize the design of a chemical compass with a much better directional sensitivity simply by a gradient field, e.g. from a magnetic nanostructure. We propose an experimental test of these predictions, and suggest design principles for a hybrid metallic-organic chemical compass. In addition to the practical interest in designing a biomimetic weak magnetic field sensor, our result shows that gradient fields can server as powerful tools to probe spin correlations in radical pair reactions.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, comments are welcom