Determinations of upper critical field in continuous Ginzburg-Landau model

Novel procedures to determine the upper critical field $B_{c2}$ have been proposed within a continuous Ginzburg-Landau model. Unlike conventional methods, where $B_{c2}$ is obtained through the determination of the smallest eigenvalue of an appropriate eigen equation, the square of the magnetic field is treated as eigenvalue problems so that the upper critical field can be directly deduced. The calculated $B_{c2}$ from the two procedures are consistent with each other and in reasonably good agreement with existing theories and experiments. The profile of the order parameter associated with $B_{c2}$ is found to be Gaussian-like, further validating the methodology proposed. The convergences of the two procedures are also studied.Comment: Revtex4, 8 pages, 4 figures, references modified, figures and table embedde

Cooling and recombination processes in cometary plasma

The ion electron plasma in comets is examined for cooling processes which result from its interactions with the neutral coma. A cometary coma model is formulated that is composed predominantly of H2O and its decomposition products where electrons are cooled in a variety of processes at rates varying with energy. It is shown that solar plasma plus accumulated cometary ions and electrons is affected very strongly as it flows into the coma. The electrons are rapidly cooled and all but some 10% of the ions undergo charge exchange. Photodissociation of H2O is assumed where ion electron recombination is the dominant loss process

Superluminal Propagation and Acausality of Nonlinear Massive Gravity

Massive gravity is an old idea: trading geometry for mass. Much effort has been expended on establishing a healthy model, culminating in the current ghost-free version. We summarize here our recent findings -- that it is still untenable -- because it is locally acausal: CTC solutions can be constructed in a small neighborhood of any event.Comment: Contribution to Conference in Honour of the 90th Birthday of Freeman Dyson -- To Appear in Proceeding. v2: Explicit CTC example, and other improvements, adde

Ethylenediamine modified rice hull as a sorbent for the removal of Basic Blue 3 and Reactive Orange 16

The potential of ethylenediamine modified rice hull to remove both basic and reactive dyes from aqueous solutions was studied. Equilibrium sorption data could be fitted into Langmuir and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller isotherm models. Sorption was enhanced by 4.5- and 2.4-fold for Basic Blue 3 and Reactive Orange 16, respectively, in binary dye solutions compared to single dye solutions. Column studies revealed that breakthrough was bed-depth, flow-rate and influent-concentration dependent. Unusual breakthrough curves were obtained for Reactive Orange 16, with very rapid initial breakthrough followed by complete retention at low flow rate, influent concentration and high bed depth. The breakthrough curves of Basic Blue 3 followed the typical S shape of packed-bed systems. Theoretical breakthrough curves at different bed depths and flow rates generated by the two-parameter mathematical model agreed well with the experimental data of single dye solution of Basic Blue 3

Massive gravity acausality redux

Massive gravity (mGR) is a 5(=2s+1)5(=2s+1) degree of freedom, finite range extension of GR. However, amongst other problems, it is plagued by superluminal propagation, first uncovered via a second order shock analysis. First order mGR shock structures have also been studied, but the existence of superluminal propagation in that context was left open. We present here a concordance of these methods, by an explicit (first order) characteristic matrix computation, which confirms mGRʼs superluminal propagation as well as acausality

Anomalous microwave response of high-temperature superconducting thin-film microstrip resonator in weak dc magnetic fields

We have studied an anomalous microwave (mw) response of superconducting YBa_{2}Cu_{3}O_{7-delta} (YBCO) microstrip resonators in the presence of a weak dc magnetic field, H_{dc}. The surface resistance (R_{s}) and reactance (X_{s}) show a correlated non-monotonic behaviour as a function of H_{dc}. R_{s} and X_{s} were found to initially decrease with elevated H_{dc} and then increase after H_{dc} reaches a crossover field, H_{c}, which is independent of the amplitude and frequency of the input mw signal within the measurements. The frequency dependence of R_{s} is almost linear at fixed H_{dc} with different magnitudes (H_{c}). The impedance plane analysis demonstrates that r_{H}, which is defined as the ratio of the change in R_{s}(H_{dc}) and that in X_{s}(H_{dc}), is about 0.6 at H_{dc}<H_{c} and 0.1 at H_{dc}>H_{c}. The H_{dc} dependence of the surface impedance is qualitatively independent of the orientation of H_{dc}.Comment: REVTex 3.1, 5 pages, 6 EPS figures, submitted to Physica

Problems of Massive Gravities

The method of characteristics is a key tool for studying consistency of equations of motion; it allows issues such as predictability, maximal propagation speed, superluminality, unitarity and acausality to be addressed without requiring explicit solutions. We review this method and its application to massive gravity (mGR) theories to show the limitations of these models' physical viability: Among their problems are loss of unique evolution, superluminal signals, matter coupling inconsistencies and micro-acausality (propagation of signals around local closed time-like curves (CTCs)/closed causal curves (CCCs)). We extend previous no-go results to the entire three-parameter range of mGR theories. It is also argued that bimetric models suffer a similar fate