Rotating black hole orbit functionals in the frequency domain

In many astrophysical problems, it is important to understand the behavior of functions that come from rotating (Kerr) black hole orbits. It can be particularly useful to work with the frequency domain representation of those functions, in order to bring out their harmonic dependence upon the fundamental orbital frequencies of Kerr black holes. Although, as has recently been shown by W. Schmidt, such a frequency domain representation must exist, the coupled nature of a black hole orbit's $r$ and $\theta$ motions makes it difficult to construct such a representation in practice. Combining Schmidt's description with a clever choice of timelike coordinate suggested by Y. Mino, we have developed a simple procedure that sidesteps this difficulty. One first Fourier expands all quantities using Mino's time coordinate $\lambda$. In particular, the observer's time $t$ is decomposed with $\lambda$. The frequency domain description is then built from the $\lambda$-Fourier expansion and the expansion of $t$. We have found this procedure to be quite simple to implement, and to be applicable to a wide class of functionals. We test the procedure using a simple test function, and then apply it in a particularly interesting case, the Weyl curvature scalar $\psi_4$ used in black hole perturbation theory.Comment: 16 pages, 2 figures. Submitted to Phys Rev D. New version gives a vastly improved algorithm due to Drasco for computing the Fourier transforms. Drasco has been added as an author. Also fixed some references and exterminated a small herd of typos; final published versio

A diffusion Monte Carlo study of small para-Hydrogen clusters

Ground state energies and chemical potentials of parahydrogen clusters are calculated from 3 to 40 molecules using the diffusion Monte Carlo technique with two different pH2-pH2 interactions. This calculation improves a previous one by the inclusion of three-body correlations in the importance sampling, by the time step adjustement and by a better estimation of the statistical errors. Apart from the cluster with 13 molecules, no other magic clusters are predicted, in contrast with path integral Monte Carlo results

Spin Coulomb drag in the two-dimensional electron liquid

We calculate the spin-drag transresistivity $\rho_{\uparrow \downarrow}(T)$ in a two-dimensional electron gas at temperature $T$ in the random phase approximation. In the low-temperature regime we show that, at variance with the three-dimensional low-temperature result [$\rho_{\uparrow\downarrow}(T) \sim T^2$], the spin transresistivity of a two-dimensional {\it spin unpolarized} electron gas has the form $\rho_{\uparrow\downarrow}(T) \sim T^2 \ln T$. In the spin-polarized case the familiar form $\rho_{\uparrow\downarrow}(T) =A T^2$ is recovered, but the constant of proportionality $A$ diverges logarithmically as the spin-polarization tends to zero. In the high-temperature regime we obtain $\rho_{\uparrow \downarrow}(T) = -(\hbar / e^2) (\pi^2 Ry^* /k_B T)$ (where $Ry^*$ is the effective Rydberg energy) {\it independent} of the density. Again, this differs from the three-dimensional result, which has a logarithmic dependence on the density. Two important differences between the spin-drag transresistivity and the ordinary Coulomb drag transresistivity are pointed out: (i) The $\ln T$ singularity at low temperature is smaller, in the Coulomb drag case, by a factor $e^{-4 k_Fd}$ where $k_F$ is the Fermi wave vector and $d$ is the separation between the layers. (ii) The collective mode contribution to the spin-drag transresistivity is negligible at all temperatures. Moreover the spin drag effect is, for comparable parameters, larger than the ordinary Coulomb drag effect.Comment: 6 figures; various changes; version accepted for publicatio

The alpha-particle in nuclear matter

Among the light nuclear clusters the alpha-particle is by far the strongest bound system and therefore expected to play a significant role in the dynamics of nuclei and the phases of nuclear matter. To systematically study the properties of the alpha-particle we have derived an effective four-body equation of the Alt-Grassberger-Sandhas (AGS) type that includes the dominant medium effects, i.e. self energy corrections and Pauli-blocking in a consistent way. The equation is solved utilizing the energy dependent pole expansion for the sub system amplitudes. We find that the Mott transition of an alpha-particle at rest differs from that expected from perturbation theory and occurs at approximately 1/10 of nuclear matter densities.Comment: 9 pages RevTex file, 1 figure, submitted to Phys. Lett.

Membrane Bioreactor and Promising Application for Textile Industry in Vietnam

Abstract A pilot-scale membrane bioreactor (MBR) was developed in order to run two membrane modules in parallel for the treatment of model textile wastewater (MTDW). Two independently operated commercially available ultrafiltration membrane modules called UP150 from Microdyn-Nadir where tested in the same activated sludge tank over a period of 70 days for their removal efficiency of the MTDW. In general the results of both membrane modules are in very good agreement. The water permeability ranged between 20 – 50 L/(m 2 .h.bar). Typically, the chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal efficiency indicated good biodegradation performance above 95%. The nitrification rate depended on the food to microorganism (F/M) ratio i.e. below 0.2 kg COD/(kg MLSS.d) the system showed complete nitrification. However, the color rejection for the model dyes was only around 20% to 60% what can be attributed to the low biodegradability of these chemicals. The next step is to run the MBR with novel nanostructured membranes in parallel with the commercially available membrane to compare their performances. This study contributes to sustainable development in the textile industry by improving water quality of treated textile wastewater what helps to reduce fresh water consumption and pollutant discharge

Electron Spin Injection at a Schottky Contact

We investigate theoretically electrical spin injection at a Schottky contact between a spin-polarized electrode and a non-magnetic semiconductor. Current and electron density spin-polarizations are discussed as functions of barrier energy and semiconductor doping density. The effect of a spin-dependent interface resistance that results from a tunneling region at the contact/semiconductor interface is described. The model can serve as a guide for designing spin-injection experiments with regard to the interface properties and device structure.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Impact of the relatively light fourth family neutrino on the Higgs boson search

The existence of a fourth fermion generation has mostly been considered as a source of enhanced Higgs signals with respect to the 3 family Standard Model predictions. However, a fourth Standard Model family neutrino could cause the opposite situation. It is shown that relatively light fourth family neutrino (2m_(nu_(4))<m_(H)) could drastically change the interpretation of the search results for the Higgs boson, especially if m_(H)<170 GeV.Comment: 5 pages, 9 figure

Short time evolved wave functions for solving quantum many-body problems

The exact ground state of a strongly interacting quantum many-body system can be obtained by evolving a trial state with finite overlap with the ground state to infinite imaginary time. In this work, we use a newly discovered fourth order positive factorization scheme which requires knowing both the potential and its gradients. We show that the resultaing fourth order wave function alone, without further iterations, gives an excellent description of strongly interacting quantum systems such as liquid 4He, comparable to the best variational results in the literature.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl

Vacuum creation of quarks at the time scale of QGP thermalization and strangeness enhancement in heavy-ion collisions

The vacuum parton creation in quickly varying external fields is studied at the time scale of order 1 fm/$c$ typical for the quark-gluon plasma formation and thermalization. To describe the pre-equilibrium evolution of the system the transport kinetic equation is employed. It is shown that the dynamics of production process at times comparable with particle inverse masses can deviate considerably from that based on classical Schwinger-like estimates for homogeneous and constant fields. One of the effects caused by non-stationary chromoelectric fields is the enhancement of the yield of $s\bar{s}$ quark pairs. Dependence of this effect on the shape and duration of the field pulse is studied together with the influence of string fusion and reduction of quark masses.Comment: REVTEX, 11pp. incl. 4 figures, to be published in Phys. Lett.

Quantum linear mutual information and classical correlations in globally pure bipartite systems

We investigate the correlations of initially separable probability distributions in a globally pure bipartite system with two degrees of freedom for classical and quantum systems. A classical version of the quantum linear mutual information is introduced and the two quantities are compared for a system of oscillators coupled with both linear and non-linear interactions. The classical correlations help to understand how much of the quantum loss of purity are due to intrinsic quantum effects and how much is related to the probabilistic character of the initial states, a characteristic shared by both the classical and quantum pictures. Our examples show that, for initially localized Gaussian states, the classical statistical mutual linear entropy follows its quantum counterpart for short times. For non-Gaussian states the behavior of the classical and quantum measures of information are still qualitatively similar, although the fingerprints of the non-classical nature of the initial state can be observed in their different amplitudes of oscillation.Comment: (16 pages, 4 figures