Adiabatic connection at negative coupling strengths

The adiabatic connection of density functional theory (DFT) for electronic systems is generalized here to negative values of the coupling strength $\alpha$ (with {\em attractive} electrons). In the extreme limit $\alpha\to-\infty$ a simple physical solution is presented and its implications for DFT (as well as its limitations) are discussed. For two-electron systems (a case in which the present solution can be calculated exactly), we find that an interpolation between the limit $\alpha\to-\infty$ and the opposite limit of infinitely strong repulsion ($\alpha\to+\infty$) yields a rather accurate estimate of the second-order correlation energy E\cor\glt[\rho] for several different densities $\rho$, without using virtual orbitals. The same procedure is also applied to the Be isoelectronic series, analyzing the effects of near-degeneracy.Comment: 9 pages, submitted to PR

On Functionality of Visibly Pushdown Transducers

Visibly pushdown transducers form a subclass of pushdown transducers that (strictly) extends finite state transducers with a stack. Like visibly pushdown automata, the input symbols determine the stack operations. In this paper, we prove that functionality is decidable in PSpace for visibly pushdown transducers. The proof is done via a pumping argument: if a word with two outputs has a sufficiently large nesting depth, there exists a nested word with two outputs whose nesting depth is strictly smaller. The proof uses technics of word combinatorics. As a consequence of decidability of functionality, we also show that equivalence of functional visibly pushdown transducers is Exptime-Complete.Comment: 20 page

Optimal language policy for the preservation of a minority language

We develop a dynamic language competition model with dynamic state intervention. Parents choose the language(s) to raise their children based on the communicational value of each language as well as on their emotional attachment to the languages at hand. Languages are thus conceptualized as tools for communication as well as carriers of cultural identity. The model includes a high and a low status language, and children can be brought up as monolinguals or bilinguals. Through investment into language policies, the status of the minority language can be increased. The aim of the intervention is to preserve the minority language in a bilingual subpopulation at low costs. We investigate the dynamic structure of the optimally controlled system as well as the optimal policy, identify stable equilibria and provide numerical case studies

Absolute calibration of GafChromic film for very high flux laser driven ion beams.

We report on the calibration of GafChromic HD-v2 radiochromic film in the extremely high dose regime up to 100 kGy together with very high dose rates up to 7 × 1011 Gy/s. The absolute calibration was done with nanosecond ion bunches at the Neutralized Drift Compression Experiment II particle accelerator at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and covers a broad dose dynamic range over three orders of magnitude. We then applied the resulting calibration curve to calibrate a laser driven ion experiment performed on the BELLA petawatt laser facility at LBNL. Here, we reconstructed the spatial and energy resolved distributions of the laser-accelerated proton beams. The resulting proton distribution is in fair agreement with the spectrum that was measured with a Thomson spectrometer in combination with a microchannel plate detector

Mass spectrometric comparison of swift heavy ion-induced and anaerobic thermal degradation of polymers

The study of polymers irradiated by highly energetic ions and the resulting radiation-induced degradation is of major importance for space and particle accelerator applications. The mechanism of ion-induced molecular fragmentation of polyethylene, polyethyleneimine and polyamide was investigated by means of mass spectrometry and infrared spectroscopy. The results show that the introduction of nitrogen and oxygen into the polymer influences the stability rendering aliphatic polymers with heteroatoms less stable. A comparison to thermal decomposition data from literature reveals that ion-induced degradation is different in its bond fracture mechanism. While thermal degradation starts at the weakest bond, which is usually the carbon-heteroatom bond, energetic ion irradiation leads in the first step to scission of all types of bonds creating smaller molecular fragments. This is due to the localized extreme energy input under non-equilibrium conditions when the ions transfer kinetic energy onto electrons. These findings are of relevance for the choice of polymers for long-term application in both space and accelerator facilities.We would like to thank the GSI for financial support and the material research group at GSI for given advice

Modelling ricochet of a cylinder on water using ALE and SPH methods

The ricochet means the rebound off a surface and is a very important scenario in engineering applications. The specific case of an impact of a solid steel body on a water surface has been chosen for the ricochet example. This solid body hits the water surface with a certain velocity and angle and their dependency on the ricochet behaviour is of interest. This impact scenario can be further developed for more complex impact scenarios, like the ditching of aeroplanes, and has been extensively studied in the past. Due to that fact, it was decided to compare the two numerical analyses with each other; SPH in the internal developed code MCM at Cranfield University with the ALE method in the commercial programme LS-Dyna. The early state of the development was the reason that a 2D model was developed in the 3D solver and therefore verification with another method crucial. Therefore the two simulations were set up and the ricochet behaviour investigated. In contrast to the experimental results, these results demonstrate that independent of the numerical method, both models show an unexpected overproduction of ricochet at higher impact velocities, but agree in their over prediction. The benefits arising out of the collaborative approach of SPH and ALE to describe a problem are presented