167 research outputs found
Phase Transitions in Isolated Vortex Chains
In very anisotropic layered superconductors (e.g. BiSrCaCuO)
a tilted magnetic field can penetrate as two co-existing lattices of vortices
parallel and perpendicular to the layers. At low out-of-plane fields the
perpendicular vortices form a set of isolated vortex chains, which have
recently been observed in detail with scanning Hall-probe measurements. We
present calculations that show a very delicate stability of this isolated-chain
state. As the vortex density increases along the chain there is a first-order
transition to a buckled chain, and then the chain will expel vortices in a
continuous transition to a composite-chain state. At low densities there is an
instability towards clustering, due to a long-range attraction between the
vortices on the chain, and at very low densities it becomes energetically
favorable to form a tilted chain, which may explain the sudden disappearance of
vortices along the chains seen in recent experiments.Comment: 9 pages, 10 figure
Ball on a beam: stabilization under saturated input control with large basin of attraction
This article is devoted to the stabilization of two underactuated planar
systems, the well-known straight beam-and-ball system and an original circular
beam-and-ball system. The feedback control for each system is designed, using
the Jordan form of its model, linearized near the unstable equilibrium. The
limits on the voltage, fed to the motor, are taken into account explicitly. The
straight beam-and-ball system has one unstable mode in the motion near the
equilibrium point. The proposed control law ensures that the basin of
attraction coincides with the controllability domain. The circular
beam-and-ball system has two unstable modes near the equilibrium point.
Therefore, this device, never considered in the past, is much more difficult to
control than the straight beam-and-ball system. The main contribution is to
propose a simple new control law, which ensures by adjusting its gain
parameters that the basin of attraction arbitrarily can approach the
controllability domain for the linear case. For both nonlinear systems,
simulation results are presented to illustrate the efficiency of the designed
nonlinear control laws and to determine the basin of attraction
Instabilities in the Flux Line Lattice of Anisotropic Superconductors
The stability of the flux line lattice has been investigated within
anisotropic London theory. This is the first full-scale investigation of
instabilities in the `chain' state. It has been found that the lattice is
stable at large fields, but that instabilities occur as the field is reduced.
The field at which these instabilities first arise, ,
depends on the anisotropy and the angle at which the
lattice is tilted away from the -axis. These instabilities initially occur
at wavevector , and the component of along the
average direction of the flux lines, , is always finite. As the
instability occurs at finite the dependence of the cutoff on is
important, and we have used a cutoff suggested by Sudb\ospace and Brandt. The
instabilities only occur for values of the anisotropy appropriate to
a material like BSCCO, and not for anisotropies more appropriate to YBCO. The
lower critical field is calculated as a function of the angle
at which the applied field is tilted away from the crystal axis. The
presence of kinks in is seen to be related to instabilities in
the equilibrium flux line structure.Comment: Extensively revised paper, with modified analysis of elastic
instabilities. Calculation of the lower critical field is included, and the
presence of kinks in is seen to be related to the elastic
instabilities. 29 pages including 16 figures, LaTeX with epsf styl
Correlation of Beam Electron and LED Signal Losses under Irradiation and Long-term Recovery of Lead Tungstate Crystals
Radiation damage in lead tungstate crystals reduces their transparency. The
calibration that relates the amount of light detected in such crystals to
incident energy of photons or electrons is of paramount importance to
maintaining the energy resolution the detection system. We report on tests of
lead tungstate crystals, read out by photomultiplier tubes, exposed to
irradiation by monoenergetic electron or pion beams. The beam electrons
themselves were used to measure the scintillation light output, and a blue
light emitting diode (LED) was used to track variations of crystals
transparency. We report on the correlation of the LED measurement with
radiation damage by the beams and also show that it can accurately monitor the
crystals recovery from such damage.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, LaTeX2
LED Monitoring System for the BTeV Lead Tungstate Crystal Calorimeter Prototype
We report on the performance of a monitoring system for a prototype
calorimeter for the BTeV experiment that uses Lead Tungstate crystals coupled
with photomultiplier tubes. The tests were carried out at the 70 GeV
accelerator complex at Protvino, Russia.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures, LaTeX2e, revised versio
Comparison of Radiation Damage in Lead Tungstate Crystals under Pion and Gamma Irradiation
Studies of the radiation hardness of lead tungstate crystals produced by the
Bogoroditsk Techno-Chemical Plant in Russia and the Shanghai Institute of
Ceramics in China have been carried out at IHEP, Protvino. The crystals were
irradiated by a 40-GeV pion beam. After full recovery, the same crystals were
irradiated using a -ray source. The dose rate profiles along
the crystal length were observed to be quite similar. We compare the effects of
the two types of radiation on the crystals light output.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, Latex 2e, 28.04.04 - minor grammatical change
Design and performance of LED calibration system prototype for the lead tungstate crystal calorimeter
A highly stable monitoring system based on blue and red light emitting diodes
coupled to a distribution network comprised of optical fibers has been
developed for an electromagnetic calorimeter that uses lead tungstate crystals
readout with photomultiplier tubes. We report of the system prototype design
and on the results of laboratory tests. Stability better than 0.1% (r.m.s.) has
been achieved during one week of prototype operation.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, LaTeX2
Josephson vortices and solitons inside pancake vortex lattice in layered superconductors
In very anisotropic layered superconductors a tilted magnetic field generates
crossing vortex lattices of pancake and Josephson vortices (JVs). We study the
properties of an isolated JV in the lattice of pancake vortices. JV induces
deformations in the pancake vortex crystal, which, in turn, substantially
modify the JV structure. The phase field of the JV is composed of two types of
phase deformations: the regular phase and vortex phase. The phase deformations
with smaller stiffness dominate. The contribution from the vortex phase
smoothly takes over with increasing magnetic field. We find that the structure
of the cores experiences a smooth yet qualitative evolution with decrease of
the anisotropy. At large anisotropies pancakes have only small deformations
with respect to position of the ideal crystal while at smaller anisotropies the
pancake stacks in the central row smoothly transfer between the neighboring
lattice positions forming a solitonlike structure. We also find that even at
high anisotropies pancake vortices strongly pin JVs and strongly increase their
viscous friction.Comment: 22 pages, 11 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.
Study of Radiation Damage in Lead Tungstate Crystals Using Intense High Energy Beams
We report on the effects of radiation on the light output of lead tungstate
crystals. The crystals were irradiated by pure, intense high energy electron
and hadron beams as well as by a mixture of hadrons, neutrons and gammas. The
crystals were manufactured in Bogoroditsk, Apatity (both Russia), and Shanghai
(China). These studies were carried out at the 70-GeV proton accelerator in
Protvino
Flux noise in high-temperature superconductors
Spontaneously created vortex-antivortex pairs are the predominant source of
flux noise in high-temperature superconductors. In principle, flux noise
measurements allow to check theoretical predictions for both the distribution
of vortex-pair sizes and for the vortex diffusivity. In this paper the
flux-noise power spectrum is calculated for the highly anisotropic
high-temperature superconductor Bi-2212, both for bulk crystals and for
ultra-thin films. The spectrum is basically given by the Fourier transform of
the temporal magnetic-field correlation function. We start from a
Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless type theory and incorporate vortex diffusion,
intra-pair vortex interaction, and annihilation of pairs by means of a
Fokker-Planck equation to determine the noise spectrum below and above the
superconducting transition temperature. We find white noise at low frequencies
omega and a spectrum proportional to 1/omega^(3/2) at high frequencies. The
cross-over frequency between these regimes strongly depends on temperature. The
results are compared with earlier results of computer simulations.Comment: 9 pages, 4 PostScript figures, to be published in Phys. Rev.
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