11,358 research outputs found
Effect of controlled corrugation on capillary condensation of colloid-polymer mixtures
We investigate with Monte Carlo computer simulations the capillary phase
behaviour of model colloid-polymer mixtures confined between a flat wall and a
corrugated wall. The corrugation is modelled via a sine wave as a function of
one of the in-plane coordinates leading to a depletion attraction between
colloids and the corrugated wall that is curvature dependent. We find that for
increased amplitude of corrugation the region of the phase diagram where
capillary condensation occurs becomes larger. We derive a Kelvin equation for
this system and compare its predictions to the simulation results. We find good
agreement between theory and simulation indicating that the primary reason for
the stronger capillary condensation is an increased contact area between the
fluid and the corrugated substrate. On the other hand, the colloid adsorption
curves at colloid gas-liquid coexistence show that the increased area is not
solely responsible for the stronger capillary condensation. Additionally, we
analyse the dimensional crossover from a quasi-2D to a quasi-1D system and find
that the transition is characterised by the appearance of a metastable phase.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure
An Experimental Investigation of Alternatives to Expected Utility Using Pricing Data
Experimental research on decision making under risk has until now always employed choice data in order to evaluate the empirical performance of expected utility and the alternative non-expected utility theories. The present paper performs a similar analysis which relies on pricing data instead of choice data. Since pricing data lead in many cases to a different ordering of lotteries than choices (e.g. the preference reversal phenomenon) our analysis may have fundamental different results than preceding investigations. We elicit three different types of pricing data: willingness-to-pay, willingness-to-accept and certainty equivalents under the Becker-DeGroot-Marschak (BDM) incentive mechanism. One of our main result shows that the comparative performance of the single theories differs significantly under these three types of pricing data.experiments
Short-wavelength absorbing complexes of Chlorophyll a in micellar solution of cationic detergents
Alas, the dark matter structures were not that trivial
The radial density profile of dark matter structures has been observed to
have an almost universal behaviour in numerical simulations, however, the
physical reason for this behaviour remains unclear. It has previously been
shown that if the pseudo phase-space density, rho/sigma_d^epsilon, is a
beautifully simple power-law in radius, with the "golden values" epsilon=3 and
d=r (i.e., the phase-space density is only dependent on the radial component of
the velocity dispersion), then one can analytically derive the radial variation
of the mass profile, dispersion profile etc. That would imply, if correct, that
we just have to explain why rho/sigma^3_r ~r^{-alpha}, and then we would
understand everything about equilibrated DM structures. Here we use a set of
simulated galaxies and clusters of galaxies to demonstrate that there are no
such golden values, but that each structure instead has its own set of values.
Considering the same structure at different redshifts shows no evolution of the
phase-space parameters towards fixed points. There is also no clear connection
between the halo virialized mass and these parameters. This implies that we
still do not understand the origin of the profiles of dark matter structures.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ
Noise and Bias in Eliciting Preferences
In the context of eliciting preferences for decision making under risk, we ask the question: "which might be the 'best' method for eliciting such preferences?". It is well known that different methods differ in terms of the bias in the elicitation; it is rather less well-known that different methods differ in terms of their noisiness. The optimal trade-off depends upon the relative magnitutdes of these two effects. We examine four different elicitation mechanisms (pairwise choice, willingness-to-pay, willingness-to-accept, and certainty equivalents) and estimate both effect. Our results suggest that economists might be better advised to use what appears to be a relatively inefficient elicitation technique (i.e. pairwise choice) in order to avoid trhe bias in better-known and more widely-used techniques.Pairwise choice, willingness-to-pay, willingness-to-accept, errors, noise, biases
The fundamental role of the retarded potential in the electrodynamics of superluminal sources
We calculate the gradient of the radiation field generated by a polarization
current with a superluminally rotating distribution pattern and show that the
absolute value of this gradient increases as R^(7/2) with distance R within the
sharply focused subbeams constituting the overall radiation beam. This result
not only supports the earlier finding that the azimuthal and polar widths of
these subbeams narrow with distance (as R^(-3) and R^(-1), respectively), but
also implies that the boundary contribution to the solution of the wave
equation governing the radiation field does not always vanish in the limit
where the boundary tends to infinity. There is a fundamental difference between
the classical expressions for the retarded potential and field: while the
boundary contribution for the potential can always be made zero via a gauge
transformation preserving the Lorenz condition, that for the field may be
neglected only if it diminishes with distance faster than the contribution of
the source density in the far zone. In the case of a rotating superluminal
source, however, the boundary term in the retarded solution for the field is by
a factor of order R^(1/2) larger than the source term of this solution in the
limit, which explains why an argument based on the solution of the wave
equation governing the field that neglects the boundary term (such as that
presented by J. H. Hannay) misses the nonspherical decay of the field. Given
that the distribution of the radiation field of an accelerated superluminal
source in the far zone is not known a priori, the only way to calculate the
free-space radiation field of such sources is via the retarded solution for the
potential. Finally, we apply these findings to pulsar observational data: the
more distant a pulsar, the narrower and brighter its giant pulses should be
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