The Amorphous-Crystal Interface in Silicon: a Tight-Binding Simulation

The structural features of the interface between the cystalline and amorphous phases of Si solid are studied in simulations based on a combination of empirical interatomic potentials and a nonorthogonal tight-binding model. The tight-binding Hamiltonian was created and tested for the types of structures and distortions anticipated to occur at this interface. The simulations indicate the presence of a number of interesting features near the interface. The features that may lead to crystallization upon heating include chains with some defects, most prominently dimers similar to those on the Si(001) 2x1 reconstructed free surface. Within the amorphous region order is lost over very short distances. By examining six different samples with two interfaces each, we find the energy of the amorphous-crystal interface to be 0.49 +/- 0.05 J/m^2Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev.

Charged-Current Disappearance Measurements in the NuMI Off-Axis Beam

This article studies the potential of combining charged-current disappearance measurements of \nu_{\mu} to \nu_{\tau} from MINOS and an off-axis beam. I find that the error on \Delta m^2 from a 100 kt-yr off-axis measurement is a few percent of itself. Further, I find little improvement to an off-axis measurement by combining it with MINOS.Comment: Presented at NuFact'02. Four pages, three figure

Commutating brushes tested in dc motors in dry argon atmospheres

Test apparatus, procedures, and results are given for dc-motor brushes operating in dry argon. Minimum concentrations of argon impurities are also determined

Slice Stretching Effects for Maximal Slicing of a Schwarzschild Black Hole

Slice stretching effects such as slice sucking and slice wrapping arise when foliating the extended Schwarzschild spacetime with maximal slices. For arbitrary spatial coordinates these effects can be quantified in the context of boundary conditions where the lapse arises as a linear combination of odd and even lapse. Favorable boundary conditions are then derived which make the overall slice stretching occur late in numerical simulations. Allowing the lapse to become negative, this requirement leads to lapse functions which approach at late times the odd lapse corresponding to the static Schwarzschild metric. Demanding in addition that a numerically favorable lapse remains non-negative, as result the average of odd and even lapse is obtained. At late times the lapse with zero gradient at the puncture arising for the puncture evolution is precisely of this form. Finally, analytic arguments are given on how slice stretching effects can be avoided. Here the excision technique and the working mechanism of the shift function are studied in detail.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figures, revised version including a study on how slice stretching can be avoided by using excision and/or shift

Review of The Historicity of Experience: Modernity, the Avant-Garde, and the Event

Krzysztof Ziarek, The Historicity of Experience: Modernity, the Avant-Garde, and the Event. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2001. 355 pp. ISBN 0810118351

Realizing vector meson dominance with transverse charge densities

The transverse charge density in a fast-moving nucleon is represented as a dispersion integral of the imaginary part of the Dirac form factor in the timelike region (spectral function). At a given transverse distance b the integration effectively extends over energies in a range sqrt{t} ~< 1/b, with exponential suppression of larger values. The transverse charge density at peripheral distances thus acts as a low-pass filter for the spectral function and allows one to select energy regions dominated by specific t-channel states, corresponding to definite exchange mechanisms in the spacelike form factor. We show that distances b ~ 0.5 - 1.5 fm in the isovector density are maximally sensitive to the rho meson region, with only a ~10% contribution from higher-mass states. Soft-pion exchange governed by chiral dynamics becomes relevant only at larger distances. In the isoscalar density higher-mass states beyond the omega are comparatively more important. The dispersion approach suggests that the positive transverse charge density in the neutron at b ~ 1 fm, found previously in a Fourier analysis of spacelike form factor data, could serve as a sensitive test of the the isoscalar strength in the ~1 GeV mass region. In terms of partonic structure, the transverse densities in the vector meson region b ~ 1 fm support an approximate mean-field picture of the motion of valence quarks in the nucleon.Comment: 14 pages, 12 figure