Study of Scalar Mesons and Related Radiative Decays

After a brief review of the puzzling light scalar meson sector of QCD, a brief summary will be given of a paper concerning radiative decays involving the light scalars. There, a simple vector meson dominance model is constructed in an initial attempt to relate a large number of the radiative decays involving a putative scalar nonet to each other. As an application it is illustrated why $a_0(980)-f_0(980)$ mixing is not expected to greatly alter the $f_0/a_0$ production ratio for radiative $\phi$ decays.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures, Talk presented at SUNYIT (Utica/NY) conference on High Energy Physics, June 6, 200

Development of material specifications and qualifications of polymeric materials for the jpl spacecraft materials guidebook. 1- epoxide adhesives special report no. 1

Outgassing characteristics of nine epoxide adhesives, and thermal vacuum performance for adhesives teste

Development of material specifications and qualifications of polymeric materials for the jpl spacecraft materials guidebook. ii- rtv silicone adhesives and potting compounds special report no. 2

Silicone rubber adhesives and potting compounds - polymeric materials for spacecraf

Development of material specifications and qualifications of polymeric materials for the jpl spacecraft materials guide book. iii- polyfluorocarbon films special report no. 3

Outgassing studies of polyfluorocarbon films - investigation of polymers as spacecraft construction material

Possible Observational Criteria for Distinguishing Brown Dwarfs from Planets

The difference in formation process between binary stars and planetary systems is reflected in their composition as well as their orbital architecture, particularly orbital eccentricity as a function of orbital period. It is suggested here that this difference can be used as an observational criterion to distinguish between brown dwarfs and planets. Application of the orbital criterion suggests that with three possible exceptions, all of the recently-discovered substellar companions discovered to date may be brown dwarfs and not planets. These criterion may be used as a guide for interpretation of the nature of sub-stellar mass companions to stars in the future.Comment: LaTeX, 11 pages including 2 figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Letter

Use of cohesive elements in fatigue analysis

Cohesive laws describe the resistance to incipient separation of material surfaces. A cohesive finite element is formulated on the basis of a particular cohesive law. Cohesive elements are placed at the boundary between adjacent standard volume finite elements to model fatigue damage that leads to fracture at the separation of the element boundaries per the cohesive law. In this work, a cohesive model for fatigue crack initiation is taken to be the irreversible loadingunloading hysteresis that represents fatigue damage occuring due to cyclic loads leading to the initiation of small cracks. Various cohesive laws are reviewed and one is selected that incorporates a hysteretic cyclic loading that accounts for energetic dissipative mechanisms. A mathematical representation is developed based on an exponential effective load-separation cohesive relationship. A three-dimensional cohesive element is defined using this compliance relationship integrated at four points on the mid-surface of the area element. Implementation into finite element software is discussed and particular attention is applied to numerical convergence issues as the inflection point between loading and 'unloading in the cohesive law is encountered. A simple example of a displacementcontrolled fatigue test is presented in a finite element simulation. Comments are made on applications of the method to prediction of fatigue life for engineering structures such as pressure vessels and piping

Complementary Ansatz for the neutrino mass matrix

We propose a simple Ansatz for the three generation neutrino mass matrix $M_\nu$ which is motivated from an SO(10) grand unified theory. The Ansatz can be combined with information from neutrino oscillation experiments and bounds on neutrinoless double beta decay to determine the neutrino masses themselves and to reconstruct, with some assumptions, the matrix $M_\nu$ .Comment: 15 pages, RevteX, submitted to Phys. Rev.

The Scalar Sector and the Eta -> 3 Pi Problem

First, recent work on light scalar mesons, which is of possible interest in connection with the strong coupling region of QCD is briefly discussed. Then a very short highlighting of a paper concerned with an application to the eta -> 3 pi problem is presented.Comment: 7 pages LaTeX, 4 eps figures, talk at SCGT02 conference at Nagoy

A benign, low Z electron capture agent for negative ion TPCs

We have identified nitromethane (CH$_3$NO$_2$) as an effective electron capture agent for negative ion TPCs (NITPCs). We present drift velocity and longitudinal diffusion measurements for negative ion gas mixtures using nitromethane as the capture agent. Not only is nitromethane substantially more benign than the only other identified capture agent, CS$_2$, but its low atomic number will enable the use of the NITPC as a photoelectric X{}-ray polarimeter in the 1{}-10 keV band