Resonantly inverted microwave transmissivity threshold of metal grids

Open Access journal© Crown copyright 2009. This work is part funded by the Ministry of Defence and is published with the permission of the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory on behalf of the Controller of HMSO.The microwave transmission of arrays of square patches, each rotated by 45 from the axes of the square lattice on which they are positioned, has been experimentally studied as a function of metal occupancy. At low frequencies, the microwave transmissivity drops on passing through the connectivity threshold (50 per cent occupancy), as one would expect. However, quite counter-intuitively, near the onset of diffraction, resonant phenomena induce a complete reversal in the sense of this transmissivity switch, i.e. the transmission is seen to increase as the metal occupancy is increased.DstlEngineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC

On Modular Homology in the Boolean Algebra, III

AbstractLet F be a field of characteristic p, and if Ω is an n-set let Mn be the vector space over F with basis 2Ω. We continue our investigation of modular homological Sn-representations which arise from the r-step inclusion map. This is the FSn-homomorphism ∂r:Mn→Mn which sends a k-element subset Δ⊆Ω onto the sum of all (k−r)-element subsets of Δ. Using homological methods one can give explicit character and dimension formulae

Resonantly overcoming metal opacity

Copyright © 2013 American Institute of PhysicsThe near-perfect response of electrons in metals to low-frequency electromagnetic fields makes even a sub-skin-depth film almost completely opaque to microwave radiation. Here, it is experimentally demonstrated that by surrounding a ∼60 nm aluminium film with an array of thin resonant cavities, over 35% of the microwave radiation incident can be transmitted over a discrete set of narrow bands. This represents an enhancement of ∼1000 times over an isolated film and allows for a frequency selective screen with a thickness less than 1/70th of the operating wavelength that may be tuned through choice of resonant geometr

Balanced dual-segment cylindrical dielectric resonator antennas for ultra-wideband applications.

yesIn this paper, balanced dual segment cylindrical dielectric antennas (CDRA) with ultra wide-band operation are reported. First a T-shaped slot and L-shaped microstrip feeding line are suggested to furnish a balanced coupling mechanism for feeding two DRAs. Performance of the proposed antenna was analyzed and optimized against the target frequency band. The proposed antenna was then modified by adding a C-shaped strip to increase the gain. The performances of both balanced antennas were characterized and optimized in terms of antenna reflection coefficient, radiation pattern, and gain. The antennas cover the frequency range from 6.4 GHz to 11.736 GHz, which is 58.7% bandwidth. A maximum gain of 2.66 dB was achieved at a frequency of 7 GHz with the first antenna, with a further 2.25 dB increase in maximum gain attained by adding the C-shaped strip. For validation, prototypes of the two antennas were fabricated and tested. The predicted and measured results showed reasonable agreement and the results confirmed good impedance bandwidth characteristics for ultra-wideband operation from both proposed balanced antennas

Volumetric texture description and discriminant feature selection for MRI

This paper considers the problem of classification of Magnetic Resonance Images using 2D and 3D texture measures. Joint statistics such as co-occurrence matrices are common for analysing texture in 2D since they are simple and effective to implement. However, the computational complexity can be prohibitive especially in 3D. In this work, we develop a texture classification strategy by a sub-band filtering technique that can be extended to 3D. We further propose a feature selection technique based on the Bhattacharyya distance measure that reduces the number of features required for the classification by selecting a set of discriminant features conditioned on a set training texture samples. We describe and illustrate the methodology by quantitatively analysing a series of images: 2D synthetic phantom, 2D natural textures, and MRI of human knees

Simulation of the Magnetothermal Instability

In many magnetized, dilute astrophysical plasmas, thermal conduction occurs almost exclusively parallel to magnetic field lines. In this case, the usual stability criterion for convective stability, the Schwarzschild criterion, which depends on entropy gradients, is modified. In the magnetized long mean free path regime, instability occurs for small wavenumbers when (dP/dz)(dln T/dz) > 0, which we refer to as the Balbus criterion. We refer to the convective-type instability that results as the magnetothermal instability (MTI). We use the equations of MHD with anisotropic electron heat conduction to numerically simulate the linear growth and nonlinear saturation of the MTI in plane-parallel atmospheres that are unstable according to the Balbus criterion. The linear growth rates measured from the simulations are in excellent agreement with the weak field dispersion relation. The addition of isotropic conduction, e.g. radiation, or strong magnetic fields can damp the growth of the MTI and affect the nonlinear regime. The instability saturates when the atmosphere becomes isothermal as the source of free energy is exhausted. By maintaining a fixed temperature difference between the top and bottom boundaries of the simulation domain, sustained convective turbulence can be driven. MTI-stable layers introduced by isotropic conduction are used to prevent the formation of unresolved, thermal boundary layers. We find that the largest component of the time-averaged heat flux is due to advective motions as opposed to the actual thermal conduction itself. Finally, we explore the implications of this instability for a variety of astrophysical systems, such as neutron stars, the hot intracluster medium of galaxy clusters, and the structure of radiatively inefficient accretion flows.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astrophysics and Space Science as proceedings of the 6th High Energy Density Laboratory Astrophysics (HEDLA) Conferenc

Correlation analysis of field-aligned currents measured by Swarm

The orientation of field-aligned current sheets (FACs) can be inferred from dual-spacecraft correlations of the FAC signatures between two Swarm spacecraft (A and C), using the maximum correlations obtained from sliding data segments. Statistical analysis of both the correlations and the inferred orientations shows clear trends in magnetic local time (MLT) which reveal behaviour of both large and small scale currents. The maximum correlation coefficients show distinct behaviour in terms of either the time shift, or the shift in longitude between Swarm A and C for various filtering levels. The low-latitude FACs show the strongest correlations for a broad range of MLT centred on dawn and dusk, with a higher correlation coefficient on the dusk-side and lower correlations near noon and midnight. The current sheet orientations are shown to broadly follow the mean shape of the auroral boundary for the lower latitudes corresponding to Region 2 FACs and that these are most well-ordered on the dusk side. Together with these correlation trends, individual events have also been sampled by higher altitude spacecraft in conjunction with Swarm (mapping both to region 1 and 2), showing that two different domains of FACs are apparent: small-scale (some tens of km) which are time variable and large-scale (>100 km) which are rather stationary. We investigate further how these FAC regimes are dependent on geomagnetic activity, focusing on high activity events. The trends found here for different activities are compared to effects seen in the ground magnetometer signals (dH/dt)

Inflation, cold dark matter, and the central density problem

A problem with high central densities in dark halos has arisen in the context of LCDM cosmologies with scale-invariant initial power spectra. Although n=1 is often justified by appealing to the inflation scenario, inflationary models with mild deviations from scale-invariance are not uncommon and models with significant running of the spectral index are plausible. Even mild deviations from scale-invariance can be important because halo collapse times and densities depend on the relative amount of small-scale power. We choose several popular models of inflation and work out the ramifications for galaxy central densities. For each model, we calculate its COBE-normalized power spectrum and deduce the implied halo densities using a semi-analytic method calibrated against N-body simulations. We compare our predictions to a sample of dark matter-dominated galaxies using a non-parametric measure of the density. While standard n=1, LCDM halos are overdense by a factor of 6, several of our example inflation+CDM models predict halo densities well within the range preferred by observations. We also show how the presence of massive (0.5 eV) neutrinos may help to alleviate the central density problem even with n=1. We conclude that galaxy central densities may not be as problematic for the CDM paradigm as is sometimes assumed: rather than telling us something about the nature of the dark matter, galaxy rotation curves may be telling us something about inflation and/or neutrinos. An important test of this idea will be an eventual consensus on the value of sigma_8, the rms overdensity on the scale 8 h^-1 Mpc. Our successful models have values of sigma_8 approximately 0.75, which is within the range of recent determinations. Finally, models with n>1 (or sigma_8 > 1) are highly disfavored.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures. Minor changes made to reflect referee's Comments, error in Eq. (18) corrected, references updated and corrected, conclusions unchanged. Version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. D, scheduled for 15 August 200

Search for Higgs Bosons in e+e- Collisions at 183 GeV

The data collected by the OPAL experiment at sqrts=183 GeV were used to search for Higgs bosons which are predicted by the Standard Model and various extensions, such as general models with two Higgs field doublets and the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM). The data correspond to an integrated luminosity of approximately 54pb-1. None of the searches for neutral and charged Higgs bosons have revealed an excess of events beyond the expected background. This negative outcome, in combination with similar results from searches at lower energies, leads to new limits for the Higgs boson masses and other model parameters. In particular, the 95% confidence level lower limit for the mass of the Standard Model Higgs boson is 88.3 GeV. Charged Higgs bosons can be excluded for masses up to 59.5 GeV. In the MSSM, mh > 70.5 GeV and mA > 72.0 GeV are obtained for tan{beta}>1, no and maximal scalar top mixing and soft SUSY-breaking masses of 1 TeV. The range 0.8 < tanb < 1.9 is excluded for minimal scalar top mixing and m{top} < 175 GeV. More general scans of the MSSM parameter space are also considered.Comment: 49 pages. LaTeX, including 33 eps figures, submitted to European Physical Journal

A Measurement of the Product Branching Ratio f(b->Lambda_b).BR(Lambda_b->Lambda X) in Z0 Decays

The product branching ratio, f(b->Lambda_b).BR(Lambda_b->Lambda X), where Lambda_b denotes any weakly-decaying b-baryon, has been measured using the OPAL detector at LEP. Lambda_b are selected by the presence of energetic Lambda particles in bottom events tagged by the presence of displaced secondary vertices. A fit to the momenta of the Lambda particles separates signal from B meson and fragmentation backgrounds. The measured product branching ratio is f(b->Lambda_b).BR(Lambda_b->Lambda X) = (2.67+-0.38(stat)+0.67-0.60(sys))% Combined with a previous OPAL measurement, one obtains f(b->Lambda_b).BR(Lambda_b->Lambda X) = (3.50+-0.32(stat)+-0.35(sys))%.Comment: 16 pages, LaTeX, 3 eps figs included, submitted to the European Physical Journal