883 research outputs found
Electron backscattering diffraction analysis of a reconstructed wootz damascus steel blade
The historical impact and subsequent fame of wootz weaponry in the ancient world has created interest in what has come to be seen as an advanced material even by modern standards. Ancient wootz artifacts are classed as high carbon (hypereutectoid) crucible steels and are characterised by high strength, hardness and wear resistance, but especially by their attractive surface pattern.<br /
Quark Condensate in the Deuteron
We study the changes produced by the deuteron on the QCD quark condensate by
means the Feynman-Hellmann theorem and find that the pion mass dependence of
the pion-nucleon coupling could play an important role. We also discuss the
relation between the many body effect of the condensate and the meson exchange
currents, as seen by photons and pions. For pion probes, the many-body term in
the physical amplitude differs significantly from that of soft pions, the one
linked to the condensate. Thus no information about the many-body term of the
condensate can be extracted from the pion-deuteron scattering length. On the
other hand, in the Compton amplitude, the relationship with the condensate is a
more direct one.Comment: to appear in Physics Review C (19 pages, 3 figures
Robust unravelings for resonance fluorescence
Monitoring the fluorescent radiation of an atom unravels the master equation
evolution by collapsing the atomic state into a pure state which evolves
stochastically. A robust unraveling is one that gives pure states that, on
average, are relatively unaffected by the master equation evolution (which
applies once the monitoring ceases). The ensemble of pure states arising from
the maximally robust unraveling has been suggested to be the most natural way
of representing the system [H.M. Wiseman and J.A. Vaccaro, Phys. Lett. A {\bf
250}, 241 (1998)]. We find that the maximally robust unraveling of a resonantly
driven atom requires an adaptive interferometric measurement proposed by
Wiseman and Toombes [Phys. Rev. A {\bf 60}, 2474 (1999)]. The resultant
ensemble consists of just two pure states which, in the high driving limit, are
close to the eigenstates of the driving Hamiltonian . This
ensemble is the closest thing to a classical limit for a strongly driven atom.
We also find that it is possible to reasonably approximate this ensemble using
just homodyne detection, an example of a continuous Markovian unraveling. This
has implications for other systems, for which it may be necessary in practice
to consider only continuous Markovian unravelings.Comment: 12 pages including 5 .eps figures, plus one .jpg figur
Atom Lasers, Coherent States, and Coherence:II. Maximally Robust Ensembles of Pure States
As discussed in Wiseman and Vaccaro [quant-ph/9906125], the stationary state
of an optical or atom laser far above threshold is a mixture of coherent field
states with random phase, or, equivalently, a Poissonian mixture of number
states. We are interested in which, if either, of these descriptions of
, is more natural. In the preceding paper we concentrated upon
whether descriptions such as these are physically realizable (PR). In this
paper we investigate another relevant aspect of these ensembles, their
robustness. A robust ensemble is one for which the pure states that comprise it
survive relatively unchanged for a long time under the system evolution. We
determine numerically the most robust ensembles as a function of the parameters
in the laser model: the self-energy of the bosons in the laser mode, and
the excess phase noise . We find that these most robust ensembles are PR
ensembles, or similar to PR ensembles, for all values of these parameters. In
the ideal laser limit (), the most robust states are coherent
states. As the phase noise or phase dispersion is increased, the
most robust states become increasingly amplitude-squeezed. We find scaling laws
for these states. As the phase diffusion or dispersion becomes so large that
the laser output is no longer quantum coherent, the most robust states become
so squeezed that they cease to have a well-defined coherent amplitude. That is,
the quantum coherence of the laser output is manifest in the most robust PR
states having a well-defined coherent amplitude. This lends support to the idea
that robust PR ensembles are the most natural description of the state of the
laser mode. It also has interesting implications for atom lasers in particular,
for which phase dispersion due to self-interactions is expected to be large.Comment: 16 pages, 9 figures included. To be published in Phys. Rev. A, as
Part II of a two-part paper. The original version of quant-ph/9906125 is
shortly to be replaced by a new version which is Part I of the two-part
paper. This paper (Part II) also contains some material from the original
version of quant-ph/990612
A Taylor Model Based Description of the proof stress of magnesium AZ31 during hot working
A series of hot-compression tests and Taylor-model simulations were carried out with the intention of developing a simple expression for the proof stress of magnesium alloy AZ31 during hot working. A crude approximation of wrought textures as a mixture of a single ideal texture component and a random background was employed. The shears carried by each deformation system were calculated using a full-constraint Taylor model for a selection of ideal orientations as well as for random textures. These shears, in combination with the measured proof stresses, were employed to estimate the critical resolved shear stresses for basal slip, prismatic slip, ⟨c+a⟩ second-order pyramidal slip, and { } twinning. The model thus established provides a semianalytical estimation of the proof stress (a one-off Taylor simulation is required) and also indicates whether or not twinning is expected. The approach is valid for temperatures between ∼150 °C and ∼450 °C, depending on the texture, strain rate, and strain path
Evolution of Microstructure and Texture during Warm Rolling Of a Duplex Steel
The effect of warm rolling on the evolution of microstructure and texture in a duplex stainless steel (DSS) was investigated. For this purpose, a DSS steel was warm rolled up to 90 pct reduction in thickness at 498 K, 698 K, and 898 K (225 °C, 425 °C, and 625 °C). The microstructure with an alternate arrangement of deformed ferrite and austenite bands was observed after warm rolling; however, the microstructure after 90 pct warm rolling at 498 K and 898 K (225 °C and 625 °C) was more lamellar and uniform as compared to the rather fragmented and inhomogeneous structure observed after 90 pct warm rolling at 698 K (425 °C). The texture of ferrite in warm-rolled DSS was characterized by the presence of the RD (〈011〉//RD) and ND (〈111〉//ND) fibers. However, the texture of ferrite in DSS warm rolled at 698 K (425 °C) was distinctly different having much higher fraction of the RD-fiber components than that of the ND-fiber components. The texture and microstructural differences in ferrite in DSS warm rolled at different temperatures could be explained by the interaction of carbon atoms with dislocations. In contrast, the austenite in DSS warm rolled at different temperatures consistently showed pure metal- or copper-type deformation texture which was attributed to the increase in stacking fault energy at the warm-rolling temperatures. It was concluded that the evolution of microstructure and texture of the two constituent phases in DSS was greatly affected by the temperature of warm rolling, but not significantly by the presence of the other phas
Testing Broken U(1) Symmetry in a Two-Component Atomic Bose-Einstein Condensate
We present a scheme for determining if the quantum state of a small trapped
Bose-Einstein condensate is a state with well defined number of atoms, a Fock
state, or a state with a broken U(1) gauge symmetry, a coherent state. The
proposal is based on the observation of Ramsey fringes. The population
difference observed in a Ramsey fringe experiment will exhibit collapse and
revivals due to the mean-field interactions. The collapse and revival times
depend on the relative strength of the mean-field interactions for the two
components and the initial quantum state of the condensate.Comment: 20 Pages RevTex, 3 Figure
Zanamivir susceptibility monitoring and characterization of influenza virus clinical isolates obtained during phase II clinical efficacy studies
Zanamivir is a highly selective neuraminidase (NA) inhibitor with
demonstrated clinical efficacy against influenza A and B virus infections.
In phase II clinical efficacy trials (NAIB2005 and NAIB2008), virological
substudies showed mean reductions in virus shedding after 24 h of
treatment of 1.5 to 2.0 log(10) 50% tissue culture infective doses
compared to a placebo, with no reemergence of virus after the completion
of therapy. Paired isolates (n = 41) obtained before and during therapy
with zanamivir demonstrated no shifts in susceptibility to zanamivir when
measured by NA assays, although for a few isolates NA activity was too low
to evaluate. In plaque reduction assays in MDCK cells, the susceptibility
of isolates to zanamivir was extremely variable even at baseline and did
not correlate with the speed of resolution of virus shedding. Isolates
with apparent limited susceptibility to zanamivir by plaque reduction
proved highly susceptible in vivo in the ferret model. Further sequence
analysis of paired isolates revealed no changes in the hemagglutinin and
NA genes in the majority of isolates. The few changes observed were all
natural variants. No amino acid changes that had previously been
identified in vitro as being involved with reduced susceptibility to
zanamivir were observed. These studies highlighted problems associated
with monitoring susceptibility to NA inhibitors in the clinic, in that no
reliable cell-based assay is available. At present the NA assay is the
best available predictor of susceptibility to NA inhibitors in vivo, as
measured in the validated ferret model of infection
The origin of fracture in the I-ECAP of AZ31B magnesium alloy
Magnesium alloys are very promising materials for weight-saving structural applications due to their low density, comparing to other metals and alloys currently used. However, they usually suffer from a limited formability at room temperature and low strength. In order to overcome those issues, processes of severe plastic deformation (SPD) can be utilized to improve mechanical properties, but processing parameters need to be selected with care to avoid fracture, very often observed for those alloys during forming. In the current work, the AZ31B magnesium alloy was subjected to SPD by incremental equal-channel angular pressing (I-ECAP) at temperatures varying from 398 K to 525 K (125 °C to 250 °C) to determine the window of allowable processing parameters. The effects of initial grain size and billet rotation scheme on the occurrence of fracture during I-ECAP were investigated. The initial grain size ranged from 1.5 to 40 µm and the I-ECAP routes tested were A, BC, and C. Microstructures of the processed billets were characterized before and after I-ECAP. It was found that a fine-grained and homogenous microstructure was required to avoid fracture at low temperatures. Strain localization arising from a stress relaxation within recrystallized regions, namely twins and fine-grained zones, was shown to be responsible for the generation of microcracks. Based on the I-ECAP experiments and available literature data for ECAP, a power law between the initial grain size and processing conditions, described by a Zener–Hollomon parameter, has been proposed. Finally, processing by various routes at 473 K (200 °C) revealed that route A was less prone to fracture than routes BC and C
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