160 research outputs found
Preequilibrium Neutron Emission in (p, xn) Reactions with 80-160 MeV Projectiles
This research was sponsored by the National Science Foundation Grant NSF PHY 87-1440
Laser plasma diagnostics of dense plasmas
The authors describe several experiments on Nova that use laser-produced plasmas to generate x-rays capable of backlighting dense, cold plasmas (p {approximately} 1--3 gm/cm{sup 3}, kT {approximately} 5--10 eV, and areal density {rho}{ell}{approximately} 0.01--0.05 g/cm{sup 2}). The x-rays used vary over a wide range of h{nu}, from 80 eV (X-ray laser) to 9 keV. This allows probing of plasmas relevant to many hydrodynamic experiments. Typical diagnostics are 100 ps pinhole framing cameras for a long pulse backlighter and a time-integrated CCD camera for a short pulse backlighter
An exact solution of the moving boundary problem for the relativistic plasma expansion in a dipole magnetic field
An exact analytic solution is obtained for a uniformly expanding, neutral,
highly conducting plasma sphere in an ambient dipole magnetic field with an
arbitrary orientation of the dipole moment in the space. Based on this solution
the electrodynamical aspects related to the emission and transformation of
energy have been considered. In order to highlight the effect of the
orientation of the dipole moment in the space we compare our results obtained
for parallel orientation with those for transversal orientation. The results
obtained can be used to treat qualitatively experimental and simulation data,
and several phenomena of astrophysical and laboratory significance.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with
arXiv:physics/060323
Control of Rayleigh-Taylor instability by vertical vibration in large aspect ratio containers
We consider a horizontal heavy fluid layer supported by a light, immiscible one in a wide (as compared to depth) container, which is vertically vibrated intending to counterbalance the Rayleigh-Taylor instability of the flat, rigid-body vibrating state. In the simplest case when the density and viscosity of the lighter fluid are small compared to their counterparts in the heavier fluid, we apply a long wave, weakly nonlinear analysis that yields a generalized Cahn-Hilliard equation for the evolution of the fluid interface. This equation shows that the stabilizing effect of vibration is like that of surface tension, and is used to analyze the linear stability of the flat state, the local bifurcation at the instability threshold and some global existence and stability properties concerning the steady states without dry spots. The analysis is extended to two cases of practical interest. Namely, (a) the viscosity of one of the fluids is much smaller than that of the other one, and (b) the densities and viscosities of both fluids are quite close to each other
'Support our networking and help us belong!': listening to beginning secondary school science teachers
This study, drawing on the voice of beginning teachers, seeks to illuminate their experiences of building professional relationships as they become part of the teaching profession. A networking perspective was taken to expose and explore the use of others during the first three years of a teacher’s workplace experience. Three case studies, set within a wider sample of 11 secondary school science teachers leaving one UK university’s PostGraduate Certificate in Education, were studied. The project set out to determine the nature of the networks used by teachers in terms of both how they were being used for their own professional development and perceptions of how they were being used by others in school. Affordances and barriers to networking were explored using notions of identity formation through social participation. The focus of the paper is on how the teachers used others to help shape their sense of belonging to this, their new workplace. The paper develops ideas from network theories to argue that membership of the communities are a subset of the professional inter‐relationships teachers utilise for their professional development. During their first year of teaching, eight teachers were interviewed, completing 13 semi‐structured interviews. This was supplemented in Year 2 by a questionnaire survey of their experiences. In the third year of the programme, 11 teachers (including the original sample of eight) were surveyed using a network mapping tool in which they represented their communications with people, groups and resources. Finally, three of the teachers (common to both samples) were then interviewed specifically about their networking practices and experiences using the generation of their network map as a stimulated recall focus. The implications of the analysis of these accounts are that these beginning teachers did not perceive of themselves wholly as novices and that their personal aspirations to increase participation in practical science, develop a career or work for pupils holistically did not always sit comfortably with the school communities into which they were being accommodated. While highlighting the importance of trust and respect in establishing relationships, these teachers’ accounts highlight the importance of finding ‘peers’ from whom they can find support and with whom they can reflect and potentially collaborate towards developing practice. They also raise questions about who these ‘peers’ might be and where they might be found
Search for a W' boson decaying to a bottom quark and a top quark in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV
Results are presented from a search for a W' boson using a dataset
corresponding to 5.0 inverse femtobarns of integrated luminosity collected
during 2011 by the CMS experiment at the LHC in pp collisions at sqrt(s)=7 TeV.
The W' boson is modeled as a heavy W boson, but different scenarios for the
couplings to fermions are considered, involving both left-handed and
right-handed chiral projections of the fermions, as well as an arbitrary
mixture of the two. The search is performed in the decay channel W' to t b,
leading to a final state signature with a single lepton (e, mu), missing
transverse energy, and jets, at least one of which is tagged as a b-jet. A W'
boson that couples to fermions with the same coupling constant as the W, but to
the right-handed rather than left-handed chiral projections, is excluded for
masses below 1.85 TeV at the 95% confidence level. For the first time using LHC
data, constraints on the W' gauge coupling for a set of left- and right-handed
coupling combinations have been placed. These results represent a significant
improvement over previously published limits.Comment: Submitted to Physics Letters B. Replaced with version publishe
Search for the standard model Higgs boson decaying into two photons in pp collisions at sqrt(s)=7 TeV
A search for a Higgs boson decaying into two photons is described. The
analysis is performed using a dataset recorded by the CMS experiment at the LHC
from pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV, which corresponds to an
integrated luminosity of 4.8 inverse femtobarns. Limits are set on the cross
section of the standard model Higgs boson decaying to two photons. The expected
exclusion limit at 95% confidence level is between 1.4 and 2.4 times the
standard model cross section in the mass range between 110 and 150 GeV. The
analysis of the data excludes, at 95% confidence level, the standard model
Higgs boson decaying into two photons in the mass range 128 to 132 GeV. The
largest excess of events above the expected standard model background is
observed for a Higgs boson mass hypothesis of 124 GeV with a local significance
of 3.1 sigma. The global significance of observing an excess with a local
significance greater than 3.1 sigma anywhere in the search range 110-150 GeV is
estimated to be 1.8 sigma. More data are required to ascertain the origin of
this excess.Comment: Submitted to Physics Letters
3D MHD Simulations of Laboratory Plasma Jets
Jets and outflows are thought to be an integral part of accretion phenomena
and are associated with a large variety of objects. In these systems, the
interaction of magnetic fields with an accretion disk and/or a magnetized
central object is thought to be responsible for the acceleration and
collimation of plasma into jets and wider angle flows. In this paper we present
three-dimensional MHD simulations of magnetically driven, radiatively cooled
laboratory jets that are produced on the MAGPIE experimental facility. The
general outflow structure comprises an expanding magnetic cavity which is
collimated by the pressure of an extended plasma background medium, and a
magnetically confined jet which develops within the magnetic cavity. Although
this structure is intrinsically transient and instabilities in the jet and
disruption of the magnetic cavity ultimately lead to its break-up, a well
collimated, knotty jet still emerges from the system; such clumpy morphology is
reminiscent of that observed in many astrophysical jets. The possible
introduction in the experiments of angular momentum and axial magnetic field
will also be discussed.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures, accepted by Astrophysics and Space Science for
Special Issue High Energy Density Laboratory Astrophysics Conferenc
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