Two-dimensional melting far from equilibrium in a granular monolayer

We report an experimental investigation of the transition from a hexagonally ordered solid phase to a disordered liquid in a monolayer of vibrated spheres. The transition occurs as the intensity of the vibration amplitude is increased. Measurements of the density of dislocations and the positional and orientational correlation functions show evidence for a dislocation-mediated continuous transition from a solid phase with long-range order to a liquid with only short-range order. The results show a strong similarity to simulations of melting of hard disks in equilibrium, despite the fact that the granular monolayer is far from equilibrium due to the effects of interparticle dissipation and the vibrational forcing.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Functional determinants on certain domains

Functional determinants on various domains of the sphere and flat space are presented for scalar and spinor fields.Comment: 14p, plain TeX, talk presented at the 6th Moscow Quantum Gravity Seminar, Moscow, June 12-19, 1995.(Minor errors corrected.

Improved Bar Impact Tests Using A Photonic Doppler Velocimeter

Bar impact tests, using the techniques described elsewhere in this symposium, were used to measure compressive and tensile strengths of borosilicate glass, soda lime glass, and a glass ceramic. The glass ceramic was 25% crystalline spinel, furnished by Corning Inc. There are two measures of compressive strength: the peak stress that can be transmitted in unconfined compression, and the >steady state> strength. For borosilicate glass and soda lime glass, these values were similar, being about 1.8 and 1.5 GPa, respectively. The glass ceramic (25% spinel) was almost 50% stronger. Tensile failure in the glass and glass ceramic takes places via surface flaws, and thus tensile strength is an extrinsic, as opposed to intrinsic property.Mechanical Engineerin

Deflationary cosmology: constraints from angular size and ages of globular clusters

Observational constraints to a large class of decaying vacuum cosmologies are derived using the angular size data of compact radio sources and the latest age estimates of globular clusters. For this class of deflationary $\Lambda(t)$ models, the present value of the vacuum energy density is quantified by a positive $\beta$ parameter smaller than unity. In the case of milliarcsecond compact radio-sources, we find that the allowed intervals for $\beta$ and the matter density parameter $\Omega_m$ are heavily dependent on the value of the mean projected linear size $l$. For $l \simeq 20h^{-1} - 30h^{-1}$ pc, the best fit occurs for $\beta \sim 0.58$, $\Omega_{\rm{m}} \sim 0.58$, and $\beta \sim 0.76$, $\Omega_{\rm{m}} \sim 0.28$, respectively. This analysis shows that if one minimizes $\chi^{2}$ for the free parameters $l$, $\Omega_{\rm{m}}$ and $\beta$, the best fit for these angular size data corresponds to a decaying $\Lambda(t)$ with $\Omega_{\rm{m}} = 0.54$ $\beta=0.6$ and $l = 22.64h^{-1}$ pc. Constraints from age estimates of globular clusters and old high redshift galaxies are not so restrictive, thereby suggesting that there is no age crisis for this kind of $\Lambda(t)$ cosmologies.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, revised version to appear in Phys. Rev.

Heat kernels on curved cones

A functorial derivation is presented of a heat-kernel expansion coefficient on a manifold with a singular fixed point set of codimension two. The existence of an extrinsic curvature term is pointed out.Comment: 4p.,sign errors corrected and a small addition,uses JyTeX,MUTP/94/0