Towards a Skyrme–Hartree–Fock–Bogolyubov Mass Formula

In this work, we explain our astrophysical motivations for deriving a mass formula based on HFB calculations with a Skyrme interaction. We give an overview of existing mass formulae and present briefly the last HF+BCS mass formula [1]. The Skyrme force MSk7 [1] is considered in the study of shell effects at N=82, in the neutron-rich region far from stability, within the HFB and HF+BCS theories, and compared with results obtained using the forces SkP^δ and SkP^δρ [2]. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Propagation of a Hermite–Laguerre–Gaussian beam in a turbulent atmosphere

The propagation and spreading of a Hermite–Laguerre–Gaussian (HLG) beam in a turbulent atmosphere has been investigated. Based on the extended Huygens–Fresnel integral and some mathematical techniques, analytical expressions for the average intensity, the effective beam size, and the kurtosis parameter of an HLG beam in a turbulent atmosphere are derived, respectively. The average intensity distribution and the spreading properties of HLG beams in a turbulent atmosphere are numerically demonstrated. Upon propagation in a turbulent atmosphere, the central lobes in the beam spot of the HLG beam will evolve into the dominant lobes, and the peripheral lobes around the central lobes will evolve into the subdominant lobes. The influences of the additional angle parameter and the transversal mode numbers on the propagation of HLG beams in a turbulent atmosphere are also discussed. As the coherence length of the turbulence is determined by the propagation distance, the effect of the additional angle parameter on the effective beam size is related to the propagation distance. The kurtosis parameter generally increases with increasing the additional angle parameter. The influence of the transversal mode numbers on the kurtosis parameter is related to the additional angle parameter and the propagation distance. According to the practical need of free-space optical communications and remote sensing, the HLG beam in a turbulent atmosphere can be controlled by choice of the additional angle parameter and the transversal mode numbers.     

Study of inverse a.c. Josephson effect in Y–Ba–Cu–O and Y–8a–Sr–Cu–O

Microwave induced d.c. voltage due to inverse a.c. Josephson effect has been observed across bulk samples of Y-Ba-Cu-O and Y-Ba-Sr-Cu-O. The d.c. voltage is found to vary with microwave power, frequency and also with small external magnetic fields. Although the resistivity curve of Y-Ba-Cu-O does not show any appreciable resistance drop around 230 K, the microwave induced d.c. voltage due to the inverse a.c. Josephson effect has been found to exist upto 230 K. The resistivity behaviour of Y-Ba-Sr-Cu-O shows a sharp resistivity drop above 230 K. In this sample the inverse Josephson effect is found to exist upto +26 °C, indicating the presence of a phase having a superconducting onset around this temperature.     

On a Selberg–Schur Integral

A generalization of Selberg’s beta integral involving Schur polynomials associated with partitions with entries not greater than 2 is explicitly computed. The complex version of this integral is given after proving a general statement concerning the complex extensions of Selberg–Schur integrals. All these results have interesting applications in both mathematics and physics, particularly in conformal field theory, because the conformal blocks for the Wess–Zumino–Novikov–Witten model with underlying affine structure can be obtained by analytical continuation of these integrals.      

Instability of a flame front propagating through a fuel-rich droplet–vapour–air cloud

A simple model of a flame front propagating through a fuel-rich droplet–vapour–air mixture is presented in which the fuel droplets are assumed to evaporate in a sharp front ahead of the reaction front. By performing a linear stability analysis neutral stability boundaries are determined. It is shown that the presence of the spray of droplets in the fresh mixture can have a profound effect by causing cellularization of the flame front. Specifically, we demonstrate that under certain circumstances a spray flame can be cellular when its equivalent non-spray flame is completely stable. Furthermore, it is shown that even when the non-spray flame is itself cellular the equivalent spray flame will have a finer cellular structure. These theoretical predictions verify qualitatively for the first time independent experimental observations from the literature. It is thus shown that the primary effect of the spray on the stability of these flames is due to heat loss from the absorption of heat by the droplets for vaporization. The influence of the initial liquid fuel loading and the latent heat of vaporization on the critical wavenumber associated with cellularity provide further evidence of the responsibility of the heat loss mechanism for these spray-related phenomena. Finally, the cellularity of the spray flames with their attendant increase in flame front area suggest a plausible rationale for the experimentally observed burning velocity enhancement induced by the use of a spray of fuel droplets.     

Current–phase relations of a ring-trapped Bose–Einstein condensate with a weak link

The current–phase relations of a ring-trapped Bose–Einstein condensate interrupted by a rotating rectangular barrier are extensively investigated with an analytical solution. A current–phase diagram, single and multi-valued relation, is presented with a rescaled barrier height and width. Our results show that the finite size makes the current–phase relation deviate a little bit from the cosine form for the soliton solution in the limit of a vanishing barrier, and the periodic boundary condition selects only the plane wave solution in the case of high barrier. The reason for multi-valued current–phase relation is given by investigating the behavior of soliton solution.     

Radiation of the Plasma of a Transverse Discharge in a Helium–Krypton–Elegas Mixture

We carried out a spectroscopic investigation of the degradation of the active medium of a pulsed-periodic KrF emitter based on a He/Kr/SF₆ mixture (P = 10–150 kPa) with pumping by a transverse volumetric discharge. The plasma radiation spectra in the range 200–620 nm at different stages of degradation of the working mixture and the dynamics of the radiation of inert gases as well as of the products of decomposition of SF₆ molecules in the plasma are studied. It is shown that since the number of discharge pulses is 10⁴, rather effective formation of excited sulfur molecules is observed which decompose with emission in the spectral range 260–550 nm. This can be employed for developing a wideband lamp based on the system of KrF(B–X; D–X), S₂(B–X), and S₂(f–a) bands.     

Comprehensive study of a 4H–SiC MES–MOSFET

In this paper, we studied the enhancement of the breakdown voltage in the 4H–SiC MESFET–MOSFET (MES–MOSFET) structure which we have proposed in our previous work. We compared this structure with Conventional Bulk-MOSFET (CB-MOSFET) and Field plated Conventional Bulk-MOSFET (FCB-MOSFET) structures. The 4H–SiC MES–MOSFET structure consists of two additional schottky buried gates which behave like a Metal on Semiconductor (MES) at the interface of the active region and substrate. The motivation for this structure was to enhance the breakdown voltage by introducing a new technique of utilizing the reduced surface field (RESURF) concept. In our comparison and investigation we used a two-dimensional device simulator. Our simulation results show that the breakdown voltage of the proposed structure is 3.7 and 2.9 times larger than CB-MOSFET and FCB-MOSFET structures, respectively. We also showed that the threshold voltage and the slope of drain current (I_D) as a function of drain–source voltage (V_DS) for all the structures is the same.     

Magnetic resonance in a gallium-doped Cu–Cr–S structure

A layered Cu–Cr–S structure doped with Ga ions and consisting of single-crystal CuCrS₂ layers, embedded with thin plates of spinel phases CuCr₂S₄ and CuGa_xCr_2–xS₄, has been studied using the magnetic resonance and magnetic susceptibility methods. The Curie temperature and the saturation magnetization of the spinel phases of the samples have been determined. The spinel phase layer thickness has been estimated.     

Characteristics of Surface Spin Waves in a Metal–Dielectric–Ferrite–Dielectric–Metal Structure

The dispersion and isofrequency characteristics of surface spin waves in a tangentially magnetized metal–dielectric–ferrite–dielectric–metal structure are investigated. A loop-like change in the isofrequency dependences for spin waves is observed in a certain range of frequencies, and the origin of the loop is always located at wave number value k → 0.     

A fully conservative Eulerian–Lagrangian method for a convection–diffusion problem in a solenoidal field

Tracer transport is governed by a convection–diffusion problem modeling mass conservation of both tracer and ambient fluids. Numerical methods should be fully conservative, enforcing both conservation principles on the discrete level. Locally conservative characteristics methods conserve the mass of tracer, but may not conserve the mass of the ambient fluid. In a recent paper by the authors [T. Arbogast, C. Huang, A fully mass and volume conserving implementation of a characteristic method for transport problems, SIAM J. Sci. Comput. 28 (2006) 2001–2022], a fully conservative characteristic method, the Volume Corrected Characteristics Mixed Method (VCCMM), was introduced for potential flows. Here we extend and apply the method to problems with a solenoidal (i.e., divergence-free) flow field. The modification is a computationally inexpensive simplification of the original VCCMM, requiring a simple adjustment of trace-back regions in an element-by-element traversal of the domain. Our numerical results show that the method works well in practice, is less numerically diffuse than uncorrected characteristic methods, and can use up to at least about eight times the CFL limited time step.     

Relativistic spin-zero bosons in a Som–Raychaudhuri space–time

We investigate the Duffin–Kemmer–Petiau equation for spin-zero bosons in a (\(3+1\))-dimensional Som–Raychaudhuri space–time. We establish the covariant Duffin–Kemmer–Petiau equation in this curved space–time for the so-called oscillator and we include interaction with a scalar potential. We determine eigenfunctions and the corresponding eigenvalues for the oscillator with the Cornell potential. We investigate the effect of the space–time’s parameters, oscillator’s frequency and the Cornell potential’s parameters on the wave functions.     

Bose–Einstein condensates under a non-Hermitian spin–orbit coupling

We study the properties of Bose–Einstein condensates under a non-Hermitian spin–orbit coupling(SOC), induced by a dissipative two-photon Raman process. We focus on the dynamics of the condensate at short times, when the impact of decoherence induced by quantum jumps is negligible and the dynamics is coherently driven by a non-Hermitian Hamiltonian. Given the significantly modified single-particle physics by dissipative SOC, the interplay of non-Hermiticity and interaction leads to a quasi-steady-state phase diagram different from its Hermitian counterpart. In particular, we find that dissipation can induce a phase transition from the stripe phase to the plane-wave phase. We further map out the phase diagram with respect to the dissipation and interaction strengths, and finally investigate the stability of quasi-steady states through the time-dependent dissipative Gross–Pitaevskii equation. Our results are readily accessible based on standard experiments with synthetic spin–orbit couplings.     

Tyre–road contact using a particle–envelope surface model

Determination of the contact forces is the central problem in all aspects of road-tyre interaction: i.e. noise, energy loss and friction. A procedure to find the contact forces under a rolling tyre is presented in four stages. First, the contact stiffness of a uniform peak array from indentations in the rubber tread, and also tyre carcass deflection, is described by some new simplified expressions. Second, a routine divides a single surface profile into equal search intervals, in which the highest peaks are identified. These are used to obtain the parameters for the interval, i.e. the mean envelope and the mean interval. The process is repeated at geometrically decreasing search intervals until the level of the data resolution, thereby describing the profile by a set of envelopes. The ‘strip profile’ ultimately used to describe the surface, is obtained by selecting the highest points across the profiles of one stone's width. The third stage is to combine the strip profile envelopes with the contact stiffness expressions, yielding the nonlinear stiffness–displacement, and force–displacement relationships for the chosen road–tyre combination. Finally the contact pressure distribution from a steady-state rolling tyre model is applied to the strip profile, via the force–displacement relationship, giving the local tyre displacements on the road texture. This displacement pattern is shown to be proportional to the time and space varying contact pressure, which then is incorporated into a wave equation for rolling contact.     

ATPF–a dedicated proton therapy facility

A proton therapy facility based on a linac injector and a slow-cycling synchrotron is proposed. To obtain good treatments for different cancer types, both the spot scanning method and the double-scattering method are adopted in the facility, whereas the nozzles include both gantry and fixed beam types. The proton accelerator chain includes a synchrotron of 250 MeV in maximum energy, an injector of 7 MeV consisting of an RFQ and a DTL linac, with a repetition rate of 0.5 Hz. The slow extraction using the third-order resonance and together with the RFKO method is considered to be a good method to obtain a stable and more-or-less homogenous beam spill. To benefit the spot scanning method, the extraction energy can be as many as about 200 between 60 MeV and 230 MeV. A new method – the emittance balancing technique of using a solenoid or a quadrupole rotator is proposed to solve the problem of unequal emittance in the two transverse planes with a beam slowly extracted from a synchrotron. The facility has been designed to keep the potential to be upgraded to include the carbon therapy in the future.     

Metallic hydrogen with a strong electron–phonon coupling at a pressure of 300–500 GPa

Atomic metallic hydrogen, which has a lattice with the FDDD unit cell symmetry, has been shown to be a stable phase at a hydrostatic pressure of 350–500 GPa. The found structure has a phonon spectrum which is stable with respect to decay. The structural, electronic, phonon, etc., characteristics of normal metallic phases of hydrogen at a pressure of 350–500 GPa have been ab initio calculated.     

Maxwell–Chern–Simons vortices in a CPT-odd Lorentz-violating Higgs electrodynamics

The improved light-cone distribution amplitudes (LCDAs) of the \(\Lambda \) baryon are examined on the basis of the QCD conformal partial wave expansion approach. The calculations are carried out to the next-to-leading order of conformal spin accuracy with consideration of twist \(6\) . The next leading order conformal expansion coefficients are related to the nonperturbative parameters defined by the local three-quark operator matrix elements with different Lorentz structures with a covariant derivative. The nonperturbative parameters are determined with the QCD sum rule method. The explicit expressions of the LCDAs are provided as the main results.     

Surface Plasmon Polaritons in a Graphene–Semiconductor–Graphene Thin Film

Physics of the Solid State - Dispersion properties of surface plasmon polaritons in a semiconductor film with graphene plates in the far-IR range and the possibility of controlling propagation...