Rayleigh–Schrödinger series and Birkhoff decomposition

We derive new expressions for the Rayleigh–Schrödinger series describing the perturbation of eigenvalues of quantum Hamiltonians. The method, somehow close to the so-called dimensional renormalization in quantum field theory, involves the Birkhoff decomposition of some Laurent series built up out of explicit fully non-resonant terms present in the usual expression of the Rayleigh–Schrödinger series. Our results provide new combinatorial formulae and a new way of deriving perturbation series in quantum mechanics. More generally we prove that such a decomposition provides solutions of general normal form problems in Lie algebras.     

Free vibration of non-uniform nanobeams using Rayleigh–Ritz method

In this article, boundary characteristic orthogonal polynomials have been implemented in the Rayleigh–Ritz method to investigate free vibration of non-uniform Euler–Bernoulli nanobeams based on nonlocal elasticity theory. Non-uniform cross section of nanobeams has been considered by taking linear as well as quadratic variations of Young's modulus and density along the space coordinate. Detailed analysis has been reported for all the possible cases of such variations. The objective of the present study is to analyze the effects of nonlocal parameter, boundary condition, length-to-diameter ratio and non-uniform parameter on the frequency parameters. It is found that clamped nanobeams are having highest frequency parameters than other types of boundary conditions for a particular set of parameters. It is also observed that frequency parameters decrease with increase in scaling effect parameter. First four deflection shapes of non-uniform nanobeams have also been incorporated. In this analysis, some of the new results in terms of boundary conditions have also been included.     

Rayleigh–Taylor instability at spherical interfaces of incompressible fluids

Rayleigh–Taylor instability(RTI) of three incompressible fluids with two interfaces in spherical geometry is derived analytically. The growth rate on the two interfaces and the perturbation feedthrough coefficients between two spherical interfaces are derived. For low-mode perturbation, the feedthrough effect from outer interface to inner interface is much more severe than the corresponding planar case, while the feedback from inner interface to the outer interface is smaller than that in planar geometry. The low-mode perturbations lead to the pronounced RTI growth on the inner interface of a spherical shell that are larger than the cylindrical and planar results. It is the low-mode perturbation that results in the difference between the RTI growth in spherical and cylindrical geometry. When the mode number of the perturbation is large enough, the results in cylindrical geometry are recovered.     

Measurements of Rayleigh–Taylor instability growth of laser-shocked iron–silicon alloy

The Rayleigh–Taylor (RT) instability of liquid iron alloys is important for understanding the core formation mechanism in the Earth. Here we first report the measurement of RT instability growth for a liquid iron–silicon (Fe–Si) alloy, which is one of the major candidate for the material of the Earth’s core, using a high power laser. We optimized the measurement setup and analytical technique to observe the growth of perturbation on an Fe–Si sample surface. The growth of perturbation amplitude on the Fe–Si alloy under high pressure and temperature was successfully observed using in situ X-ray radiography. The growth rate of the RT instability for the Fe–Si alloy on about 1000?GPa was estimated to be 0.3 ns^?1.     

Weakly Nonlinear Rayleigh–Taylor Instability in Cylindrically Convergent Geometry

The Rayleigh–Taylor instability(RTI) in cylindrical geometry is investigated analytically through a second-order weakly nonlinear(WN) theory considering the Bell–Plesset(BP) effect. The governing equations for the combined perturbation growth are derived. The WN solutions for an exponentially convergent cylinder are obtained. It is found that the BP and RTI growths are strongly coupled, which results in the bubble-spike asymmetric structure in the WN stage. The large Atwood number leads to the large deformation of the convergent interface. The amplitude of the spike grows faster than that of the bubble especially for large mode number m and large Atwood number A. The averaged interface radius is small for large mode number perturbation due to the mode-coupling effect.     

Free vibration of rectangular nanoplates using Rayleigh–Ritz method

Vibration analysis of isotropic rectangular nanoplates based on the classical plate theory in conjunction with Eringen's nonlocal elasticity theory is considered. Nanoplates are one of the structural units that are used in nanoscale applications. In this study, Rayleigh–Ritz method with algebraic polynomial displacement function is used to solve the vibration problem of isotropic rectangular nanoplates subjected to different boundary conditions. The advantage of the method is that one can easily handle the specified boundary conditions at the edges. A comparison of the results with those available in the literature has been made. The proposed method is also validated by convergence studies. Frequency parameters are given for different nonlocality parameters, length of nanoplates and boundary conditions. The study highlights that nonlocality effects increase with the increase in mode number and the influence of nonlocal effects becomes increasingly pronounced for higher order vibration modes. Three-dimensional mode shapes for the specified nanoplates have also been presented.     

Analysis of coherent structures in Rayleigh–Bénard convection

Using direct numerical simulation, we investigate characteristics of coherent structures in Rayleigh–Bénard convection in a soft turbulence regime. The role of thermal plumes, essential structures in Rayleigh–Bénard convection, is studied by splitting flow regimes into thermal plume and background by investigating joint probability density function (PDF) of invariants of velocity gradient tensor. The contribution to thermal dissipation rate by these two regions is analysed separately. Through the joint PDF of invariants, we also examine the thermal effect on velocity structures.     

Jet-Like Long Spike in Nonlinear Evolution of Ablative Rayleigh–Taylor Instability

We report the formation of jet-like long spike in the nonlinear evolution of the ablative Rayleigh-Taylor instability （ARTI） experiments by numerical simulations. A preheating model k（T） = KSH[1＋f（T）], where KSH is the Spitzer Harm （SH） electron conductivity and f（T） interprets the preheating tongue effect in the cold plasma ahead of the ablative front [Phys. Rev. E 65 （2002） 57401], is introduced in simulations. The simulation results of the nonlinear evolution of the ARTI are in general agreement with the experiment results. It is found that two factors, i.e., the suppressing of ablative Kelvin Helmholtz instability （AKHI） and the heat flow cone in the spike tips, contribute to the formation of jet-like long spike in the nonlinear evolution of the ARTI.     

The dynamics of the k–ϵ mix model toward its self-similar Rayleigh–Taylor solution

We propose an analysis of the non-linear system of partial differential equations for the k–? model expressing the evolution of a turbulent mixing zone induced by the Rayleigh–Taylor instability. The method developed in this work is based on dynamical system theory. Our objective is to prove the global stability of the self-similar solution and at the same time to investigate the dynamics of transient phases. In fact, it is possible to show the existence of a central manifold allowing to reduce the dimension of the problem to a set of two ordinary differential equations.We establish that this simplified non-linear system globally converges toward a fixed point representing the self-similar solution by application of the Poincaré–Bendixson theorem. In addition, we shed light on the existence of a second fixed point which influences the trajectories in the phase space and leads to a non-physical enhanced growth rate in some cases explicitly detailed.     

Phase Effects of Long-Wavelength Rayleigh–Taylor Instability on the Thin Shell

Taking the long-wavelength Rayleigh-Taylor instability(RTI) on the thin shell of inertial confinement fusion as the research object,a linear analytical model is presented to study the phase effects that are caused by the phase difference of single-mode perturbations on the two interfaces.Its accuracy is tested by numerical simulations.By analyzing the characteristic of this model,it is found that the phase difference does not change the basic RTI structure(only one spike and one bubble in a period).However,the symmetry of the spike and bubble is destroyed,which has non-expected influences on the convergent motion of ICF targets.Meanwhile,the phenomenon that the distance between spikes and bubbles along the vertical direction of acceleration differs by π is demonstrated.It is also shown that when the phase difference is large,the temporal evolution of the RTI is more serious and the thin target is easier to tend to break.     

Bragg spectroscopy and superradiant Rayleigh scattering in a Bose–Einstein condensate

Two sets of studies concerning the interaction of off-resonant light with a sodium Bose–Einstein condensate are described. In the first set, properties of a Bose–Einstein condensate were studied using Bragg spectroscopy. The high momentum and energy resolution of this method allowed a spectroscopic measurement of the mean-field energy and of the intrinsic momentum distribution of the condensate. Depending on the momentum transfer, both the phonon regime as well as the free-particle regime could be explored. In the second set of studies, the cigar-shaped condensate was exposed to a single off-resonant laser beam and highly directional scattering of light and atoms was observed. This collective light scattering was caused by the long coherence time of the quasi-particles in the condensate and resulted in a new form of matter wave amplification. Received: 26 June 1999 / Revised version: 21 September 1999 / Published online: 10 November 1999     

Simulation of the Weakly Nonlinear Rayleigh–Taylor Instability in Spherical Geometry

The Rayleigh-Taylor instability at the weakly nonlinear(WN) stage in spherical geometry is studied by numerical simulation.The mode coupling processes are revealed.The results are consistent with the WN model based on parameter expansion,while higher order effects are found to be non-negligible.For Legendre mode perturbation Pn(cos B),the nonlinear saturation amplitude(NS A) of the fundamental mode decreases with the mode number n.When n is large,the spherical NSA is lower than the corresponding planar one.However,for large n,the planar NSA can be recovered by applying Fourier transformation to the bubble/spike near the equator and calculating the NSA of the converted trigonometric harmonic.     

Coupling between velocity and interface perturbations in cylindrical Rayleigh–Taylor instability

Rayleigh–Taylor instability(RTI) in cylindrical geometry initiated by velocity and interface perturbations is investigated analytically through a third-order weakly nonlinear(WN) model. When the initial velocity perturbation is comparable to the interface perturbation, the coupling between them plays a significant role. The difference between the RTI growth initiated only by a velocity perturbation and that only by an interface perturbation in the WN stage is negligibly small. The effects of the mode number on the first three harmonics are discussed respectively. The low-mode number perturbation leads to large amplitudes of RTI growth. The Atwood number and initial perturbation dependencies of the nonlinear saturation amplitude of the fundamental mode are analyzed clearly. When the mode number of the perturbation is large enough,the WN results in planar geometry are recovered.     

Interface coupling effects of weakly nonlinear Rayleigh–Taylor instability with double interfaces

Taking the Rayleigh–Taylor instability with double interfaces as the research object,the interface coupling effects in the weakly nonlinear regime are studied numerically.The variation of Atwood numbers on the two interfaces and the variation of the thickness between them are taken into consideration.It is shown that,when the Atwood number on the lower interface is small,the amplitude of perturbation growth on the lower interface is positively related with the Atwood number on the upper interface.However,it is negatively related when the Atwood number on the lower interface is large.The above phenomenon is quantitatively studied using an analytical formula and the underlying physical mechanism is presented.     

Numerical study of heat-transfer in two-and quasi-two-dimensional Rayleigh–Bénard convection

A detailed comparative numerical study between the two-dimensional(2 D) and quasi-two-dimensional(quasi-2 D)turbulent Rayleigh–B′enard(RB) convection on flow state, heat transfer, and thermal dissipation rate(TDR) is made. The Rayleigh number(Ra) in our simulations ranges up to 5×10~(10) and Prandtl number(Pr) is fixed to be 0.7. Our simulations are conducted on the Tianhe-2 supercomputer. We use an in-house code with high parallelization efficiency, based on the extended PDM–DNS scheme. The comparison shows that after a certain Ra, plumes with round shape, which is called the "temperature islands", develop and gradually dominate the flow field in the 2 D case. On the other hand, in quasi-2 D cases, plumes remain mushroom-like. This difference in morphology becomes more significant as Ra increases, as with the motion of plumes near the top and bottom plates. The exponents of the power-law relation between the Nusselt number(Nu) and Ra are 0.3 for both two cases, and the fitting pre-factors are 0.099 and 0.133 for 2 D and quasi-2 D respectively,indicating a clear difference in magnitude of the heat transfer rate between two cases. To understand this difference in the magnitude of Nu, we compare the vertical profile of the horizontally averaged TDR for both two cases. It is found that the profiles of both cases are nearly the same in the bulk, but they vary near boundaries. Comparing the bifurcation height zb with the thermal boundary layer thickness dq, it shows that zb δ_θ(3 D) δ_θ(2 D) and all three heights obey a universal power-law relation z ~Ra~(-0.30). In order to quantify the difference further, we separate the domain by zb, i.e., define the area between two zb(near top and bottom plates respectively) as the "mid region" and the rest as the "side region", and integrate TDR in corresponding regions. By comparing the integral it is found that most of the difference in TDR between two cases, which is connected to the heat transfer rate, occurs within the thermal boundary layers. We also compare the ratio of contributions to total heat transfer in BL–bulk separation and side–mid separation.     

Photon Diffusion in Random Media and Anisotropy of Scattering in the Henyey–Greenstein and Rayleigh–Gans Models

Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics - Monte Carlo (MC) numerical simulation is carried out for the intensity of multiply backscattered radiation as a function of the...     

Interface Width Effect on the Weakly Nonlinear Rayleigh–Taylor Instability in Spherical Geometry

Interface width effect on the spherical Rayleigh–Taylor instability in the weakly nonlinear regime is studied by numerical simulations.For Legendre perturbation mode P_n with wave number K_n and interface half-width L,the commonly adopted empirical linear growth rate formula γ_n~(em)(L)=γn/√1 + K_nL is found to be sufficient in spherical geometry.At the weakly nonlinear stage,the interface width affects the mode coupling processes.The development of the mode P_(2n) is substantially influenced by the interface width.Moreover,the nonlinear saturation amplitude increases with the interface width.     

Rotating turbulent Rayleigh–Bénard convection subject to harmonically forced flow reversals

The characteristics of turbulent flow in a cylindrical Rayleigh–Bénard convection cell which can be modified considerably in case rotation is included in the dynamics. By incorporating the additional effects of an Euler force, i.e., effects induced by non-constant rotation rates, a remarkably strong intensification of the heat transfer efficiency can be achieved. We consider turbulent convection at Rayleigh number Ra = 10⁹ and Prandtl number σ = 6.4 under a harmonically varying rotation, allowing complete reversals of the direction of the externally imposed rotation in the course of time. The dimensionless amplitude of the oscillation is taken as 1/Ro^* = 1 while various modulation frequencies 0.1 ≤ Ro_ω ≤ 1 are applied. Both slow and fast flow-structuring and heat transfer intensification are induced due to the forced flow reversals. Depending on the magnitude of the Euler force, increases in the Nusselt number of up to 400% were observed, compared to the case of constant or no rotation. It is shown that a large thermal flow structure accumulates all along the centreline of the cylinder, which is responsible for the strongly increased heat transfer. This dynamic thermal flow structure develops quite gradually, requiring many periods of modulated flow reversals. In the course of time, the Nusselt number increases in an oscillatory fashion up to a point of global instability, after which a very rapid and striking collapse of the thermal columnar structure is seen. Following such a collapse is another, quite similar episode of gradual accumulation of the next thermal column. We perform direct numerical simulation of the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations to study this system. Both the flow structures and the corresponding heat transfer characteristics are discussed at a range of modulation frequencies. We give an overview of typical time scales of the system response.