The dynamic response of an inhomogeneous plasma diode to an appliedpotential drop

Recent measurements of the response to an applied step voltage in collisionless plasmas have demonstrated the importance of the initial ion density distribution for the resulting time evolution and the formation of electric double layers. The dynamic response of a plasma diode to an applied step voltage is studied by particle-in-cell simulations and an analytical model. It is shown that an ion-density cavity (a local ion-density minimum with a width of many Debye lengths) can support large potential drops for several electron transit times. The potential drop extends over a distance related to the cavity width. When the applied potential drop exceeds a certain critical value, which depends on the cavity depth, the drop instead concentrates in a cathode sheath, which also is the response obtained for homogeneous initial plasma. The existence regions for the two different response in the appropriate parameter plane are found from the simulations and shown to agree with the regions predicted analytically. The analytical potential profiles agree with those simulated     

Rotational bands in 181Ta

High-spin states in ¹⁸¹Ta have been studied via the ¹⁷⁶Yb(¹¹B,α2n) reaction at 52 MeV using the PEX array and at 57 MeV using the NORDBALL array, with α-particle detection. The previously known, K^π=(7/2)⁺ ground state band and K^π=(9/2)⁻ band have been extended to spins (29/2)⁺ and (31/2)⁻, respectively. Two new one-quasiparticle bands, the K^π=(5/2)⁺ band built on the known (5/2)⁺ isomer and a K^π=((1/2)⁻) band have been observed. Two other rotational bands with three-quasiparticle structure, K^π=(15/2)⁻ and ((19/2)⁺ with π(7/2)[404]ν²(1/2)[510](9/2)[624] and π(9/2)[514]ν²(1/2)[510](9/2)[624] configurations, respectively, have been newly observed. The half-life of the K^π=((19/2)⁺) bandhead which decays to the head of the (15/2)⁻ band has been measured to be 140(36) ns. However, transitions from the ((19/2)⁺) state to the (15/2)⁻ band have not been observed. Received: 26 August 1998     

PIC simulation of effect of energy-dependent foil transparency in an axially-extracted vircator

We have performed two-dimensional, relativistic, electromagnetic, particle-in-cell simulations for an axially extracted vircator. With a copper foil anode, the output frequency of the vircator is found to be strongly dependent upon the variation of foil transparency with electron energy. Using an average transparency for all electron energies yields results that are markedly different from those obtained using the actual variation. However, the output power shows only mild sensitivity. Using the full energy-dependent form of the transparency, we get fairly good agreement with published experimental results. Increasing the energy resolution for the calculation of foil transparency increases the accuracy of calculation of the dominant frequency, although the frequency tends to saturate beyond a certain resolution. However, an increase in the resolution must necessarily be accompanied by an increase in the number of simulation particles, in order to limit statistical fluctuations to an acceptable level. A physical explanation has also been provided for these trends.     

The influence of glass coating on the single domain wall potential in amorphous glass-coated Fe-based microwires

The effect of the glass coating on the single domain wall potential in amorphous glass-coated Fe-based microwire has been studied by the switching field distribution technique. The thermoactivated mechanism model is used to describe the thermally activated switching through the complex energy barrier in amorphous FeSiB microwires. Glass removal leads to the increase of the probability of the thermally activated switching pointing to the decrease of the energy barrier.     

Numerical solution of the electron distribution function for ECRheating in magnetic mirror

The Fokker-Planck equation is solved with electron cyclotron resonance heating in a magnetic mirror with a fixed electrostatic potential on a loss-cone boundary and ECR heating. A self-consistent calculation of the plasma concentration justifies the fact that the degree of ionization of the ECR plasma is about 10%. The high values of the total electron energy (15-30 eV) are achieved. The electron concentration and the EVDF anisotropy degree are the nonmonotonic functions of the applied MW electric field. The basis for such dependencies is discussed. A linear perturbation analysis of the Vlasov equation together with with Maxwell's equations is briefly reviewed. The criteria for the start of unstable whistler oscillation growth are proposed. Using the simulated distribution function, the regimes where the unstable oscillations should to be taken into account are considered     

Kinetic theory of high-relativistic electron cyclotron maser with anovel quasioptical cavity

Using the Laplace transformation, the kinetic theory of the high-relativistic electron cyclotron maser having a novel open-resonator-the axisymmetrical quasioptical cavity of oblique rotation at arbitrary angle, is carried out within the framework of the linearized Vlasov-Maxwell equations. The beam-wave interaction power, starting current and frequency shift have been derived and numerically calculated. The influence of rotation angle on the beam-wave interaction is also studied. A series of important conclusions obtained reveal the characteristics of this novel quasioptical electron cyclotron maser     

Hot electron transport in semiconductors

A recently derived model for stationary flow of energy and charge carriers in semiconductors—consisting of a coupled system of nonlinear elliptic equations—is analysed by the methods of singular perturbation theory. This analysis reveals the solution structure and justifies a modified version of the standard drift-diffusion approximation for charge carrier flow.

---

Zusammenfassung Ein kürzlich hergeleitetes Modell für stationären Energie- und Ladungsträgerfluß in Halbleitern—bestehend aus einem gekoppelten System von nichtlinearen elliptischen Gleichungen—wird mit Methoden der singulären Störungstheorie analysiert. Daraus ergeben sich Aussagen über die Lösungsstruktur und eine Rechtfertigung einer modifizierten Version der klassischen Konvektions-Diffusions-Approximation für den Ladungsträgerfluß.

---

---

The work of the second author was supported by Österreichischer Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung.     

Graph bisection algorithms with good average case behavior

In the paper, we describe a polynomial time algorithm that, for every input graph, either outputs the minimum bisection of the graph or halts without output. More importantly, we show that the algorithm chooses the former course with high probability for many natural classes of graphs. In particular, for every fixedd≧3, all sufficiently largen and allb=o(n ^{1?1/[(d+1)/2]}), the algorithm finds the minimum bisection for almost alld-regular labelled simple graphs with 2n nodes and bisection widthb. For example, the algorithm succeeds for almost all 5-regular graphs with 2n nodes and bisection widtho(n ^2/3). The algorithm differs from other graph bisection heuristics (as well as from many heuristics for other NP-complete problems) in several respects. Most notably:

1. the algorithm provides exactly the minimum bisection for almost all input graphs with the specified form, instead of only an approximation of the minimum bisection,
2. whenever the algorithm produces a bisection, it is guaranteed to be optimal (i.e., the algorithm also produces a proof that the bisection it outputs is an optimal bisection),
3. the algorithm works well both theoretically and experimentally,
4. the algorithm employs global methods such as network flow instead of local operations such as 2-changes, and
5. the algorithm works well for graphs with small bisections (as opposed to graphs with large bisections, for which arbitrary bisections are nearly optimal).