An experimental confirmation of longitudinal electrodynamic forces by N. Graneau,T. Phipps Jr,and D. Roscoe

Eur. Phys. J. D 15, 87 (2001) Received 12 January 2001 Published online 10 December 2002 RID="a" ID="a"e-mail: aerobson@cstone.net     

Radiation induced force between two planar waveguides

We study the electromagnetic force exerted on a pair of parallel slab waveguides by the light propagating through them. We have calculated the dependence of the force on the slab separation by means of the Maxwell–Stress tensor formalism and we have discussed its main features for the different propagation modes: spatially symmetric (antisymmetric) modes give rise to an attractive (repulsive) interaction. We have derived the asymptotic behaviors of the force at small and large separation and we have quantitatively estimated the mechanical deflection induced on a realistic air-bridge structure.     

New localized Superluminal solutions to the wave equations with finite total energies and arbitrary frequencies

By a generalized bidirectional decomposition method, we obtain new Superluminal localized solutions to the wave equation (for the electromagnetic case, in particular) which are suitable for arbitrary frequency bands; several of them being endowed with finite total energy. We construct, among the others, an infinite family of generalizations of the so-called “X-shaped" waves. Results of this kind may find application in the other fields in which an essential role is played by a wave-equation (like acoustics, seismology, geophysics, gravitation, elementary particle physics, etc.). Received 23 June 2002 Published online 24 September 2002 RID="a" ID="a"Work partially supported by MIUR and INFN (Italy), and by FAPESP (Brazil). This paper did first appear as e-print physics/0109062 [and as preprint INFN/FM-01/02 (I.N.F.N.; Frascati, 2001)]. RID="b" ID="b"e-mail: recami@mi.infn.it     

Evaluation of forces in magnetic materials by means of energy and co-energy methods

The evaluation of the total force of magnetic origin acting upon a body in a stationary magnetic field is often carried out using the so-called magnetic energy (or co-energy) method, which is based on the derivation of the magnetic energy (or co-energy) with respect to a virtual rigid displacement of the considered body. The application of this method is usually justified by resorting to the energy conservation principle, written in terms both of electrical and of mechanical quantities. In this paper we shall re-examine the whole matter in the context of classical thermodynamics, in order to obtain a more comprehensive and general proof of the validity of the energy (or co-energy) approach and to point out its limitations. Two typical configurations will be discussed; in the first one, the field sources are represented by conducting bodies carrying free currents, whereas in the second one a permanent magnet creates the driving field. All magnetic materials are assumed to be non-hysteretic and permanent magnets are represented by means of the well-known linear model in the second quadrant of the (B,H) plane. Received 25 July 2001 and Received in final form 5 November 2001     

What if there are superluminal signals?

Recent experiments with microwaves indicate the existence of signals travelling faster than the vacuum velocity of light. At first glance these signals lead to paradoxical situations which seem to be in conflict with special relativity. We show that the arguments which lead to this contradiction presuppose that superluminal signals are not generally available and that the space-time geometry must be established by means of light rays. Hence we argue that superluminal signals will not necessarily invalidate special relativity. Received 1 July 1999     

Lattice effects in the quasiparticle dynamics and kinetics

In this work we present a full selfconsistent set of nonlinear equations which unifies the nonlinear elasticity theory equations, the Boltzmannn transport theory and the Maxwell equations for quasiparticles with arbitrary dispersion laws in nonstationarily deformed crystals with arbitrary (but linear) constitutive relations. Transformations to replace the Galilean ones are obtained, the quasiparticle mechanics in a Hamiltonian form is deduced, and a Boltzmann-type transport equation (valid in the whole Brillouin zone) is derived. The theory may be applied to metals, semiconductors, quantum crystals, low-dimensional structures etc. Received 20 October 2001 Published online 2 October 2002 RID="a" ID="a"e-mail: dipushk@issp.bas.bg     

A wave automaton for Maxwell's equations

This paper presents an extension to electromagnetic fields of the wave automaton, which was introduced in recent years for describing wave propagation in inhomogeneous media. Using elementary processes obeying a discrete Huygens' principle and satisfying fundamental symmetries such as time reversal and reciprocity, this new wave automaton is capable of modeling Maxwell's equations in 3+1 dimensions. It supplements the methods that were developed early for scalar and spinor fields. Received 19 July 2001     

Simulations of single charged particle motion in external magnetic and electric fields

In this paper we present a software package for computational modeling of single particle motion in static and dynamic external magnetic and electric fields and show applications of our package to general cases and particular cases of space, laboratory and fusion plasmas. In addition we further elaborate on the properties of a new concept named Larmor Center Trajectory that we introduced in our previous work [D. Erzen, J.P. Verboncoeur, J. Duhovnik, N. Jeli, Int. J. Multiphys. 1, 419 (2007)] as a generalization of the well known guiding center approximation, and show the ranges of applicability of this concept, especially in strongly inhomogeneous fields when adiabatic approximations break.     

A self consistent technique for singular potentials

A technique used by Edwards and Singh [8] in the study of polymers is used to provide a simple analytic procedure for calculating the upper bound of the energies of a class of singular potentials. The accuracy of our procedure turns out to be better than 1%. Received 29 August 2002 / Received in final form 20 November 2002 Published online 4 February 2003 RID="a" ID="a"e-mail: sumita@bose.res.in     

Modelling of magnetic effects in near-field optics

Green's dyadic technique represents a powerful tool for calculations in electrodynamics, especially in modelling optical properties of nanoscopic objects. The method does not only provide field distributions, but also maps of susceptibilities and densities of states. Whereas the formalism is well established for dielectrics and electric fields, I present here a straight forward extension to tensors of both electric and magnetic type as well as mixed ones and furthermore to the situation where objects with dielectric and magnetic permeabilities are present together. As examples, characteristic field patterns are compared for elementary dielectric and magnetic perturbations. Green's tensors calculated for a coral structure reveal that mixed susceptibilities can exhibit other symmetries than pure electric or magnetic ones. Maps of all tensor components can thus give essential clues to the interpretation of near-field images. Received 15 December 2002 Published online 20 June 2003 RID="a" ID="a"Files “maths.ps” and “tensors.ps” are only available in electronic form at http://www.edpsciences.org RID="b" ID="b"e-mail: Ursula.Schroeter@uni-konstanz.de     

Mixing of wavefunctions in rectangular microwave billiards

A set-up is described allowing the automatic registration of wavefunctions of quasi-two-dimensional microwave billiards of arbitrary shape. Tests of the apparatus with rectangular shaped billiards showed that a precision of some percent in the wavefunction amplitudes can be obtained, as far as isolated resonances are considered. For the case of overlapping resonances, however, the measurement yields wavefunctions which are close to a symmetric and an antisymmetric linear combination of the original rectangle eigenfunctions. The cause for this at first sight surprising result is discussed. Received 21 January 2000     

Classical dielectric models of fullerenes and estimation of heat radiation

With the aim of describing the cooling of highly excited fullerene molecules by heat radiation, we consider simple classical, dielectric models for calculation of the electromagnetic response and show that the overall distribution of oscillator strength for electronic transitions can be represented fairly well by such a model. The connection to a layer model for graphite is discussed. For thermal emission of radiation from fullerenes, which depends on the oscillator strength at low frequencies only, the classical dielectric model leads to a prediction which should be applicable at high temperatures where the fine structure of the oscillator strength distribution is smeared out. We also estimate the emission from infrared-active vibrations, which dominate at low temperatures but play a minor role at the high temperatures where formation and decay of fullerene molecules take place. Received 22 November 1999 and Received in final form 19 April 2000     

The Maxwell-Lodge effect: Significance of electromagnetic potentials in the classical theory

The Aharonov-Bohm effect has been the starting point of the reconsideration of the reality of the vector potential within quantum physics. We argue that the Maxwell-Lodge effect is its classical equivalent: what is the origin of the electromotive force induced in a coil surrounding a (finite) solenoid fed by an alternative current? We demonstrate theoretically, experimentally and numerically that the effect can be understood using the vector potential while it cannot using only the fields.     

Effect of colloidal charge discretization in the primitive model

The effect of fixed discrete colloidal charges in the primitive model is investigated for spherical macroions. Instead of considering a central bare charge, as it is traditionally done, we distribute discrete charges randomly on the sphere. We use molecular dynamics simulations to study this effect on various properties such as overcharging, counterion distribution and diffusion. In the vicinity of the colloid surface the electrostatic potential may considerably differ from the one obtained with a central charge. In the strong Coulomb coupling, we showed that the colloidal charge discretization qualitatively influences the counterion distribution and leads to a strong colloidal charge-counterion pair association. However, we found that charge inversion still persists even if strong pair association is observed. Received 30 June 2000 and Received in final form 28 November 2000     

Theory of electromagnetic wave propagation in a longitudinally periodic cylinder

Thinking of photonic crystals, we investigate the theory of electromagnetic wave propagation in a perfectly conducting semi-cylinder endowed with a periodic permittivity along its axis while its circular base is illuminated by an harmonic Bessel beam, symmetric around the cylinder axis. We prove that the Floquet-Bessel expansions of electromagnetic fields whose Floquet parts are solutions of a Mathieu equation. is a suitable tool to handle this kind of problems.     

New solutions of the shape equation

The general shape equation describing the forms of vesicles is a highly nonlinear partial differential equation for which only a few explicit solutions are known. These solvable cases are briefly reviewed and a new analytical solution which represents the class of the constant mean curvature surfaces is described. Pearling states of the tubular fluid membranes can be explained as a continuous deformation preserving membrane mean curvature. Received 2 February 2002 / Received in final form 4 February 2002 Published online 2 October 2002 RID="a" ID="a"e-mail: mladenov@obzor.bio21.bas.bg     

Production of medium-weight isotopes by fragmentation in 750 A MeV 238U on 208Pb collisions

Projectile fragmentation of ²³⁸U in a lead target was investigated at a bombarding energy of 750 A MeV. Isotopic production cross sections of about 250 different projectile fragments in the element range Z= 30–53 were measured with the FRagment Separator (FRS). The magnetic selection and the kinematical analysis of the measured isotopes allowed to disentangle fission and fragmentation residues. The mass loss of these residues indicates a violent collision where a large amount of energy is dissipated. The position of the fragmentation corridor defined by the measured residues was used to determine an effective proton-evaporation barrier. Received: 3 October 1997 / Revised version: 27 February 1998     

Coulomb breakup of 8B and the flux of 8B neutrinos from the Sun

A kinematically complete measurement was made of the Coulomb dissociation of ⁸B nuclei on a Pb target at 83 MeV/nucleon. The cross-section was measured at low relative energies in order to infer the astrophysical S-factor for the ⁷Be(p,γ)⁸B reaction. A first-order perturbation theory analysis of the reaction dynamics including E1, E2, and M1 transitions was employed to extract the E1 strength relevant to neutrino-producing reactions in the solar interior. By fitting the measured cross-section from E _rel = 130 keV to 400 keV, we find S ₁₇(0) = 17.8^+1.4 _-1.2 eV b. Semiclassical 1st-order perturbation theory and fully quantum-mechanical continuum-discretized coupled-channels analyses yield nearly identical results for the E1 strength relevant to solar-neutrino flux calculations, suggesting that theoretical reaction mechanism uncertainties need not limit the precision of Coulomb-breakup determinations of the ⁷Be(p,γ)⁸B S-factor. A recommended value of S ₁₇(0) based on a weighted average of this and other measurements is presented. This recommendation implies a revised value for the theoretical flux of ⁸B solar neutrinos, which is also given.-1 Received: 21 March 2002 / Accepted: 16 May 2002 / Published online: 31 October 2002 RID="a" ID="a"Present address: Kernfysisch Versneller Instituut, Zernikelaan 25, 9747 AA Groningen, The Netherlands; e-mail: davids@kvi.nl     

The axisymmetric equivalent of Kolmogorov's equation

A type of turbulence which is next to local isotropy in order of simplicity, but which corresponds more closely to turbulent flows encountered in practice, is locally axisymmetric turbulence. A representation of the second and third order structure function tensors of homogeneous axisymmetric turbulence is given. The dynamic equation relating the second and third order scalar structure functions is derived. When axisymmetry turns into isotropy, this equation is reduced to the well-known isotropic result: Kolmogorov's equation. The corresponding limiting form is also reduced to the well-known isotropic limiting form of Kolmogorov's equation. The new axisymmetric and theoretical results may have important consequences on several current ideas on the fine structure of turbulence, such as ideas developed by analysis based on the isotropic dissipation rate or such as extended self similarity (ESS) and the scaling laws for the n-order structure functions. Received 20 October 2000 and Received in final form 25 May 2001