Thermal photon production in a strongly coupled anisotropic plasma

Journal of High Energy Physics - For the homogeneous configuration given by the long string limit of the folded string with a spin in AdS 3 and a spin and a winding number in S 1, we solve the...     

The potential of micro-electro-mechanical accelerometers in human vibration measurements

This paper evaluates the advantages and the drawbacks deriving from the use of MEMS (micro-electro-mechanical systems) accelerometers for hand-arm and whole-body vibration measurements. Metrological performances of different transducers were assessed through the identification of their frequency response function, linearity, floor noise and sensitivity to thermal and electromagnetic disturbances. Experimental results highlighted a standard instrumental uncertainty (including the nonlinearity) lower than 5% with the single frequency calibration procedure, such a value was reduced to 2%. The temperature effect was negligible and the electromagnetic disturbances sensitivity was comparable to that of the piezoelectric accelerometers. The compatibility of measurements obtained with MEMS accelerometers with those of piezoelectric-based measurement chains was verified for two specific applications. An example of direct transducer fixation on the skin for vibration transmissibility measurements is also presented. Thanks to the MEMS peculiarities – mainly small sizes and low cost – since novel approaches in the vibration monitoring could be pursued. For instance, it is possible to include by design MEMS accelerometers in any hand-held tool at the operator interface, or inside the seats structures of cars, tractors and trucks. This could be a viable solution to easily obtain repeatable exposure measurements and could also provide diagnostic signals for the tools or seats of functional monitoring.     

An indirect hybrid sound transmission loss controller

The control of sound transmission through panels is an important noise control problem in the aerospace, aeronautical, and automotive industries. The trend towards using lightweight composite materials that have lower sound insulation performance is a negative factor regarding low frequency transmission loss. Double-panel partitions with the gap filled with sound absorption materials are often employed to improve the sound insulation performance with reduced added weight penalty. However, in the low frequency range, the strong coupling between the panels through the air cavity and mechanical paths may greatly reduce the sound transmission performance, making it even lower than the performance of a single panel in some frequency ranges. In this work, an experimental investigation of a new kind of hybrid (active/passive) acoustic actuator is presented. The idea consists of replacing the acoustic absorption material by a hybrid actuator aiming at improving the transmission loss at low frequencies without altering the passive attenuation. A prototype of the system is tested in a plane wave acoustic tube setup. Different kinds of SISO feedforward control implementations were used to attenuate the sound power transmitted through the hybrid active–passive panel using an error microphone or a particle velocity sensor placed downstream with respect to the sample panel. Measurement results of the transmission loss with active and hybrid attenuation are presented and discussed.     

Andreev levels in a graphene–superconductor surface

In order to consider the Dirac-like spectrum of graphene we employ the Bogoliubov de Gennes–Dirac formalism to determine the quasiparticle Andreev levels in an NS surface (normal–superconductor). The normal region is characterized by a width L while the superconducting region is semi-infinite and both regions are made of doped graphene. The quasiparticle energy spectrum is originated by the Andreev reflections that occur in the NS interface. It is shown that this spectrum depends on the width of the normal region and the Fermi energy in each region. When the Fermi energy in the normal metal is lower than the gap of the superconductor region, the spectrum is affected by specular Andreev reflections. The equation that is obtained to find the spectrum is very general and we solve it for some particular cases. We find that the energy spectrum oscillates when the Fermi energy in graphene is changed. Finally we obtain under some approximations an equation for the energy spectrum which is similar in structure as those obtained for an INS conventional junction.     

A version of Stöber synthesis enabling the facile prediction of silica nanospheres size for the fabrication of opal photonic crystals

A sol-gel synthesis procedure based on the method proposed by Stöber et al. (J Colloid Interface Sci 26:302–315, 1968) has been adopted for the one-step preparation of mono-dispersed silica nanospheres. An excellent control of the particle diameter over a wide range is obtained by varying the amount of silicon alkoxide only, while the concentration of all other components is kept fixed: this allows the fabrication of artificial opals with a finely tuned and precisely predictable lattice parameter.     

Cosmological Two-Fluid Thermodynamics

We reveal unifying thermodynamic aspects of so different phenomena as the cosmological electron-positron annihilation, the evaporation of primordial black holes with a narrow mass range, and the "deflationary" transition from an initial de Sitter phase to a subsequent standard Friedmann–Lemaître–Robertson–Walker (FLRW) behavior.     

Letter: Statefinder Parameters for Interacting Dark Energy

We argue that the recently introduced statefinder parameters (Sahni et al., JETP Lett. 77, 201 (2003)), that include the third derivative of the cosmic scale factor, are useful tools to characterize interacting quintessence models. We specify the statefinder parameters for two classes of models that solve, or at least alleviate, the coincidence problem.     

GPU accelerated simulations of bluff body flows using vortex particle methods

We present a GPU accelerated solver for simulations of bluff body flows in 2D using a remeshed vortex particle method and the vorticity formulation of the Brinkman penalization technique to enforce boundary conditions. The efficiency of the method relies on fast and accurate particle-grid interpolations on GPUs for the remeshing of the particles and the computation of the field operators. The GPU implementation uses OpenGL so as to perform efficient particle-grid operations and a CUFFT-based solver for the Poisson equation with unbounded boundary conditions. The accuracy and performance of the GPU simulations and their relative advantages/drawbacks over CPU based computations are reported in simulations of flows past an impulsively started circular cylinder from Reynolds numbers between 40 and 9500. The results indicate up to two orders of magnitude speed up of the GPU implementation over the respective CPU implementations. The accuracy of the GPU computations depends on the Re number of the flow. For Re up to 1000 there is little difference between GPU and CPU calculations but this agreement deteriorates (albeit remaining to within 5% in drag calculations) for higher Re numbers as the single precision of the GPU adversely affects the accuracy of the simulations.     

Probing quantum-vacuum geometrical effects with cold atoms

The lateral Casimir-Polder force between an atom and a corrugated surface should allow one to study experimentally nontrivial geometrical effects in the electromagnetic quantum vacuum. Here, we derive the theoretical expression of this force in the scattering approach. We show that large corrections to the "proximity force approximation" could be measured using present-day technology with a Bose-Einstein condensate used as a vacuum field sensor.