High-speed modal decomposition of mode instabilities in high-power fiber lasers

A high-speed mode analysis technique is required to gain fundamental understanding of mode instabilities in high-power fiber laser systems. In this work a technique, purely based on the intensity profile of the beam, is demonstrated to be ideally suited to analyze fiber laser dynamics. This technique, together with a high-speed camera, has been applied to the study of the temporal dynamics of mode instabilities at high average powers with up to 20,000 frames per second. These measurements confirm that energy transfer between the fluctuating transversal modes takes place in millisecond-time-scale.     

Apatite type lanthanum silicate and composite anode half cells

Apatite type rare earth silicates are being extensively studied as electrolyte material for intermediate temperature solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC). In this paper we presents results on synthesis of Al and/or Fe-doped ATLS, the design of compatible anode materials, thermal expansion properties and co-sintering of half-cells from expansion matched materials using the advanced pulsed electric current sintering (PECS) technique. The issues related to the co-sintering of half cells have been addressed successfully by the combined use of nano powders and PECS.     

High-order harmonic generation enhanced by XUV light

The combination of high-order harmonic generation (HHG) with resonant XUV excitation of a core electron into the transient valence vacancy that is created in the course of the HHG process is investigated theoretically. In this setup, the first electron performs a HHG three-step process, whereas the second electron Rabi flops between the core and the valence vacancy. The modified HHG spectrum due to recombination with the valence and the core is determined and analyzed for krypton on the 3d→4p resonance in the ion. We assume an 800?nm laser with an intensity of about 10(14)?W/cm2 and XUV radiation from the Free Electron Laser in Hamburg (FLASH) with an intensity in the range 10(13)-10(16)W cm2. Our prediction opens perspectives for nonlinear XUV physics, attosecond x rays, and HHG-based spectroscopy involving core orbitals.     

Thermal stability of the cubic phase in Ba0.5Sr0.5Co0.8Fe0.2O3 - δ (BSCF)1

Ba_0.5Sr_0.5Co_0.8Fe_0.2O_3 - δ (BSCF) is a material with excellent oxygen ionic and electronic transport properties reported by many research groups. In its cubic phase, this mixed ionic-electronic conducting (MIEC) perovskite is a promising candidate for oxygen permeation membranes. For this application, its long-term stability under operating conditions (especially temperature and oxygen partial pressure) is of crucial importance.The present work is focused on the thermal stability of the BSCF cubic phase in the targeted temperature range for applications (700…900 °C) in light of previous studies in literature reporting a reversible transition to a hexagonal phase somewhere below 900 °C.To this end, single phase cubic BSCF powders were annealed at different temperatures over varying periods of time. Phase composition was subsequently analysed by X-ray diffractometry (XRD) in order to determine both the temperature limit and the time-scale for the formation of the hexagonal phase. Additionally, the long-term behaviour of the electrical conductivity was examined on bulk samples at 700 °C, 800 °C and 900 °C over several hundreds of hours, showing a prolonged decrease at 800 °C. The decrease in electrical conductivity at this temperature was also examined on bulk samples with different grain sizes, showing a more pronounced decrease the smaller the average grain size.Coexistence of both phases (cubic and hexagonal) could also be shown for 700 °C, however with a different phase equilibrium than at 800 °C.     

Single flavor staggered fermions

Based on recent work by Adams, I construct a lattice fermion operator that fully lifts the staggered flavor degeneracy. The resulting operator is of Wilson type but smaller by a factor of 4, better conditioned and contains 3 instead of 15 doublers. It is further suggested that this operator may be used as a candidate kernel operator to an overlap construction. Prospects for practical applications and potential problems of the new discretizations are briefly discussed.     

Comment on “Delayed luminescence of biological systems in terms of coherent states” [Phys. Lett. A 293 (2002) 93]

Popp and Yan [F.A. Popp, Y. Yan, Phys. Lett. A 293 (2002) 93] proposed a model for delayed luminescence based on a single time-dependent coherent state. We show that the general solution of their model corresponds to a luminescence that is a linear function of time. Therefore, their model is not compatible with experimental delayed luminescence. Moreover, the functions that they use to describe the oscillatory behaviour of delayed luminescence are not solutions of the coupling equations to be solved.     

Stability of impulsively-driven natural convection with unsteady base state: implications of an adiabatic boundary

Stability conditions of a quiescent, horizontally infinite fluid layer with adiabatic bottom subject to sudden cooling from above are studied. Here, at difference from Rayleigh-Bénard convection, the temperature base state is never steady. Instability limits are studied using linear analysis while stability is analyzed using the energy method. Critical stability curves in terms of Rayleigh numbers and convection onset times were obtained for several kinematic boundary conditions. Stability curves resulting from energy and linear approaches exhibit the same temporal growth rate for large values of time, suggesting a bound for the temporal asymptotic behavior of the energy method.     

Flavoured leptogenesis in the CTP formalism

Within the Closed Time Path (CTP) framework, we derive kinetic equations for particle distribution functions that describe leptogenesis in the presence of several lepton flavours. These flavours have different Standard-Model Yukawa couplings, which induce flavour-sensitive scattering processes and thermal dispersion relations. Kinetic equilibrium, which is rapidly established and maintained via gauge interactions, allows to simplify these equations to kinetic equations for the matrix of lepton charge densities. In performing this simplification, we notice that the rapid flavour-blind gauge interactions damp the flavour oscillations of the leptons. Leptogenesis turns out to be in the parametric regime where the flavour oscillations are overdamped and flavour decoherence is mainly induced by flavour sensitive scatterings. We solve the kinetic equations for the lepton number densities numerically and show that they interpolate between the unflavoured and the fully flavoured regimes within the intermediate parametric region, where neither of these limits is applicable.     

Integrated production and distribution scheduling with lifespan constraints

We consider an integrated production and distribution scheduling problem in a make-to-order business scenario. A product with a short lifespan (e.g., perishable or seasonal) is produced at a single production facility with a limited production rate. This means that the product expires in a constant time after its production is finished. Orders are received from a set of geographically dispersed customers, where a demand for the product and a time window for the delivery is associated with each customer for the planning period. A single vehicle with non-negligible traveling times between the locations is responsible for the deliveries. Due to the limited production and distribution resources, possibly not all customers may be supplied within their time windows or the lifespan. The problem consists in finding a selection of customers to be supplied such that the total satisfied demand is maximized. We extend the work by Armstrong et al. (Annals of Operations Research 159(1):395–414, 2008) on the problem for fixed delivery sequences by pointing out an error in their branch and bound algorithm and presenting a corrected variant. Furthermore, we introduce model extensions for handling delays of the production start as well as for variable production and distribution sequences. Efficient heuristic solution algorithms and computational results for randomly generated instances are presented.