Ultrafast all‐optical order‐to‐chaos transition in silicon photonic crystal chips

The interaction of light with nanostructured materials provides exciting new opportunities for investigating classical wave analogies of quantum phenomena. A topic of particular interest forms the interplay between wave physics and chaos in systems where a small perturbation can drive the behavior from the classical to chaotic regime. Here, we report an all‐optical laser‐driven transition from order to chaos in integrated chips on a silicon photonics platform. A square photonic crystal microcavity at telecom wavelengths is tuned from an ordered into a chaotic regime through a perturbation induced by ultrafast laser pulses in the ultraviolet range. The chaotic dynamics of weak probe pulses in the near infrared is characterized for different pump‐probe delay times and at various positions in the cavity, with high spatial accuracy. Our experimental analysis, confirmed by numerical modelling based on random matrices, demonstrates that nonlinear optics can be used to control reversibly the chaotic behavior of light in optical resonators.

     

Soot particle size distribution measurements in a turbulent ethylene swirl flame

There is a need to better understand particle size distributions (PSDs) from turbulent flames from a theoretical, practical and even regulatory perspective. Experiments were conducted on a sooting turbulent non-premixed swirled ethylene flame with secondary (dilution) air injection to investigate exhaust and in-burner PSDs measured with a Scanning Mobility Particle Sizer (SMPS) and soot volume fractions (f_v) using extinction measurements. The focus was to understand the effect of systematically changing the amount and location of dilution air injection on the PSDs and f_v inside the burner and at the exhaust. The PSDs were also compared with planar Laser Induced Incandescence (LII) calibrated against the average f_v. LII provides some supplemental information on the relative soot amounts and spatial distribution among the various flow conditions that helps interpret the results. For the flame with no air dilution, f_v drops gradually along the centreline of the burner towards the exhaust and the PSD shows a shift from larger particles to smaller. However, with dilution air f_v reduces sharply where the dilution jets meet the burner axis. Downstream of the dilution jets f_v reduces gradually and the PSDs remain unchanged until the exhaust. At the exhaust, the flame with no air dilution shows significantly more particles with an f_v one to two orders of magnitude greater compared to the Cases with dilution. This dataset provides insights into soot spatial and particle size distributions within turbulent flames of relevance to gas turbine combustion with differing dilution parameters and the effect dilution has on the particle size. Additionally, this work measures f_v using both ex situ and in situ techniques, and highlights the difficulties associated with comparing results across the two. The results are useful for validating advanced models for turbulent combustion.     

Groups whose Proper Subgroups of Infinite Rank Have a Transitive Normality Relation

A group G is called a T-group if all its subnormal subgroups are normal, and G is a ${\bar{T}}$ -group if every subgroup of G has the property T. It is proved here that if G is a locally soluble group whose proper subgroups of infinite rank have the T-property, then either G is a ${\bar{T}}$ -group or it has finite rank.     

Kosterlitz-Thouless Transition Line for the Two Dimensional Coulomb Gas

With a renormalization group approach, we study the pressure of the two dimensional Coulomb Gas along a small piece of the Kosterlitz-Thouless transition line, i.e. the boundary of the dipole region in the activity-temperature phase-space.     

Advanced numerical method for a thermally induced slug flow: application to a capillary closed loop pulsating heat pipe

An advanced hybrid lumped parameter code for the simulation of Pulsating Heat Pipes is developed. Being able to simulate transient operative conditions and removing common physical simplified assumptions, it represents a step forward with respect to the present models of passive two‐phase systems. Mass, momentum and energy balances account for the thermal and fluid‐dynamics phenomena. Heterogeneous and homogeneous phase changes are directly integrated. In addition, a fitting correlation for the wall/vapour heat transfer coefficient is implemented and tuned against experimental data in order to evaluate the influence of the liquid film on conjugate heat transfer. The resulting numerical tool have been validated against experimental data achieved testing a copper pulsating heat pipe during the 58th ESA Parabolic Flight Campaign in several operative conditions and transient gravity levels. The predicted results show very good matching with the actual thermo‐physical behaviour of the system. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Hydrothermal carbon from biomass: structural differences between hydrothermal and pyrolyzed carbons via 13C solid state NMR

The objective of this paper is to better describe the structure of the hydrothermal carbon (HTC) process and put it in relationship with the more classical pyrolytic carbons. Indeed, despite the low energetic impact and the number of applications described so far for HTC, very little is known about the structure, reaction mechanism, and the way these materials relate to coals. Are HTC and calcination processes equivalent? Are the structures of the processed materials related to each other in any way? Which is the extent of polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) inside HTC? In this work, the effect of hydrothermal treatment and pyrolysis are compared on glucose, a good model carbohydrate; a detailed single-quantum double-quantum (SQ-DQ) solid state (13)C NMR study of the HTC and calcined HTC is used to interpret the spectral region corresponding to the signal of furanic and arene groups. These data are compared to the spectroscopic signatures of calcined glucose, starch, and xylose. A semiquantitative analysis of the (13)C NMR spectra provides an estimation of the furanic-to-arene ratio which varies from 1:1 to 4:1 according to the processing conditions and carbohydrate employed. In addition, we formulate some hypothesis, validated by DFT (density functional theory) modeling associated with (13)C NMR chemical shifts calculations, about the possible furan-rich structural intermediates that occur in the coalification process leading to condensed polyaromatic structures. In combination with a broad parallel study on the HTC processing conditions effect on glucose, cellulose, and raw biomass (Falco, C.; Baccile, N.; Titirici, M.-M. Green Chem., 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C1GC15742F), we propose a broad reaction scheme and in which we show that, through HTC, it is possible to tune the furan-to-arene ratio composing the aromatic core of the produced HTC carbons, which is not possible if calcination is used alone, in the temperature range below 350 °C.     

Flux line lattice symmetries in the borocarbide superconductor LuNi2B2C

We compare the results of small angle neutron scattering on the flux line lattice (FLL) obtained in the borocarbide superconductor LuNi₂B₂C with the applied field along the c- and a-axes. For H‖c the temperature dependence of the FLL structural phase transition from square to hexagonal symmetry was investigated. Above 10 K the transition onset field. H ₂(T), rises sharply, bending away from H _c2(T) in contradiction to theoretical predictions of the two merging. For H‖a a first order FLL reorientation transition is observed at H _tr=3–3.5 kOe. Below H _tr the FLL nearest neighbor direction is parallel to the b-axis, and above H _tr to the c-axis. This transition cannot be explained using nonlocal corrections to the London model.     

A note on groups of infinite rank with modular subgroup lattice

It is proved that if \(G\) is a (generalized) soluble group of infinite rank in which all proper subgroups of infinite rank are permodular, then the subgroup lattice of \(G\) is permodular. As a consequence of this theorem, we obtain shorter proofs for corresponding known results concerning normal or permutable subgroups of groups of infinite rank.