Mach stem hysteresis: Experiments addressing a novel explanation of clumpy astrophysical jet emission

Recent time-series observations of shock waves in stellar jets taken with the Hubble Space Telescope reveal localized bright knots that persist over nearly 15 years. While some of these features represent shock fronts caused by variable velocities in the flow, others appear at the intersection points between distinct bow shocks. Theoretically, when the angle between two intersecting shocks exceeds a certain critical value, a third shock (Mach stem) should form. Because Mach stems form perpendicular to the direction of flow, incoming particles encounter a normal shock instead of an oblique one, which results in brighter emission at this location. To study this phenomenon in a controlled laboratory setting, we have carried out experiments on the Omega laser aimed at understanding the formation, growth, and destruction of Mach stems in the warm dense plasma regime. Our experimental results indicate how the growth rate depends upon included angle, and numerical simulations indicate that it may be possible to stabilize an already-formed Mach stem below the critical angle when certain conditions are satisfied.     

Information trade-offs for optical quantum communication

Recent work has precisely characterized the achievable trade-offs between three key information processing tasks-classical communication (generation or consumption), quantum communication (generation or consumption), and shared entanglement (distribution or consumption), measured in bits, qubits, and ebits per channel use, respectively. Slices and corner points of this three-dimensional region reduce to well-known protocols for quantum channels. A trade-off coding technique can attain any point in the region and can outperform time sharing between the best-known protocols for accomplishing each information processing task by itself. Previously, the benefits of trade-off coding that had been found were too small to be of practical value (viz., for the dephasing and the universal cloning machine channels). In this Letter, we demonstrate that the associated performance gains are in fact remarkably high for several physically relevant bosonic channels that model free-space or fiber-optic links, thermal-noise channels, and amplifiers. We show that significant performance gains from trade-off coding also apply when trading photon-number resources between transmitting public and private classical information simultaneously over secret-key-assisted bosonic channels.     

Zu Fragen der Legierungsbildung bei Bimetallkatalysatoren

Problems of alloying and surface composition of bimetallic catalysts and some results of investigations on alloying in Ni–Cu-η-Al₂O₃ catalysts are discussed.     

A position- and time-sensitive particle detector with subnanosecond time resolution

A microchannel plate/CCD-camera particle detector is described that utilises gold strips deposited upon the surface of a MCP to provide particle arrival time information. The uncertainty in the timing is assessed to be ∼500 ps (FWHM) for a measured time interval between adjacent strips. The main contribution of which is the result of the slow response time of the CFD compared to the signal. The application of timing measurement is shown to be of particular benefit in the accurate determination of product state branching ratios from the dissociative recombination of diatomic ions. Finally, the possibilities of such a detector are assessed. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Invariant star-products on symplectic manifolds

Let (M,F) be a symplectic manifold and consider a Lie subalgebra $\text{G}$ of its Lie algebra of symplectic vector fields. We prove that every one-differentiable deformation of order k of the Poisson Lie algebra of M, which is invariant with respect to $\text{G}$, extends to an invariant one-differentiable deformation of infinite order. If M admits a $\text{G}$-invariant linear connection, a similar result holds true for differentiable deformations and for star-products. In particular, if M admits a $\text{G}$- -invariant linear connection, there always exists a $\text{G}$-invariant star-product.     

Analysis and identification of a social interaction model

In this paper, we present a model of social interaction systems. By comparing it with existing analytical models, and using simulations, we focus on dynamical behavior and interaction properties of this nonlinear time-varying system. The system's behavior can be predicted if we have sufficient knowledge of system parameters such as the connection matrix. Observation of system behavior can be useful to recover the unknown or insufficiently known levels of interaction strength. Furthermore, if proper sampling can be carried out, the system can be identified. This model is suitable for investigating social phenomena such as the fashion phenomenon.     

Shear modulus and compliance in the range of the dynamic glass transition for metallic glasses

High-resolution synchrotron-radiation powder diffraction experiments were performed to observe structural changes induced by hydrogen loading in rapidly-quenched Ti-Zr-Ni alloy ribbons with dominant icosahedral character. Lattice expansion effects due to hydrogen storage in Ti-Zr-Ni quasicrystals as well as phonon and phason disorder coefficients are obtained from an analysis of diffraction linewidths. Received: 26 August 1997 / Revised: 8 January 1998 / Accepted: 10 February 1998     

Photoinduced processes on alkali covered surfaces: NO desorption from K/Cr2O3(0001)

We have studied the ultraviolet laser induced desorption of NO/Cr₂O₃(0001), K/Cr₂O₃(0001) and the coadsorbate system NO/K/Cr₂O₃(0001) using resonance enhanced multiphoton ionization spectroscopy for state selective detection of the desorbing species after excitation with nanosecond laser pulses. The goal of our experiments was to study the influence of surface electronic modifications via alkali adsorption on the photodynamics of a simple molecule. The photochemistry of the isolated and the coadsorbate systems is strongly dependent on the coverage of the diverse components. In this paper we shall mainly focus on data for the low coverage regime of potassium. From the two adsorbate species of NO, a chemisorbed and a physisorbed species, we present data of the chemisorbed species. The velocity distributions show a strong dependence on the excitation energy which we interpret on the basis of electron energy loss spectra as being due to surface charge transfer states. This is corroborated with our coadsorption experiments with low coverages of potassium which alter the velocity distributions.     

On missing boundary conditions with unsteady incompressible Navier–Stokes flows

We investigate an unsteady viscous flow problem where ‘good’ boundary conditions are available on part of the boundary only. This problem appears when the flow phenomena one is interested in are concentrated on part of the flow region and, for reasons of computational economy, are numerically computed in this subregion only. Assuming that outside of the subregion the flow is not subjected to any acceleration forces, we develop an (abstract) combined finite-element/boundary element scheme to compute the flow approximately. This scheme leads to a proof of the existence of a weak solution of the corresponding Navier–Stokes problem as well.