Laboratory singing sand avalanches

Some desert sand dunes have the peculiar ability to emit a loud sound up to 110 dB, with a well-defined frequency: this phenomenon, known since early travelers (Darwin, Marco Polo, etc.), has been called the song of dunes. But only in late 19th century scientific observations were made, showing three important characteristics of singing dunes: first, not all dunes sing, but all the singing dunes are composed of dry and well-sorted sand; second, this sound occurs spontaneously during avalanches on a slip face; third this is not the only way to produce sound with this sand.More recent field observations have shown that during avalanches, the sound frequency does not depend on the dune size or shape, but on the grain diameter only, and scales as the square root of g/d - with g the gravity and d the diameter of the grains - explaining why all the singing dunes in the same vicinity sing at the same frequency.We have been able to reproduce these singing avalanches in laboratory on a hard plate, which made possible to study them more accurately than on the field. Signals of accelerometers at the flowing surface of the avalanche are compared to signals of microphones placed above, and it evidences a very strong vibration of the flowing layer at the same frequency as on the field, responsible for the emission of sound.Moreover, other characteristics of the booming dunes are reproduced and analyzed, such as a threshold under which no sound is produced, or beats in the sound that appears when the flow is too large. Finally, the size of the coherence zones emitting sound has been measured and discussed.     

Hypersurfaces in P n with 1-parameter symmetry groups II

We assume V a hypersurface of degree d in ${P^n({\mathbb C})}$ with isolated singularities and not a cone, admitting a group G of linear symmetries. In earlier work we treated the case when G is semi-simple; here we analyse the unipotent case. Our first main result lists the possible groups G. In each case we discuss the geometry of the action, reduce V to a normal form, find the singular points, study their nature, and calculate the Milnor numbers. The Tjurina number τ(V) ≤ (d ? 1) ^n–2(d ² ? 3d + 3): we call V oversymmetric if this value is attained. We calculate τ in many cases, and characterise the oversymmetric situations. In particular, we list all the cases with dim(G) = 2 which are the oversymmetric cases with d = 3.     

Spatial structuring and size selection as collective behaviours in an agent-based model for barchan fields

In order to test parameters of the peculiar dynamics occurring in barchan fields, and compute statistical analysis over large numbers of dunes, we build and study an agent-based model, which includes the well-known physics of an isolated barchan, and observations of interactions between dunes. We showed in a previous study that such a model, where barchans interact through short-range sand recapture and collisions, reproduces the peculiar behaviours of real fields, namely its spatial structuring along the wind direction, and the size selection by the local density. In this paper we focus on the mechanisms that drives these features. In particular, we show that eolian remote sand transfer between dunes ensures that a dense field structures itself into a very heterogeneous pattern, which alternates dense and diluted stripes in the wind direction. In these very dense clusters of dunes, the accumulation of collisions leads to the local emergence of a new size for the dunes.     

Optimal ship navigation with safety distance and realistic turn constraints

We consider the optimal ship navigation problem wherein the goal is to find the shortest path between two given coordinates in the presence of obstacles subject to safety distance and turn-radius constraints. These obstacles can be debris, rock formations, small islands, ice blocks, other ships, or even an entire coastline. We present a graph-theoretic solution on an appropriately-weighted directed graph representation of the navigation area obtained via 8-adjacency integer lattice discretization and utilization of the A^∗ algorithm. We explicitly account for the following three conditions as part of the turn-radius constraints: (1) the ship’s left and right turn radii are different, (2) ship’s speed reduces while turning, and (3) the ship needs to navigate a certain minimum number of lattice edges along a straight line before making any turns. The last constraint ensures that the navigation area can be discretized at any desired resolution. Once the optimal (discrete) path is determined, we smoothen it to emulate the actual navigation of the ship. We illustrate our methodology on an ice navigation example involving a 100,000 DWT merchant ship and present a proof-of-concept by simulating the ship’s path in a full-mission ship handling simulator.     

On Eigenvalues of Split Quaternion Matrices

The main purpose of this paper is to set a method of finding eigenvalues of split quaternion matrices. In particular, we will give an extension of Gershgorin theorem, which is one of the fundamental theorems of complex matrix theory, for split quaternion matrices.     

On Complex Split Quaternion Matrices

In this paper, we present some important properties of complex split quaternions and their matrices. We also prove that any complex split quaternion has a 4 × 4 complex matrix representation. On the other hand, we give answers to the following two basic questions “If AB =  I, is it true that BA =  I for complex split quaternion matrices?” and “How can the inverse of a complex split quaternion matrix be found?”. Finally, we give an explicit formula for the inverse of a complex split quaternion matrix by using complex matrices.     

Realization of a near-perfect antireflection coating for silicon solar energy utilization

To harness the full spectrum of solar energy, Fresnel reflection at the surface of a solar cell must be eliminated over the entire solar spectrum and at all angles. Here, we show that a multilayer nanostructure having a graded-index profile, as predicted by theory [J. Opt. Soc. Am. 66, 515 (1976); Appl. Opt. 46, 6533 (2007)], can accomplish a near-perfect transmission of all-color of sunlight. An ultralow total reflectance of 1%-6% has been achieved over a broad spectrum, lambda = 400 to 1600 nm, and a wide range of angles of incidence, theta = 0 degrees-60 degrees . The measured angle- and wavelength-averaged total reflectance of 3.79% is the smallest ever reported in the literature, to our knowledge.     

Two distinct quasifission modes in the 32S + 232Th reaction

Comprehensive fission measurements, including mass-angle distributions, for the reaction of 32S with the prolate deformed nucleus 232Th at near-barrier energies show two distinct components in both mass and angle; surprisingly, both have characteristics of quasifission. Their relative probabilities vary rapidly with the ratio of the beam energy to the capture barrier, suggesting a relationship with deformation aligned (sub-barrier), or antialigned (above-barrier), configurations at contact.     

Electrostriction-induced acoustic effect in ultralong-distance soliton transmission systems

The electrostriction-induced acoustic effect introduces a time-dependent index evolution for the following optical pulses and results in an additional temporal shift of solitons. The acoustic effect is incorporated into the nonlinear Schr?dinger equation as a perturbative term. We investigate the evolution of timing jitter, taking into account both the Gordon-Haus and the acoustic effect contributions for a 10-Gbit/s sliding-frequency in-line-filter soliton system.