Evolution of the Alfvénic correlation in the solar wind

Summary The radial evolution of Alfvénic correlation is such that its value decreases with increasing heliocentric distance. So far this behaviour has been interpreted as an increase in the local production of ?inward? modes interacting destructively with the ?outward? modes. This work, which deals with largescale turbulence, shows that local generation phenomena are not commonly found in the solar wind and that the Alfvénic character of the fluctuations mainly depend on the ?outward? modes alone. The interaction of these modes with density and/or magnetic-field structures convected by the wind causes their destruction and a consequent depletion of the Alfvénic correlation. The same effect would be obtained if ?inward? modes were really present. Our conclusions are that large-scale ?inward? modes are the spectral counterpart of non-propagating field and plasma structures convected by the solar wind and identified as both compression regions and pressure balance structures. Paper presented at the V Cosmic Physics National Conference, S. Miniato, November 27–30, 1990.     

Intramolecular hemiacetals. The acid-base-catalyzed ring-chain interconversion of 2-substituted 2-hydroxy-4,4-dimethylmorpholinium cations in aqueous solution.

The ring-chain tautomerism in aqueous solution of some aryl-substituted morpholinium salts (bromides), has been studied and equilibrium constants are reported. In the crystals the substrates exist entirely in their cyclic forms as hemiacetals, but in aqueous solution NMR measurements reveal that an equilibrium is established between the cyclic (hemiacetal) and the noncyclic (ketone) form, the degree of ring-opening being more pronounced with electron-donating aryl substituents at the carbonyl carbon. The kinetics of the ring-chain interconversion in water has been investigated spectrophotometrically by a 'pH jump' stopped-flow technique. General base catalysis is observed with a Br?nsted beta value apparently independent of substituent and equal to 0.60. The Hammett rho values for various base catalysts are close to those for very similar intermolecular reactions involving hemiacetal breakdown, leading to the suggestion of a 'normal' class n mechanism for base catalysis. For acid catalysis, however, a quite different situation is encountered, since no general acid but only (weak) catalysis by the hydronium ion can be detected. We believe this deviation from 'normal' general acid catalysis is caused by an electrostatic interaction, and we suggest that it might result from a change in the usual class e mechanism for general acid catalysis by a situation in which rate-limiting concerted proton transfer is replaced by rate-limiting preprotonation. This is supported by the observed drastic change in Hammett rho value for catalysis by the hydronium ion, compared with the 'normal' case. An interesting case is encountered for the 4-aminophenyl-substituted substrate, in which the amino group becomes protonated in acid solution, thus representing a new substituent. Despite this complication, the various equilibrium and rate constants may also be evaluated experimentally for this substrate.     

Quark confinement in 2+1 dimensional pure Yang-Mills theory

We report some progress on the quark confinement problem in 2 + 1 dim. pure Yang-Mills theory, using Euclidean instanton methods. The instantons are regularized Wu-Yang ‘monopoles’, whose long range Coulomb field is screened by collective effects. Such configurations are stable to small perturbations unlike the case of singular, undressed monopoles. Using exact non-perturbative results for the 3-dim. Coulomb gas, where Debye screening holds for arbitrarily low temperatures, we show in a self-consistent way that a mass gap is dynamically generated in the gauge theory. The mass gap also determines the size of the monopoles. We also identify the disorder operator of the model in terms of the Sine-Gordon field of the Coulomb gas and hence obtain a dual representation whose symmetry is the centre ofSU(2).     

Variational bounds on shear-driven turbulence and turbulent Boussinesq convection

Based on earlier studies by Hopf (1941), Doering and Constantin (1992, 1994, 1995) have recently formulated a new “background” technique for obtaining upper bounds on turbulent fluid flow quantities. This method produces upper bounds on the limit supremum of long time averages, making no statistical assumptions about the flow in contrast to the well-known Howard-Busse approach. The full optimisation problems posed by this method for the momentum transport in turbulent Couette flow and the heat transport (with zero background flow) in turbulent Boussinesq convection are solved here for the first time at asymptotically large Reynolds number and Rayleigh number within Busse's multiple boundary layer approximation to extract the best (lowest) possible upper bounds available. Intriguingly, the original bounds isolated by Busse (1969, 1970) within the confines of statistical stationarity are recovered exactly using this new formalism. The optimal background velocity profile for turbulent Couette flow is found to be shearless in the interior thus differing from Busse's “ ” mean shear result. In the convective case, an interesting degeneracy in the formulation of the background variational problem leads to an indeterminacy in the optimal background temperature profile. Only for one special choice is the isothermal core feature of Busse's mean profile recovered.     

On the decomposition of Kn into complete m-partite graphs

Graham and Pollak [3] proved that n ?1 is the minimum number of edge-disjoint complete bipartite subgraphs into which the edges of K_n can be decomposed. Using a linear algebraic technique, Tverberg [2] gives a different proof of that result. We apply his technique to show that for “almost all n,” ? (n + m ?3)/(m ?1) ? is the minimum number of edge-disjoint complete m-partite subgraphs in a decomposition of K_n.     

Finite temperature QCD coupling constant —imaginary versus real time framework

The correspondence between the imaginary time and real time thermal running coupling constant is discussed. The temperature dependence is derived in pure QCD at one-loop order in a generalized momentum subtraction (MOM) renormalization scheme.     

The missing part of the greenhouse effect

Summary Global average temperatures from 1860 to 1989 were analysed with a simple fitting procedure. The temperature records can be fitted with a rising exponential up to 1946 and with the same exponential minus an increasing cooling action from 1946 to 1989. It is shown that the results are compatible with the hypothesis of an albedo increase caused by SO₂ emissions. This hypothesis gives satisfactory explanations of the temperature drop in the years 1940–1970, of the different warming of the northern and southern hemispheres and of the slower warming observed over North America. The results give an indication that the greenhouse warming in the next years could be faster than predicted until now. Due to the relevance of its scientific content, this paper has been given priority by the Journal Direction.