Railgun using plasma initiation separated from the projectile

Preacceleration of a projectile is important for reducing the erosion of the bore surface in a railgun. Gas guns, electrothermal guns, and other railguns are commonly used to preaccelerate the projectile. A new method, called the plasma initiation separated from the projectile (PISP) method is proposed, and its effectiveness is confirmed experimentally. A thin copper wire is placed near the edge of the railgun, and it explodes and forms a plasma that has a fast flow velocity due to the Lorentz force. This fast flowing plasma collides with the projectile, which obtains an initial velocity mainly by the momentum transfer. Since the current increases while only the plasma is accelerated, the driving force of the projectile just after the collision of the plasma with the projectile is large. The PISP method works as an inductive energy storage circuit with an opening switch     

Spectral Gap and Exponential Decay of Correlations

We study the relation between the spectral gap above the ground state and the decay of the correlations in the ground state in quantum spin and fermion systems with short-range interactions on a wide class of lattices. We prove that, if two observables anticommute with each other at large distance, then the nonvanishing spectral gap implies exponential decay of the corresponding correlation. When two observables commute with each other at large distance, the connected correlation function decays exponentially under the gap assumption. If the observables behave as a vector under the U(1) rotation of a global symmetry of the system, we use previous results on the large distance decay of the correlation function to show the stronger statement that the correlation function itself, rather than just the connected correlation function, decays exponentially under the gap assumption on a lattice with a certain self-similarity in (fractal) dimensions D < 2. In particular, if the system is translationally invariant in one of the spatial directions, then this self-similarity condition is automatically satisfied. We also treat systems with long-range, power-law decaying interactions.     

Measurement of Principal-Stress Directions from Photoelastic Experiment Using Generalized Phase-Shift Method

A generalized phase-shift method is developed for automatic measurement of principal-stress directions in the whole field of a model from photoelastic experiments. This method uses a set of light intensities obtained from the rotation of polaroids in dark-field plane polariscopes at each point. To investigate the accuracy of the measurement, time-series light intensity curves with different noise and different numbers of data which constitute the curves are used in computer simulation. The error of the measurement of the principal-stress directions obtained by the method is not greatly affected by noise when the number of data exceeds 50. This method is applied to a circular disk subjected to a concentrated load. The principal-stress directions obtained by the method are found to be in good agreement with the theory.Presented at 1996 International Workshop on Interferometry (IWI ‘96), August 27–29, Saitama, Japan.     

Exponential decay of solutions to nonlinear elliptic equations with potentials

Exponential decay estimates are obtained for complex-valued solutions to nonlinear elliptic equations in \mathbbRⁿ ,\mathbb{R}^{n} , where the linear term is given by Schr?dinger operators H =  − Δ  +  V with nonnegative potentials V and the nonlinear term is given by a single power with subcritical Sobolev exponent in the attractive case. We describe specific rates of decay in terms of V, some of which are shown to be optimal. Moreover, our estimates provide a unified understanding of two distinct cases in the available literature, namely, the vanishing potential case V = 0 and the harmonic potential case V(x) = |x|².     

Performance Change of the Oxidative Coupling of Methane Induced by the Modification Effect of Lithium on a Mn-Mg-O Solid Solution

Lithium made a Mn-Mg-O solid solution stable upon exposure of methane, decreased the ethane and ethylene formation rates, and increased the COx formation rate during the oxidative coupling of methane. On the other hand, on MgO, lithium inhibited COx formation markedly and enhanced the selectivity of ethane 47% to 76%.     

Cartan connection associated with a subriemannian structure

For each subriemannian manifold of constant subriemannian symbol we construct a Cartan connection canonically associated with this structure.     

Observation of micropores in hard-carbon using Xe NMR porosimetry

The existence of micropores and the change of surface structure in pitch-based hard-carbon in xenon atmosphere were demonstrated using ¹²⁹Xe NMR. For high-pressure (4.0 MPa) ¹²⁹Xe NMR measurements, the hard-carbon samples in Xe gas showed three peaks at 27, 34 and 210 ppm. The last was attributed to the xenon in micropores (<1 nm) in hard-carbon particles. The NMR spectrum of a sample evacuated at 773 K and exposed to 0.1 MPa Xe gas at 773 K for 24 h showed two peaks at 29 and 128 ppm, which were attributed, respectively, to the xenon atoms adsorbed in the large pores (probably mesopores) and micropores of hard-carbon. With increasing annealing time in Xe gas at 773 K, both peaks shifted and merged into one peak at 50 ppm. The diffusion of adsorbed xenon atoms is very slow, probably because the transfer of molecules or atoms among micropores in hard-carbon does not occur readily. Many micropores are isolated from the outer surface. For that reason, xenon atoms are thought to be adsorbed only by micropores near the surface, which are easily accessible from the surrounding space.