Fundamental processes in long air gap discharges

The development of atmospheric lightning is initiated and sustained by the formation in virgin air of ‘streamer corona’ and ‘leader’ discharges, very similar to those observed in laboratory long sparks. Therefore, the experimental and theoretical investigations of these laboratory discharges have become of large interest to improve the physical knowledge of the lightning process and to develop self-consistent models that could be applied to new protection concepts.In the present paper the fundamental processes of the subsequent phases of long air gap discharges are analyzed, from the first corona inception and development to the leader channel formation and propagation. For all these processes simulations models are discussed that have been essentially derived and simplified by the authors, in order to develop sequential time-dependent simulation of the laboratory breakdown, with both positive and negative voltages. The possibility of extending these models to the case of natural lightning is discussed in the companion paper, presented in this same volume. To cite this article: I. Gallimberti et al., C. R. Physique 3 (2002) 1335–1359.     

A simplified method of computing the process of opening of a parachute

We propose a simplified method of determining the integral characteristics of the opening of a parachute which makes it possible to compute the maximal stress on a parachute and the trajectory parameters of the motion of the load in the region of the opening of the parachute, and to determine the size of the portion of the canopy at the time of maximal stress.Translated fromDinamicheskie Sistemy, No. 6, 1987, pp. 38–41.     

Electrooptical anharmonicity parameters of the strong hydrogen bond

Translated from Zhurnal Prikladnoi Spektroskopii, Vol. 54, No. 4, pp. 581–587, April, 1991.     

A finite model property for RMImin

It is proved that the variety of relevant disjunction lattices has the finite embeddability property. It follows that Avron's relevance logic RMI _min has a strong form of the finite model property, so it has a solvable deducibility problem. This strengthens Avron's result that RMI _min is decidable. (© 2006 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Non-linear Stability of Modulated Fronts¶for the Swift–Hohenberg Equation

We consider front solutions of the Swift–Hohenberg equation ∂ _t u= -(1+ ∂ _x ²)² u + ɛ² u -u ³. These are traveling waves which leave in their wake a periodic pattern in the laboratory frame. Using renormalization techniques and a decomposition into Bloch waves, we show the non-linear stability of these solutions. It turns out that this problem is closely related to the question of stability of the trivial solution for the model problem ∂ _t u(x,t) = ∂ _x ² u (x,t)+(1+tanh(x-ct))u(x,t)+u(x,t) ^p with p>3. In particular, we show that the instability of the perturbation ahead of the front is entirely compensated by a diffusive stabilization which sets in once the perturbation has hit the bulk behind the front. Received: 23 February 2001 / Accepted: 27 August 2001     

Black-hole horizon and metric singularity at the brane separating two sliding superfluids

An analogue of a black hole can be realized in the low-temperature laboratory. The horizon can be constructed for “relativistic” ripplons (surface waves) living on the brane. The brane is represented by the interface between two superfluid liquids, ³He-A and ³He-B, sliding along each other without friction. A similar experimental arrangement was recently used for the observation and investigation of the Kelvin-Helmholtz type of instability in superfluids [1]. The shear-flow instability in superfluids is characterized by two critical velocities. The lowest threshold measured in recent experiments [1] corresponds to the appearance of the ergoregion for ripplons. In the modified geometry, this will give rise to the black-hole event horizon in the effective metric experienced by ripplons. In the region behind the horizon, the brane vacuum is unstable due to interaction with the higher-dimensional world of bulk superfluids. The time of the development of instability can be made very long at low temperature. This will allow us to reach and investigate the second critical velocity—the proper Kelvin-Helmholtz instability threshold. The latter corresponds to the singularity inside the black hole, where the determinant of the effective metric becomes infinite.     

Laser induced copper electroless plating on polyimide with Q-switch Nd:YAG laser

The results of laser induced deposition of copper on polyimide substrate from copper electrolyte solution are reported. Unlike most work reported in the literatures where CW Ar⁺ lasers were used, a second harmonic (532 nm wavelength) Q-switch Nd:YAG laser was used for our experiments. The deposition process was conducted by laser-catalyzing of the polyimide surface and subsequent photothermal-accelerated reduction of copper-complex ions in an alkaline reducing environment. The characteristics of the deposited copper line were investigated in terms of laser beam scanning speed, and the number of scans. The surface morphology and chemical composition of the deposited copper were analyzed using field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM) and energy dispersive spectrometer (EDX). The optimum processing conditions have been identified. The copper deposit was found to adhere well to the substrate.     

Temperature and junction-type dependency of Andreev reflection in MgB2

We studied the voltage and temperature dependency of the dynamic conductance of normal metal-MgB₂ junctions obtained either with the point-contact technique (with Au and Pt tips) or by making Ag-paint spots on the surface of MgB₂ samples. The fit of the conductance curves with the generalized BTK model gives evidence of pure s-wave gap symmetry. The temperature dependency of the gap, measured in Ag-paint junctions (dirty limit), follows the standard BCS curve with 2Δ/k_BT_c=3.3. In out-of-plane, high-pressure point-contacts we obtained almost ideal Andreev reflection characteristics showing a single small s-wave gap Δ=2.6±0.2 meV (clean limit).     

On the application of adaptive antennas to microcellularenvironments: radio channel characteristics and system performance

The possible application of adaptive antennas in microcellular operational environments is studied in this paper with the help of a site-specific ray-tracing propagation model. First are examined the statistics of propagation parameters that play an important role for the performance of adaptive antennas. Particular emphasis is put on the spatial characteristics of the radio channel under line-of-sight (LOS) and non-LOS conditions. For this reason, area statistics are produced for a typical small-cell environment for parameters such as the number of multipath clusters, number of rays, angular size, and excess delay of each impulse response, as well as the number of rays, angular size and power of the multipath clusters. Results show that contrary to the common belief for such environments, the signal is not "almost" uniformly distributed in the spatial domain, instead is contained in a few narrow clusters. Then the effect of the microcellular environment on the uplink performance of some well-known techniques like conventional beamforming, maximum entropy, switched beams, maximum ratio and optimum combining, and beam-space optimum combining is examined . The results show that for typical time-division multiple-access (TDMA) scenarios with one and two users, the beam space optimum combining (strongest eigenvalue version) and the switched beams methods, offer the best performance     

Finslerian Extension of Lorentz Transformations and First-Order Censorship Theorem

Granted the post-Lorentzian relativistic kinematic transformations are described in the Finslerian framework, the uniformity between the actual light-velocity anisotropy change and the anisotropic deformation of measuring rods can be the reason proper for the null results of the Michelson-Morley-type experiments at the first-order level.