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At least 73 records · Page 4

NUMERICAL SIMULATIONS OF MULTIPLE SCATTERING OF THE f-MODE BY FLUX TUBES

We use numerical simulations to study the absorption and phase shift of surface-gravity waves caused by groups of magnetic flux tubes. The dependence of the scattering coefficients on the distance between the tubes and their positions is analyzed for several cases with two or three flux tubes embedded in a quiet Sun atmosphere. The results are compared with those obtained neglecting completely or partially multiple scattering effects. We show that multiple scattering has a significant impact on the absorption measurements and tends to reduce the phase shift. We also consider more general cases of ensembles of randomly distributed flux tubes, and we have evaluated the effects on the scattering measurements of changing the number of tubes included in the bundle and the average distance between flux tubes. We find that for the longest wavelength incoming waves, multiple scattering enhances the absorption, and its efficiency increases with the number of flux tubes and the reduction of the distance between them.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Thin-thick hydrogen target for nuclear physics

In spectroscopic studies of unstable nuclei, hydrogen targets are of key importance. The CHyMENE Project aims to provide to the nuclear physics community a thin and pure solid windowless hydrogen or deuterium target. CHyMENE project must respond to this request for the production of solid Hydrogen. The solid hydrogen target is produced in a continuous flow (1 cm/s) by an extrusion technique (developed with the PELIN laboratory) in a vacuum chamber. The shape of the target is determined by the design of the nozzle at the extrusion process. For the purpose, the choice is a rectangular shape with a width of 10 mm and a thickness in the range of 30-50 microns necessary for the physics objectives. The cryostat is equipped with a GM Cryocooler with sufficient power for the solidification of the hydrogen in the lower portion of the extruder. In the higher part of the cryostat, the hydrogen gas is first liquefied and partially solidified. It is then compressed at 100 bars in the cooled extruder before expulsion of the film through the nozzle at the center of the reaction vacuum chamber. After the previous step, the solid hydrogen ribbon falls by gravity into a dedicated chamber where it sublimes and the gas is pumped and evacuated in a exhaust line. This paper deals with the design of the cryostat with its equipment, with the sizing of the thermal bridge (Aluminum and copper), with the results regarding the contact resistance as well as with the vacuum computations of the reaction and recovery hydrogen gas chambers.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Real-time monitoring of high-gravity corn mash fermentation using in situ raman spectroscopy

In situ Raman spectroscopy was employed for real-time monitoring of simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) of corn mash by an industrial strain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. An accurate univariate calibration model for ethanol was developed based on the very strong 883 cm -1 C-C stretching band. Multivariate partial least squares (PLS) calibration models for total starch, dextrins, maltotriose, maltose, glucose, and ethanol were developed using data from eight batch fermentations and validated using predictions for a separate batch. The starch, ethanol, and dextrins models showed significant prediction improvement when the calibration data were divided into separate high- and low-concentration sets. Collinearity between the ethanol and starch models was avoided by excluding regions containing strong ethanol peaks from the starch model and, conversely, excluding regions containing strong saccharide peaks from the ethanol model. The two-set calibration models for starch (R 2 = 0.998, percent error = 2.5%) and ethanol (R 2 = 0.999, percent error = 2.1%) provide more accurate predictions than any previously published spectroscopic models. Glucose, maltose, and maltotriose are modeled to accuracy comparable to previous work on less complex fermentation processes. Our results demonstrate that Raman spectroscopy is capable of real time in situ monitoring of a complex industrial biomass fermentation. To our knowledge, this is the first PLS-based chemometric modeling of corn mash fermentation under typical industrial conditions, and the first Raman-based monitoring of a fermentation process with glucose, oligosaccharides and polysaccharides present.

biofuels↗

Pruning The ELM Survey: Characterizing Candidate Low-mass White Dwarfs through Photometric Variability

We assess the photometric variability of nine stars with spectroscopic T {sub eff} and log g values from the ELM Survey that locates them near the empirical extremely low-mass (ELM) white dwarf instability strip. We discover three new pulsating stars: SDSS J135512.34+195645.4, SDSS J173521.69+213440.6, and SDSS J213907.42+222708.9. However, these are among the few ELM Survey objects that do not show radial velocity (RV) variations that confirm the binary nature expected of helium-core white dwarfs. The dominant 4.31 hr pulsation in SDSS J135512.34+195645.4 far exceeds the theoretical cut-off for surface reflection in a white dwarf, and this target is likely a high-amplitude δ Scuti pulsator with an overestimated surface gravity. We estimate the probability to be less than 0.0008 that the lack of measured RV variations in four of eight other pulsating candidate ELM white dwarfs could be due to low orbital inclination. Two other targets exhibit variability as photometric binaries. Partial coverage of the 19.342 hr orbit of WD J030818.19+514011.5 reveals deep eclipses that imply a primary radius >0.4 R {sub ⊙}—too large to be consistent with an ELM white dwarf. The only object for which our time series photometry adds support to ELM white dwarf classification is SDSS J105435.78−212155.9, which has consistent signatures of Doppler beaming and ellipsoidal variations. We conclude that the ELM Survey contains multiple false positives from another stellar population at T {sub eff}≲9000 K, possibly related to the sdA stars recently reported from SDSS spectra.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Universal Landau Pole at the Planck scale

The concept of quantum gravity entails that the usual geometry loses its meaning at very small distances and therefore the grand unification of all gauge interactions with the property of asymptotic freedom happens to be questionable. We propose an unification of all gauge interactions in the form of an “Universal Landau Pole” (ULP), at which all gauge couplings diverge (or, better to say, become very strong). We show that the Higgs quartic coupling also substantially increases whereas the Yukawa couplings tend to zero. Such a singular (or strong coupling) unification is obtained after adding to the Standard Model matter more fermions with vector gauge couplings and hypercharges identical to the SM fermions. The influence of new particles also may prevent the Higgs quartic coupling from crossing zero, thus avoiding the instability (or metastability) of the SM vacuum. As well this fermion pattern opens a way to partially solve the hierarchy problem between masses of quarks and leptons.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Anatomy of deconfinement

In the weak coupling limit of ${\rm SU}(N)$ Yang-Mills theory and the ${\rm O}(N)$ vector model, explicit state counting allows us to demonstrate the existence of a partially deconfined phase: $M$ of $N$ colors deconfine, and $\frac{M}{N}$ gradually grows from zero (confinement) to one (complete deconfinement). We point out that the mechanism admits a simple interpretation in the form of spontaneous breaking of gauge symmetry. In terms of the dual gravity theory, such breaking occurs during the formation of a black hole. We speculate whether the breaking and restoration of gauge symmetry can serve as an alternative definition of the deconfinement transition in theories without center symmetry, such as QCD. We also discuss the role of the color degrees of freedom in the emergence of the bulk geometry in holographic duality.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

A compendium of sphere path integrals

We study the manifestly covariant and local 1-loop path integrals on S d+1 for general massive, shift-symmetric and (partially) massless totally symmetric tensor fields of arbitrary spin s ≥ 0 in any dimensions d ≥ 2. After reviewing the cases of massless fields with spin s = 1, 2, we provide a detailed derivation for path integrals of massless fields of arbitrary integer spins s ≥ 1. Following the standard procedure of Wick-rotating the negative conformal modes, we find a higher spin analog of Polchinski’s phase for any integer spin s ≥ 2. The derivations for low-spin (s = 0, 1, 2) massive, shift-symmetric and partially massless fields are also carried out explicitly. Finally, we provide general prescriptions for general massive and shift-symmetric fields of arbitrary integer spins and partially massless fields of arbitrary integer spins and depths.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Measurement of the properties of the dust acoustic wave in a magnetic field

We present the first experimental observations of the dust acoustic wave where the wave was observed to propagate in the directions of gravity and magnetic field when these directions were not aligned. The experiments were conducted in the Magnetized Dusty Plasma eXperiment facility using a novel electrode system that allows for the angle between gravity and the magnetic field to be varied in a controlled way. This letter reports on measurements in an rf glow discharge argon plasma environment where the angle between direction of gravity and the magnetic field is 45 $^{\circ }$ . When there was no applied magnetic field, the wave was observed to propagate in the direction of gravity. However, as the magnetic field increased and the ions transitioned from flowing in the direction of gravity to the direction of the magnetic field, a second wave emerged and two distinct waves were observed to simultaneously propagate, one in the direction of gravity and one in the direction of the magnetic field. As the magnetic field was further increased, the wave that propagated in the direction of gravity was suppressed and the wave was only observed to propagate in the direction of the applied magnetic field. We also observe that the speed and the kinetic temperature of the dust for the mode that propagated in the direction of gravity decreased with increasing magnetic field while the speed and the kinetic temperature of the dust for the mode that propagated in the direction of the magnetic field increased with increasing magnetic field. These measurements suggest that an ion-dust streaming instability is at least partially responsible for the high temperatures that have previously been observed in dusty plasmas when the dust acoustic wave is present.

Williams, J. D. (ORCID:000000025199707X)↗

Particle Theory & Cosmology

1. Executive Summary (April 1, 2012 - March 31, 2015) Title: Particle Theory, Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology Qaisar Shafi University of Delaware (Principal Investigator) Stephen M. Barr, University of Delaware (Co-Principal Investigator) Thomas K. Gaisser, University of Delaware (Co-Principal Investigator) Todor Stanev, University of Delaware (Co-Principal Investigator) The proposed research was carried out at the Bartol Research included Professors Qaisar Shafi Stephen Barr, Thomas K. Gaisser, and Todor Stanev, two postdoctoral fellows (Ilia Gogoladze and Liucheng Wang), and several graduate students. Five students of Qaisar Shafi completed their PhD during the period August 2011 - August 2014. Measures of the group’s high caliber performance during the 2012-2015 funding cycle included pub- lications in excellent refereed journals, contributions to working groups as well as white papers, and conference activities, which together provide an exceptional record of both individual performance as well as overall strength. Another important indicator of success is the outstanding quality of the past and current cohort of graduate students. The PhD students under our supervision regularly win the top departmental and university awards, and their publications records show excellence both in terms of quality and quantity. The topics covered under this grant cover the frontline research areas in today’s High Energy Theory & Phenomenology. For Professors Shafi and Barr they include LHC related topics including supersymmetry, collider physics, fl vor physics, dark matter physics, Higgs boson and seesaw physics, grand unifi and neutrino physics. The LHC two years ago discovered the Standard Model Higgs boson, thereby at least partially unlocking the secrets behind electroweak symmetry breaking. We remain optimistic that new and exciting physics will be found at LHC 14, which explain our focus on physics beyond the Standard Model. Professors Shafi continued his investigations in cosmology, specifically on supergravity and GUT infl models, primordial gravity waves, dark matter models. The origin of baryon and dark matter in the universe has been explored by Professors Barr and Shafi The research program of Professors Gaisser and Stanev address current research topics in Particle Astrophysics, in particular atmospheric and cosmogenic neutrinos and ultra-high energy cosmic rays. Work also included use of LHC data to improve tools for interpreting cascades generated in the atmosphere by high-energy particles from the cosmos. Cosmogenic neutrinos produced by interactions of ultra-high energy cosmic rays as they propagate through the cosmic microwave background radiation provides insight into the origin of the highest energy particles in nature. Overall, the research covered topics in the energy, cosmic and intensity frontiers.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Modular flow in JT gravity and entanglement wedge reconstruction

It has been shown in recent works that JT gravity with matter with two boundaries has a type II ∞ algebra on each side. As the bulk spacetime between the two boundaries fluctuates in quantum nature, we can only define the entanglement wedge for each side in a pure algebraic sense. As we take the semiclassical limit, we will have a fixed long wormhole spacetime for a generic partially entangled thermal state (PETS), which is prepared by inserting heavy operators on the Euclidean path integral. Under this limit, with appropriate assumptions of the matter theory, geometric notions of the causal wedge and entanglement wedge emerge in this background. In particular, the causal wedge is manifestly nested in the entanglement wedge. Different PETS are orthogonal to each other, and thus the Hilbert space has a direct sum structure over sub-Hilbert spaces labeled by different Euclidean geometries. The full algebra for both sides is decomposed accordingly. From the algebra viewpoint, the causal wedge is dual to an emergent type III 1 subalgebra, which is generated by boundary light operators. To reconstruct the entanglement wedge, we consider the modular flow in a generic PETS for each boundary. We show that the modular flow acts locally and is the boost transformation around the global RT surface in the semiclassical limit. It follows that we can extend the causal wedge algebra to a larger type III 1 algebra corresponding to the entanglement wedge. Within each sub-Hilbert space, the original type II ∞ reduces to type III 1 .

2D Gravity↗

ENERGY RELEASE FROM IMPACTING PROMINENCE MATERIAL FOLLOWING THE 2011 JUNE 7 ERUPTION

Solar filaments exhibit a range of eruptive-like dynamic activity, ranging from the full or partial eruption of the filament mass and surrounding magnetic structure as a coronal mass ejection to a fully confined or failed eruption. On 2011 June 7, a dramatic partial eruption of a filament was observed by multiple instruments on board the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) and Solar-Terrestrial Relations Observatory. One of the interesting aspects of this event is the response of the solar atmosphere as non-escaping material falls inward under the influence of gravity. The impact sites show clear evidence of brightening in the observed extreme ultraviolet wavelengths due to energy release. Two plausible physical mechanisms for explaining the brightening are considered: heating of the plasma due to the kinetic energy of impacting material compressing the plasma, or reconnection between the magnetic field of low-lying loops and the field carried by the impacting material. By analyzing the emission of the brightenings in several SDO/Atmospheric Imaging Assembly wavelengths, and comparing the kinetic energy of the impacting material (7.6 × 10{sup 26}-5.8 × 10{sup 27} erg) to the radiative energy (≈1.9 × 10{sup 25}-2.5 × 10{sup 26} erg), we find the dominant mechanism of energy release involved in the observed brightening is plasma compression.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

STELLAR PARAMETERS FOR HD 69830, A NEARBY STAR WITH THREE NEPTUNE MASS PLANETS AND AN ASTEROID BELT

We used the CHARA Array to directly measure the angular diameter of HD 69830, home to three Neptune mass planets and an asteroid belt. Our measurement of 0.674 ± 0.014 mas for the limb-darkened angular diameter of this star leads to a physical radius of R {sub *} = 0.9058 ± 0.0190 R {sub ☉} and luminosity of L {sub *} = 0.622 ± 0.014 L {sub ☉} when combined with a fit to the spectral energy distribution of the star. Placing these observed values on an Hertzsprung-Russel diagram along with stellar evolution isochrones produces an age of 10.6 ± 4 Gyr and mass of 0.863 ± 0.043 M {sub ☉}. We use archival optical echelle spectra of HD 69830 along with an iterative spectral fitting technique to measure the iron abundance ([Fe/H] = –0.04 ± 0.03), effective temperature (5385 ± 44 K), and surface gravity (log g = 4.49 ± 0.06). We use these new values for the temperature and luminosity to calculate a more precise age of 7.5 ± 3 Gyr. Applying the values of stellar luminosity and radius to recent models on the optimistic location of the habitable zone produces a range of 0.61-1.44 AU; partially outside the orbit of the furthest known planet (d) around HD 69830. Finally, we estimate the snow line at a distance of 1.95 ± 0.19 AU, which is outside the orbit of all three planets and its asteroid belt.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Finite coupling corrections to holographic predictions for hot QCD

Finite ’t Hooft coupling corrections to multiple physical observables in strongly coupled N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills plasma are examined, in an attempt to assess the stability of the expansion in inverse powers of the ’t Hooft coupling λ. Observables considered include thermodynamic quantities, transport coefficients, and quasinormal mode frequencies. Furthermore large λ expansions for quasinormal mode frequencies are notably less well behaved than the expansions of other quantities, we find that a partial resummation of higher order corrections can significantly reduce the sensitivity of the results to the value of λ.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Do We Know How to Model Reionization?

I compare the power spectra of the radiation fields from two recent sets of fully-coupled simulations that model cosmic reionization: “Cosmic Reionization On Computers” (CROC) and “Thesan”. While both simulations have similar power spectra of the radiation sources, the power spectra of the photoionization rate are significantly different at the same values of cosmic time or the same values of the mean neutral hydrogen fraction. However, the power spectra of the photoionization rate can be matched at large scales for the two simulations when the matching snapshots are allowed to vary independently. I.e., on large scales, the clustering of the radiation field in two simulations evolves similarly, but the exact timing of this evolution is different in different simulations and is not parameterized by an easily interpretable physical quantity like the mean neutral fraction or the mean free path. On small scales, large differences are present and remain partially unexplained. Both CROC and Thesan use the Variable Eddington Tensor approximation for modeling radiative transfer, but adopt different closure relations (optically thin OTVET versus M1). The role of this key difference is tested by using smaller simulations with a new cosmological simulation code that implements both closure relations in a controlled environment (the same hydro, cooling, and gravity solvers and the star formation recipe). In these controlled tests, both the M1 closure and the OTVET ansatz follow the expected behavior from a simple analytical approximation, demonstrating that the differences in the 2-point function of the radiation field induced by the choice of the Eddington tensor are not dominant.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Partial deconfinement at strong coupling on the lattice

We provide evidence for partial deconfinement — the deconfinement of a SU(M) subgroup of the SU(N) gauge group — by using lattice Monte Carlo simulations. We take matrix models as concrete examples. By appropriately fixing the gauge, we observe that the M × M submatrices deconfine. This gives direct evidence for partial deconfinement at strong coupling. We discuss the applications to QCD and holography.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

A nonlinear extension of the spin-2 partially massless symmetry

Here, we investigate the possibility of extending the “partially massless” symmetry of a spin-2 field in de Sitter to nonlinear order. To do so, we impose a closure condition on the symmetry transformations. This requirement imposes strong constraints on the form of the nonlinear symmetry while making only minimal assumptions about the form of the nonlinear partially massless action. We find a unique nonlinear extension of the free partially massless symmetry. However, we show that no consistent Lagrangian that contains at most two derivatives of the fields can realize this symmetry.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

On the implications of the Bekenstein bound for black hole evaporation

Highlights: •The Bekenstein bound may imply that classical spacetimes are emergent. •Similarly, particles deemed to be elementary are “quasi particles”. •Black hole evaporation is then necessarily non unitary in any quantum gravity. •Modified Page curves are produced for simple cases. -- Abstract: We elaborate on the possible impact of the Bekenstein bound on the unitarity of black hole evaporation. As such maximal bound on the entropy of any system may be regarded as due to the existence of entities more elementary than the ordinary ones, and since at our energy scales such fundamental degrees of freedom must organize themselves into quantum fields acting on classical spacetimes, we then propose that both, quantum fields and geometries, are emergent phenomena stemming from the same underlying dynamics. We investigate the kinematical and model independent effects of this “quasi-particle picture” on black hole evaporation within a simple toy model, that we construct. We conclude that the information associated to the quantum fields in the “phase” before the formation of the black hole is, in general, only partially recovered in the “phase” after the black hole has evaporated. This information loss is shown to be due to the entanglement between fields and geometry. Such modifications of the Page curve should be regarded as common features of any theory of quantumgravity.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

No-go for partially massless spin-2 Yang-Mills

There are various no-go results forbidding self-interactions for a single partially massless spin-2 field. Given the photon-like structure of the linear partially massless field, it is natural to ask whether a multiplet of such fields can interact under an internal Yang-Mills like extension of the partially massless symmetry. In this paper, we give two arguments that such a partially massless Yang-Mills theory does not exist. The first is that there is no Yang-Mills like non-abelian deformation of the partially massless symmetry, and the second is that cubic vertices with the appropriate structure constants do not exist.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗