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Full-Text Articles in Physics

Rainich-Type Conditions For Perfect Fluid Spacetimes, Dionisios Krongos, Charles G. Torre Dec 2014

Rainich-Type Conditions For Perfect Fluid Spacetimes, Dionisios Krongos, Charles G. Torre

Research Vignettes

In this worksheet we describe and illustrate a relatively simple set of new Rainich-type conditions on an n-dimensional spacetime which are necessary and sufficient for it to define a perfect fluid solution of the Einstein field equations. Procedures are provided which implement these Rainich-type conditions and which reconstruct the perfect fluid from the metric. These results provide an example of the idea of geometrization of matter fields in general relativity, which is a purely geometrical characterization of matter fields via the Einstein field equations.


A Soft Condensed Matter Approach Towards Mathematical Modelling Of Mass Transport And Swelling In Food Grains, Michael Chapwanya, N. Misra Aug 2014

A Soft Condensed Matter Approach Towards Mathematical Modelling Of Mass Transport And Swelling In Food Grains, Michael Chapwanya, N. Misra

Articles

Soft condensed matter (SCM) physics has recently gained importance for a large class of engineering materials. The treatment of food materials from a soft matter perspective, however, is only at the surface and is gaining importance for understanding the complex phenomena and structure of foods. In this work, we present a theoretical treatment of navy beans from a SCM perspective to describe the hydration kinetics. We solve the transport equations within a porous matrix and employ the Flory–Huggin’s equation for polymer–solvent mixture to balance the osmotic pressure. The swelling of the legume seed is modelled as a moving boundary with …


One-Dimensional Weakly Nonlinear Model Equations For Rossby Waves, David Henry, Rossen Ivanov Aug 2014

One-Dimensional Weakly Nonlinear Model Equations For Rossby Waves, David Henry, Rossen Ivanov

Articles

In this study we explore several possibilities for modelling weakly nonlinear Rossby waves in fluid of constant depth, which propagate predominantly in one direction. The model equations obtained include the BBM equation, as well as the integrable KdV and Degasperis-Procesi equations.


A Women In Mathematics, Computer Science, And Physics Course, Jim Crumley, Kristen Nairn, Lynn Ziegler, Pamela L. Bacon, Yu Zhang Jul 2014

A Women In Mathematics, Computer Science, And Physics Course, Jim Crumley, Kristen Nairn, Lynn Ziegler, Pamela L. Bacon, Yu Zhang

MapCores Faculty Publications

Increasing women's participation is a concern in disciplines beyond
physics. As part of our Mathematics, Physics, Computer Science
Research Scholars (MapCores) program, we teach a women in science
class covering these three areas. Our course is a special version of
our college's first year seminar, which is a course designed to
prepare our students to read, write, and speak at a college-level. We
structure our FYS to promote academic confidence and interest in our
disciplines for the women in MapCores. It covers not only contributions
that women have made and barriers that women face in these
disciplines, but also research …


Variable Viscosity Condition In The Modeling Of A Slider Bearing, Kedar Nath Uprety, S.C. Mancas Jul 2014

Variable Viscosity Condition In The Modeling Of A Slider Bearing, Kedar Nath Uprety, S.C. Mancas

Publications

To reduce tear and wear of machinery lubrication is essential. Lubricants form a layer between two surfaces preventing direct contact and reduce friction between moving parts and hence reduce wear. In this short letter the lubrication of two slider bearings with parallel and nonparallel is studied. First, we show that bearings with parallel plates cannot support any load. For bearings with nonparallel plates we are interested on how constant and temperature dependent viscosity affects the properties of the bearings. Also, a critical temperature for which the bearings would fail due to excess in temperature is found for both latter cases. …


Analysis Of A Partial Differential Equation Model Of Surface Electromigration, Selahittin Cinar May 2014

Analysis Of A Partial Differential Equation Model Of Surface Electromigration, Selahittin Cinar

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

A Partial Differential Equation (PDE) based model combining surface electromigration and wetting is developed for the analysis of the morphological instability of mono-crystalline metal films in a high temperature environment typical to operational conditions of microelectronic interconnects. The atomic mobility and surface energy of such films are anisotropic, and the model accounts for these material properties. The goal of modeling is to describe and understand the time-evolution of the shape of film surface. I will present the formulation of a nonlinear parabolic PDE problem for the height function h(x,t) of the film in the horizontal …


Sixteen Years Of Collaborative Learning Through Active Sense-Making In Physics (Clasp) At Uc Davis, Wendell Potter, David Webb, Cassandra Paul, Emily West, Mark Bowen, Brenda Weiss, Lawrence Coleman, Charles De Leone Jan 2014

Sixteen Years Of Collaborative Learning Through Active Sense-Making In Physics (Clasp) At Uc Davis, Wendell Potter, David Webb, Cassandra Paul, Emily West, Mark Bowen, Brenda Weiss, Lawrence Coleman, Charles De Leone

Faculty Publications

This paper describes our large reformed introductory physics course at UC Davis, which bioscience students have been taking since 1996. The central feature of this course is a focus on sense-making by the students during the five hours per week discussion/labs in which the students take part in activities emphasizing peer-peer discussions, argumentation, and presentations of ideas. The course differs in many fundamental ways from traditionally taught introductory physics courses. After discussing the unique features of CLASP and its implementation at UC Davis, various student outcome measures are presented showing increased performance by students who took the CLASP course compared …


Low Mach Number Fluctuating Hydrodynamics Of Diffusively Mixing Fluids, Aleksandar Donev, Andy J. Nonaka, Yifei Sun, Thomas Fai, Alejandro Garcia, John B. Bell Jan 2014

Low Mach Number Fluctuating Hydrodynamics Of Diffusively Mixing Fluids, Aleksandar Donev, Andy J. Nonaka, Yifei Sun, Thomas Fai, Alejandro Garcia, John B. Bell

Faculty Publications

We formulate low Mach number fluctuating hydrodynamic equations appropriate for modeling diffusive mixing in isothermal mixtures of fluids with different density and transport coefficients. These equations eliminate the fast isentropic fluctuations in pressure associated with the propagation of sound waves by replacing the equation of state with a local thermodynamic constraint. We demonstrate that the low Mach number model preserves the spatio-temporal spectrum of the slower diffusive fluctuations. We develop a strictly conservative finite-volume spatial discretization of the low Mach number fluctuating equations in both two and three dimensions. We construct several explicit Runge-Kutta temporal integrators that strictly maintain the …


Evolution Of Perturbations In Flow Field Mechanics, Samantha R. Bell, David Forliti, Nils Sedano, Kriss Vanderhyde Jan 2014

Evolution Of Perturbations In Flow Field Mechanics, Samantha R. Bell, David Forliti, Nils Sedano, Kriss Vanderhyde

STAR Program Research Presentations

This project explores the stability analysis of a given flow field. Specifically, where the peak disturbance occurs in a flow as this is the disturbance that is most likely to occur. In rocket combustion, it is important to understand where the maximum disturbance occurs so that the mixing of fuel can be stabilized. The instabilities are the results of frequencies in the area surrounding the flow field. The linear stability governing equations are employed to better understand the disturbance. The governing equations for continuity and momentum in the x and y directions are used to form an equation for the …


Integrability, Recursion Operators And Soliton Interactions, Boyka Aneva, Georgi Grahovski, Rossen Ivanov, Dimitar Mladenov Jan 2014

Integrability, Recursion Operators And Soliton Interactions, Boyka Aneva, Georgi Grahovski, Rossen Ivanov, Dimitar Mladenov

Book chapter/book

This volume contains selected papers based on the talks,presentedat the Conference Integrability, Recursion Operators and Soliton Interactions, held in Sofia, Bulgaria (29-31 August 2012) at the Institute for Nuclear Research and Nuclear Energy of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. Included are also invited papers presenting new research developments in the thematic area. The Conference was dedicated to the 65-th birthday of our esteemed colleague and friend Vladimir Gerdjikov. The event brought together more than 30 scientists, from 6 European countries to celebrate Vladimir's scientific achievements. All participants enjoyed a variety of excellent talks in a friendly and stimulating atmosphere. …


Lattice-Boltzmann Simulations Of The Thermally Driven 2d Square Cavity At High Rayleigh Numbers, Dario Contrino, Pierre Lallemand, Pietro Asinari, Li-Shi Luo Jan 2014

Lattice-Boltzmann Simulations Of The Thermally Driven 2d Square Cavity At High Rayleigh Numbers, Dario Contrino, Pierre Lallemand, Pietro Asinari, Li-Shi Luo

Mathematics & Statistics Faculty Publications

The thermal lattice Boltzmann equation (TLBE) with multiple-relaxation-times (MRT) collision model is used to simulate the steady thermal convective flows in the two-dimensional square cavity with differentially heated vertical walls at high Rayleigh numbers. The MRT-TLBE consists of two sets of distribution functions, i.e., a D2Q9 model for the mass-momentum equations and a D2Q5 model for the temperature equation. The dimensionless flow parameters are the following: the Prandtl number Pr = 0.71 and the Rayleigh number Ra = 106, 107, and 108. The D2Q9 + D2Q5 MRT-TLBE is shown to be second-order accurate and …