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Physics - All Scholarship

1999

Articles 1 - 14 of 14

Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Viscoelastic Depinning Of Driven Systems: Mean-Field Plastic Scallops, M. Cristina Marchetti, Alan Middleton, Thomas Prellberg Dec 1999

Viscoelastic Depinning Of Driven Systems: Mean-Field Plastic Scallops, M. Cristina Marchetti, Alan Middleton, Thomas Prellberg

Physics - All Scholarship

We have investigated the mean field dynamics of an overdamped viscoelastic medium driven through quenched disorder. The model introduced incorporates coexistence of pinned and sliding degrees of freedom and can exhibit continuous elastic depinning or first order hysteretic depinning. Numerical simulations indicate mean field instabilities that correspond to macroscopic stick-slip events and lead to premature switching. The model is relevant for the dynamics of driven vortex arrays in superconductors and other extended disordered systems.


Interacting Topological Defects On Frozen Topographies, Mark Bowick, David R. Nelson, Alex Travesset Nov 1999

Interacting Topological Defects On Frozen Topographies, Mark Bowick, David R. Nelson, Alex Travesset

Physics - All Scholarship

We propose and analyze an effective free energy describing the physics of disclination defects in particle arrays constrained to move on an arbitrary two-dimensional surface. At finite temperature the physics of interacting disclinations is mapped to a Laplacian Sine-Gordon Hamiltonian suitable for numerical simulations. We then specialize to the case of a spherical crystal at zero temperature. The ground state is analyzed as a function of the ratio of the defect core energy to the Young's modulus. We argue that the core energy contribution becomes less and less important in the limit R >> a, where R is the radius of …


Light Scalar Mesons, Joseph Schechter, Deirdre Black, Amir H. Fariborz Nov 1999

Light Scalar Mesons, Joseph Schechter, Deirdre Black, Amir H. Fariborz

Physics - All Scholarship

We review how a certain effective chiral Lagrangian approach to pi pi scattering, pi K scattering and eta-prime decay to eta pi pi provides evidence for the existence of light scalars sigma(550) and kappa(900) as well as describing the f0(980) and the a0(980). An attempt to fit these into a nonet suggests that their structure is closer to a dual quark-dual antiquark than to a quark-antiquark. A possible mechanism to explain the next higher mass scalar nonet is also proposed.


Performance Of The Cleo Iii Lif-Tea Ring Imaging Cherenkov Detector In A High Energy Muon Beam, Raymond Mountain, Marina Artuso, R. Ayad, F. Azfar Oct 1999

Performance Of The Cleo Iii Lif-Tea Ring Imaging Cherenkov Detector In A High Energy Muon Beam, Raymond Mountain, Marina Artuso, R. Ayad, F. Azfar

Physics - All Scholarship

The CLEO III Ring Imaging Cherenkov detector uses LiF radiators to generate Cherenkov photons which are then detected by proportional wire chambers using a mixture of CH$_4$ and TEA gases. The first two photon detector modules which were constructed, were taken to Fermilab and tested in a beam dump that provided high momentum muons. We report on results using both plane and "sawtooth" shaped radiators. Specifically, we discuss the number of photoelectrons observed per ring and the angular resolution. The particle separation ability is shown to be sufficient for the physics of CLEO III.


Chiral Lagrangian Treatment Of Pi Eta Scattering, Joseph Schechter, Deirdre Black, Amir H. Fariborz Oct 1999

Chiral Lagrangian Treatment Of Pi Eta Scattering, Joseph Schechter, Deirdre Black, Amir H. Fariborz

Physics - All Scholarship

We study pi eta scattering in a model which starts from the tree diagrams of a non-linear chiral Lagrangian including appropriate resonances. Previously, models of this type were applied to pi pi and pi K scattering and were seen to require the existence of light scalar sigma(560) and kappa(900) mesons and to be consistent with the f0(980). The present calculation extends this to include the a0(980), thereby completing a possible nonet of light scalars, all ``seen'' in the same manner. We note that, at the initial level, the pi eta channel is considerably cleaner than the pi pi and pi …


Reconstructing The Conformal Mode In Simplicial Gravity, Simon Catterall, Emil Mottola Sep 1999

Reconstructing The Conformal Mode In Simplicial Gravity, Simon Catterall, Emil Mottola

Physics - All Scholarship

We verify that summing 2D DT geometries correctly reproduces the Polyakov action for the conformal mode, including all ghost contributions, at large volumes. The Gaussian action is reproduced even for central charges greater than one lending strong support to the hypothesis that the space of all possible dyamical triangulations approximates well the space of physically distinct metrics independent of the precise nature of the matter coupling.


The Skyrme Model For Baryons, Joseph Schechter, H. Weigel Jul 1999

The Skyrme Model For Baryons, Joseph Schechter, H. Weigel

Physics - All Scholarship

We review the Skyrme model approach which treats baryons as solitons of an effective meson theory. We start out with a historical introduction and a concise discussion of the original two flavor Skyrme model and its interpretation. Then we develop the theme, motivated by the large N_C approximation of QCD, that the {\it effective} Lagrangian of QCD is in fact one which contains just mesons of all spins. When this Lagrangian is (at least approximately) determined from the meson sector it should then yield a zero parameter description of the baryons. We next discuss the concept of chiral symmetry and …


Numerical Investigation Of The Thermodynamic Limit For Ground States In Models With Quenched Disorder, Alan Middleton Jul 1999

Numerical Investigation Of The Thermodynamic Limit For Ground States In Models With Quenched Disorder, Alan Middleton

Physics - All Scholarship

The effect of open boundary conditions for four models with quenched disorder are studied in finite samples by numerical ground state calculations. Extrapolation to the infinite volume limit indicates that the configurations in ``windows'' of fixed size converge to a unique configuration, up to global symmetries. The scaling of this convergence is consistent with calculations based on the fractal dimension of domain walls. These results provide strong evidence for the ``two-state'' picture of the low temperature behavior of these models. Convergence in three-dimensional systems can require relatively large windows.


Mechanism For A Next-To-Lowest Lying Scalar Meson Nonet, Joseph Schechter, Deirdre Black, Amir H. Fariborz Jul 1999

Mechanism For A Next-To-Lowest Lying Scalar Meson Nonet, Joseph Schechter, Deirdre Black, Amir H. Fariborz

Physics - All Scholarship

Recent work suggests the existence of a non-conventional lowest-lying scalar nonet containing the a0(980). Then the a0(1450) and also the K0*(1430) are likely candidates to belong to a conventional p-wave q \bar q nonet. However a comparison of their properties with those expected on this basis reveals a number of puzzling features. It is pointed out that these puzzles can be resolved in a natural and robust way by assuming a ``bare'' conventional p-wave scalar q \bar q nonet to mix with a lighter four quark qq \bar q \bar q scalar nonet to form new ``physical'' states. The essential …


The Conformal Mode In 2d Simplicial Gravity, Simon Catterall, Emil Mottola Jun 1999

The Conformal Mode In 2d Simplicial Gravity, Simon Catterall, Emil Mottola

Physics - All Scholarship

We verify that summing 2D DT geometries correctly reproduces the Polyakov action for the conformal mode, including all ghost contributions, at large volumes. The Gaussian action is reproduced even for c=10, well into the branched polymer phase, which confirms the expectation that the DT measure is indeed correct in this regime as well.


K-Inflation, Christian Armendariz-Picon, T. Damour, V. Mukhanov Apr 1999

K-Inflation, Christian Armendariz-Picon, T. Damour, V. Mukhanov

Physics - All Scholarship

It is shown that a large class of higher-order (i.e. non-quadratic) scalar kinetic terms can, without the help of potential terms, drive an inflationary evolution starting from rather generic initial conditions. In many models, this kinetically driven inflation (or "k-inflation" for short) rolls slowly from a high-curvature initial phase, down to a low-curvature phase and can exit inflation to end up being radiation-dominated, in a naturally graceful manner. We hope that this novel inflation mechanism might be useful in suggesting new ways of reconciling the string dilaton with inflation


The Cleo-Iii Rich Detector And Beam Test Results, Raymond Mountain, J.C. Wang, Marina Artuso, R. Ayad Mar 1999

The Cleo-Iii Rich Detector And Beam Test Results, Raymond Mountain, J.C. Wang, Marina Artuso, R. Ayad

Physics - All Scholarship

We are constructing a Ring Imaging Cherenkov detector (RICH) for the CLEO III upgrade for precision charged hadron identification. The RICH uses plane and sawtooth LiF crystals as radiators, MWPCs as photon detectors with TEA as the photo-sensitive material, and low-noise Viking readout electronics. Results of a beam test of the first two out of total 30 sectors are presented.


The Cleo-Iii Ring Imaging Cherenkov Detector, Raymond Mountain, Marina Artuso, R. Ayad, F. Azfar Feb 1999

The Cleo-Iii Ring Imaging Cherenkov Detector, Raymond Mountain, Marina Artuso, R. Ayad, F. Azfar

Physics - All Scholarship

The CLEO-III Detector upgrade for charged particle identification is discussed. The RICH design uses solid LiF crystal radiators coupled with multi-wire chamber photon detectors, using TEA as the photosensor, and low-noise Viking readout electronics. Results from our beam test at Fermilab are presented.


Computational Complexity Of Determining The Barriers To Interface Motion In Random Systems, Alan Middleton Feb 1999

Computational Complexity Of Determining The Barriers To Interface Motion In Random Systems, Alan Middleton

Physics - All Scholarship

The low-temperature driven or thermally activated motion of several condensed matter systems is often modeled by the dynamics of interfaces (co-dimension-1 elastic manifolds) subject to a random potential. Two characteristic quantitative features of the energy landscape of such a many-degree-of-freedom system are the ground-state energy and the magnitude of the energy barriers between given configurations. While the numerical determination of the former can be accomplished in time polynomial in the system size, it is shown here that the problem of determining the latter quantity is NP-complete. Exact computation of barriers is therefore (almost certainly) much more difficult than determining the …