Descripción: A recently reported symmetry breaking of density profiles of fluid argon confined by two parallel solid walls of carbon dioxide is studied. The calculations are performed in the framework of a nonlocal density functional theory. It is shown that the existence of such asymmetrical solutions is restricted to a special choice for the adsorption potential, where the attraction of the solid-fluid interaction is reduced by the introduction of a hard-wall repulsion. The behavior as a function of the slit's width is also discussed. All the results are placed in the context of the current knowledge on this matter. © 2008 American Institute of Physics.

Descripción: Langmuir probe measurements in an atmospheric pressure direct current (dc) plasma jet are reported. Sweeping probes were used. The experiment was carried out using a dc non-transferred arc torch with a rod-type cathode and an anode of 5 mm diameter. The torch was operated at a nominal power level of 15 kW with a nitrogen flow rate of 25 Nl min -1. A flat ion saturation region was found in the current-voltage curve of the probe. The ion saturation current to a cylindrical probe in a high-pressure non local thermal equilibrium (LTE) plasma was modeled. Thermal effects and ionization/recombination processes inside the probe perturbed region were taken into account. Averaged radial profiles of the electron and heavy particle temperatures as well as the electron density were obtained. An electron temperature around 11 000 K, a heavy particle temperature around 9500 K and an electron density of about 4 × 10 22 m -3, were found at the jet centre at 3.5 mm downstream from the torch exit. Large deviations from kinetic equilibrium were found throughout the plasma jet. The electron and heavy particle temperature profiles showed good agreement with those reported in the literature by using spectroscopic techniques. It was also found that the temperature radial profile based on LTE was very close to that of the electrons. The calculations have shown that this method is particularly useful for studying spraying-type plasma jets characterized by electron temperatures in the range 9000-14 000 K. © 2012 American Institute of Physics.

Descripción: We present a generalization of fermionic fluiddynamics to the case of two trapped fermion species with a contact interaction. Within a mean field approximation, we derive coupled equations of motion for the particle densities, particle currents, and anomalous pair density. For an inhomogeneous system, the equilibrium situation with vanishing currents is described by a generalized Thomas-Fermi relation that includes the superfluid gap, together with a new nonlocal gap equation that replaces the usual BCS one. These equations are numericaly solved resorting to a local density approximation (LDA). Density and gap profiles are analyzed in terms of the scattering length, revealing that the current frame can exhibit microscopic details of quantum origin that are frequently absent in more macroscopic scenarios. © 2009 IOP Publishing Ltd.

Descripción: Plasma temperature and radial density profiles of the plasma species in a high energy density cutting arc have been obtained by using a quantitative schlieren technique. A Z-type two-mirror schlieren system was used in this research. Due to its great sensibility such technique allows measuring plasma composition and temperature from the arc axis to the surrounding medium by processing the gray-level contrast values of digital schlieren images recorded at the observation plane for a given position of a transverse knife located at the exit focal plane of the system. The technique has provided a good visualization of the plasma flow emerging from the nozzle and its interactions with the surrounding medium and the anode. The obtained temperature values are in good agreement with those values previously obtained by the authors on the same torch using Langmuir probes. © 2010 American Institute of Physics.

Descripción: A two-wavelength quantitative Schlieren technique that allows inferring the electron and gas densities of axisymmetric arc plasmas without imposing any assumption regarding statistical equilibrium models is reported. This technique was applied to the study of local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE) departures within the core of a 30 A high-energy density cutting arc. In order to derive the electron and heavy particle temperatures from the inferred density profiles, a generalized two-temperature Saha equation together with the plasma equation of state and the quasineutrality condition were employed. Factors such as arc fluctuations that influence the accuracy of the measurements and the validity of the assumptions used to derive the plasma species temperature were considered. Significant deviations from chemical equilibrium as well as kinetic equilibrium were found at elevated electron temperatures and gas densities toward the arc core edge. An electron temperature profile nearly constant through the arc core with a value of about 14000-15000 K, well decoupled from the heavy particle temperature of about 1500 K at the arc core edge, was inferred. © 2011 American Institute of Physics.

Descripción: A numerical solution for the metallic-plasma-neutral-gas structure generated in a low-pressure arc is presented. The equations correspond to a spherically symmetric fluid-like steady model, valid for the outer region of the arc, and describe the ion slowing down by elastic scattering with the neutral particles. Technically, the obtention of the profiles of different magnitudes is complicated due to the existence of a critical point in the steady-state system of equations. The proposed approach to overcome this difficulty is to solve instead a pseudotransient system of equations which rapidly and efficiently relax to the stationary state. By employing this numerical method of second-order accuracy in space, the plasma and neutral gas density, the electron and ion drift velocities, the electron and neutral temperatures, and the electrostatic potential profiles are obtained from the border of the arc channel up to the discharge chamber wall. It is found that the value of the neutral gas filling pressure strongly influences the plasma density and plasma potential distributions. An important result is that metallic ions emitted from the arc channel deliver their kinetic energy to the filling gas in a gradual manner, up to a pressure-dependent point beyond which they move to the walls sustained against collisions with the gas by a self-consistent electric field. Near the mentioned point, the metallic ion density presents a peculiar behavior, showing an increase that is more pronounced at high pressures; a pattern also evident in the electrostatic potential. © 2000 American Institute of Physics.

Descripción: With the purpose of modeling the process of mountain building, we investigate the evolution of the ridge produced by the convergent motion of a system consisting of two layers of liquids that differ in density and viscosity to simulate the crust and the upper mantle that form a lithospheric plate. We assume that the motion is driven by basal traction. Assuming isostasy, we derive a nonlinear differential equation for the evolution of the thickness of the crust. We solve this equation numerically to obtain the profile of the range. We find an approximate self-similar solution that describes reasonably well the process and predicts simple scaling laws for the height and width of the range as well as the shape of the transversal profile. We compare the theoretical results with the profiles of real mountain belts and find an excellent agreement. © 2010 American Institute of Physics.

Descripción: The confinement of Ar in planar slits of two identical parallel semi-infinite walls of alkali metals, alkaline-earth metal Mg, and CO 2 is investigated within the framework of the density functional theory. It is assumed that (1) the fluid atoms interact via a recently proposed effective attractive pair potential with strength, εff, which reproduces the experimental data of the surface tension of the liquid-vapor interface at the bulk coexistence curve, and (2) the adsorption on the walls is described by ab initio potentials characterized by a well depth, Wsf. In this way the systems were studied in the framework of a realistic approach. We found that for small coverages, the slit is always filled by forming two symmetric vapor films, one at each wall. For increasing coverage the behavior depends on the ratio Wsf/εff and the temperature T. In the case of alkali metals, we found at the triple point, Tt, of the adsorbate a regime of average density ρ*av in which the ground state exhibits asymmetric density profiles, leading to the so-called spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB) effect. The SSB appears at an average density ρ*sb1 and disappears at a higher average density ρ*sb2 . When T is increased, the range of densities ρ*sb1≤ρ*av≤ ρ* sb2 diminishes and eventually the SSB disappears at a critical temperature, Tsb, which coincides with the critical prewetting temperature Tcpw observed in the adsorption on a single wall. For T>Tcpw the slit is filled symmetrically up to the phase transition to capillary condensation. All these features are examined as a function of the strength of the substrate and the width of the slit. Furthermore, no SSB effect was found for Mg and CO2. © 2010 American Institute of Physics.

Descripción: Adsorption on single planar walls and filling of slits with identical planar walls are investigated in the frame of the density functional theory. In this sort of slits the external potential is symmetric with respect to its central plane. Calculations were carried out by applying both the canonical and grand canonical ensembles (CE and GCE, respectively). The behavior is analyzed by varying the strength of the adsorbate-substrate attraction, the temperature T, and the coverage Results obtained for physisorption of Xe on alkaline surfaces are reported in the present work. Prewetting (PW) lines and wetting temperatures, T w, are determined from the analysis of adsorption on single walls. The filling of slits is analyzed for temperatures T T w. It is found that whenever for a given Xe-substrate combination the adsorption on a single wall exhibits a first-order wetting transition then asymmetric profiles that break the left-right symmetry of the external potential appear in the filling of an equivalent slit. These spontaneously symmetry breaking (SSB) solutions occur in a restricted range of with a T-dependent width. In the case of closed slits analyzed in the CE scheme, the obtained asymmetric profiles exhibit lower Helmholtz free energies than the symmetric species and, therefore, could be stabilized in this geometry. For open slits, the GCE scheme yields all the symmetric and SSB states in the corresponding convex regimes of the free energy. It is shown that both the CE and the GCE frames yield three coexistent states, two symmetric and one asymmetric twofold degenerate. Both a PW line and the related SSB effect terminate at the same temperature. For rather strongly attractive surfaces reentrant SSB states are found at a fixed value of T. © Copyright 2011 Author(s).

Descripción: In this work, an experimental study on the influence of the nozzle geometry on the physical properties of a cutting arc is reported. Ion current signals collected by an electrostatic probe sweeping across a 30 A oxygen cutting arc at 3.5 mm from the nozzle exit were registered for different nozzle lengths. The temperature and density radial profiles of the arc plasma were found in each case by an inversion procedure of these signals. A comparison between the obtained results shows that the shorter nozzle (RN = 0.50 mm, L N = 4.5 mm operated at 0.7 MPa and 35 Nl/min) produces a thinner and hotter arc than the larger nozzle (RN = 0.50 mm, LN = 9.0 mm operated at 1.1 MPa and 20 Nl/min). This behavior is attributed to the marked difference of gas flow rate due to the clogging effect. A smaller gas mass flow reduces the convective cooling at the arc border and decreases the power dissipation of the arc column, resulting in small axis temperatures. © 2009 IOP Publishing Ltd.

Descripción: The Kelvin-Helmoltz instability (KH) with formation of vortices appears in a wide variety of terrestrial, interplanetary, and astrophysical contexts. We study a series of iterated rolled-up coherent plasma structures (15) that flow in the equatorial Earth's boundary layer (BL), observed on October 24, 2001. The data were recorded during a 1.5 hour-long Wind crossing of the BL at the dawn magnetospheric flank, tailward of the terminator (X≈-13 RE). The interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) was radially directed, almost antiparallel to the magnetosheath (MS) flow. This configuration is expected to be adverse to the KH instability because of the collinearity of field and flow, and the high compressibility of the MS. We analyze the BL stability with compressible MHD theory using continuous profiles for the physical quantities. Upstream, at near Earth sites, we input parameters derived from an exact MHD solution for collinear flows. Further downtail at Wind position we input measured parameters. The BL is found KH unstable in spite of unfavorable features of the external flow. On the experimental side, the passage of vortices is inferred from the presence of low density - hot plasma being accelerated to speeds higher than that of the contiguous MS. It is further supported by the peculiar correlation of relative motions (in the bulk velocity frame): cold-dense plasma drifts sunward, while hot-tenuous plasma moves tailward. This event differs from many other studies that reported BL vortices under strongly northward IMF orientations. This is a case of KH vortices observed under an almost radial IMF, with implicit significance for the more common Parker's spiral fields, and the problem of plasma entry in the magnetosphere.

Descripción: Context. Significant quantities of magnetized plasma are transported from the Sun to the interstellar medium via interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs). Magnetic clouds (MCs) are a particular subset of ICMEs, forming large-scale magnetic flux ropes. Their evolution in the solar wind is complex and mainly determined by their own magnetic forces and the interaction with the surrounding solar wind. Aims. Magnetic clouds are strongly affected by the surrounding environment as they evolve in the solar wind. We study expansion of MCs, its consequent decrease in magnetic field intensity and mass density, and the possible evolution of the so-called global ideal-MHD invariants. Methods. In this work we analyze the evolution of a particular MC (observed in March 1998) using in situ observations made by two spacecraft approximately aligned with the Sun, the first one at 1 AU from the Sun and the second one at 5.4 AU. We describe the magnetic configuration of the MC using different models and compute relevant global quantities (magnetic fluxes, helicity, and energy) at both heliodistances. We also tracked this structure back to the Sun, to find out its solar source. Results. We find that the flux rope is significantly distorted at 5.4 AU. From the observed decay of magnetic field and mass density, we quantify how anisotropic is the expansion and the consequent deformation of the flux rope in favor of a cross section with an aspect ratio at 5.4 AU of ≈ 1.6 (larger in the direction perpendicular to the radial direction from the Sun). We quantify the ideal-MHD invariants and magnetic energy at both locations, and find that invariants are almost conserved, while the magnetic energy decays as expected with the expansion rate found. Conclusions. The use of MHD invariants to link structures at the Sun and the interplanetary medium is supported by the results of this multi-spacecraft study. We also conclude that the local dimensionless expansion rate, which is computed from the velocity profile observed by a single-spacecraft, is very accurate for predicting the evolution of flux ropes in the solar wind. © 2011 ESO.