Polaron relaxation in ferroelectric thin films

We report a dielectric relaxation in ferroelectric thin films of the ABO3 family. We have compared films of different compositions with several growth modes: sputtering (with and without magnetron) and sol-gel. The relaxation was observed at cryogenic temperature (T<100K) for frequencies from 100Hz up to 10MHz. This relaxation activation energy is always lower than 200meV. It is very similar to the polaron relaxation that we reported in the parent bulk perovskites. Being independent of the materials size, morphology and texture, this relaxation can be a useful probe of defects in actual integrated capacitors with no need for specific shapin

Interactions entre les structures d'échappement et les structures à grande échelle dans l'écoulement turbulent des rivières à lit de graviers

Dans les rivières graveleuses, il est établi que les structures d'échappement formées dans la zone de recirculation à l'aval d'amas de galets génèrent d'intenses échanges turbulents. Le mécanisme responsable de l'échappement demeure par contre mal connu. Peu d'études sur la dynamique des structures d'échappement ont été réalisées dans des écoulements où le nombre de Reynolds est élevé comme c'est le cas en rivières. De plus, les connaissances actuelles ne tiennent pas compte des découvertes récentes sur la turbulence en rivière à lit de graviers où on a observé des structures de forte et de faible vitesse occupant toute la profondeur de l'écoulement et pouvant durer plusieurs secondes. Ces structures à grande échelle devraient jouer un rôle sur le mécanisme d'échappement étant donné l'influence de la vitesse ambiante sur la dynamique de la zone de recirculation. Nous rapportons les résultats de deux expériences originales sur les liens dynamiques entre les structures à grande échelle et le mécanisme d'échappement en aval d'un amas de galets. La première expérience repose sur l'analyse de corrélations croisées entre des séries de vitesses obtenues au sommet et à l'aval proximal d'un amas de galets. Les résultats montrent que les fortes fluctuations dans le sens de l'écoulement au sommet de l'obstacle sont liées, quelques instants plus tard, à de fortes fluctuations vers l'amont dans la zone de recirculation. La seconde expérience utilise la visualisation des structures d'échappement et la mesure simultanée des vitesses de l'écoulement. L'analyse combinée des images vidéo et de séries de vitesse suggère une relation entre le passage des structures à grande échelle et les manifestations de l'échappement. Ces résultats nous permettent de présenter un modèle où, lors du passage d'un front de haute vitesse, une structure d'échappement se développe et prend de l'expansion vers le lit et vers la surface en se propageant vers l'aval alors que, lors du passage d'un front de faible vitesse, elle s'élève vers la surface de manière plus cohérente. Cette étude propose un nouveau mécanisme d'échappement et révèle le rôle que joue la structure de l'écoulement ambiant sur le développement de structures dans les cours d'eau à lit graveleux.The flow structure in a gravel-bed river is closely related to the presence of protruding clasts and of pebble clusters. It is well known that shedding motions from the lee side of large clasts and clusters are a recurrent process that explains the strong exchanges of momentum in river flows. However, shedding has yet to be fully characterised for high Reynolds number flows such as those found in gravel-bed rivers. Moreover, our current understanding of shedding mechanisms does not include the recent discovery that large-scale flow structures in the form of high- and low-speed wedges occupy the entire flow depth over a gravel-bed river. From two original experiments, this paper investigates the influence of these wedges on the nature of shedding in the lee of a pebble cluster. The interactions between the large-scale wedges and shedding may be a key element for understanding flow organisation at the river reach scale. The first experiment provides an analysis of the space-time correlation of velocity time series obtained downstream from a pebble cluster in a natural river. Two pairs of one-minute time series were sampled. The first series of each pair was located in the region of flow separation downstream from the obstacle whereas the second was located at its crest. Results show that a significant negative correlation occurs with a negative time lag for the downstream velocity component. This reveals that a strong downstream velocity vector at the crest of the obstacle is followed 1 to 4 seconds later by a strong upstream velocity vector in the region of flow separation. The strength of the recirculation motion responds to the velocity fluctuations above the cluster. This is a crucial process in the development of vortex shedding. The second experiment aimed at visualising the shedding motion downstream from an obstacle. An underwater camera was used to obtain images of fluid motion in the lee of a pebble cluster while three electromagnetic current meters measured streamwise and vertical velocity fluctuations along a vertical profile downstream from the obstacle. A white tracer was injected in the region of flow separation to depict the development of flow structures that are shed into the flow. Despite the high Reynolds number of the flow, we have obtained good quality images revealing the presence of different modes of vortex shedding initiated in the region of flow separation. From the velocity records, it was possible to identify the large-scale flow wedges and to show that the type of vortex shedding is controlled by high- and low-speed wedges.Based on these results, we propose a model having two steps: when a high-speed wedge approaches the pebble cluster, the shedding motion develops vertically both towards the water surface and towards the bed as the structures convect downstream; when a low-speed wedge passes, the shedding motion advects mainly towards the surface and it conserves a stronger coherence. This response of the shedding motion to the type of flow wedge is a recurrent and fundamental phenomenon. The results and the model presented herein shed light on the complex nature of vortex shedding in flows at high Reynolds number such as those found in rivers

Large-scale Perturbations from the Waterfall Field in Hybrid Inflation

We estimate large-scale curvature perturbations from isocurvature fluctuations in the waterfall field during hybrid inflation, in addition to the usual inflaton field perturbations. The tachyonic instability at the end of inflation leads to an explosive growth of super-Hubble scale perturbations, but they retain the steep blue spectrum characteristic of vacuum fluctuations in a massive field during inflation. The power spectrum thus peaks around the Hubble-horizon scale at the end of inflation. We extend the usual delta-N formalism to include the essential role of these small fluctuations when estimating the large-scale curvature perturbation. The resulting curvature perturbation due to fluctuations in the waterfall field is second-order and the spectrum is expected to be of order 10^{-54} on cosmological scales.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures; v2 comments added on application of delta-N formalism including Hubble scale fluctuation

Influence of transport and ocean ice extent on biogenic aerosol sulfur in the Arctic atmosphere

The recent decline in sea ice cover in the Arctic Ocean could affect the regional radiative forcing via changes in sea ice-atmosphere exchange of dimethyl sulfide (DMS) and biogenic aerosols formed from its atmospheric oxidation, such as methanesulfonic acid (MSA). This study examines relationships between changes in total sea ice extent north of 70 degrees N and atmospheric MSA measurement at Alert, Nunavut, during 1980-2009; at Barrow, Alaska, during 1997-2008; and at Ny-Alesund, Svalbard, for 1991-2004. During the 1980-1989 and 1990-1997 periods, summer (July-August) and June MSA concentrations at Alert decreased. In general, MSA concentrations increased at all locations since 2000 with respect to 1990 values, specifically during June and summer at Alert and in summer at Barrow and Ny-Alesund. Our results show variability in MSA at all sites is related to changes in the source strengths of DMS, possibly linked to changes in sea ice extent as well as to changes in atmospheric transport patterns. Since 2000, a late spring increase in atmospheric MSA at the three sites coincides with the northward migration of the marginal ice edge zone where high DMS emissions from ocean to atmosphere have previously been reported. Significant negative correlations are found between sea ice extent and MSA concentrations at the three sites during the spring and June. These results suggest that a decrease in seasonal ice cover influencing other mechanisms of DMS production could lead to higher atmospheric MSA concentrations

Extraspinal sciatica revealing late metastatic disease from parotid carcinoma

Sciatica is a clinical symptom usually caused by a disk herniation and less often by other conditions such as tumors, infections, or inflammatory diseases. We report the case of a woman in whom sciatica led to the identification of a large pelvic metastasis from a carcinoma of the parotid gland

Dynamical vs spectator models of (pseudo-)conformal Universe

We discuss two versions of the conformal scenario for generating scalar cosmological perturbations: a spectator version with a scalar field conformally coupled to gravity and carrying negligible energy density, and a dynamical version with a scalar field minimally coupled to gravity and dominating the cosmological evolution. By making use of the Newtonian gauge, we show that (i) no UV strong coupling scale is generated below $M_{Pl}$ due to mixing with metric perturbations in the dynamical scenario, and (ii) the dynamical and spectator models yield identical results to the leading non-linear order. We argue that these results, which include potentially observable effects like statistical anisotropy and non-Gaussianity, are characteristic of the entire class of conformal models. As an example, we reproduce, within the dynamical scenario and working in comoving gauge, our earlier result on the statistical anisotropy, which was originally obtained within the spectator approach.Comment: 13 page

The First Detections of the Extragalactic Background Light at 3000, 5500, and 8000A (II): Measurement of Foreground Zodiacal Light

We present a measurement of the absolute surface brightness of the zodiacal light (3900-5100A) toward a fixed extragalactic target at high ecliptic latitude based on moderate resolution (~1.3A per pixel) spectrophotometry obtained with the du Pont 2.5m telescope at Las Campanas Observatory in Chile. This measurement and contemporaneous Hubble Space Telescope data from WFPC2 and FOS comprise a coordinated program to measure the mean flux of the diffuse extragalactic background light (EBL). The zodiacal light at optical wavelengths results from scattering by interplanetary dust, so that the zodiacal light flux toward any extragalactic target varies seasonally with the position of the Earth. This measurement of zodiacal light is therefore relevant to the specific observations (date and target field) under discussion. To obtain this result, we have developed a technique that uses the strength of the zodiacal Fraunhofer lines to identify the absolute flux of the zodiacal light in the multiple-component night sky spectrum. Statistical uncertainties in the result are 0.6% (1 sigma). However, the dominant source of uncertainty is systematic errors, which we estimate to be 1.1% (1 sigma). We discuss the contributions included in this estimate explicitly. The systematic errors in this result contribute 25% in quadrature to the final error in our coordinated EBL measurement, which is presented in the first paper of this series.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ, 22 pages using emulateapj.sty, version with higher resolution figures available at http://www.astro.lsa.umich.edu/~rab/publications.html or at http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Sep01/Bernstein2/frames.htm

Understanding Collateral Evolution in Linux Device Drivers

In a modern operating system (OS), device drivers can make up over 70% of the source code. Driver code is also heavily dependent on the rest of the OS, for functions and data structure defined in the kernel and driver support libraries. These two properties together pose a significant problem for OS evolution, as any changes in the interfaces exported by the kernel and driver support libraries can trigger a large number of adjustments in dependent drivers. These adjustments, which we refer to as collateral evolutions, may be complex, entailing substantial code reorganizations. Collateral evolution of device drivers is thus time consuming and error prone. In this paper, we present a qualitative and quantitative assessment of the collateral evolution problem in Linux device driver code. We provide a taxonomy of evolutions and collateral evolutions, and show that from one version of Linux to the next, collateral evolutions can account for up to 35% of the lines modified in such code. We then identify some of the challenges that must be met in the future to automate the collateral evolution process

The Worldvolume Action of Kink Solitons in AdS Spacetime

A formalism is presented for computing the higher-order corrections to the worldvolume action of co-dimension one solitons. By modifying its potential, an explicit "kink" solution of a real scalar field in AdS spacetime is found. The formalism is then applied to explicitly compute the kink worldvolume action to quadratic order in two expansion parameters--associated with the hypersurface fluctuation length and the radius of AdS spacetime respectively. Two alternative methods are given for doing this. The results are expressed in terms of the trace of the extrinsic curvature and the intrinsic scalar curvature. In addition to conformal Galileon interactions, we find a non-Galileon term which is never sub-dominant. This method can be extended to any conformally flat bulk spacetime.Comment: 32 pages, 3 figures, typos corrected and additional comments adde