Optimal Energy Dissipation in Sliding Friction Simulations

Non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations, of crucial importance in sliding friction, are hampered by arbitrariness and uncertainties in the removal of the frictionally generated Joule heat. Building upon general pre-existing formulation, we implement a fully microscopic dissipation approach which, based on a parameter-free, non-Markovian, stochastic dynamics, absorbs Joule heat equivalently to a semi-infinite solid and harmonic substrate. As a test case, we investigate the stick-slip friction of a slider over a two-dimensional Lennard-Jones solid, comparing our virtually exact frictional results with approximate ones from commonly adopted dissipation schemes. Remarkably, the exact results can be closely reproduced by a standard Langevin dissipation scheme, once its parameters are determined according to a general and self-standing variational procedure

A climatology of the F-layer equivalent winds derived from ionosonde measurements over two decades along the 120°-150°E sector

International audienceThe vertical equivalent winds (VEWs) at the F-layer are analyzed along the 120°-150°E longitude sector with an emphasis on their latitudinal dependence. The VEWs are derived from the monthly median data of fourteen ionosonde stations over two decades. The results show that the VEWs have considerable dependences on the magnetic latitude with an approximate symmetry about the magnetic equator. They are mostly controlled by the electric field drifts in the magnetic equatorial region, and shift to be mostly contributed by neutral winds at mid-latitudes. The relative contribution of the two dynamic factors is regulated by the magnetic dip in addition to their own magnitudes. The VEWs generally have opposite directions and different magnitudes between lower and higher latitudes. At solar minimum, the magnitudes of VEWs are only between -20 and 20m/s at lower latitudes, while at higher latitudes they tend to increase with latitudes, typically having magnitudes between 20-40m/s. At solar maximum, the VEWs are reduced by about 10-20m/s in magnitudes during some local times at higher latitudes. A tidal analysis reveals that the relative importance of major tidal components is also different between lower and higher latitudes. The VEWs also depend on local time, season and solar activity. At higher latitudes, the nighttime VEWs have larger magnitude during post-midnight hours and so do the daytime ones before midday. The VEWs tend to have an inverse relationship with solar activity not only at night, but also by day, which is different from the meridional winds predicted by the HWM93 model. The latitudinal dependence of VEWs has two prevailing trends: one is a maximum at the highest latitudes (as far as the latitudes concerned in the present work); the other is a mid-latitude maximum. These two latitudinal trends are mostly dependent on season, while they depend relatively weakly on local time and solar activity. The latitudinal gradients of VEWs also show a tendency of a mid-latitude maximum, except that there are much stronger latitudinal gradients at southern higher mid-latitudes in some seasons. The gradients during daytime are much smaller at solar maximum than minimum, whereas they are generally comparable at night under both solar activity levels

A new approach to the derivation of dynamic information from ionosonde measurements

International audienceA new approach is developed to derive dynamic information near the peak of the ionospheric F-layer from ionosonde measurements. This approach avoids deducing equivalent winds from the displacement of the observed peak height from a no-wind equilibrium height, so it need not determine the no-wind equilibrium height which may limit the accuracy of the deduced winds, as did the traditional servo theory. This approach is preliminarily validated with comparisons of deduced equivalent winds with the measurements from the Fabry-Perot interferometer, the Millstone Hill incoherent scatter radar and with previous works. Examples of vertical components of equivalent winds (VEWs), over Wuhan (114.4° E, 30.6° N, 45.2° dip), China in December 2000 are derived from Wuhan DGS-256 Digisonde data. The deduced VEWs show large day-to-day variations during the winter, even in low magnetic activity conditions. The diurnal pattern of average VEWs is more complicated than that predicted by the empirical Horizontal Wind Model (HWM). Using an empirical electric field model based on the observations from Jicamarca radar and satellites, we investigate the contributions to VEWs from neutral winds and from electric fields at the F-layer peak. If the electric field model is reasonable for Wuhan during this period, the neutral winds contribute mostly to the VEWs, and the contribution from the E × B drifts is insignificant

Characterization of high-resolution aerosol mass spectra of primary organic aerosol emissions from Chinese cooking and biomass burning

Aerosol mass spectrometry has proved to be a powerful tool to measure submicron particulate composition with high time resolution. Factor analysis of mass spectra (MS) collected worldwide by aerosol mass spectrometer (AMS) demonstrates that submicron organic aerosol (OA) is usually composed of several major components, such as oxygenated (OOA), hydrocarbon-like (HOA), biomass burning (BBOA), and other primary OA. In order to help interpretation of component MS from factor analysis of ambient OA datasets, AMS measurements of different primary sources is required for comparison. Such work, however, has been very scarce in the literature, especially for high resolution MS (HR-MS) measurements, which performs improved characterization by separating the ions of different elemental composition at each <i>m</i>/<i>z</i> in comparison with unit mass resolution MS (UMR-MS) measurements. In this study, primary emissions from four types of Chinese cooking (CC) and six types of biomass burning (BB) were simulated systematically and measured using an Aerodyne High-Resolution Time-of-Flight AMS (HR-ToF-AMS). The MS of the CC emissions show high similarity, with <i>m</i>/<i>z</i> 41 and <i>m</i>/<i>z</i> 55 being the highest signals; the MS of the BB emissions also show high similarity, with <i>m</i>/<i>z</i> 29 and <i>m</i>/<i>z</i> 43 being the highest signals. The MS difference between the CC and BB emissions is much bigger than that between different CC (or BB) types, especially for the HR-MS. The O/C ratio of OA ranges from 0.08 to 0.13 for the CC emissions and from 0.18 to 0.26 for the BB emissions. The UMR ions of <i>m</i>/<i>z</i> 43, <i>m</i>/<i>z</i> 44, <i>m</i>/<i>z</i> 57, and <i>m</i>/<i>z</i> 60, usually used as tracers in AMS measurements, were examined for their HR-MS characteristics in the CC and BB emissions. In addition, the MS of the CC and BB emissions are also compared with component MS from factor analysis of ambient OA datasets observed in China, as well as with other AMS measurements of primary sources in the literature. The MS signatures of cooking and biomass burning emissions revealed in this study can be used as important reference for factor analysis of ambient OA datasets, especially for the relevant studies in East Asia

Seasonal dependence of the longitudinal variations of nighttime ionospheric electron density and equivalent winds at southern midlatitudes

It has been indicated that the observed Weddell Sea anomaly (WSA) appeared to be an extreme manifestation of the longitudinal variations in the Southern Hemisphere, since the WSA is characterized by greater evening electron density than the daytime density in the region near the Weddell Sea. In the present study, the longitudinal variations of the nighttime F2-layer peak electron density at southern midlatitudes are analyzed using the observations of the Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate (COSMIC) satellites between 2006 and 2008. It is found that significant longitudinal difference (> 150%) relative to the minimum density at each local time prevails in all seasons, although the WSA phenomenon is only evident in summer under this solar minimum condition. Another interesting feature is that in summer, the maximum longitudinal differences occur around midnight (~ 23:00–00:00 LT) rather than in the evening (19:00–21:00 LT) in the evening, when the most prominent electron density enhancement occurs for the WSA phenomenon. Thus the seasonal–local time patterns of the electron density longitudinal variations during nighttime at southern midlatitudes cannot be simply explained in terms of the WSA. Meanwhile, the variations of the geomagnetic configuration and the equivalent magnetic meridional winds/upward plasma drifts are analyzed to explore their contributions to the longitudinal variations of the nighttime electron density. The maximum longitudinal differences are associated with the strongest wind-induced vertical plasma drifts after 21:00 LT in the Western Hemisphere. Besides the magnetic declination–zonal wind effects, the geographic meridional winds and the magnetic inclination also have significant effects on the upward plasma drifts and the resultant electron density

Neutron reflection study of the adsorption of the phosphate surfactant NaDEHP onto alumina from water.

The adsorption of a phosphorus analogue of the surfactant AOT, sodium bis(2-ethylhexyl) phosphate (NaDEHP), at the water/alumina interface is described. The material is found to adsorb as an essentially water-free bilayer from neutron reflection measurements. This is similar to the behavior of AOT under comparable conditions, although AOT forms a thicker, more hydrated layer. The NaDEHP shows rather little variation with added salt, but a small thickening of the layer on increasing the pH, in contrast to the behavior of AOT.We thank BP plc and EPSRC for financial support for this work as well as the ISIS and ILL staff and scientists for the allocation of beam time and technical assistance with NR measurements. We also appreciate Chris Sporikou at Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge, for help with the surfactant synthesis.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared at http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/la504837

A Cautionary Tale: MARVELS Brown Dwarf Candidate Reveals Itself To Be A Very Long Period, Highly Eccentric Spectroscopic Stellar Binary

We report the discovery of a highly eccentric, double-lined spectroscopic binary star system (TYC 3010-1494-1), comprising two solar-type stars that we had initially identified as a single star with a brown dwarf companion. At the moderate resolving power of the MARVELS spectrograph and the spectrographs used for subsequent radial-velocity (RV) measurements (R ~ <30,000), this particular stellar binary mimics a single-lined binary with an RV signal that would be induced by a brown dwarf companion (Msin(i)~50 M_Jup) to a solar-type primary. At least three properties of this system allow it to masquerade as a single star with a very low-mass companion: its large eccentricity (e~0.8), its relatively long period (P~238 days), and the approximately perpendicular orientation of the semi-major axis with respect to the line of sight (omega~189 degrees). As a result of these properties, for ~95% of the orbit the two sets of stellar spectral lines are completely blended, and the RV measurements based on centroiding on the apparently single-lined spectrum is very well fit by an orbit solution indicative of a brown dwarf companion on a more circular orbit (e~0.3). Only during the ~5% of the orbit near periastron passage does the true, double-lined nature and large RV amplitude of ~15 km/s reveal itself. The discovery of this binary system is an important lesson for RV surveys searching for substellar companions; at a given resolution and observing cadence, a survey will be susceptible to these kinds of astrophysical false positives for a range of orbital parameters. Finally, for surveys like MARVELS that lack the resolution for a useful line bisector analysis, it is imperative to monitor the peak of the cross-correlation function for suspicious changes in width or shape, so that such false positives can be flagged during the candidate vetting process.Comment: 16 pages, 11 figures, 6 table