Review paper: What Kelvin might have written about Elasticity

One hundred and fifty five years ago, Kelvin published the first part of a fundamental analysis of the elastic tensor, in which he proposed a coordinate‐free representation through its eigensystem. His thoughts were apparently far ahead of his time, since it took 125 years before the paper elicited a positive reaction (it is now accessible through several modern reviews). Science not only lost track for 125 years of the original paper but also lost the ideas Kelvin might have proposed in the second part, a publication that was never put to paper, presumably in view of the lack of appreciation of the first part. In an attempt to establish what might have been on Kelvin's mind for a second part, one has to ‘forget’ the progress of mathematical physics in the intervening time and base all arguments strictly on the content of the first part and on the state of science in the second half of the 19^thcentury. The theory of elasticity would certainly have developed faster, had Kelvin's paper peen appreciated by his ‘peers’. But a theory based on Kelvin's ideas would be fruitful even today.     

193nm ArF准分子激光系统对LA-ICP-MS分析中不同基体的剥蚀行为和剥蚀速率探究

探究LA-ICP-MS分析中不同基体的剥蚀行为和剥蚀速率,可为激光参数设定、基体匹配选择、数据质量保证等方面提供重要参考。本文研究了193 nm ArF准分子激光系统对人工合成/地质样品玻璃、常见矿物和粉末压片的剥蚀行为,同时探究了激光参数(束斑直径、能量密度和剥蚀频率)对剥蚀速率的影响情况。从剥蚀坑形貌可知,193nm ArF激光对玻璃和绝大多数矿物的剥蚀行为良好,但对石英相对较差,这可能与石英内含有微观包裹体,剥蚀过程中局部受热不均有关。粉末压片的剥蚀行为呈现出不可控,可通过提高粉末压片的压制压力或降低粉末颗粒的粒径来改善剥蚀行为;当剥蚀深度大于1.5倍束斑直径时,剥蚀速率随剥蚀深度的增加而逐渐减小,剥蚀深度最多可达束斑直径的两倍左右(RESOlution M-50型号激光系统,3.0 J/cm2激光能量密度);剥蚀速率随激光能量密度的增加而增大,但基本不受剥蚀频率(2~20 Hz)影响。不同基体具有特征的剥蚀速率,本文报道了43种基体的剥蚀速率参数,总体而言,NIST系列玻璃的剥蚀速率大于地质样品玻璃,碳酸盐矿物和硫化物矿物大于硅酸岩矿物,粉末压片大于玻璃和常见矿物。     

Research note: Seismic attenuation due to wave‐induced fluid flow at microscopic and mesoscopic scales

Wave‐induced fluid flow at microscopic and mesoscopic scales arguably constitutes the major cause of intrinsic seismic attenuation throughout the exploration seismic and sonic frequency ranges. The quantitative analysis of these phenomena is, however, complicated by the fact that the governing physical processes may be dependent. The reason for this is that the presence of microscopic heterogeneities, such as micro‐cracks or broken grain contacts, causes the stiffness of the so‐called modified dry frame to be complex‐valued and frequency‐dependent, which in turn may affect the viscoelastic behaviour in response to fluid flow at mesoscopic scales. In this work, we propose a simple but effective procedure to estimate the seismic attenuation and velocity dispersion behaviour associated with wave‐induced fluid flow due to both microscopic and mesoscopic heterogeneities and discuss the results obtained for a range of pertinent scenarios.     

STELLA: Two New Robotic Telescopes for Binary-Star Research

Several new robotic telescopes had or will see first light in 2005/2006 and are designed for either wide-field imaging, high-precision photometry or even for high-resolution echelle spectroscopy. These telescopes are in the 1–2 m class and therefore will focus on very specific tasks. Here, I present an update of the robotic STELLA facility currently under construction in Tenerife and emphasize its science capabilities for binary-star research. Among the many science applications of STELLA is the monitoring of magnetic activity in single and binary stars and their relation to age, rotation rate, metallicity and binarity per se.The AIP STELLA team members are T. Granzer, M. Weber, M. Woche, M. I. Andersen, J. Bartus, S.-M. Bauer, F. Dionies, T. Fechner, H. Korhonen, J. Paschke, E. Popow, A. Ritter, A. Schwope, A. Staude, A. Washuettl     

First Light of the Near-Infrared Narrow-Band Tunable Birefringent Filter at Big Bear Solar Observatory

We discuss a near-infrared (NIR) narrow-band tunable birefringent filter system newly developed by the Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO). This is one of the first narrow-bandpass NIR filter systems working at 1.56 μm which is used for the observation of the deepest solar photosphere. Four stages of calcite were used to obtain a bandpass of 2.5 Å along with a free spectral range (FSR) of 40 Å. Some unique techniques were implemented in the design, including liquid crystal variable retarders (LCVRs) to tune the bandpass in a range of ±100 Å, a wide field configuration to provide up to 2° incident angle, and oil-free structure to make it more compact and handy. After performing calibration and characteristic evaluation at the Evans Facility of the National Solar Observatory at Sacramento Peak (NSO/SP), a series of high-resolution filtergrams and imaging polarimetry observations were carried out with the Dunn Solar Telescope of NSO/SP and the 65-cm telescope of BBSO, in conjunction with the high-order adaptive optics system and the Fabry–Pérot Interferometer (FPI). In this paper, we describe the optical design and discuss the calibration method. Preliminary observations show that it is capable of serving as either a stand-alone narrow-band filter for NIR filtergram observations or an order-sorting filter of a FPI applied to NIR two-dimensional imaging spectro-polarimetry.     

Local subgiants and time-scales of disc formation

This paper concentrates on the relationship between the rate of gas emission from the nucleus of Comet 9P/Tempel 1, the fraction f of the nucleus that is active, and the crater damage inflicted by the recent 2005 July 4 Deep Impact space mission. The cometary nucleus has a surface area of about  1.7 × 10⁸ m²  and a mean radius of about 3700 m. Before the impact it is estimated that only a fraction f = 0.0056 of the nucleus surface was actively producing gas and dust. The active area was about  9.4 × 10⁵ m²  . Absolute magnitudes obtained at recent perihelion passages of this comet indicate that variations in the 0.0074 > f > 0.0039 range can occur from apparition to apparition. Because of the low size of the original active area, the production of a new impact crater in the diameter range 40 to 300 m would lead to a long-term change in the cometary visual magnitude in the range 0.0018 to 0.098 respectively. This is below the limit of detectability. It has been suggested that the cometary dust is in the form of 'talcum powder' not 'beach sand'. We suggest that the dust ejected from the impact site has been broken up by the energetic impact process and thus has a different size distribution from dust locked in the snowy matrix of the nucleus and normally lifted off the nucleus by gentle sublimation processes.