The “Quantochron 4-48” facility for registration of random fluxes of multidimensional signals

A facility for the registration of light fluxes meant for the study of their properties with high temporal resolution is described. The “Quantochron 4-48” acquisition facility measures the photon arrival times using periodic signals of three types-second-long period signals (pps), 10-kHz, and 30-MHz signals. The first two come from a GPS, whereas the latter signal comes from the PCI bus of the computer connected to the facility. These time scales are used to produce for each time instant a 28-bit time code supplemented by 48 bits bearing the information about the coordinates, energy, and polarization of the photon at the output of the detector. The sequence of complete 64-bit words is buffered in FIFO memory and sent to computer RAM. The device has as its base element a XILINX SPARTAN XCS40XL PQ240AKP0505 microchip incorporated into a PCI slot. The registration facility consists of two PC servers equipped with these boards and a control computer. The facility determines the photon arrival times to within 30 ns with a dead time of 30 ns and maximum lossless count rate of 10⁶ photons/s. The registration facility allows continuous recording of detector counts over 17 hours with a one microsecond World-Time (UT) calibration accuracy.     

Solving the nonstationary Richards equation with adaptive hp-FEM

This paper examines the potential of the adaptive hp-FEM method for the numerical solution of time-dependent variably saturated Darcian flow problems described by the Richards equation. The method is illustrated on three model problems: a benchmark with known exact solution, groundwater seepage into a dry lysimeter box with time-dependent boundary conditions, and capillary barrier behavior under an intense infiltration. In the second part of the paper we present the weak formulation of the Richards equation for the Newton’s and Picard’s methods, give a brief overview of adaptive hp-FEM with emphasis on aspects that are usually not discussed in the literature, and we briefly introduce the open source adaptive hp-FEM library HERMES that was used to generate numerical results for this paper. All computations that we present are easily reproducible.     

Torsional mode frequency and elastic anisotropy in alkali vermiculites

The torsional mode frequency _t in Cs_1–xRb_x-Vermiculite has been determined using an angular force constant model and a virtual crystal approximation. The sensitivity of _t has been examined with respect to the force constants between the Kagome' oxygen frame and the interlayer cations. These force constants were used to calculate the longitudinal elastic constants, C₁₁ and C₃₃ and are consistent with the observed elastic anisotropy in related layer silicates. The observed nonlinear x-dependence of the torsional mode frequency in ternary systems can be related to the polarizability of the interlayer cations (Cs⁺,Rb⁺).