Crustal structure of central Myanmar (Burma) By surface wave dispersion

Digital records of seismic waves observed at Seismic Research Observatory, Cheng Mai. Thailand have been analysed for two earthquakes in western Nepal. Digital data are processed by the floating filter and phase equalization methods to obtain surface waves free from noise. Group velocities of Love and Rayleigh waves are obtained by frequency time analysis of these noise free surface waves. The period of group velocities ranges from 17 to 62 sec for fundamental mode Rayleigh waves and from 17 to 66 sec for fundamental mode Love waves. The wave paths cross both central Myanmar (Burma) and the Indo-Gangetic plain. The group velocity data of surface waves across central Myanmar (Burma) have been obtained after correction of the data for the path across the Indo-Gangetic plain. Inversion of data gives the average crustal and subcrustal structure of central Myanmar (Burma). The modelled structure shows two separate sedimentary layers each of 8 km thick, The lower sedimentary layer forms the low velocity zone of the crust. The total thickness of central Myanmar (Burma) crust is found to be 55 km

Two Kinds of Vacuum in Casimir Effect

The Casimir effect is one observable of the existence of the vacuum energy, i.e. the existence of vacuum electromagnetic field. The meaning of this word "vacuum" is physical vacuum, not technology vacuum. Then, we say that the change in the vacuum structure enforced by the plates. There are two kinds of vacuum, one is usual vacua or free vacua (outside the plates). Another is the negative energy vacua (inside the plates), and the refraction index less than 1(n<1). That cause a change in the light speed for electromagnetic waves propagating perpendicular to the plates: △c/c1.6×10-60d-4, and d is the plate distance. When d=10-9m(1nm), △c=10-24c. Then, a two-loop QED effect cause the phase and group velocities of an electromagnetic wave to slightly exceed c. Though the difference are very small, that raise interesting matters of principle. The focus of this paper is to improve the understanding of the nature of quantum vacuum. In the past, to say that "vacuum is not empty" was already a criticism and subversion of classical physics. Now it seems doubly strange to say that there is a negative energy vacuum that is "empty"than the normal physical vacuum. But these theories are rigorously justified; Casimir effect can create an environment with refractive index less than 1(n<1) and lead to the appearance of superluminality, which is one of the representations of "quantum superluminality". These advances in basic science will certainly open up new fields of application, In short, it is not the Casimir structure that creates the quantum vacuum, but the structure that makes the quantum vacuum "emerge"in a clever way as a perceptible physical reality. This is truly a scientific achievement.

Electrostatic theory of rectangular waveguides filled with anisotropic media

The electrostatic (or, in a better word, quasi-electrostatic) theory of waves propagation in a long, rectangular waveguide having perfect electric conductor walls that filled with an anisotropic medium (here, a medium of nanowire-based hyperbolic metamaterials) is presented. Some data on characteristics of these waves are prepared. The presented results include electrostatic field configurations (modes) that can be supported by such structures and their corresponding cutoff frequencies, group velocities, power flows and storage energies.

Long decay length of magnon-polarons in BiFeO3/La0.67Sr0.33MnO3 heterostructures

Magnons can transfer information in metals and insulators without Joule heating, and therefore are promising for low-power computation. The on-chip magnonics however suffers from high losses due to limited magnon decay length. In metallic thin films, it is typically on the tens of micrometre length scale. Here, we demonstrate an ultra-long magnon decay length of up to one millimetre in multiferroic/ferromagnetic BiFeO3(BFO)/La0.67Sr0.33MnO3(LSMO) heterostructures at room temperature. This decay length is attributed to a magnon-phonon hybridization and is more than two orders of magnitude longer than that of bare metallic LSMO. The long-distance modes have high group velocities of 2.5 km s−1 as detected by time-resolved Brillouin light scattering. Numerical simulations suggest that magnetoelastic coupling via the BFO/LSMO interface hybridizes phonons in BFO with magnons in LSMO to form magnon-polarons. Our results provide a solution to the long-standing issue on magnon decay lengths in metallic magnets and advance the bourgeoning field of hybrid magnonics.

Surface and shear-wave velocity modelling of the Tongariro Volcanic Centre, New Zealand, using ambient noise cross-correlation

<p>We use continuous seismic data from permanent and temporary, broadband and short-period stations that were operating during 2001 and 2008 to investigate the subsurface velocity structure of the Tongariro Volcanic Centre (TgVC) of New Zealand, particularly the highly active but poorly understood Ruapehu and Tongariro Volcanoes. Stacks of cross-correlation of two concurrent ambient noise seismograms can be used to estimate the interstation Green's Function, i.e., the impulse response of the earth between the two receivers. The Green's Functions are used to retrieve the dispersion relation (frequency-dependent velocity) of surface waves at different periods, which reflects the shear-wave velocity structure in the Fresnel volume of the propagating surface waves. Several studies have used dispersion measurements from ambient noise cross-correlations to investigate the shallow subsurface shear-wave velocity structure of active volcanoes around the world. Most use vertical components to retrieve the Rayleigh waves, but it is becoming increasingly common to use the horizontal seismogram components in addition to the vertical, giving further constraints to Rayleigh-wave measurements and introducing data relating to Love waves. We compute 1,048,968 daily cross-correlations for 955 viable station pairs across the two periods, including all nine-components of the cross-correlation tensor where possible. These daily functions are then stacked into 7458 full-stacks, of which we make group velocity dispersion measurements for 2641 RR-, RZ-, TT-, ZR- and ZZ-component stacks. Cross-correlation quality varies across the networks, with some station pairs possibly contaminated with timing errors. We observe both the fundamental and rst higher-order modes within our database of dispersion measurements. However, correctly identifying the mode of some measurements is challenging as the range of group velocities measured reflects both presence of multiple modes and heterogeneity of the local velocity structure. We assign modes to over 1900 measurements, of which we consider 1373 to be high quality. We invert fundamental mode Rayleigh- and Love-wave dispersion curves independently and jointly for one dimensional shear-wave velocity profiles at Ruapehu and Tongariro Volcanoes, using dispersion measurements from two individual station pairs and average dispersion curves from measurements within specifi c areas on/around the volcanoes. Our Ruapehu profiles show little velocity variation with depth, suggesting that volcanic edifice is made of material that is compacting and being hydrothermally altered with depth. At Tongariro, we observe larger increases in velocity with depth, which we interpret as different layers within Tongariro's volcanic system. Slow shear-wave velocities, on the order of 1-2 km/s, are consistent with both P-wave velocities from existing velocity pro files of areas within the TgVC, and the observations of worldwide studies of shallow volcanic systems that used ambient noise cross-correlation. A persistent observation across the majority of our dispersion measurements is that group velocities of the fundamental mode Love-wave group velocity measurements are slower than those of fundamental mode Rayleigh-waves, particularly in the frequency range of 0.25-1 Hz. Similarly, first higher-order mode Love-wave group velocities are slower than first higher-mode Rayleigh-wave velocities. This is inconsistent with the differences between synthetic dispersion curves that were calculated using isotropic, layered velocity models appropriate for Ruapehu and Tongariro. We think the Love-Rayleigh discrepancy is due to structures such as dykes or cracks in the vertical plane having greater influence than horizontal layering on surface-wave propagation. However, several measurements where Love-wave group velocities are faster than Rayleigh-wave group velocities suggests that in some places horizontal layering is the stronger influence. We also observe that the differences between the Love- and Rayleigh-wave dispersion curves vary with the azimuth of the interstation path across Ruapehu and Tongariro Volcanoes. Some significant differences between Rayleigh-wave velocities of measurements with different interstation orientations are also observed, as are differences between Love-wave velocities. This suggests a component of azimuthal anisotropy within the volcanic structures, which coupled with the radial anistropy makes the shear-wave velocity structures of Ruapehu and Tongariro Volcanoes anisotropic with orthorhombic symmetry. We suggest that further work to determine three-dimensional structure should include provisions for anisotropy with orthorhombic or lower symmetry.</p>

Surface and shear-wave velocity modelling of the Tongariro Volcanic Centre, New Zealand, using ambient noise cross-correlation

<p>We use continuous seismic data from permanent and temporary, broadband and short-period stations that were operating during 2001 and 2008 to investigate the subsurface velocity structure of the Tongariro Volcanic Centre (TgVC) of New Zealand, particularly the highly active but poorly understood Ruapehu and Tongariro Volcanoes. Stacks of cross-correlation of two concurrent ambient noise seismograms can be used to estimate the interstation Green's Function, i.e., the impulse response of the earth between the two receivers. The Green's Functions are used to retrieve the dispersion relation (frequency-dependent velocity) of surface waves at different periods, which reflects the shear-wave velocity structure in the Fresnel volume of the propagating surface waves. Several studies have used dispersion measurements from ambient noise cross-correlations to investigate the shallow subsurface shear-wave velocity structure of active volcanoes around the world. Most use vertical components to retrieve the Rayleigh waves, but it is becoming increasingly common to use the horizontal seismogram components in addition to the vertical, giving further constraints to Rayleigh-wave measurements and introducing data relating to Love waves. We compute 1,048,968 daily cross-correlations for 955 viable station pairs across the two periods, including all nine-components of the cross-correlation tensor where possible. These daily functions are then stacked into 7458 full-stacks, of which we make group velocity dispersion measurements for 2641 RR-, RZ-, TT-, ZR- and ZZ-component stacks. Cross-correlation quality varies across the networks, with some station pairs possibly contaminated with timing errors. We observe both the fundamental and rst higher-order modes within our database of dispersion measurements. However, correctly identifying the mode of some measurements is challenging as the range of group velocities measured reflects both presence of multiple modes and heterogeneity of the local velocity structure. We assign modes to over 1900 measurements, of which we consider 1373 to be high quality. We invert fundamental mode Rayleigh- and Love-wave dispersion curves independently and jointly for one dimensional shear-wave velocity profiles at Ruapehu and Tongariro Volcanoes, using dispersion measurements from two individual station pairs and average dispersion curves from measurements within specifi c areas on/around the volcanoes. Our Ruapehu profiles show little velocity variation with depth, suggesting that volcanic edifice is made of material that is compacting and being hydrothermally altered with depth. At Tongariro, we observe larger increases in velocity with depth, which we interpret as different layers within Tongariro's volcanic system. Slow shear-wave velocities, on the order of 1-2 km/s, are consistent with both P-wave velocities from existing velocity pro files of areas within the TgVC, and the observations of worldwide studies of shallow volcanic systems that used ambient noise cross-correlation. A persistent observation across the majority of our dispersion measurements is that group velocities of the fundamental mode Love-wave group velocity measurements are slower than those of fundamental mode Rayleigh-waves, particularly in the frequency range of 0.25-1 Hz. Similarly, first higher-order mode Love-wave group velocities are slower than first higher-mode Rayleigh-wave velocities. This is inconsistent with the differences between synthetic dispersion curves that were calculated using isotropic, layered velocity models appropriate for Ruapehu and Tongariro. We think the Love-Rayleigh discrepancy is due to structures such as dykes or cracks in the vertical plane having greater influence than horizontal layering on surface-wave propagation. However, several measurements where Love-wave group velocities are faster than Rayleigh-wave group velocities suggests that in some places horizontal layering is the stronger influence. We also observe that the differences between the Love- and Rayleigh-wave dispersion curves vary with the azimuth of the interstation path across Ruapehu and Tongariro Volcanoes. Some significant differences between Rayleigh-wave velocities of measurements with different interstation orientations are also observed, as are differences between Love-wave velocities. This suggests a component of azimuthal anisotropy within the volcanic structures, which coupled with the radial anistropy makes the shear-wave velocity structures of Ruapehu and Tongariro Volcanoes anisotropic with orthorhombic symmetry. We suggest that further work to determine three-dimensional structure should include provisions for anisotropy with orthorhombic or lower symmetry.</p>

Flagellar Cooperativity and Collective Motion in Sperm

Sperm have thin structures known as flagella whose motion must be regulated in order to reach the egg for fertilization. Large numbers of sperm are typically needed in this process and some species have sperm that exhibit collective or aggregate motion when swimming in groups. The purpose of this study is to model planar motion of flagella in groups to explore how collective motion may arise in three-dimensional fluid environments. We use the method of regularized Stokeslets and a three-dimensional preferred curvature model to simulate groups of undulating flagella, where flagellar waveforms are modulated via hydrodynamic coupling with other flagella and surfaces. We find that collective motion of free-swimming flagella is an unstable phenomenon in long-term simulations unless there is an external mechanism to keep flagella near each other. However, there is evidence that collective swimming can result in significant gains in velocity and efficiency. With the addition of an ability for sperm to attach and swim together as a group, velocities and efficiencies can be increased even further, which may indicate why some species have evolved mechanisms that enable collective swimming and cooperative behavior in sperm.

Elastic Properties Measurement Using Guided Acoustic Waves

Nondestructive evaluation of elastic properties plays a critical role in condition monitoring of thin structures such as sheets, plates or tubes. Recent research has shown that elastic properties of such structures can be determined with remarkable accuracy by utilizing the dispersive nature of guided acoustic waves propagating in them. However, existing techniques largely require complicated and expensive equipment or involve accurate measurement of an additional quantity, rendering them impractical for industrial use. In this work, we present a new approach that requires only a pair of piezoelectric transducers used to measure the group velocities ratio of fundamental guided wave modes. A numerical model based on the spectral collocation method is used to fit the measured data by solving a bound-constrained nonlinear least squares optimization problem. We verify our approach on both simulated and experimental data and achieve accuracies similar to those reported by other authors. The high accuracy and simple measurement setup of our approach makes it eminently suitable for use in industrial environments.