Assessment of land surface temperature and heat fluxes over Delhi using remote sensing data

Surface energy processes has an essential role in urban weather, climate and hydrosphere cycles, as well in urban heat redistribution. The research was undertaken to analyze the potential of Landsat and MODIS data in retrieving biophysical parameters in estimating land surface temperature & heat fluxes diurnally in summer and winter seasons of years 2000 and 2010 and understanding its effect on anthropogenic heat disturbance over Delhi and surrounding region. Results show that during years 2000-2010, settlement and industrial area increased from 5.66 to 11.74% and 4.92 to 11.87% respectively which in turn has direct effect on land surface temperature (LST) and heat fluxes including anthropogenic heat flux. Based on the energy balance model for land surface, a method to estimate the increase in anthropogenic heat flux (Has) has been proposed. The settlement and industrial areas has higher amounts of energy consumed and has high values of Has in all seasons. The comparison of satellite derived LST with that of field measured values show that Landsat estimated values are in close agreement within error of 2 degrees C than MODIS with an error of 3 degrees C. It was observed that, during 2000 and 2010, the average change in surface temperature using Landsat over settlement & industrial areas of both seasons is 1.4 degrees C & for MODIS data is 3.7 degrees C. The seasonal average change in anthropogenic heat flux (Has) estimated using Landsat & MODIS is up by around 38 W/m(2) and 62 W/m(2) respectively while higher change is observed over settlement and concrete structures. The study reveals that the dynamic range of Has values has increased in the 10 year period due to the strong anthropogenic influence over the area. The study showed that anthropogenic heat flux is an indicator of the strength of urban heat island effect, and can be used to quantify the magnitude of the urban heat island effect. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Dynamos driven by weak thermal convection and heterogeneous outer boundary heat flux

We use numerical dynamo models with heterogeneous core-mantle boundary (CMB) heat flux to show that lower mantle lateral thermal variability may help support a dynamo under weak thermal convection. In our reference models with homogeneous CMB heat flux, convection is either marginally supercritical or absent, always below the threshold for dynamo onset. We find that lateral CMB heat flux variations organize the flow in the core into patterns that favour the growth of an early magnetic field. Heat flux patterns symmetric about the equator produce non-reversing magnetic fields, whereas anti-symmetric patterns produce polarity reversals. Our results may explain the existence of the geodynamo prior to inner core nucleation under a tight energy budget. Furthermore, in order to sustain a strong geomagnetic field, the lower mantle thermal distribution was likely dominantly symmetric about the equator. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Absolute Entropy and Energy of Carbon Dioxide Using the Two-Phase Thermodynamic Model

The two-phase thermodynamic (2PT) model is used to determine the absolute entropy and energy of carbon dioxide over a wide range of conditions from molecular dynamics trajectories. The 2PT method determines the thermodynamic properties by applying the proper statistical mechanical partition function to the normal modes of a fluid. The vibrational density of state (DoS), obtained from the Fourier transform of the velocity autocorrelation function, converges quickly, allowing the free energy, entropy, and other thermodynamic properties to be determined from short 20-ps MD trajectories. The anharmonic effects in the vibrations are accounted for by the broadening of the normal modes into bands from sampling the velocities over the trajectory. The low frequency diffusive modes, which lead to finite DoS at zero frequency, are accounted for by considering the DoS as a superposition of gas-phase and solid-phase components (two phases). The analytical decomposition of the DoS allows for an evaluation of properties contributed by different types of molecular motions. We show that this 2PT analysis leads to accurate predictions of entropy and energy of CO2 over a wide range of conditions (from the triple point to the critical point of both the vapor and the liquid phases along the saturation line). This allows the equation of state of CO2 to be determined, which is limited only by the accuracy of the force field. We also validated that the 2PT entropy agrees with that determined from thermodynamic integration, but 2PT requires only a fraction of the time. A complication for CO2 is that its equilibrium configuration is linear, which would have only two rotational modes, but during the dynamics it is never exactly linear, so that there is a third mode from rotational about the axis. In this work, we show how to treat such linear molecules in the 2PT framework.

Model projections for household energy use in India

Energy use in developing countries is heterogeneous across households. Present day global energy models are mostly too aggregate to account for this heterogeneity. Here, a bottom-up model for residential energy use that starts from key dynamic concepts on energy use in developing countries is presented and applied to India. Energy use and fuel choice is determined for five end-use functions (cooking, water heating, space heating, lighting and appliances) and for five different income quintiles in rural and urban areas. The paper specifically explores the consequences of different assumptions for income distribution and rural electrification on residential sector energy use and CO(2) emissions, finding that results are clearly sensitive to variations in these parameters. As a result of population and economic growth, total Indian residential energy use is expected to increase by around 65-75% in 2050 compared to 2005, but residential carbon emissions may increase by up to 9-10 times the 2005 level. While a more equal income distribution and rural electrification enhance the transition to commercial fuels and reduce poverty, there is a trade-off in terms of higher CO(2) emissions via increased electricity use. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Sensitivity of terrestrial water and energy budgets to CO(2)-physiological forcing: an investigation using an offline land model

Increasing concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO(2)) influence climate by suppressing canopy transpiration in addition to its well- known greenhouse gas effect. The decrease in plant transpiration is due to changes in plant physiology (reduced opening of plant stomata). Here, we quantify such changes in water flux for various levels of CO(2) concentrations using the National Center for Atmospheric Research's (NCAR) Community Land Model. We find that photosynthesis saturates after 800 ppmv (parts per million, by volume) in this model. However, unlike photosynthesis, canopy transpiration continues to decline at about 5.1% per 100 ppmv increase in CO(2) levels. We also find that the associated reduction in latent heat flux is primarily compensated by increased sensible heat flux. The continued decline in canopy transpiration and subsequent increase in sensible heat flux at elevated CO(2) levels implies that incremental warming associated with the physiological effect of CO(2) will not abate at higher CO(2) concentrations, indicating important consequences for the global water and carbon cycles from anthropogenic CO(2) emissions.

Liquid-drop model for the surface energy of nanoparticles

Based on the liquid-drop model, we have evaluated the Tolman length and surface energy of nanoparticles for different elements and compared with other theoretical models as well as the available simulated data. The predictions of the model show good agreement with the simulated results. Like the cohesive energy and melting temperature, the size-dependency of surface energy is also shape-dependent. (c) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Spectral moment sum rules for the retarded Green's function and self-energy of the inhomogeneous Bose-Hubbard model in equilibrium and nonequilibrium

We derive exact expressions for the zeroth and the first three spectral moment sum rules for the retarded Green's function and for the zeroth and the first spectral moment sum rules for the retarded self-energy of the inhomogeneous Bose-Hubbard model in nonequilibrium, when the local on-site repulsion and the chemical potential are time-dependent, and in the presence of an external time-dependent electromagnetic field. We also evaluate these expressions for the homogeneous case in equilibrium, where all time dependence and external fields vanish. Unlike similar sum rules for the Fermi-Hubbard model, in the Bose-Hubbard model case, the sum rules often depend on expectation values that cannot be determined simply from parameters in the Hamiltonian like the interaction strength and chemical potential but require knowledge of equal-time many-body expectation values from some other source. We show how one can approximately evaluate these expectation values for the Mott-insulating phase in a systematic strong-coupling expansion in powers of the hopping divided by the interaction. We compare the exact moment relations to the calculated moments of spectral functions determined from a variety of different numerical approximations and use them to benchmark their accuracy. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevA.87.013628

k.p based closed form energy band gap and transport electron effective mass model for 100] and 110] relaxed and strained Silicon nanowire

In this paper, we address a physics based closed form model for the energy band gap (E-g) and the transport electron effective mass in relaxed and strained 100] and 110] oriented rectangular Silicon Nanowire (SiNW). Our proposed analytical model along 100] and 110] directions are based on the k.p formalism of the conduction band energy dispersion relation through an appropriate rotation of the Hamiltonian of the electrons in the bulk crystal along 001] direction followed by the inclusion of a 4 x 4 Luttinger Hamiltonian for the description of the valance band structure. Using this, we demonstrate the variation in Eg and the transport electron effective mass as function of the cross-sectional dimensions in a relaxed 100] and 110] oriented SiNW. The behaviour of these two parameters in 100] oriented SiNW has further been studied with the inclusion of a uniaxial strain along the transport direction and a biaxial strain, which is assumed to be decomposed from a hydrostatic deformation along 001] with the former one. In addition, the energy band gap and the effective mass of a strained 110] oriented SiNW has also been formulated. Using this, we compare our analytical model with that of the extracted data using the nearest neighbour empirical tight binding sp(3)d(5)s* method based simulations and has been found to agree well over a wide range of device dimensions and applied strain. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A model for probing large distance behaviour in high energy collisions

We apply to total cross-sections our model for soft gluon resummation in the infrared region. The model aims to probe large distance interactions in QCD. Our ansatz for an effective coupling for gluons and quarks in the infrared region follows an inverse power law which is singular but integrable. In the context of an eikonal formalism with QCD mini-jets, we study total hadronic cross-sections for protons, pions, photons. We estimate the total inelastic cross-section at LHC comparing with recent measurements and update previous results for survival probability.

Free Energy Gap Dependence of the Electron-Transfer Rate from the Inverted to the Normal Region

numerical study of the free energy gap (FEG) dependence of the electron-transfer rate in polar solvents is presented. This study is based on the generalized multidimensional hybrid model, which not only includes the solvent polarization and the molecular vibration modes, but also the biphasic polar response of the solvent. The free energy gap dependence is found to be sensitive to several factors, including the solvent relaxation rate, the electronic coupling between the surfaces, the frequency of the high-frequency quantum vibrational mode, and the magnitude of the solvent reorganization energy. It is shown that in some cases solvent relaxation can play an important role even in the Marcus normal regime. The minimal hybrid model involves a large number of parameters, giving rise to a diverse non-Marcus FEG behavior which is often determined collectively by these parameters. The model gives the linear free energy gap dependence of the logarithmic rate over a substantial range of FEG, spanning from the normal to the inverted regime. However, even for favorable values of the relevant parameters, a linear free energy gap dependence of the rate could be obtained only over a range of 5000-6000 cm(-1) (compared to the experimentally observed range of 10000 cm(-1) reported by Benniston et al.). The present work suggests several extensions/generalizations of the hybrid model which might be necessary to fully understand the observed free energy gap dependence.

Physics beyond Standard Model: Working group 3 report

This is a summary of the beyond the Standard Model (including model building working group of the WHEPP-X workshop held at Chennai from January 3 to 15, 2008.

Energy-Efficient Decentralized Cooperative Routing in Wireless Networks

Wireless adhoc networks transmit information from a source to a destination via multiple hops in order to save energy and, thus, increase the lifetime of battery-operated nodes. The energy savings can be especially significant in cooperative transmission schemes, where several nodes cooperate during one hop to forward the information to the next node along a route to the destination. Finding the best multi-hop transmission policy in such a network which determines nodes that are involved in each hop, is a very important problem, but also a very difficult one especially when the physical wireless channel behavior is to be accounted for and exploited. We model the above optimization problem for randomly fading channels as a decentralized control problem - the channel observations available at each node define the information structure, while the control policy is defined by the power and phase of the signal transmitted by each node. In particular, we consider the problem of computing an energy-optimal cooperative transmission scheme in a wireless network for two different channel fading models: (i) slow fading channels, where the channel gains of the links remain the same for a large number of transmissions, and (ii) fast fading channels, where the channel gains of the links change quickly from one transmission to another. For slow fading, we consider a factored class of policies (corresponding to local cooperation between nodes), and show that the computation of an optimal policy in this class is equivalent to a shortest path computation on an induced graph, whose edge costs can be computed in a decentralized manner using only locally available channel state information (CSI). For fast fading, both CSI acquisition and data transmission consume energy. Hence, we need to jointly optimize over both these; we cast this optimization problem as a large stochastic optimization problem. We then jointly optimize over a set of CSI functions of the local channel states, and a c- - orresponding factored class of control poli.

Analysis Of The Energy Quantization Effects On Single Electron Inverter Performance Through Noise Margin Modeling

Possible integration of Single Electron Transistor (SET) with CMOS technology is making the study of semiconductor SET more important than the metallic SET and consequently, the study of energy quantization effects on semiconductor SET devices and circuits is gaining significance. In this paper, for the first time, the effects of energy quantization on SET inverter performance are examined through analytical modeling and Monte Carlo simulations. It is observed that the primary effect of energy quantization is to change the Coulomb Blockade region and drain current of SET devices and as a result affects the noise margin, power dissipation, and the propagation delay of SET inverter. A new model for the noise margin of SET inverter is proposed which includes the energy quantization effects. Using the noise margin as a metric, the robustness of SET inverter is studied against the effects of energy quantization. It is shown that SET inverter designed with CT : CG = 1/3 (where CT and CG are tunnel junction and gate capacitances respectively) offers maximum robustness against energy quantization.

Mean-field results of a lattice-gas model of multilayer adsorption

A lattice-gas model of multilayer adsorption has been solved in the mean-field approximation by a different numerical method. Earlier workers obtained a single solution for all values of temperature and pressure. In the present work, multiple solutions have been obtained in certain regions of temperature and pressure which give rise to bysteresis in the adsorption isotherm. In addition, we have obtained a parameter which behaves like an order parameter for the transition. The potential-energy function shows a double minimum in the region of bysteresis and a single maximum elsewhere.

Using tau polarization to probe the stau co-annihilation region of the minimal supergravity model at the LHC

The minimal supergravity model predicts the polarization of the tau coming from the stau to bino decay in the co-annihilation region to +1. This can be exploited to extract this soft tau signal at LHC and also to measure the tiny mass differences between the stau and the bi lightest superparticle. Moreover, this strategy will be applicable for a wider class of bino lightest superparticle models, where the lighter stau has a right component at least of similar size as the left.