arXiv subjects

Shahar Amitai

Publications and source records attributed to Shahar Amitai.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2017

Theory-based design of sintered granular composites triples three-phase boundary in fuel cells

Solid-oxide fuel cells produce electric current from energy released by a spontaneous electrochemical reaction. The efficiency of these devices depends crucially on the microstructure of their electrodes and, in particular, on the three-phase boundary (TPB) length, along which the energy-producing reaction occurs. We present a systematic maximisation of the TPB length as a function of four readily-controllable microstructural parameters, for any given mean hydraulic radius, which is a conventional measure of the permeability to gas flow. We identify the maximising parameters and show that the TPB length can be increased by a factor of over 300% compared to current common practices. We support this result by calculating the TPB of several numerically simulated structures. We also compare four models for a single intergranular contact in the sintered electrode and show that the model commonly used in the literature is oversimplified and unphysical. We then propose two alternatives.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2017

Affine and topological structural entropies in granular statistical mechanics: explicit calculations and equation of state

We identify two orthogonal sources of structural entropy in rattler-free granular systems - affine, involving structural changes that only deform the contact network, and topological, corresponding to different topologies of the contact network. We show that a recently developed connectivity-based granular statistical mechanics separates the two naturally by identifying the structural degrees of freedom with spanning trees on the graph of the contact network. We extend the connectivity-based formalism to include constraints on, and correlations between, degrees of freedom as interactions between branches of the spanning tree. We then use the statistical mechanics formalism to calculate the partition function generally and the different entropies in the high-angoricity limit. We also calculate the degeneracy of the affine entropy and a number of expectation values. From the latter, we derive an equipartition principle and an equation of state relating the macroscopic volume and boundary stress to the analogue of the temperature, the contactivity.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2016

Modifying continuous-time random walks to model finite-size particle diffusion in granular porous media

The continuous-time random walk (CTRW) model is useful for alleviating the computational burden of simulating diffusion in actual media. In principle, isotropic CTRW only requires knowledge of the step-size, $P_l$, and waiting-time, $P_t$, distributions of the random walk in the medium and it then generates presumably equivalent walks in free space, which are much faster. Here we test the usefulness of CTRW to modelling diffusion of finite-size particles in porous medium generated by loose granular packs. This is done by first simulating the diffusion process in a model porous medium of mean coordination number, which corresponds to marginal rigidity (the loosest possible structure), computing the resulting distributions $P_l$ and $P_t$ as functions of the particle size, and then using these as input for a free space CTRW. The CTRW walks are then compared to the ones simulated in the actual media. In particular, we study the normal-to-anomalous transition of the diffusion as a function of increasing particle size. We find that, given the same $P_l$ and $P_t$ for the simulation and the CTRW, the latter predicts incorrectly the size at which the transition occurs. We show that the discrepancy is related to the dependence of the effective connectivity of the porous media on the diffusing particle size, which is not captured simply by these distributions. We propose a correcting modification to the CTRW model -- adding anisotropy -- and show that it yields good agreement with the simulated diffusion process. We also present a method to obtain $P_l$ and $P_t$ directly from the porous sample, without having to simulate an actual diffusion process. This extends the use of CTRW, with all its advantages, to modelling diffusion processes of finite-size particles in such confined geometries.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2016

Failure of the Volume Function in Granular Statistical Mechanics and an Alternative Formulation

We first show that the currently accepted statistical mechanics for granular matter is flawed. The reason is that it is based on the volume function, which depends only on a minute fraction of all the structural degrees of freedom and is unaffected by most of the configurational microstates. Consequently, the commonly used partition function underestimates the entropy severely. We then propose a new formulation, replacing the volume function with a ${\it connectivity}$ function that depends on all the structural degrees of freedom and accounts correctly for the entire entropy. We discuss the advantages of the new formalism and derive explicit results for two- and three-dimensional systems. We test the formalism by calculating the entropy of an experimental two-dimensional system, as a function of system size, and showing that it is an extensive variable.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2013

Fine tuning in an A4-based Tri-Bimaximal neutrino-mixing model

The A4 group stands in the basis of many models that predict Tri-Bimaximal neutrino mixing at leading order. We study the Altarelli-Feruglio A4 symmetry model and show that in order to produce as small value of r_{23} (ratio of mass-squared differences) as measured, it requires fine tuning. This observation is important for an evaluation of the model, since the problem it is trying to solve in the first place is the tuning of the three mixing angles. We get the required level of fine tuning for the model in both its basic form and its seesaw realization.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2012

Abelian symmetries as the source of the small neutrino-related flavor parameters

There are four neutrino-related flavor parameters that have been measured: The three mixing angles s_{23}, s_{12}, s_{13}, and the ratio of mass-squared differences r_{23}. Of these, the first two are order one. On the other hand, s_{13} and r_{23} can be either order-one parameters that are accidentally somewhat small, or they are small for a reason, for example, they vanish in the limit of a symmetry that is broken by small parameters. We show that in the latter case, the Froggatt-Nielsen mechanism could explain the smallness of s_{13} and r_{23} only if some order-one coefficients are as small as the symmetry-breaking parameters. It is thus very unlikely that an Abelian symmetry is responsible for the smallness of s_{13} and r_{23}.

hep-ph↗