Design and initial results of the imaging neutral particle analyzer in large helical device.

A novel Imaging Neutral Particle Analyzer (INPA) was newly installed in early 2024 to enhance the understanding of fast ion confinement on Large Helical Devices (LHDs). This diagnostic system, based on a magnetic spectrometer using a scintillator, provides energy-resolved radial profiles of confined fast ions by measuring charge-exchanged fast neutrals escaping from the plasma. The system utilizes a 100 nm thick carbon foil to ionize the fast neutrals, subsequently deflecting the ions toward a scintillator via the existing local magnetic field.

Dynamical theory of shear bands in structural glasses.

The heterogeneous elastoplastic deformation of structural glasses is explored using the framework of the random first-order transition theory of the glass transition along with an extended mode-coupling theory that includes activated events. The theory involves coupling the continuum elastic theory of strain transport with mobility generation and transport as described in the theory of glass aging and rejuvenation. Fluctuations that arise from the generation and transport of mobility, fictive temperature, and stress are treated explicitly.

Dynamical heterogeneity of the glassy state.

We compare dynamical heterogeneities in equilibrated supercooled liquids and in the nonequilibrium glassy state within the framework of the random first order transition theory. Fluctuating mobility generation and transport in the glass are treated by numerically solving stochastic continuum equations for mobility and fictive temperature fields that arise from an extended mode coupling theory containing activated events. Fluctuating spatiotemporal structures in aging and rejuvenating glasses lead to dynamical heterogeneity in glasses with characteristics distinct from those found in the equilibrium supercooled liquid.

Fluctuating mobility generation and transport in glasses.

In the context of the random first order transition theory we use an extended mode coupling theory of the glass transition that includes activated events to account for spatiotemporal structures in rejuvenating glasses. We numerically solve fluctuating dynamical equations for mobility and fictive temperature fields which capture both mobility generation through activated events and facilitation effects. Upon rejuvenating, a source of high mobility at a glass surface initiates a growth front of mobility which propagates into the unstable low mobility region.

On the strength of glasses.

The remarkable strength of glasses is examined using the random first order transition theory of the glass transition. The theory predicts that strength depends on elastic modulus but also on the configurational energy frozen in when the glass is prepared. The stress catalysis of cooperative rearrangements of the type responsible for the supercooled liquid's high viscosity account quantitatively for the measured strength of a range of metallic glasses, silica, and a polymer glass.