Indirect evidence for Levy walks in squeeze film damping

Journal Article · Tue Jun 15 00:00:00 EDT 2010 · Physical Review. D, Particles Fields

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVD.81.123008· OSTI ID:21408029

Schlamminger, S; Hagedorn, C A; Gundlach, J H ^[1]

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1. Center for Experimental Nuclear and Particle Astrophysics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195 (United States)

Molecular flow gas damping of mechanical motion in confined geometries, and its associated noise, is important in a variety of fields, including precision measurement, gravitational wave detection, and microelectromechanical systems devices. We used two torsion balance instruments to measure the strength and distance-dependence of 'squeeze film' damping. Measured quality factors derived from free decay of oscillation are consistent with gas particle superdiffusion in Levy walks and inconsistent with those expected from traditional Gaussian random walk particle motion. The distance-dependence of squeeze film damping observed in our experiments is in agreement with a parameter-free Monte Carlo simulation. The squeeze film damping of the motion of a plate suspended a distance d away from a parallel surface scales with a fractional power between d{sup -1} and d{sup -2}.

• OSTI ID: 21408029
• Journal Information: Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Journal Name: Physical Review. D, Particles Fields Journal Issue: 12 Vol. 81; ISSN PRVDAQ; ISSN 0556-2821
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY
ACCURACY
BALANCES
CALCULATION METHODS
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
DAMPING
DIFFUSION
DIMENSIONLESS NUMBERS
FILMS
GRAVITATIONAL WAVES
MEASURING INSTRUMENTS
MONTE CARLO METHOD
NOISE
OSCILLATIONS
PARTICLES
PLATES
QUALITY FACTOR
RANDOMNESS
SIMULATION
SURFACES
TORSION
WEIGHT INDICATORS