Many physical systems can be modeled as large sets of domains glued together along boundaries - biological cells meet along cell membranes, soap bubbles meet along thin films, countries meet along geopolitical boundaries, and metallic crystals meet a
long grain interfaces. Each class of microstructures results from a complex interplay of initial conditions and particular evolutionary dynamics. The statistical steady-state microstructure resulting from isotropic grain growth of a polycrystalline material is canonical in that it is the simplest example of a cellular microstructure resulting from a gradient flow of a simple energy, directly proportional to the total length or area of all cell boundaries. As many properties of polycrystalline materials depend on their underlying microstructure, a more complete understanding of the grain growth steady-state can provide insight into the physics of a broad range of everyday materials. In this paper we report geometric and topological features of these canonical two- and three-dimensional steady-state microstructures obtained through large, accurate simulations of isotropic grain growth.
The Hydraulic External Pre-Isolator (HEPI) is the first 6 degrees of freedom active seismic isolation system implemented at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO). Implementation was first completed at the LIGO Livingston Obse
rvatory (LLO) prior to LIGOs 5th science run, successfully cutting down the disturbance seen by LLOs suspended optics in the two most prominent seismic disturbance bands, the microseism (0.1-0.3Hz) and the anthropogenic (1-3Hz) bands, by a factor of a few to tens. The improvement in seismic isolation contributed directly to LLOs much improved duty cycle of 66.7% and LIGOs triple coincident duty cycle of 53%. We report the design, control scheme, and isolation performance of HEPI at LLO in this paper. Aided with this success, funding for incorporating HEPI into the LIGO Hanford Observatory was approved and installation is currently underway.
