Spring 2010 Qualifying Exam

Part I

Calculators are allowed. No reference material may be used.

Please clearly mark the problems you have solved and want to be graded.
Do only mark the required number of problems.
Physical Constants:
Planck constant: h = 6.6260755 10-34 Js, = 1.05457266 10-34 Js
Boltzmann constant: kB = 1.380658 10-23 J/K
Stefan-Boltzmann constant: = 5.67*10-8W/(m2K4)
Elementary charge: e = 1.60217733 10-19 C
Avogadro number: NA = 6.0221367 1023 particles/mol
Speed of light: c = 2.99792458 108 m/s
Electron rest mass: me = 9.1093897 10-31 kg
Proton rest mass: mp = 1.6726231 10-27 kg
Neutron rest mass: mn = 1.6749286 10-27 kg
Bohr radius: a0 = 5.29177 10-11 m
Compton wavelength of the electron: c = h/(me c) = 2.42631 10-12 m
Permeability of free space: 0 = 4 10-7 N/A2
Permittivity of free space: 0 = 1/0c2
Gravitational constant: G = 6.6726 10-11 m3/(kg s2)

Section I:
Work 8 out of 10 problems, problem 1 problem 10! (8 points each)
Problem 1:
An automobile of mass 1870 kg goes around a curve of radius 38.2 m on a flat, dry, road.
If the coefficient of static friction between the tires and roadway is 0.564, what is the
maximum speed that the car can have to make the turn successfully?
1
2
3Problem 2:
A stick of length l is fixed at an inclination of angle from the x1-axis in its own rest
frame K. Consider an observer in a frame K moving along the x1-axis with speed v.
What does this observer measure for
4(a) the length of the stick and
(b) the angle of the stick with respect to the x1-axis?

Problem 3:
Assume a particle with a mass of 105 MeV is the carrier of some interaction. Estimate the
range of this interaction.

Problem 4:
The time of revolution of planet Jupiter around the Sun is TJ 12 years. What is the
distance between Jupiter and the Sun if the Earth-Sun distance is 150*106 km. Assume
that the orbits are circular.

Problem 5:
Consider the one-dimensional potential energy U(x) shown in the figure below.

(a) What is the sign of the force at each of the indicated six points? Why?
(b) Which positions have the most positive, most negative, and zero force? Why?
(c) Find the equilibrium positions and indicate whether they are stable or unstable.
5
6Problem 6:
At larger distances from the center of the spiral galaxies, the rotation curve appears to be
flat (the orbital speed is independent of the distance from the center). This behavior is
attributed to the peculiar distribution of the dark mater. Assume that the distribution of
dark matter is independent of and and calculate the radial density distribution of dark
matter, which produces such a flat rotation curve.
7
8
9Problem 7:
A relativistic particle is stopped in a detector. The momentum is determined to be
2GeV/c, and it deposits a kinetic energy T = 1GeV in the detector before it comes to rest.
What is its mass?

Problem 8:
Estimate the temperature of the surface of Earth if the flux of solar energy at the SunEarth distance is ~1360 W/m2 and ~30% of solar energy is reflected back by the
atmosphere. (Make reasonable assumptions and justify them.)

Problem 9:
The time for 100 full vibrations (100 periods) in the fundamental mode of a wire attached
at both ends (you can assume that it is a piano string) is 0.5 s. The wire length is
L = 2 m, and the total mass of the wire is 25 g.
(a) What is the tension of the wire?
(b) By how much must the tension be increased in order to halve this time?

Problem 10:
A uniformly charged insulating rod of
length l is bent into the shape of a
semicircle. If the rod has a total charge of
Q, find the magnitude and direction of the
electric field at a point P at the center of the
semicircle.

Section II:
Work 3 out of the 5 problems, problem 11 problem 15! (12 points each)
Problem 11:
A Carnot heat engine has the following entropy-temperature diagram.

(a) Describe the cycle. For each segment identify the process, say whether work is done
by the working system or on it and whether heat is added to the system or extracted from
it.
(b) How much work is done by the system?
Problem 12:
(a) Calculate the resistance between two
points A and B of the infinite system of
resistors.

(b) Calculate the resistance between points

A and B of the cube made of identical
resistors r.
11

10

12

13

Problem 13:
Two metallic spheres of the same radius r are immersed in a homogeneous liquid with
resistivity . What is the total resistance between two spheres? Assume that the distance
between two spheres is much larger than the sphere radius.

Problem 14:
1A linear accelerator produces a beam of electrons in which the current is not constant
but consists of a pulsed beam of particles. Suppose that the pulse current is 1.6 A for a
0.1 s duration.
2(a) How many electrons are accelerated in each pulse?
3(b) What is the average beam current if there are 1000 pulses per second?
4(c) If the electrons are accelerated to an energy of 400 MeV, what is the average beam
power on target?
5(d) What is the peak beam power on target?
6(e) What fraction of the time is the accelerator actually delivering beam on target?
(This is called the duty factor of the accelerator.)

Problem 15:
Consider a one-dimensional step potential, of the form
V(x) = 0 for x < 0,
V(x) = V0 for x > 0,
with V0 > 0.
A particle with mass m and energy E = 4V0/3 is incident on this step from the left. What
is the probability that it will be reflected?