st petersburg 2018

opps
March 2023

problem 1
An engineer uses a vessel with gas under a piston to transfer heat from the en-
vironment to hotter thermal reservoirs. There are N reservoirs, which are kept
at constant temperatures T1 , T2 , ..., TN . The temperature of the environment
is constant and equal to T0 . The engineer performs the following cycle: first,
during an isothermal process, the gas takes heat from the environment. Then
the gas in the vessel is adiabatically compressed, heating it to the temperature
of the first reservoir T1 , after which heat is transferred to this reservoir in an
isothermal process. Then the temperature of the gas is adiabatically changed
to T2 , and heat is transferred to the second reservoir. This procedure (adiabatic
temperature change and heat transfer) is repeated with all reservoirs. After
transferring heat to the last reservoir, the gas is adiabatically expanded, de-
creasing its temperature to T0 , and returning to its original state. In the cycle,
all reservoirs receive the same amount of heat. At what temperature T0 does
the total heat transferred to the reservoirs exceed the heat taken from the envi-
ronment by more than two times? All processes are reversible and quasi-static.

problem 2
Russian physicist Victor Veselago described the properties of materials with a
negative refractive index (metamaterials). The first figure shows the transition
of a light beam from a normal medium (n1 = 1) to a metamaterial (n2 < 0).
It turned out that in such a system, the incident and refracted rays are on the
same side of the normal to the boundary between the two media, while Snell’s
law of refraction still holds:
sin α |n2 |
=
sin β n1
.
In the laboratory, two thin plano-convex lenses with a radius of curvature R
were made and placed in close proximity to each other (see the second figure).
The left lens is made of a metamaterial with n < −1, and the right lens is
made of a normal material with the same refractive index in absolute value.
Determine the optical power of the resulting system in a vacuum. Draw an

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image of the square ABCD with a side length of a. The principal optical axes
of the lenses coincide. Assume that the image is formed by rays that are weakly
deflected from the principal optical axis.

problem 3
Two metal semicircles with a radius of a were connected to a resistor with a
resistance R using wires (see figure). The semicircles are hinged and can freely
rotate around the OO axis. The system is placed in a uniform magnetic field
of induction B, directed as shown in the figure. Initially, the semicircles are
located in the plane of the figure and are stationary. One of the semicircles is
given a rotational motion with an angular velocity ω by an impact. Find the
angular acceleration of the other semicircle at the first moment in time. In what
direction will it begin to rotate? The mass of each semicircle is m. There is no
gravity. Neglect the resistance of the connecting wires and semicircles.

problem 4
A boy named Sisyphus was told about rolling friction in his physics class. He
learned that in a real experiment, when a tube is placed on a flat surface, it
experiences not only the normal force of friction with a magnitude of |Ff r | =
µ|N | (where N is the normal reaction force), but also a rolling friction torque
with respect to the axis O, which arises due to a small deformation and hinders
the rotation of the tube. This torque does not exceed the magnitude of f |N |,
where f is the dimension of length of the coefficient of rolling friction, which
can be considered constant for a given pair of bodies. Sisyphus conducted the
following experiment. He placed a uniform thin-walled tube with mass m and
radius R on an inclined plane with an angle α, holding it with a force T (see
figure). At some point, Sisyphus released the tube, which began to roll down
the incline without slipping. Determine the possible values of the magnitude of
the force T and the coefficient of friction µ. What is the acceleration of the axis
of the tube during rolling? Assume that the coefficient of rolling friction f is
known.

problem 5
A flat non-conducting grid with small cells is uniformly charged and rotates
with a constant angular velocity around the axis AB to which it belongs. At a
certain distance from the axis AB, a massive charged ball is held. The ball is
small and can pass freely through the grid. The charges on the grid and the ball
have opposite signs. At the moment when the ball is in the plane of the grid,
it is released without any initial velocity. The trajectory of the ball is a closed
planar curve symmetric with respect to the point O (see figure). During one
revolution along the trajectory, the ball meets the grid twice, and it completes

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the trajectory in twice the time required for the grid to rotate by 360◦ . What
fraction of the time does the kinetic energy of the ball exceed one-quarter of its
maximum value? Neglect radiation and edge effects.