880,743 research outputs found
On the Commensurability of Directional Distance Functions
Shephard’s distance functions are widely used instruments for characterizing technology and for estimating efficiency in contemporary economic theory and practice. Recently, they have been generalized by the Luenberger shortage function, or Chambers-Chung-Färe directional distance function. In this study, we explore a very important property of an economic measure known as commensurability or independence of units of measurement up to scalar transformation. Our study discovers both negative and positive results for this property in the context of the directional distance function, which in turn helps us narrow down the most critical issue for this function in practice—the choice of direction of measurement.Directional distance functions, commensurability, efficiency
Quantifying the nonlinearity of a quantum oscillator
We address the quantification of nonlinearity for quantum oscillators and
introduce two measures based on the properties of the ground state rather than
on the form of the potential itself. The first measure is a fidelity-based one,
and corresponds to the renormalized Bures distance between the ground state of
the considered oscillator and the ground state of a reference harmonic
oscillator. Then, in order to avoid the introduction of this auxiliary
oscillator, we introduce a different measure based on the non-Gaussianity (nG)
of the ground state. The two measures are evaluated for a sample of significant
nonlinear potentials and their properties are discussed in some detail. We show
that the two measures are monotone functions of each other in most cases, and
this suggests that the nG-based measure is a suitable choice to capture the
anharmonic nature of a quantum oscillator, and to quantify its nonlinearity
independently on the specific features of the potential. We also provide
examples of potentials where the Bures measure cannot be defined, due to the
lack of a proper reference harmonic potential, while the nG-based measure
properly quantify their nonlinear features. Our results may have implications
in experimental applications where access to the effective potential is
limited, e.g., in quantum control, and protocols rely on information about the
ground or thermal state.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, published versio
Redshift Weights for Baryon Acoustic Oscillations : Application to Mock Galaxy Catalogs
Large redshift surveys capable of measuring the Baryon Acoustic Oscillation
(BAO) signal have proven to be an effective way of measuring the
distance-redshift relation in cosmology. Building off the work in Zhu et al.
(2015), we develop a technique to directly constrain the distance-redshift
relation from BAO measurements without splitting the sample into redshift bins.
We parametrize the distance-redshift relation, relative to a fiducial model, as
a quadratic expansion. We measure its coefficients and reconstruct the
distance-redshift relation from the expansion. We apply the redshift weighting
technique in Zhu et al. (2015) to the clustering of galaxies from 1000 QuickPM
(QPM) mock simulations after reconstruction and achieve a 0.75% measurement of
the angular diameter distance at and the same precision for
Hubble parameter H at . These QPM mock catalogs are designed to mimic
the clustering and noise level of the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey
(BOSS) Data Release 12 (DR12). We compress the correlation functions in the
redshift direction onto a set of weighted correlation functions. These
estimators give unbiased and measurements at all redshifts within the
range of the combined sample. We demonstrate the effectiveness of redshift
weighting in improving the distance and Hubble parameter estimates. Instead of
measuring at a single 'effective' redshift as in traditional analyses, we
report our and measurements at all redshifts. The measured fractional
error of ranges from 1.53% at to 0.75% at . The
fractional error of ranges from 0.75% at to 2.45% at .
Our measurements are consistent with a Fisher forecast to within 10% to 20%
depending on the pivot redshift. We further show the results are robust against
the choice of fiducial cosmologies, galaxy bias models, and RSD streaming
parameters.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures, submitted to MNRA
Parameter estimation of coalescing supermassive black hole binaries with LISA
Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) will routinely observe coalescences
of supermassive black hole (BH) binaries up to very high redshifts. LISA can
measure mass parameters of such coalescences to a relative accuracy of
, for sources at a distance of 3 Gpc. The problem of parameter
estimation of massive nonspinning binary black holes using post-Newtonian (PN)
phasing formula is studied in the context of LISA. Specifically, the
performance of the 3.5PN templates is contrasted against its 2PN counterpart
using a waveform which is averaged over the LISA pattern functions. The
improvement due to the higher order corrections to the phasing formula is
examined by calculating the errors in the estimation of mass parameters at each
order. The estimation of the mass parameters and are
significantly enhanced by using the 3.5PN waveform instead of the 2PN one. For
an equal mass binary of at a luminosity distance of 3 Gpc,
the improvement in chirp mass is and that of is .
Estimation of coalescence time worsens by 43%. The improvement is larger
for the unequal mass binary mergers. These results are compared to the ones
obtained using a non-pattern averaged waveform. The errors depend very much on
the location and orientation of the source and general conclusions cannot be
drawn without performing Monte Carlo simulations. Finally the effect of the
choice of the lower frequency cut-off for LISA on the parameter estimation is
studied.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures (eps) significant revision, accepted for
publication in Phys. Rev. D. Matches with the published versio
A Borda Measure for Social Choice Functions
The question addressed in this paper is the order of magnitude of the difference between the Borda rule and any given social choice function. A social choice function is a mapping that associates a subset of alternatives to any profile of individual preferences. The Borda rule consists in asking voters to order all alternatives, knowing that the last one in their ranking will receive a score of zero, the second lowest a score of 1, the third a score of 2 and so on. These scores are then weighted by the number of voters that support them to give the Borda score of each alternative. The rule then selects the alternatives with the highest Borda score. In this paper, a simple measure of the difference between the Borda rule and any given social choice function is proposed. It is given by the ratio of the best Borda score achieved by the social choice function under scrutiny over the Borda score of a Borda winner. More precisely, it is the minimum of this ratio over all possible profiles of preferences that is used. This "Borda measure" or at least bounds for this measure is also computed for well known social choice functions. Cet article se penche sur la distance entre la règle de Borda et n'importe quelle autre fonction de choix social. Ces dernières associent un sous-ensemble d'options possibles à tout profil ou configuration de préférences individuelles. La règle de Borda consiste à demander aux votants d'ordonner les options possibles, en leur disant que la dernière dans leur ordre recevra un score nul, l'avant-dernière un score égal à 1, celle qui vient au troisième pire rang un score égal à 2 et ainsi de suite. Ces scores sont ensuite pondérés par le nombre de votants qui les supportent pour donner le score de Borda de chaque option. La règle choisit les options qui ont reçu le score le plus élevé. Dans cet article, une mesure simple de la différence entre la règle de Borda et n'importe quelle autre fonction de choix social est proposée. Elle est donnée par le rapport du meilleur score de Borda obtenu par les options que sélectionne la fonction de choix social considérée sur le score de Borda d'un gagnant de Borda. De façon plus précise, c'est le minimum de ces rapports, sur l'ensemble des profils de préférences, qui est utilisé. Cette mesure de Borda ou, à tout le moins, un intervalle pour cette mesure est calculé pour un certain nombre de fonctions de choix social bien connues.
On the Commensurability of Directional Distance Functions
Shephard’s distance functions are widely used instruments for characterizing technology and
for estimating efficiency in contemporary economic theory and practice. Recently, they have
been generalized by the Luenberger shortage function, or Chambers-Chung-Färe directional
distance function. In this study, we explore a very important property of an economic
measure known as commensurability or independence of units of measurement up to scalar
transformation. Our study discovers both negative and positive results for this property in the
context of the directional distance function, which in turn helps us narrow down the most
critical issue for this function in practice—the choice of direction of measurement
- …