20,661 research outputs found
Control of quantum phenomena: Past, present, and future
Quantum control is concerned with active manipulation of physical and
chemical processes on the atomic and molecular scale. This work presents a
perspective of progress in the field of control over quantum phenomena, tracing
the evolution of theoretical concepts and experimental methods from early
developments to the most recent advances. The current experimental successes
would be impossible without the development of intense femtosecond laser
sources and pulse shapers. The two most critical theoretical insights were (1)
realizing that ultrafast atomic and molecular dynamics can be controlled via
manipulation of quantum interferences and (2) understanding that optimally
shaped ultrafast laser pulses are the most effective means for producing the
desired quantum interference patterns in the controlled system. Finally, these
theoretical and experimental advances were brought together by the crucial
concept of adaptive feedback control, which is a laboratory procedure employing
measurement-driven, closed-loop optimization to identify the best shapes of
femtosecond laser control pulses for steering quantum dynamics towards the
desired objective. Optimization in adaptive feedback control experiments is
guided by a learning algorithm, with stochastic methods proving to be
especially effective. Adaptive feedback control of quantum phenomena has found
numerous applications in many areas of the physical and chemical sciences, and
this paper reviews the extensive experiments. Other subjects discussed include
quantum optimal control theory, quantum control landscapes, the role of
theoretical control designs in experimental realizations, and real-time quantum
feedback control. The paper concludes with a prospective of open research
directions that are likely to attract significant attention in the future.Comment: Review article, final version (significantly updated), 76 pages,
accepted for publication in New J. Phys. (Focus issue: Quantum control
Magnetic turbulence in the plasma sheet
Small-scale magnetic turbulence observed by the Cluster spacecraft in the
plasma sheet is investigated by means of a wavelet estimator suitable for
detecting distinct scaling characteristics even in noisy measurements. The
spectral estimators used for this purpose are affected by a frequency dependent
bias. The variances of the wavelet coefficients, however, match the power-law
shaped spectra, which makes the wavelet estimator essentially unbiased. These
scaling characteristics of the magnetic field data appear to be essentially
non-steady and intermittent. The scaling properties of bursty bulk flow (BBF)
and non-BBF associated magnetic fluctuations are analysed with the aim of
understanding processes of energy transfer between scales. Small-scale ( s) magnetic fluctuations having the same scaling index as the large-scale ( s) magnetic fluctuations occur during
BBF-associated periods. During non-BBF associated periods the energy transfer
to small scales is absent, and the large-scale scaling index
is closer to Kraichnan or Iroshnikov-Kraichnan scalings. The anisotropy
characteristics of magnetic fluctuations show both scale-dependent and
scale-independent behavior. The former can be partly explained in terms of the
Goldreich-Sridhar model of MHD turbulence, which leads to the picture of
Alfv\'{e}nic turbulence parallel and of eddy turbulence perpendicular to the
mean magnetic field direction. Nonetheless, other physical mechanisms, such as
transverse magnetic structures, velocity shears, or boundary effects can
contribute to the anisotropy characteristics of plasma sheet turbulence. The
scale-independent features are related to anisotropy characteristics which
occur during a period of magnetic reconnection and fast tailward flow.Comment: 32 pages, 12 figure
Constraining the Solution to the Last Parsec Problem with Pulsar Timing
The detection of a stochastic gravitational-wave signal from the
superposition of many inspiraling supermassive black holes with pulsar timing
arrays (PTAs) is likely to occur within the next decade. With this detection
will come the opportunity to learn about the processes that drive
black-hole-binary systems toward merger through their effects on the
gravitational-wave spectrum. We use Bayesian methods to investigate the extent
to which effects other than gravitational-wave emission can be distinguished
using PTA observations. We show that, even in the absence of a detection, it is
possible to place interesting constraints on these dynamical effects for
conservative predictions of the population of tightly bound supermassive
black-hole binaries. For instance, if we assume a relatively weak signal
consistent with a low number of bound binaries and a low black-hole-mass to
galaxy-mass correlation, we still find that a non-detection by a simulated
array, with a sensitivity that should be reached in practice within a few
years, disfavors gravitational-wave-dominated evolution with an odds ratio of
30:1. Such a finding would suggest either that all existing astrophysical
models for the population of tightly bound binaries are overly optimistic, or
else that some dynamical effect other than gravitational-wave emission is
actually dominating binary evolution even at the relatively high
frequencies/small orbital separations probed by PTAs.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figure
Regularized adaptive long autoregressive spectral analysis
This paper is devoted to adaptive long autoregressive spectral analysis when
(i) very few data are available, (ii) information does exist beforehand
concerning the spectral smoothness and time continuity of the analyzed signals.
The contribution is founded on two papers by Kitagawa and Gersch. The first one
deals with spectral smoothness, in the regularization framework, while the
second one is devoted to time continuity, in the Kalman formalism. The present
paper proposes an original synthesis of the two contributions: a new
regularized criterion is introduced that takes both information into account.
The criterion is efficiently optimized by a Kalman smoother. One of the major
features of the method is that it is entirely unsupervised: the problem of
automatically adjusting the hyperparameters that balance data-based versus
prior-based information is solved by maximum likelihood. The improvement is
quantified in the field of meteorological radar
Review of high-contrast imaging systems for current and future ground- and space-based telescopes I. Coronagraph design methods and optical performance metrics
The Optimal Optical Coronagraph (OOC) Workshop at the Lorentz Center in
September 2017 in Leiden, the Netherlands gathered a diverse group of 25
researchers working on exoplanet instrumentation to stimulate the emergence and
sharing of new ideas. In this first installment of a series of three papers
summarizing the outcomes of the OOC workshop, we present an overview of design
methods and optical performance metrics developed for coronagraph instruments.
The design and optimization of coronagraphs for future telescopes has
progressed rapidly over the past several years in the context of space mission
studies for Exo-C, WFIRST, HabEx, and LUVOIR as well as ground-based
telescopes. Design tools have been developed at several institutions to
optimize a variety of coronagraph mask types. We aim to give a broad overview
of the approaches used, examples of their utility, and provide the optimization
tools to the community. Though it is clear that the basic function of
coronagraphs is to suppress starlight while maintaining light from off-axis
sources, our community lacks a general set of standard performance metrics that
apply to both detecting and characterizing exoplanets. The attendees of the OOC
workshop agreed that it would benefit our community to clearly define
quantities for comparing the performance of coronagraph designs and systems.
Therefore, we also present a set of metrics that may be applied to theoretical
designs, testbeds, and deployed instruments. We show how these quantities may
be used to easily relate the basic properties of the optical instrument to the
detection significance of the given point source in the presence of realistic
noise.Comment: To appear in Proceedings of the SPIE, vol. 1069
Multidisciplinary design of a micro-USV for re-entry operations
Unmanned Space Vehicles (USV) are seen as a test-bed for enabling technologies and as a carrier to deliver and return experiments to and from low-Earth orbit. USV's are a potentially interesting solution also for the exploration of other planets or as long-range recognisance vehicles. As test bed, USV's are seen as a stepping stone for the development of future generation re-usable launchers but also as way to test key technologies for re-entry operations. Examples of recent developments are the PRORA-USV, designed by the Italian Aerospace Research Center (CIRA) in collaboration with Gavazzi Space, or the Boeing X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV), that is foreseen as an alternative to the space shuttle to deliver experiments into Earth orbit. Among the technologies to be demonstrated with the X-37 are improved thermal protection systems, avionics, the autonomous guidance system, and an advanced airfram
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