2,962 research outputs found
Large-scale QRPA calculation of E1-strength and its impact on the neutron capture cross section
Large-scale QRPA calculations of the E1-strength are performed as a first
attempt to microscopically derive the radiative neutron capture cross sections
for the whole nuclear chart. A folding procedure is applied to the QRPA
strength distribution to take the damping of the collective motion into
account. It is shown that the resulting E1-strength function based on the SLy4
Skyrme force is in close agreement with photoabsorption data as well as the
available experimental E1-strength at low energies. The increase of the
E1-strength at low energies for neutron-rich nuclei is qualitatively analyzed
and shown to affect the corresponding radiative neutron capture cross section
significantly. A complete set of E1-strength function is made available for
practical applications in a table format for all 7<Z<111 nuclei lying between
the proton and the neutron drip lines.Comment: 17 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in Nucl. Phys.
Detecting and Estimating Signals in Noisy Cable Structures, I: Neuronal Noise Sources
In recent theoretical approaches addressing the problem of neural coding, tools from statistical estimation and information theory have been applied to quantify the ability of neurons to transmit information through their spike outputs. These techniques, though fairly general, ignore the specific nature of neuronal processing in terms of its known biophysical properties. However, a systematic study of processing at various stages in a biophysically faithful model of a single neuron can identify the role of each stage in information transfer. Toward this end, we carry out a theoretical analysis of the information loss of a synaptic signal propagating along a linear, one-dimensional, weakly active cable due to neuronal noise sources along the way, using both a signal reconstruction and a signal detection paradigm.
Here we begin such an analysis by quantitatively characterizing three sources of membrane noise: (1) thermal noise due to the passive membrane resistance, (2) noise due to stochastic openings and closings of voltage-gated membrane channels (Na^+ and K^+), and (3) noise due to random, background synaptic activity. Using analytical expressions for the power spectral densities of these noise sources, we compare their magnitudes in the case of a patch of membrane from a cortical pyramidal cell and explore their dependence on different biophysical parameters
Studying Light-Harvesting Models with Superconducting Circuits
The process of photosynthesis, the main source of energy in the animate
world, converts sunlight into chemical energy. The surprisingly high efficiency
of this process is believed to be enabled by an intricate interplay between the
quantum nature of molecular structures in photosynthetic complexes and their
interaction with the environment. Investigating these effects in biological
samples is challenging due to their complex and disordered structure. Here we
experimentally demonstrate a new approach for studying photosynthetic models
based on superconducting quantum circuits. In particular, we demonstrate the
unprecedented versatility and control of our method in an engineered three-site
model of a pigment protein complex with realistic parameters scaled down in
energy by a factor of . With this system we show that the excitation
transport between quantum coherent sites disordered in energy can be enabled
through the interaction with environmental noise. We also show that the
efficiency of the process is maximized for structured noise resembling
intramolecular phononic environments found in photosynthetic complexes.Comment: 8+12 pages, 4+12 figure
EQUALISATION TECHNIQUES FOR MULTI-LEVEL DIGITAL MAGNETIC RECORDING
A large amount of research has been put into areas of signal processing, medium design,
head and servo-mechanism design and coding for conventional longitudinal as well
as perpendicular magnetic recording. This work presents some further investigation in the
signal processing and coding aspects of longitudinal and perpendicular digital magnetic
recording.
The work presented in this thesis is based upon numerical analysis using various simulation
methods. The environment used for implementation of simulation models is C/C + +
programming. Important results based upon bit error rate calculations have been documented
in this thesis.
This work presents the new designed Asymmetric Decoder (AD) which is modified to
take into account the jitter noise and shows that it has better performance than classical
BCJR decoders with the use of Error Correction Codes (ECC). In this work, a new method
of designing Generalised Partial Response (GPR) target and its equaliser has been discussed
and implemented which is based on maximising the ratio of the minimum squared
euclidean distance of the PR target to the noise penalty introduced by the Partial Response
(PR) filter. The results show that the new designed GPR targets have consistently
better performance in comparison to various GPR targets previously published.
Two methods of equalisation including the industry's standard PR, and a novel Soft-Feedback-
Equalisation (SFE) have been discussed which are complimentary to each other.
The work on SFE, which is a novelty of this work, was derived from the problem of Inter
Symbol Interference (ISI) and noise colouration in PR equalisation. This work also shows
that multi-level SFE with MAP/BCJR feedback based magnetic recording with ECC has
similar performance when compared to high density binary PR based magnetic recording
with ECC, thus documenting the benefits of multi-level magnetic recording. It has been
shown that 4-level PR based magnetic recording with ECC at half the density of binary PR
based magnetic recording has similar performance and higher packing density by a factor
of 2.
A novel technique of combining SFE and PR equalisation to achieve best ISI cancellation
in a iterative fashion has been discussed. A consistent gain of 0.5 dB and more
is achieved when this technique is investigated with application of Maximum Transition
Run (MTR) codes. As the length of the PR target in PR equalisation increases, the gain
achieved using this novel technique consistently increases and reaches up to 1.2 dB in case
of EEPR4 target for a bit error rate of 10-5
CROSSTALK-RESILIANT CODING FOR HIGH DENSITY DIGITAL RECORDING
Increasing the track density in magnetic systems is very difficult due to inter-track interference
(ITI) caused by the magnetic field of adjacent tracks. This work presents a
two-track partial response class 4 magnetic channel with linear and symmetrical ITI; and
explores modulation codes, signal processing methods and error correction codes in order
to mitigate the effects of ITI.
Recording codes were investigated, and a new class of two-dimensional run-length
limited recording codes is described. The new class of codes controls the type of ITI
and has been found to be about 10% more resilient to ITI compared to conventional
run-length limited codes. A new adaptive trellis has also been described that adaptively
solves for the effect of ITI. This has been found to give gains up to 5dB in signal to noise
ratio (SNR) at 40% ITI. It was also found that the new class of codes were about 10%
more resilient to ITI compared to conventional recording codes when decoded with the
new trellis.
Error correction coding methods were applied, and the use of Low Density Parity
Check (LDPC) codes was investigated. It was found that at high SNR, conventional
codes could perform as well as the new modulation codes in a combined modulation and
error correction coding scheme. Results suggest that high rate LDPC codes can mitigate
the effect of ITI, however the decoders have convergence problems beyond 30% ITI
Nuclear excitation by electron capture in optical-laser-generated plasmas
The process of nuclear excitation by electron capture in plasma environments
generated by the interaction of ultra-strong optical lasers with solid-state
samples is investigated theoretically. With the help of a plasma model we
perform a comprehensive study of the optimal parameters for most efficient
nuclear excitation and determine the corresponding laser setup requirements. We
discern between the low-density plasma regime, modeled by scaling laws, and the
high-density regime, for which we perform particle-in-cell calculations. As
nuclear transition case study we consider the 4.85 keV nuclear excitation
starting from the long-lived Mo isomer. Our results show that
the optimal plasma and laser parameters are sensitive to the chosen observable
and that measurable rates of nuclear excitation and isomer depletion of
Mo should be already achievable at laser facilities existing
today.Comment: 19 pages, 16 figures; minor modifications made; accepted for
publication in Physical Review
Detecting and Estimating Signals in Noisy Cable Structures, II: Information Theoretical Analysis
This is the second in a series of articles that seek to recast classical single-neuron biophysics in information-theoretical terms. Classical cable theory focuses on analyzing the voltage or current attenuation of a synaptic signal as it propagates from its dendritic input location to the spike initiation zone. On the other hand, we are interested in analyzing the amount of information lost about the signal in this process due to the presence of various noise sources distributed throughout the neuronal membrane. We use a stochastic version of the linear one-dimensional cable equation to derive closed-form expressions for the second-order moments of the fluctuations of the membrane potential associated with different membrane current noise sources: thermal noise, noise due to the random opening and closing of sodium and potassium channels, and noise due to the presence of “spontaneous” synaptic input.
We consider two different scenarios. In the signal estimation paradigm, the time course of the membrane potential at a location on the cable is used to reconstruct the detailed time course of a random, band-limited current injected some distance away. Estimation performance is characterized in terms of the coding fraction and the mutual information. In the signal detection paradigm, the membrane potential is used to determine whether a distant synaptic event occurred within a given observation interval. In the light of our analytical results, we speculate that the length of weakly active apical dendrites might be limited by the information loss due to the accumulated noise between distal synaptic input sites and the soma and that the presence of dendritic nonlinearities probably serves to increase dendritic information transfer
- …