181,196 research outputs found
Cosmic Rulers
We derive general covariant expressions for the six independent observable
modes of distortion of ideal standard rulers in a perturbed
Friedmann-Robertson-Walker spacetime. Our expressions are gauge-invariant and
valid on the full sky. These six modes are most naturally classified in terms
of their rotational properties on the sphere, yielding two scalars, two vector
(spin-1), and two tensor (spin-2) components. One scalar corresponds to the
magnification, while the spin-2 components correspond to the shear. The vector
components allow for a polar/axial decomposition analogous to the
E/B-decomposition for the shear. Scalar modes do not contribute to the axial
(B-)vector, opening a new avenue to probing tensor modes. Our results apply,
but are not limited to, the distortion of correlation functions (of the CMB,
21cm emission, or galaxies) as well as to weak lensing shear and magnification,
all of which can be seen as methods relying on "standard rulers".Comment: 31 pages, 3 figures (v3); v2: minor changes reflecting PRD published
version; v3: evolving ruler case relegated to arXiv:1305.1299, added proper
time condition for observer, additional test cases for magnificatio
Delayed Recombination and Standard Rulers
Measurements of Baryonic Acoustic Oscillations in galaxy surveys have been
recognized as a powerful tool for constraining dark energy. However, this
method relies on the knowledge of the size of the acoustic horizon at
recombination derived from Cosmic Microwave Background Anisotropy measurements.
This estimate is typically derived assuming a standard recombination scheme;
additional radiation sources can delay recombination altering the cosmic
ionization history and the cosmological inferences drawn from CMB and BAO data.
In this paper we quantify the effect of delayed recombination on the
determination of dark energy parameters from future BAO surveys such as BOSS
and WFMOS. We find the impact to be small but still not negligible. In
particular, if recombination is non-standard (to a level still allowed by CMB
data), but this is ignored, future surveys may incorrectly suggest the presence
of a redshift dependent dark energy component. On the other hand, in the case
of delayed recombination, adding to the analysis one extra parameter describing
deviations from standard recombination, does not significantly degrade the
error-bars on dark energy parameters and yields unbiased estimates.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure
Interstate competition and political stability
Previous theories of globalization have examined factor mobility’s effect on the political conflict
between social classes. But factor mobility also increases competition between state rulers in provid-
ing services for citizens. I ask how this interstate competition affects the process of political change.
In a simple model, interstate competition substitutes for democracy, by forcing rulers to invest in pub-
lic goods so as to avoid capital and labor leaving the country. As a result, citizens are less willing to
struggle for democracy, and rulers are less willing to oppose it, when interstate competition is strong.
Therefore, there is less conflict over the level of democracy. The theory is tested on a post-war panel
of countries, using neighboring countries’ financial openness as a proxy for factor mobility. As the
theory predicts, states experience fewer changes in their level of democracy when their neighbors are
financially open
Coherent Superposition States as Quantum Rulers
We explore the sensitivity of an interferometer based on a quantum circuit
for coherent states. We show that its sensitivity is at the Heisenberg limit.
Moreover we show that this arrangement can measure very small length intervals
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