770 research outputs found
An Inexpensive Liquid Crystal Spectropolarimeter for the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory Plaskett Telescope
A new, inexpensive polarimetric unit has been constructed for the Dominion
Astrophysical Observatory (DAO) 1.8-m Plaskett telescope. It is implemented as
a plug-in module for the telescope's existing Cassegrain spectrograph, and
enables medium resolution (R~10,000) circular spectropolarimetry of point
sources. A dual-beam design together with fast switching of the wave plate at
rates up to 100Hz, and synchronized with charge shuffling on the CCD, is used
to significantly reduce instrumental effects and achieve high-precision
spectropolarimetric measurements for a very low cost. The instrument is
optimized to work in the wavelength range 4700 - 5300A to simultaneously detect
polarization signals in the H beta line as well as nearby metallic lines. In
this paper we describe the technical details of the instrument, our observing
strategy and data reduction techniques, and present tests of its scientific
performance.Comment: 32 pages, 15 figures. Accepted for publication in PAS
Decomposing the dynamics of heterogeneous delayed networks with applications to connected vehicle systems
Delay-coupled networks are investigated with nonidentical delay times and the
effects of such heterogeneity on the emergent dynamics of complex systems are
characterized. A simple decomposition method is presented that decouples the
dynamics of the network into node-size modal equations in the vicinity of
equilibria. The resulting independent components contain distributed delays
that map the spatiotemporal complexity of the system to the time domain. We
demonstrate that this new approach can be used to reveal new physical phenomena
in heterogenous vehicular traffic when vehicles are linked via
vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication.Comment: The paper has been updated in response to referee comments. 5 pages,
2 figure
Improved Acceleration of the GPU Fourier Domain Acceleration Search Algorithm
We present an improvement of our implementation of the Correlation Technique
for the Fourier Domain Acceleration Search (FDAS) algorithm on Graphics
Processor Units (GPUs) (Dimoudi & Armour 2015; Dimoudi et al. 2017). Our new
improved convolution code which uses our custom GPU FFT code is between 2.5 and
3.9 times faster the than our cuFFT-based implementation (on an NVIDIA P100)
and allows for a wider range of filter sizes then our previous version. By
using this new version of our convolution code in FDAS we have achieved 44%
performance increase over our previous best implementation. It is also
approximately 8 times faster than the existing PRESTO GPU implementation of
FDAS (Luo 2013). This work is part of the AstroAccelerate project (Armour et
al. 2002), a many-core accelerated time-domain signal processing library for
radio astronomy.Comment: proceeding from ADASS XXVII conference, 4 page
Small changes at single nodes can shift global network dynamics
Understanding the sensitivity of a system's behavior with respect to
parameter changes is essential for many applications. This sensitivity may be
desired - for instance in the brain, where a large repertoire of different
dynamics, particularly different synchronization patterns, is crucial - or may
be undesired - for instance in power grids, where disruptions to
synchronization may lead to blackouts. In this work, we show that the dynamics
of networks of phase oscillators can acquire a very large and complex
sensitivity to changes made in either their units' parameters or in their
connections - even modifications made to a parameter of a single unit can
radically alter the global dynamics of the network in an unpredictable manner.
As a consequence, each modification leads to a different path to phase
synchronization manifested as large fluctuations along that path. This
dynamical malleability occurs over a wide parameter region, around the
network's two transitions to phase synchronization. One transition is induced
by increasing the coupling strength between the units, and another is induced
by increasing the prevalence of long-range connections. Specifically, we study
Kuramoto phase oscillators connected under either Watts-Strogatz or
distance-dependent topologies to analyze the statistical properties of the
fluctuations along the paths to phase synchrony. We argue that this increase in
the dynamical malleability is a general phenomenon, as suggested by both
previous studies and the theory of phase transitions.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figure
Correlated Quantum Dynamics of a Single Atom Collisionally Coupled to an Ultracold Finite Bosonic Ensemble
We explore the correlated quantum dynamics of a single atom, regarded as an
open system, with a spatio-temporally localized coupling to a finite bosonic
environment. The single atom, initially prepared in a coherent state of low
energy, oscillates in a one-dimensional harmonic trap and thereby periodically
penetrates an interacting ensemble of bosons, held in a displaced trap.
We show that the inter-species energy transfer accelerates with increasing
and becomes less complete at the same time. System-environment
correlations prove to be significant except for times when the excess energy
distribution among the subsystems is highly imbalanced. These correlations
result in incoherent energy transfer processes, which accelerate the early
energy donation of the single atom and stochastically favour certain energy
transfer channels depending on the instantaneous direction of transfer.
Concerning the subsystem states, the energy transfer is mediated by
non-coherent states of the single atom and manifests itself in singlet and
doublet excitations in the finite bosonic environment. These comprehensive
insights into the non-equilibrium quantum dynamics of an open system are gained
by ab-initio simulations of the total system with the recently developed
Multi-Layer Multi-Configuration Time-Dependent Hartree Method for Bosons
A geometric basis for the standard-model gauge group
A geometric approach to the standard model in terms of the Clifford algebra
Cl_7 is advanced. A key feature of the model is its use of an algebraic spinor
for one generation of leptons and quarks. Spinor transformations separate into
left-sided ("exterior") and right-sided ("interior") types. By definition,
Poincare transformations are exterior ones. We consider all rotations in the
seven-dimensional space that (1) conserve the spacetime components of the
particle and antiparticle currents and (2) do not couple the right-chiral
neutrino. These rotations comprise additional exterior transformations that
commute with the Poincare group and form the group SU(2)_L, interior ones that
constitute SU(3)_C, and a unique group of coupled double-sided rotations with
U(1)_Y symmetry. The spinor mediates a physical coupling of Poincare and
isotopic symmetries within the restrictions of the Coleman--Mandula theorem.
The four extra spacelike dimensions in the model form a basis for the Higgs
isodoublet field, whose symmetry requires the chirality of SU(2). The charge
assignments of both the fundamental fermions and the Higgs boson are produced
exactly.Comment: 17 pages, LaTeX requires iopart. Accepted for publication in J. Phys.
A: Math. Gen. 9 Mar 2001. Typos correcte
Multiphase complete exchange on a circuit switched hypercube
On a distributed memory parallel computer, the complete exchange (all-to-all personalized) communication pattern requires each of n processors to send a different block of data to each of the remaining n - 1 processors. This pattern is at the heart of many important algorithms, most notably the matrix transpose. For a circuit switched hypercube of dimension d(n = 2(sup d)), two algorithms for achieving complete exchange are known. These are (1) the Standard Exchange approach that employs d transmissions of size 2(sup d-1) blocks each and is useful for small block sizes, and (2) the Optimal Circuit Switched algorithm that employs 2(sup d) - 1 transmissions of 1 block each and is best for large block sizes. A unified multiphase algorithm is described that includes these two algorithms as special cases. The complete exchange on a hypercube of dimension d and block size m is achieved by carrying out k partial exchange on subcubes of dimension d(sub i) Sigma(sup k)(sub i=1) d(sub i) = d and effective block size m(sub i) = m2(sup d-di). When k = d and all d(sub i) = 1, this corresponds to algorithm (1) above. For the case of k = 1 and d(sub i) = d, this becomes the circuit switched algorithm (2). Changing the subcube dimensions d, varies the effective block size and permits a compromise between the data permutation and block transmission overhead of (1) and the startup overhead of (2). For a hypercube of dimension d, the number of possible combinations of subcubes is p(d), the number of partitions of the integer d. This is an exponential but very slowly growing function and it is feasible over these partitions to discover the best combination for a given message size. The approach was analyzed for, and implemented on, the Intel iPSC-860 circuit switched hypercube. Measurements show good agreement with predictions and demonstrate that the multiphase approach can substantially improve performance for block sizes in the 0 to 160 byte range. This range, which corresponds to 0 to 40 floating point numbers per processor, is commonly encountered in practical numeric applications. The multiphase technique is applicable to all circuit-switched hypercubes that use the common e-cube routing strategy
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