1,085 research outputs found

    Momentum transferred to a trapped Bose-Einstein condensate by stimulated light scattering

    Full text link
    The response of a trapped Bose-Einstein condensed gas to a density perturbation generated by a two-photon Bragg pulse is investigated by solving the time-dependent Gross-Pitaevskii equation. We calculate the total momentum imparted to the condensate as a function of both the time duration of the pulse and the frequency difference of the two laser beams. The role of the dynamic response function in characterizing the time evolution of the system is pointed out, with special emphasis to the phonon regime. Numerical simulations are compared with the predictions of local density approximation. The relevance of our results for the interpretation of current experiments is also discussed.Comment: 7 pages, 3 postscript figure

    A Framework for Indoor Positioning Including Building Topology

    Get PDF
    In many application domains, position information is of fundamental importance. However, unlike the case of outdoor positioning, producing an accurate position estimation in the indoor setting turns out to be quite difficult. One of the most common localisation strategies makes use of fingerprinting. Research in this area has been faced with a number of challenges, leading to the proposal of a number of localisation algorithms, sampling strategies, benchmark datasets, and representations of building information. This proliferation made the modeling of the indoor positioning domain quite hard from both a theoretical and a practical point of view. In this paper, we propose a general and extensible framework, based on a relational database, that pairs fingerprints with building information. We show how the proposed system successfully deals with a number of problems that affect indoor positioning, supporting a large set of relevant tasks. The source code of the framework is available online, as well as an implementation of it, that provides an interactive open repository of indoor positioning data

    Mechanisms of secretion and spreading of pathological tau protein

    Get PDF
    Accumulation of misfolded and aggregated forms of tau protein in the brain is a neuropathological hallmark of tauopathies, such as Alzheimer’s disease and frontotemporal lobar degeneration. Tau aggregates have the ability to transfer from one cell to another and to induce templated misfolding and aggregation of healthy tau molecules in previously healthy cells, thereby propagating tau pathology across different brain areas in a prion-like manner. The molecular mechanisms involved in cell-to-cell transfer of tau aggregates are diverse, not mutually exclusive and only partially understood. Intracellular accumulation of misfolded tau induces several mechanisms that aim to reduce the cellular burden of aggregated proteins and also promote secretion of tau aggregates. However, tau may also be released from cells physiologically unrelated to protein aggregation. Tau secretion involves multiple vesicular and non-vesicle-mediated pathways, including secretion directly through the plasma membrane. Consequently, extracellular tau can be found in various forms, both as a free protein and in vesicles, such as exosomes and ectosomes. Once in the extracellular space, tau aggregates can be internalized by neighboring cells, both neurons and glial cells, via endocytic, pinocytic and phagocytic mechanisms. Importantly, accumulating evidence suggests that prion-like propagation of misfolding protein pathology could provide a general mechanism for disease progression in tauopathies and other related neurodegenerative diseases. Here, we review the recent literature on cellular mechanisms involved in cell-to-cell transfer of tau, with a particular focus in tau secretion.Peer reviewe

    Deployment profile analysis for tethered deorbiting technologies

    Get PDF
    Over the past few decades, the man-made space debris has become an increasingly concerning problem for future space missions. Fortunately, some innovative "green" deorbiting technologies have been emerged. Among these strategies, electrodynamic tethers have demonstrated to be a promising option, thanks to their passive and fuel-free characteristics. By leveraging the Earth's ionosphere and the geomagnetic field, an electrodynamic tether generates a Lorentz drag force, that can significantly reduce the altitude of a satellite and ultimately cause it to re-enter the atmosphere. The goal of this research is to investigate a critical part of satellite tethered technology, namely the deployment phase. To accomplish this, we utilized a software tool developed by the University of Padova to simulate the dynamics of the deployment phase and optimize its trajectory, in order to meet the desired boundary conditions. This paper gives a description of the software and shows the results of a sensitivity analysis on the trajectory profile that examines the impact of variations in the release angle of the tether and the speed profile actuated by the motor that controls the deployment speed

    Electro-thermal dynamic simulations and results of a deorbiting tethered system

    Get PDF
    Deorbiting techniques with small or better no propellant consumption are an important and critical field of space studies for the mitigation of orbital debris. Electrodynamic tethers (EDTs) are of particular interest because they make possible to deorbit space debris by exploiting the Lorentz force that is provided by the current flowing in the tether thanks to the interaction of the system with the Earth’s magnetosphere and the ionosphere. This paper focuses on the differences between two software packages built at the University of Padova (FLEX and FLEXSIM) and their results in simulating various deorbiting scenarios. Both FLEXSIM and FLEX simulate the electro-thermal behaviour and the dynamics of an EDT. However, while the first one has the simplifying assumption that the tether is always aligned with the local vertical, the second one considers also the overall system attitude with respect to the radial direction and the tether flexibility. The computational times of these S/W are very different and it is important to understand the scenarios that are more appropriate for their use. Results aim to show the impact of different solar activity (simulations are done at different epochs) and lengths of conductive and non conductive segments of tether, in the range of a few hundreds of meters, on the total re-entry time. As expected, deorbiting is faster for high solar activity and conductive tether length but the performance must be balanced against the dynamics stability. The issue of stability over the deorbiting time is evaluated numerically for specific cases by using FLEX

    Genetic variability among Blastoschizomyces capitatus isolates from different clinical sources.

    Get PDF
    Sixteen clinical isolates and nine ATCC reference strains of Blastoschizomyces capitatus were analysed genetically, examined for the cellobiose, arbutin and salicin assimilation and tested for the aspartyl-proteinase secretion. The restriction endonuclease analysis (REA) with HpaII and HinfI enzymes and the electrophoretic karyotype (EK) were investigated. Both the restriction enzymes revealed two groups (I, II) constituted by the same isolates: 17 isolates (68%) in group I and 8 (32%) in group II. The EK analysis revealed sixteen groups. These data prompts for a genetic variability of the isolates of Blastoschizomyces capitatus and their account in two distinct genetic groups as suggested by REA. This grouping was confirmed by examing the utilisation of cellobiose, arbutin and salicin. The tests for secretory aspartyl proteinase (Sap) were positive only for three isolates, suggesting a marginal role of this specific enzyme in pathogenesis for these isolates

    Experimental observation of the Bogoliubov transformation for a Bose-Einstein condensed gas

    Full text link
    Phonons with wavevector q/â„Źq/\hbar were optically imprinted into a Bose-Einstein condensate. Their momentum distribution was analyzed using Bragg spectroscopy with a high momentum transfer. The wavefunction of the phonons was shown to be a superposition of +q and -q free particle momentum states, in agreement with the Bogoliubov quasiparticle picture.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, please take postscript version for the best version of Fig

    Squeezing of electromagnetic field in a cavity by electrons in Trojan states

    Get PDF
    The notion of the Trojan state of a Rydberg electron, introduced by I.Bialynicki-Birula, M.Kali\'nski, and J.H.Eberly (Phys. Rev. Lett. 73, 1777 (1994)) is extended to the case of the electromagnetic field quantized in acavity. The shape of the electronic wave packet describing the Trojan state is practically the same as in the previously studied externally driven system. The fluctuations of the quantized electromagnetic field around its classical value exhibit strong squeezing. The emergence of Trojan states in the cylindrically symmetrical system is attributed to spontaneous symmetry braking.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figure

    Coherent Tunneling of Atoms from Bose-condensed Gases at Finite Temperatures

    Full text link
    Tunneling of atoms between two trapped Bose-condensed gases at finite temperatures is explored using a many-body linear response tunneling formalism similar to that used in superconductors. To lowest order, the tunneling currents can be expressed quite generally in terms of the single-particle Green's functions of the isolated Bose gases. A coherent first-order tunneling Josephson current between two atomic Bose-condensates is found, in addition to coherent and dissipative contributions from second-order condensate-noncondensate and noncondensate-noncondensate tunneling. Our work is a generalization of Meier and Zwerger, who recently treated tunneling between uniform atomic Bose gases. We apply our formalism to the analysis of an out-coupling experiment induced by light wave fields, using a simple Bogoliubov-Popov quasiparticle approximation for the trapped Bose gas. For tunneling into the vacuum, we recover the results of Japha, Choi, Burnett and Band, who recently pointed out the usefulness of studying the spectrum of out-coupled atoms. In particular, we show that the small tunneling current of noncondensate atoms from a trapped Bose gas has a broad spectrum of energies, with a characteristic structure associated with the Bogoliubov quasiparticle u^2 and v^2 amplitudes.Comment: 26 pages, 5 figures, minor changes, to appear in PR
    • …
    corecore