50,492 research outputs found
Theoretical analysis of dynamic chemical imaging with lasers using high-order harmonic generation
We report theoretical investigations of the tomographic procedure suggested
by Itatani {\it et al.} [Nature, {\bf 432} 867 (2004)] for reconstructing
highest occupied molecular orbitals (HOMO) using high-order harmonic generation
(HHG). Using the limited range of harmonics from the plateau region, we found
that under the most favorable assumptions, it is still very difficult to obtain
accurate HOMO wavefunction, but the symmetry of the HOMO and the internuclear
separation between the atoms can be accurately extracted, especially when
lasers of longer wavelengths are used to generate the HHG. We also considered
the possible removal or relaxation of the approximations used in the
tomographic method in actual applications. We suggest that for chemical
imaging, in the future it is better to use an iterative method to locate the
positions of atoms in the molecule such that the resulting HHG best fits the
macroscopic HHG data, rather than by the tomographic method.Comment: 13 pages, 14 figure
Relativistic dynamical polarizability of hydrogen-like atoms
Using the operator representation of the Dirac Coulomb Green function the
analytical method in perturbation theory is employed in obtaining solutions of
the Dirac equation for a hydrogen-like atom in a time-dependent electric field.
The relativistic dynamical polarizability of hydrogen-like atoms is calculated
and analysed.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures (not included, but hard copies are available upon
request
Quasi-static aberrations induced by laser guide stars in adaptive optics
Laser Guide Star Adaptive Optics (LGS AO) systems use the return from an artificial guide star to measure the wavefront aberrations in the direction of the science object. We observe quasi-static differences between the measured wavefront and the wavefront aberration of the science object. This paper quantifies and explains the source of the difference between the wavefronts measured using an LGS and a natural guide star at the W. M. Keck Observatory, which can be as high as 1000 nm RMS
HORACE: software for the analysis of data from single crystal spectroscopy experiments at time-of-flight neutron instruments
The HORACE suite of programs has been developed to work with large
multiple-measurement data sets collected from time-of-flight neutron
spectrometers equipped with arrays of position-sensitive detectors. The
software allows exploratory studies of the four dimensions of reciprocal space
and excitation energy to be undertaken, enabling multi-dimensional subsets to
be visualized, algebraically manipulated, and models for the scattering to
simulated or fitted to the data. The software is designed to be an extensible
framework, thus allowing user-customized operations to be performed on the
data. Examples of the use of its features are given for measurements exploring
the spin waves of the simple antiferromagnet RbMnF and ferromagnetic
iron, and the phonons in URuSi.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figure
Business orientation and the food security status of small scale producers in the Venda region, South Africa
Questions addressed in this paper are: How to determine the food status of rural households; and does an agribusiness orientation enhance the food security status of farm families. A study was conducted on two groups of small scale black farmers in the Venda region: one group, agribusiness directed and generally more progressive towards technology, produces mangos and other subtropical fruits (cash crop farmers); the other group concentrates on locally consumed and sold vegetables (food crop farmers). Their food status was quantitatively determined by means of household energy, protein and fat balances and food security determinants were identified. More than 80% of the households had a negative balance for energy, protein or fat. Business orientation and farming type in this particular case study does not influence the energy, protein and fat coverage significantly. The marginal nature of farming by these small holders could explain this finding. Significant predictors of food security status were rather factors such as the household size and the availability of outside sources of income and cash to spend on food.Agribusiness, Food Security and Poverty,
Secoviridae: a proposed family of plant viruses within the order Picornavirales that combines the families Sequiviridae and Comoviridae, the unassigned genera Cheravirus and Sadwavirus, and the proposed genus Torradovirus
The order Picornavirales includes several plant viruses that are currently classified into the families Comoviridae (genera Comovirus, Fabavirus and Nepovirus) and Sequiviridae (genera Sequivirus and Waikavirus) and into the unassigned genera Cheravirus and Sadwavirus. These viruses share properties in common with other picornavirales (particle structure, positive-strand RNA genome with a polyprotein expression strategy, a common replication block including type III helicase, a 3C-like cysteine proteinase and type I RNA-dependent RNA polymerase). However, they also share unique properties that distinguish them from other picornavirales. They infect plants and use specialized proteins or protein domains to move through their host. In phylogenetic analysis based on their replication proteins, these viruses form a separate distinct lineage within the picornavirales branch. To recognize these common properties at the taxonomic level, we propose to create a new family termed “Secoviridae” to include the genera Comovirus, Fabavirus, Nepovirus, Cheravirus, Sadwavirus, Sequivirus and Waikavirus. Two newly discovered plant viruses share common properties with members of the proposed family Secoviridae but have distinct specific genomic organizations. In phylogenetic reconstructions, they form a separate sub-branch within the Secoviridae lineage. We propose to create a new genus termed Torradovirus (type species, Tomato torrado virus) and to assign this genus to the proposed family Secoviridae
An experimental proposal to study collapse of the wave function in travelling-wave parametric amplifiers
The read-out of a microwave qubit state occurs using an amplification chain
that enlarges the quantum state to a signal detectable with a classical
measurement apparatus. However, at what point in this process did we really
`measure' the quantum state? In order to investigate whether the `measurement'
takes place in the amplification chain, we propose to construct a microwave
interferometer that has a parametric amplifier added to each of its arms.
Feeding the interferometer with single photons, the visibility depends on the
gain of the amplifiers and whether a measurement collapse has taken place
during the amplification process. We calculate the interference visibility as
given by standard quantum mechanics as a function of gain, insertion loss and
temperature and find a magnitude of in the limit of large gain without
taking into account losses. This number reduces to in case the insertion
loss of the amplifiers is dB at a temperature of mK. We show that if
the wave function collapses within the interferometer, we will measure a
reduced visibility compared to the prediction from standard quantum mechanics
once this collapse process sets in.Comment: 21 pages and 23 figures (including appendices and subfigures). v4:
Abstract and introduction rewritten and note on stochasticity of quantum
state collapse added to section 6. v5: no content changes w.r.t. v
Low-temperature dynamics of the Curie-Weiss Model: Periodic orbits, multiple histories, and loss of Gibbsianness
We consider the Curie-Weiss model at a given initial temperature in vanishing
external field evolving under a Glauber spin-flip dynamics corresponding to a
possibly different temperature. We study the limiting conditional probabilities
and their continuity properties and discuss their set of points of
discontinuity (bad points). We provide a complete analysis of the transition
between Gibbsian and non-Gibbsian behavior as a function of time, extending
earlier work for the case of independent spin-flip dynamics. For initial
temperature bigger than one we prove that the time-evolved measure stays Gibbs
forever, for any (possibly low) temperature of the dynamics. In the regime of
heating to low-temperatures from even lower temperatures, when the initial
temperature is smaller than the temperature of the dynamics, and smaller than
1, we prove that the time-evolved measure is Gibbs initially and becomes
non-Gibbs after a sharp transition time. We find this regime is further divided
into a region where only symmetric bad configurations exist, and a region where
this symmetry is broken. In the regime of further cooling from low-temperatures
there is always symmetry-breaking in the set of bad configurations. These bad
configurations are created by a new mechanism which is related to the
occurrence of periodic orbits for the vector field which describes the dynamics
of Euler-Lagrange equations for the path large deviation functional for the
order parameter. To our knowledge this is the first example of the rigorous
study of non-Gibbsian phenomena related to cooling, albeit in a mean-field
setup.Comment: 31 pages, 24 figure
Bayesian Optimization for Probabilistic Programs
We present the first general purpose framework for marginal maximum a
posteriori estimation of probabilistic program variables. By using a series of
code transformations, the evidence of any probabilistic program, and therefore
of any graphical model, can be optimized with respect to an arbitrary subset of
its sampled variables. To carry out this optimization, we develop the first
Bayesian optimization package to directly exploit the source code of its
target, leading to innovations in problem-independent hyperpriors, unbounded
optimization, and implicit constraint satisfaction; delivering significant
performance improvements over prominent existing packages. We present
applications of our method to a number of tasks including engineering design
and parameter optimization
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