361 research outputs found
Altimetric system: Earth observing system. Volume 2h: Panel report
A rationale and recommendations for planning, implementing, and operating an altimetric system aboard the Earth observing system (Eos) spacecraft is provided. In keeping with the recommendations of the Eos Science and Mission Requirements Working Group, a complete altimetric system is defined that is capable of perpetuating the data set to be derived from TOPEX/Poseidon, enabling key scientific questions to be addressed. Since the scientific utility and technical maturity of spaceborne radar altimeters is well documented, the discussion is limited to highlighting those Eos-specific considerations that materially impact upon radar altimetric measurements
Dynamics of Sleep-Wake Transitions During Sleep
We study the dynamics of the awakening during the night for healthy subjects
and find that the wake and the sleep periods exhibit completely different
behavior: the durations of wake periods are characterized by a scale-free
power-law distribution, while the durations of sleep periods have an
exponential distribution with a characteristic time scale. We find that the
characteristic time scale of sleep periods changes throughout the night. In
contrast, there is no measurable variation in the power-law behavior for the
durations of wake periods. We develop a stochastic model which agrees with the
data and suggests that the difference in the dynamics of sleep and wake states
arises from the constraints on the number of microstates in the sleep-wake
system.Comment: Final form with some small corrections. To be published in
Europhysics Letters, vol. 57, issue no. 5, 1 March 2002, pp. 625-63
Recent Advances
Although often depicted as rigid structures, proteins are highly dynamic
systems, whose motions are essential to their functions. Despite this, it is
difficult to investigate protein dynamics due to the rapid timescale at which
they sample their conformational space, leading most NMR-determined structures
to represent only an averaged snapshot of the dynamic picture. While NMR
relaxation measurements can help to determine local dynamics, it is difficult
to detect translational or concerted motion, and only recently have
significant advances been made to make it possible to acquire a more holistic
representation of the dynamics and structural landscapes of proteins. Here, we
briefly revisit our most recent progress in the theory and use of exact
nuclear Overhauser enhancements (eNOEs) for the calculation of structural
ensembles that describe their conformational space. New developments are
primarily targeted at increasing the number and improving the quality of
extracted eNOE distance restraints, such that the multi-state structure
calculation can be applied to proteins of higher molecular weights. We then
review the implications of the exact NOE to the protein dynamics and function
of cyclophilin A and the WW domain of Pin1, and finally discuss our current
research and future directions
Performance of Newtonian filters in detecting gravitational waves from coalescing binaries
Coalescing binary systems are one of the most promising sources of
gravitational waves. The technique of matched filtering used in the detection
of gravitational waves from coalescing binaries relies on the construction of
accurate templates. Until recently filters modelled on the quadrupole or the
Newtonian approximation were deemed sufficient. Recently it was shown that
post-Newtonian effects contribute to a secular growth in the phase difference
between the actual signal and its corresponding Newtonian template. In this
paper we investigate the possibility of compensating for the phase difference
caused by the post-Newtonian terms by allowing for a shift in the Newtonian
filter parameters. We find that Newtonian filters perform adequately for the
purpose of detecting the presence of the signal for both the initial and the
advanced LIGO detectors.Comment: Revtex 9 pages + 6 figures ( Can be obtained by "anonymous" ftp from
144.16.31.1 in dir /pub/rbs. Submitted to Physical Review D. IUCAA 1
Vibrational free energy and phase stability of paramagnetic and antiferromagnetic CrN from ab initio
World-line Quantisation of a Reciprocally Invariant System
We present the world-line quantisation of a system invariant under the
symmetries of reciprocal relativity (pseudo-unitary transformations on ``phase
space coordinates" which preserve the Minkowski
metric and the symplectic form, and global shifts in these coordinates,
together with coordinate dependent transformations of an additional compact
phase coordinate, ). The action is that of free motion over the
corresponding Weyl-Heisenberg group. Imposition of the first class constraint,
the generator of local time reparametrisations, on physical states enforces
identification of the world-line cosmological constant with a fixed value of
the quadratic Casimir of the quaplectic symmetry group , the semi-direct product of the pseudo-unitary group with
the Weyl-Heisenberg group (the central extension of the global translation
group, with central extension associated to the phase variable ).
The spacetime spectrum of physical states is identified. Even though for an
appropriate range of values the restriction enforced by the cosmological
constant projects out negative norm states from the physical spectrum, leaving
over spin zero states only, the mass-squared spectrum is continuous over the
entire real line and thus includes a tachyonic branch as well
Stochastic Pulse Switching in a Degenerate Resonant Optical Medium
Using the idealized integrable Maxwell-Bloch model, we describe random
optical-pulse polarization switching along an active optical medium in the
Lambda-configuration with disordered occupation numbers of its lower energy
sub-level pair. The description combines complete integrability and stochastic
dynamics. For the single-soliton pulse, we derive the statistics of the
electric-field polarization ellipse at a given point along the medium in closed
form. If the average initial population difference of the two lower sub-levels
vanishes, we show that the pulse polarization will switch intermittently
between the two circular polarizations as it travels along the medium. If this
difference does not vanish, the pulse will eventually forever remain in the
circular polarization determined by which sub-level is more occupied on
average. We also derive the exact expressions for the statistics of the
polarization-switching dynamics, such as the probability distribution of the
distance between two consecutive switches and the percentage of the distance
along the medium the pulse spends in the elliptical polarization of a given
orientation in the case of vanishing average initial population difference. We
find that the latter distribution is given in terms of the well-known arcsine
law
Theory of Coexistence of Superconductivity and Ferroelectricity : A Dynamical Symmetry Model
We propose and investigate a model for the coexistence of Superconductivity
(SC) and Ferroelectricity (FE) based on the dynamical symmetries for
the pseudo-spin SC sector, for the displaced oscillator FE sector, and
for the composite system. We assume a minimal
symmetry-allowed coupling, and simplify the hamiltonian using a double mean
field approximation (DMFA). A variational coherent state (VCS) trial
wave-function is used for the ground state: the energy, and the relevant order
parameters for SC and FE are obtained. For positive sign of the SC-FE coupling
coefficient, a non-zero value of either order parameter can suppress the other
(FE polarization suppresses SC and vice versa). This gives some support to
"Matthias' Conjecture" [1964], that SC and FE tend to be mutually exclusive.
For such a Ferroelectric Superconductor we predict: a) the SC gap
(and ) will increase with increasing applied pressure when pressure
quenches FE as in many ferroelectrics, and b) the FE polarization will increase
with increaesing magnetic field up to . The last result is equivalent to
the prediction of a new type of Magneto-Electric Effect in a coexistent SC-FE
material. Some discussion will be given of the relation of these results to the
cuprate superconductors.Comment: 46 page
Directional perfect absorption using deep subwavelength low-permittivity films
We experimentally demonstrate single beam directional perfect absorption (to within experimental accuracy) of p-polarized light in the near-infrared using unpatterned, deep subwavelength films of indium tin oxide (ITO) on Ag. The experimental perfect absorption occurs slightly above the epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) frequency of ITO, where the permittivity is less than 1 in magnitude. Remarkably, we obtain perfect absorption for films whose thickness is as low as similar to 1/50th of the operating free-space wavelength and whose single pass attenuation is only similar to 5%. We further derive simple analytical conditions for perfect absorption in the subwavelength-film regime that reveal the constraints that the thin layer permittivity must satisfy if perfect absorption is to be achieved. Then, to get a physical insight on the perfect absorption properties, we analyze the eigenmodes of the layered structure by computing both the real-frequency/complex-wavenumber and the complex-frequency/real-wavenumber modal dispersion diagrams. These analyses allow us to attribute the experimental perfect absorption condition to the crossover between bound and leaky behavior of one eigenmode of the layered structure. Both modal methods show that perfect absorption occurs at a frequency slightly larger than the ENZ frequency, in agreement with experimental results, and both methods predict a second perfect absorption condition at higher frequencies, attributed to another crossover between bound and leaky behavior of the same eigenmode. Our results greatly expand the list of materials that can be considered for use as ultrathin perfect absorbers and provide a methodology for the design of absorbing systems at any desired frequencyopen9
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