Municipal Solid Waste Flow Control in the Post-Carbone World

Garbage will always ultimately be the government\u27s problem. Evolving environmental standards and state and federal policies will continue to require reasoned responses from local governments and municipal solid waste flow control is a vital cog in many jurisdictions\u27 solid waste management solutions. Without flow control of some form, governments\u27 ability to plan and provide for the most environmentally sound and economically acceptable solutions will wane, leaving the public vulnerable to the vagaries of a private market that does not have a duty to protect the public health and safety. The Carbone decision has blunted one of the local governments chief weapons-legislative flow control-and it appears Congress will not supply an adequate answer for many solid waste systems. More than ever, alternatives to legislative flow control will be needed to enable municipalities to fulfill their solid waste duties, to comply with federal and state mandates, and to provide workable, environmentally-sound, long-term solid waste programs serving the interests of the public health and safety. Local governments must act soon by examining these options and deciding which will best serve the public

Analytical Galaxy Profiles for Photometric and Lensing Analysis

This article introduces a family of analytical functions of the form x^{\nu} K_{\nu}(x), where K_{\nu} is the incomplete Bessel function of the third kind. This family of functions can describe the density profile, projected and integrated light profiles and the gravitational potentials of galaxies. For the proper choice of parameters, these functions accurately approximate Sersic functions over a range of indices and are good fits to galaxy light profiles. With an additional parameter corresponding to a galaxy core radius, these functions can fit galaxy like M87 over a factor of 100,000 in radius. Unlike Sersic profiles, these functions have simple analytical 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional Fourier transforms, so they are easily convolved with spatially varying point spread function and are well suited for photometric and lensing analysis. We use these functions to estimate the effects of seeing on lensing measurements and show that high S/N measurements, even when the PSF is larger than the galaxy effective radius, should be able to recover accurate estimates of lensing distortions by weighting light in the outer isophotes that are less effected by seeing

Master-equation analysis of accelerating networks

In many real-world networks, the rates of node and link addition are time dependent. This observation motivates the definition of accelerating networks. There has been relatively little investigation of accelerating networks and previous efforts at analyzing their degree distributions have employed mean-field techniques. By contrast, we show that it is possible to apply a master-equation approach to such network development. We provide full time-dependent expressions for the evolution of the degree distributions for the canonical situations of random and preferential attachment in networks undergoing constant acceleration. These results are in excellent agreement with results obtained from simulations. We note that a growing, non-equilibrium network undergoing constant acceleration with random attachment is equivalent to a classical random graph, bridging the gap between non-equilibrium and classical equilibrium networks.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure, 1 tabl

Effective Hamiltonian study of excitations in a boson- fermion mixture with attraction between components

An effective Hamiltonian for the Bose subsystem in the mixture of ultracold atomic clouds of bosons and fermions with mutual attractive interaction is used for investigating collective excitation spectrum. The ground state and mode frequencies of the $^{87}$Rb and $^{40}$K mixture are analyzed quantitatively at zero temperature. We find analytically solutions of the hydrodynamics equations in the Thomas- Fermi approximation. We discuss the relation between the onset of collapse and collective modes softening and the dependence of collective oscillations on scattering length and number of boson atoms.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figure

Convergence Characteristics of the Cumulant Expansion for Fourier Path Integrals

The cumulant representation of the Fourier path integral method is examined to determine the asymptotic convergence characteristics of the imaginary-time density matrix with respect to the number of path variables $N$ included. It is proved that when the cumulant expansion is truncated at order $p$, the asymptotic convergence rate of the density matrix behaves like $N^{-(2p+1)}$. The complex algebra associated with the proof is simplified by introducing a diagrammatic representation of the contributing terms along with an associated linked-cluster theorem. The cumulant terms at each order are expanded in a series such that the the asymptotic convergence rate is maintained without the need to calculate the full cumulant at order $p$. Using this truncated expansion of each cumulant at order $p$, the numerical cost in developing Fourier path integral expressions having convergence order $N^{-(2p+1)}$ is shown to be approximately linear in the number of required potential energy evaluations making the method promising for actual numerical implementation.Comment: 47 pages, 2 figures, submitted to PR

On the distribution of estimators of diffusion constants for Brownian motion

We discuss the distribution of various estimators for extracting the diffusion constant of single Brownian trajectories obtained by fitting the squared displacement of the trajectory. The analysis of the problem can be framed in terms of quadratic functionals of Brownian motion that correspond to the Euclidean path integral for simple Harmonic oscillators with time dependent frequencies. Explicit analytical results are given for the distribution of the diffusion constant estimator in a number of cases and our results are confirmed by numerical simulations.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figure

Brane Localization and Stabilization via Regional Physics

Extra-dimensional scenarios have become widespread among particle and gravitational theories of physics to address several outstanding problems, including cosmic acceleration, the weak hierarchy problem, and the quantization of gravity. In general, the topology and geometry of the full spacetime manifold will be non-trivial, even if our ordinary dimensions have the topology of their covering space. Most compact manifolds are inhomogeneous, even if they admit a homogeneous geometry, and it will be physically relevant where in the extra-dimensions one is located. In this letter, we explore the use of both local and global effects in a braneworld scenario to naturally provide position-dependent forces that determine and stabilize the location of a single brane. For illustrative purposes, we consider the 2-dimensional hyperbolic horn and the Euclidean cone as toy models of the extra-dimensional manifold, and add a brane wrapped around one of the two spatial dimensions. We calculate the total energy due to brane tension and bending (extrinsic curvature) as well as that due to the Casimir energy of a bulk scalar satisfying a Dirchlet boundary condition on the brane. From the competition of at least two of these effects there can exist a stable minimum of the effective potential for the brane location. However, on more generic spaces (on which more symmetries are broken) any one of these effects may be sufficient to stabilize the brane. We discuss this as an example of physics that is neither local nor global, but regional.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures. PRL submitte

Cross-correlations of the Lyman-alpha forest with weak lensing convergence I: Analytical Estimates of S/N and Implications for Neutrino Mass and Dark Energy

We expect a detectable correlation between two seemingly unrelated quantities: the four point function of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and the amplitude of flux decrements in quasar (QSO) spectra. The amplitude of CMB convergence in a given direction measures the projected surface density of matter. Measurements of QSO flux decrements trace the small-scale distribution of gas along a given line-of-sight. While the cross-correlation between these two measurements is small for a single line-of-sight, upcoming large surveys should enable its detection. This paper presents analytical estimates for the signal to noise (S/N) for measurements of the cross-correlation between the flux decrement and the convergence and for measurements of the cross-correlation between the variance in flux decrement and the convergence. For the ongoing BOSS (SDSS III) and Planck surveys, we estimate an S/N of 30 and 9.6 for these two correlations. For the proposed BigBOSS and ACTPOL surveys, we estimate an S/N of 130 and 50 respectively. Since the cross-correlation between the variance in flux decrement and the convergence is proportional to the fourth power of $\sigma_8$, the amplitude of these cross-correlations can potentially be used to measure the amplitude of $\sigma_8$ at z~2 to 2.5% with BOSS and Planck and even better with future data sets. These measurements have the potential to test alternative theories for dark energy and to constrain the mass of the neutrino. The large potential signal estimated in our analytical calculations motivate tests with non-linear hydrodynamical simulations and analyses of upcoming data sets.Comment: 24 pages, 9 figure

Lattice Green's function approach to the solution of the spectrum of an array of quantum dots and its linear conductance

In this paper we derive general relations for the band-structure of an array of quantum dots and compute its transport properties when connected to two perfect leads. The exact lattice Green's functions for the perfect array and with an attached adatom are derived. The expressions for the linear conductance for the perfect array as well as for the array with a defect are presented. The calculations are illustrated for a dot made of three atoms. The results derived here are also the starting point to include the effect of electron-electron and electron-phonon interactions on the transport properties of quantum dot arrays. Different derivations of the exact lattice Green's functions are discussed

Spacetime Properties of ZZ D-Branes

We study the tachyon and the RR field sourced by the $(m,n)$ ZZ D-branes in type 0 theories using three methods. We first use the mini-superspace approximation of the closed string wave functions of the tachyon and the RR scalar to probe these fields. These wave functions are then extended beyond the mini-superspace approximation using mild assumptions which are motivated by the properties of the corresponding wave functions in the mini-superspace limit. These are then used to probe the tachyon and the RR field sourced. Finally we study the space time fields sourced by the $(m,n)$ ZZ D-branes using the FZZT brane as a probe. In all the three methods we find that the tension of the $(m,n)$ ZZ brane is $mn$ times the tension of the $(1,1)$ ZZ brane. The RR charge of these branes is non-zero only for the case of both $m$ and $n$ odd, in which case it is identical to the charge of the $(1,1)$ brane. As a consistency check we also verify that the space time fields sourced by the branes satisfy the corresponding equations of motion.Comment: 32 pages, 4 figures. Clarifications on the principal characterization of ZZ branes added. Reference adde