5,763 research outputs found
Spontaneous dressed-state polarization in the strong driving regime of cavity QED
We utilize high-bandwidth phase quadrature homodyne measurement of the light
transmitted through a Fabry-Perot cavity, driven strongly and on resonance, to
detect excess phase noise induced by a single intracavity atom. We analyze the
correlation properties and driving-strength dependence of the atom-induced
phase noise to establish that it corresponds to the long-predicted phenomenon
of spontaneous dressed-state polarization. Our experiment thus provides a
demonstration of cavity quantum electrodynamics in the strong driving regime,
in which one atom interacts strongly with a many-photon cavity field to produce
novel quantum stochastic behavior.Comment: 4 pages, 4 color figure
Nuclear Quasi-Elastic Electron Scattering Limits Nucleon Off-Mass Shell Properties
The use of quasi-elastic electron nucleus scattering is shown to provide
significant constraints on models of the proton electromagnetic form factor of
off-shell nucleons. Such models can be constructed to be consistent with
constraints from current conservation and low-energy theorems, while also
providing a contribution to the Lamb shift that might potentially resolve the
proton radius puzzle in muonic hydrogen. However, observations of quasi-elastic
scattering limit the overall strength of the off-shell form factors to values
that correspond to small contributions to the Lamb shift.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures. Resubmission to improve the clarity, and correct
possible misconception
Potentially Prebiotic Syntheses of Condensed Phosphates
In view of the importance of a prebiotic source of high energy phosphates, we have investigated a number of potentially prebiotic processes to produce condensed phosphates from orthophosphate and cyclic trimetaphosphate from tripolyphosphate. The reagents investigated include polymerizing nitriles, acid anhydrides, lactones, hexamethylene tetramine and carbon suboxide. A number of these processes give substantial yields of pyrophosphate from orthophosphate and trimetaphosphate from tripolyphosphate. Although these reactions may have been applicable in local areas, they are not sufficiently robust to have been of importance in the prebiotic open ocean
Was Ferrocyanide a Prebiotic Reagent?
Hydrogen cyanide is the starting material for a diverse array of prebiotic syntheses, including those of amino acids and purines. Hydrogen cyanide also reacts with ferrous ions to give ferrocyanide, and so it is possible that ferrocyanide was common in the early ocean. This can only be true if the hydrogen cyanide concentration was high enough and the rate of reaction of cyanide with ferrous ions was fast enough. We show experimentally that the rate of formation of ferrocyanide is rapid even at low concentrations of hydrogen cyanide in the pH range 6-8, and therefore an equilibrium calculation is valid. The equilibrium concentrations of ferrocyanide are calculated as a function of hydrogen cyanide concentration, pH and temperature. The steady state concentration of hydrogen cyanide depends on the rate of synthesis by electric discharges and ultraviolet light and the rate of hydrolysis, which depends on pH and temperature. Our conclusions show that ferrocyanide was a major species in the prebiotic ocean only at the highest production rates of hydrogen cyanide in a strongly reducing atmosphere and at temperatures of 0 C or less, although small amounts would have been present at lower hydrogen cyanide production rates. The prebiotic application of ferrocyanide as a source of hydrated electrons, as a photochemical replication process, and in semi-permeable membranes is discussed
Are Polyphosphates or Phosphate Esters Prebiotic Reagents?
It is widely held that there was a phosphate compound in prebiotic chemistry that played the role of adenosine triphosphate and that the first living organisms had ribose-phosphate in the backbone of their genetic material. However, there are no known efficient prebiotic synthesis of high-energy phosphates or phosphate esters. We review the occurrence of phosphates in nature, the efficiency of the volcanic synthesis of P4O10, the efficiency of polyphosphate synthesis by heating phosphate minerals under geological conditions, and the use of high-energy organic compounds such as cyanamide or hydrogen cyanide. These are shown to be inefficient processes especially when the hydrolysis of the polyphosphates is taken into account. For example, if a whole atmosphere of methane or carbon monoxide were converted to cyanide which somehow synthesized polyphosphates quantitatively, the polyphosphate concentration in the ocean would still have been insignificant. We also attempted to find more efficient high-energy polymerizing agents by spark discharge syntheses, but without success. There may still be undiscovered robust prebiotic syntheses of polyphosphates, or mechanisms for concentrating them, but we conclude that phosphate esters may not have been constituents of the first genetic material. Phosphoanhydrides are also unlikely as prebiotic energy sources
Reviewer Integration and Performance Measurement for Malware Detection
We present and evaluate a large-scale malware detection system integrating
machine learning with expert reviewers, treating reviewers as a limited
labeling resource. We demonstrate that even in small numbers, reviewers can
vastly improve the system's ability to keep pace with evolving threats. We
conduct our evaluation on a sample of VirusTotal submissions spanning 2.5 years
and containing 1.1 million binaries with 778GB of raw feature data. Without
reviewer assistance, we achieve 72% detection at a 0.5% false positive rate,
performing comparable to the best vendors on VirusTotal. Given a budget of 80
accurate reviews daily, we improve detection to 89% and are able to detect 42%
of malicious binaries undetected upon initial submission to VirusTotal.
Additionally, we identify a previously unnoticed temporal inconsistency in the
labeling of training datasets. We compare the impact of training labels
obtained at the same time training data is first seen with training labels
obtained months later. We find that using training labels obtained well after
samples appear, and thus unavailable in practice for current training data,
inflates measured detection by almost 20 percentage points. We release our
cluster-based implementation, as well as a list of all hashes in our evaluation
and 3% of our entire dataset.Comment: 20 papers, 11 figures, accepted at the 13th Conference on Detection
of Intrusions and Malware & Vulnerability Assessment (DIMVA 2016
Investigation of the Prebiotic Synthesis of Amino Acids and RNA Bases from CO2 using FeS/H2S as a Reducing Agent
An autotrophic theory of the origin of metabolism and life has been proposed in which carbon dioxide is reduced by ferrous sulfide and hydrogen sulfide by means of a reversed citric acid cycle, leading to the production of amino acids. Similar processes have been proposed for purine synthesis. Ferrous sulfide is a strong reducing agent in the presence of hydrogen sulfide and can produce hydrogen as well as reduce alkenes, alkynes, and thiols to saturated hydrocarbons and reduce ketones to thiols. However, the reduction of carbon dioxide has not been demonstrated. We show here that no amino acids, purines, or pyrimidines are produced from carbon dioxide with the ferrous sulfide and hydrogen sulfide system. Furthermore, this system does not produce amino acids from carboxylic acids by reductive amination and carboxylation. Thus, the proposed autotrophic theory, using carbon dioxide, ferrous sulfide, and hydrogen sulfide, lacks the robustness needed to be a geological process and is, therefore, unlikely to have played a role in the origin of metabolism or the origin of life
Investigation of the Prebiotic Synthesis of Amino Acids and RNA Bases from CO2 Using FeS/H2S As a Reducing Agent
An autotrophic theory of the origin of metabolism and life has been proposed in which carbon dioxide is reduced by ferrous sulfide and hydrogen sulfide by means of a reversed citric acid cycle, leading to the production of amino acids. Similar processes have been proposed for purine synthesis. Ferrous sulfide is a strong reducing agent in the presence of hydrogen sulfide and can produce hydrogen as well as reduce alkenes, alkynes, and thiols to saturated hydrocarbons and reduce ketones to thiols. However, the reduction of carbon dioxide has not been demonstrated. We show here that no amino acids, purities, or pyrimidines are produced from carbon dioxide with the ferrous sulfide and hydrogen sulfide system. Furthermore, this system does not produce amino acids from carboxylic acids by reductive amination and carboxylation. Thus, the proposed autotrophic theory, using carbon dioxide, ferrous sulfide, and hydrogen sulfide, lacks the robustness needed to be a geological process and is, therefore, unlikely to have played a role In the origin of metabolism or the origin of life
Three-dimensional propagation effects near the mid-Atlantic Bight shelf break (L)
Significant three-dimensional (3-D) environmental variability exists in the vicinity of the shelf break along the mid-Atlantic Bight. This study examines the influence of azimuthal coupling due to this variability on acoustic propagation in this region. Numerical studies employing a 3-D ray code, a hybrid ray-mode code, and a 3-D parabolic equation model are used to study the significance of azimuthal coupling on various propagation paths. These paths include up-slope, slant-slope, and cross-slope propagation. The numerical analysis suggests that, for the propagation ranges less than 60 km examined, the influence of azimuthal coupling is negligible compared to the inherent uncertainty in the environment itself
The Cluster and Field Galaxy AGN Fraction at z = 1 to 1.5: Evidence for a Reversal of the Local Anticorrelation Between Environment and AGN Fraction
The fraction of cluster galaxies that host luminous AGN is an important probe
of AGN fueling processes, the cold ISM at the centers of galaxies, and how
tightly black holes and galaxies co-evolve. We present a new measurement of the
AGN fraction in a sample of 13 clusters of galaxies (M >= 10^{14} Msun) at
1<z<1.5 selected from the Spitzer/IRAC Shallow Cluster Survey, as well as the
field fraction in the immediate vicinity of these clusters, and combine these
data with measurements from the literature to quantify the relative evolution
of cluster and field AGN from the present to z~3. We estimate that the cluster
AGN fraction at 1<z<1.5 is f_A = 3.0^{+2.4}_{-1.4}% for AGN with a rest-frame,
hard X-ray luminosity greater than L_{X,H} >= 10^{44} erg/s. This fraction is
measured relative to all cluster galaxies more luminous than M*_{3.6}(z)+1,
where M*_{3.6}(z) is the absolute magnitude of the break in the galaxy
luminosity function at the cluster redshift in the IRAC 3.6um bandpass. The
cluster AGN fraction is 30 times greater than the 3sigma upper limit on the
value for AGN of similar luminosity at z~0.25, as well as more than an order of
magnitude greater than the AGN fraction at z~0.75. AGN with L_{X,H} >= 10^{43}
erg/s exhibit similarly pronounced evolution with redshift. In contrast with
the local universe, where the luminous AGN fraction is higher in the field than
in clusters, the X-ray and MIR-selected AGN fractions in the field and clusters
are consistent at 1<z<1.5. This is evidence that the cluster AGN population has
evolved more rapidly than the field population from z~1.5 to the present. This
environment-dependent AGN evolution mimics the more rapid evolution of
star-forming galaxies in clusters relative to the field.Comment: ApJ Accepted. 16 pages, 8 figures in emulateapj forma
- …