839 research outputs found
A cosmological model in Weyl-Cartan spacetime
We present a cosmological model for early stages of the universe on the basis
of a Weyl-Cartan spacetime. In this model, torsion and
nonmetricity are proportional to the vacuum polarization.
Extending earlier work of one of us (RT), we discuss the behavior of the cosmic
scale factor and the Weyl 1-form in detail. We show how our model fits into the
more general framework of metric-affine gravity (MAG).Comment: 19 pages, 5 figures, typos corrected, uses IOP style fil
Physically interacting humans regulate muscle coactivation to improve visuo-haptic perception.
When moving a piano or dancing tango with a partner, how should I control my arm muscles to sense their movements and follow or guide them smoothly? Here we observe how physically connected pairs tracking a moving target with the arm modify muscle coactivation with their visual acuity and the partner's performance. They coactivate muscles to stiffen the arm when the partner's performance is worse and relax with blurry visual feedback. Computational modeling shows that this adaptive sensing property cannot be explained by the minimization of movement error hypothesis that has previously explained adaptation in dynamic environments. Instead, individuals skillfully control the stiffness to guide the arm toward the planned motion while minimizing effort and extracting useful information from the partner's movement. The central nervous system regulates muscle activation to guide motion with accurate task information from vision and haptics while minimizing the metabolic cost. As a consequence, the partner with the most accurate target information leads the movement.NEW & NOTEWORTHY Our results reveal that interacting humans inconspicuously modulate muscle activation to extract accurate information about the common target while considering their own and the partner's sensorimotor noise. A novel computational model was developed to decipher the underlying mechanism: muscle coactivation is adapted to combine haptic information from the interaction with the partner and own visual information in a stochastically optimal manner. This improves the prediction of the target position with minimal metabolic cost in each partner, resulting in the lead of the partner with the most accurate visual information
Precision Measurement of the 29Si, 33S, and 36Cl Binding Energies
The binding energies of 29Si, 33S, and 36Cl have been measured with a
relative uncertainty using a flat-crystal spectrometer.
The unique features of these measurements are 1) nearly perfect crystals whose
lattice spacing is known in meters, 2) a highly precise angle scale that is
derived from first principles, and 3) a gamma-ray measurement facility that is
coupled to a high flux reactor with near-core source capability. The binding
energy is obtained by measuring all gamma-rays in a cascade scheme connecting
the capture and ground states. The measurements require the extension of
precision flat-crystal diffraction techniques to the 5 to 6 MeV energy region,
a significant precision measurement challenge. The binding energies determined
from these gamma-ray measurements are consistent with recent highly accurate
atomic mass measurements within a relative uncertainty of .
The gamma-ray measurement uncertainties are the dominant contributors to the
uncertainty of this consistency test. The measured gamma-ray energies are in
agreement with earlier precision gamma-ray measurements.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figure
Anharmonic double-phonon excitations in the interacting boson model
Double- vibrations in deformed nuclei are analyzed in the context of
the interacting boson model. A simple extension of the original version of the
model towards higher-order interactions is required to explain the observed
anharmonicities of nuclear vibrations. The influence of three- and four-body
interactions on the moments of inertia of ground- and -bands, and on
the relative position of single- and double- bands is studied
in detail. As an example of a realistic calculation, spectra and transitions of
the highly -anharmonic nuclei Dy, Er, and Er
are interpreted in this approach.Comment: 38 pages, TeX (ReVTeX). 15 ps figures. Submitted to Phys. Rev.
Study of the neutron quantum states in the gravity field
We have studied neutron quantum states in the potential well formed by the
earth's gravitational field and a horizontal mirror. The estimated
characteristic sizes of the neutron wave functions in the two lowest quantum
states correspond to expectations with an experimental accuracy. A
position-sensitive neutron detector with an extra-high spatial resolution of ~2
microns was developed and tested for this particular experiment, to be used to
measure the spatial density distribution in a standing neutron wave above a
mirror for a set of some of the lowest quantum states. The present experiment
can be used to set an upper limit for an additional short-range fundamental
force. We studied methodological uncertainties as well as the feasibility of
improving further the accuracy of this experiment
First-principles simulation of intrinsic collision cascades in KCl and NaCl to test interatomic potentials at energies between 5 and 350 eV
Theoretical interatomic potentials for KCl and NaCl are tested at energies 5–350 eV against experimental data from intrinsic collision cascades. The collisional scattering of Cl with Cl, K, and Na atoms was observed from Doppler-shifted γ rays depopulating an excited state in recoiling Cl36 produced through the thermal neutron capture Cl35(n,γ)36Cl. The collisional scattering was simulated with molecular dynamics. Interatomic potentials from the present Iab initioP atomic cluster calculations are proposed for the Cl-Cl, Cl-K, and Cl-Na interactions in KCl and NaCl.Peer reviewe
GRANIT project: a trap for gravitational quantum states of UCN
Previous studies of gravitationally bound states of ultracold neutrons showed
the quantization of energy levels, and confirmed quantum mechanical predictions
for the average size of the two lowest energy states wave functions.
Improvements in position-like measurements can increase the accuracy by an
order of magnitude only. We therefore develop another approach, consisting in
accurate measurements of the energy levels. The GRANIT experiment is devoted to
the study of resonant transitions between quantum states induced by an
oscillating perturbation.
According to Heisenberg's uncertainty relations, the accuracy of measurement
of the energy levels is limited by the time available to perform the
transitions. Thus, trapping quantum states will be necessary, and each source
of losses has to be controlled in order to maximize the lifetime of the states.
We discuss the general principles of transitions between quantum states, and
consider the main systematical losses of neutrons in a trap.Comment: presented in ISINN 15 seminar, Dubn
Age of the Universe: Influence of the Inhomogeneities on the global Expansion-Factor
For the first time we calculate quantitatively the influence of
inhomogeneities on the global expansion factor by averaging the Friedmann
equation. In the framework of the relativistic second-order
Zel'dovich-approximation scheme for irrotational dust we use observational
results in form of the normalisation constant fixed by the COBE results and we
check different power spectra, namely for adiabatic CDM, isocurvature CDM, HDM,
WDM, Strings and Textures. We find that the influence of the inhomogeneities on
the global expansion factor is very small. So the error in determining the age
of the universe using the Hubble constant in the usual way is negligible. This
does not imply that the effect is negligible for local astronomical
measurements of the Hubble constant. Locally the determination of the
redshift-distance relation can be strongly influenced by the peculiar velocity
fields due to inhomogeneities. Our calculation does not consider such effects,
but is contrained to comparing globally homogeneous and averaged inhomogeneous
matter distributions. In addition we relate our work to previous treatments.Comment: 10 pages, version accepted by Phys. Rev.
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