Generalized constraints on quantum amplification

We derive quantum constraints on the minimal amount of noise added in linear amplification involving input or output signals whose component operators do not necessarily have c-number commutators, as is the case for fermion currents. This is a generalization of constraints derived for the amplification of bosonic fields whose components posses c-number commutators.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, submitted to Physical Review Letter

Construction and application of a questionnaire for the social scientific investigation of environmental noise effects

A social psychological questionnair has been developed to study the effects of environmental noise and was applied to 636 people living in 19 different areas of Hamburg. The theoretical foundations and the statistical means employed in its development are described. Four main reactions to noise are isolated statistically, and it is determined that these are moderated by several intervening variables, chief of which are coping capacity for noise, the perceived dangerousness of the noise souce, other daily loads and the individual's liability

Diamagnetic orbital response of mesoscopic silver rings

We report measurements of the flux-dependent orbital magnetic susceptibility of an ensemble of 10^5 disconnected silver rings at 217 MHz. Because of the strong spin-orbit scattering rate in silver this experiment is a test of existing theories on orbital magnetism. Below 100 mK the rings exhibit a magnetic signal with a flux periodicity of h/2 e consistent with averaged persistent currents, whose amplitude is estimated to be of the order of 0.3 nA. The sign of the oscillations indicates diamagnetism in the vicinity of zero magnetic field. This sign is not consistent with theoretical predictions for average persistent currents unless considering attractive interactions in silver. We propose an alternative interpretation taking into account spin orbit scattering and finite frequency.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, revtex4, accepted for publication in Physical Review Letter

Equivalence of stationary state ensembles

We show that the contact process in an ensemble with conserved total particle number, as simulated recently by Tome and de Oliveira [Phys. Rev. Lett. 86 (2001) 5463], is equivalent to the ordinary contact process, in agreement with what the authors assumed and believed. Similar conserved ensembles and equivalence proofs are easily constructed for other models.Comment: 5 pages, no figure

Complete phase diagram of the spin-1/2 J1J_{1}-J2J_{2}-J3J_{3} model (with J3=J2J_{3}=J_{2}) on the honeycomb lattice

We use the coupled cluster method to investigate the ground-state (GS) properties of the frustrated spin-1/2 $J_{1}$-$J_{2}$-$J_{3}$ model on the honeycomb lattice, with nearest-neighbor exchange coupling $J_1$ plus next-nearest-neighbor ($J_2$) and next-next-nearest-neighbor ($J_3$) exchanges of equal strength. In particular we find a direct first-order phase transition between the N\'eel-ordered antiferromagnetic phase and the ferromagnetic phase at a value $J_{2}/J_{1} = -1.17 \pm 0.01$ when $J_{1}>0$, compared to the corresponding classical value of -1. We find no evidence for any intermediate phase. From this and our previous CCM studies of the model we present its full zero-temperature GS phase diagram.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Coulomb corrections and multiple e+e- pair production in ultra-relativistic nuclear collisions

We consider the problem of Coulomb corrections to the inclusive cross section. We show that these corrections in the limiting case of small charge number of one of the nuclei coincide with those to the exclusive cross section. Within our approach we also obtain the Coulomb corrections for the case of large charge numbers of both nuclei.Comment: 7 pages, REVTeX