The Physical State of the Intergalactic Medium or Can We Measure Y?

We present an argument for a {\it lower limit} to the Compton-$y$ parameter describing spectral distortions of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). The absence of a detectable Gunn-Peterson signal in the spectra of high redshift quasars demands a high ionization state of the intergalactic medium (IGM). Given an ionizing flux at the lower end of the range indicated by the proximity effect, an IGM representing a significant fraction of the nucleosynthesis-predicted baryon density must be heated by sources other than the photon flux to a temperature \go {\rm few} \times 10^5\, K. Such a gas at the redshift of the highest observed quasars, $z\sim 5$, will produce a y\go 10^{-6}. This lower limit on $y$ rises if the Universe is open, if there is a cosmological constant, or if one adopts an IGM with a density larger than the prediction of standard Big Bang nucleosynthesis.Comment: Proceedings of `Unveiling the Cosmic Infrared Background', April 23-25, 1995, Maryland. Self-unpacking uuencoded, compressed tar file with two figures include

Wind-tunnel investigation of basic aerodynamic characteristics of a supercritical-wing research airplane configuration

Transonic pressure tunnel and transonic tunnel tests were performed to determine the aerodynamic characteristics of a 0.087 scale model of a supercritical wing research airplane configuration at Mach numbers from 0.25 to 1.30. The investigation included tests to determine the basic longitudinal aerodynamic characteristics, the lateral-directional aerodynamic characteristics for sideslip angles of 0 deg and + or - 2.5 deg, and the effects of Reynolds number and aeroelasticity

The NASA supercritical-wing technology

A number of high aspect ratio supercritical wings in combination with a representative wide body type fuselage were tested in the Langley 8 foot transonic pressure tunnel. The wing parameters investigated include aspect ratio, sweep, thickness to chord ratio, and camber. Subsequent to these initial series of tests, a particular wing configuration was selected for further study and development. Tests on the selected wing involved the incorporation of a larger inboard trailing edge extension, an inboard leading edge extension, and flow through nacelles. Range factors for the various supercritical wing configurations are compared with those for a reference wide body transport configuration

Design and development of techniques for fabrication of cryogenic tank support structures for long term storage in space flights Final report

Design optimization and fabrication of conical support structure for cryogenic tank in long duration space fligh

A simple nearest-neighbor two-body Hamiltonian system for which the ground state is a universal resource for quantum computation

We present a simple quantum many-body system - a two-dimensional lattice of qubits with a Hamiltonian composed of nearest-neighbor two-body interactions - such that the ground state is a universal resource for quantum computation using single-qubit measurements. This ground state approximates a cluster state that is encoded into a larger number of physical qubits. The Hamiltonian we use is motivated by the projected entangled pair states, which provide a transparent mechanism to produce such approximate encoded cluster states on square or other lattice structures (as well as a variety of other quantum states) as the ground state. We show that the error in this approximation takes the form of independent errors on bonds occurring with a fixed probability. The energy gap of such a system, which in part determines its usefulness for quantum computation, is shown to be independent of the size of the lattice. In addition, we show that the scaling of this energy gap in terms of the coupling constants of the Hamiltonian is directly determined by the lattice geometry. As a result, the approximate encoded cluster state obtained on a hexagonal lattice (a resource that is also universal for quantum computation) can be shown to have a larger energy gap than one on a square lattice with an equivalent Hamiltonian.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure; v2 has a simplified lattice, an extended analysis of errors, and some additional references; v3 published versio

Quantum Teleportation of Optical Quantum Gates

We show that a universal set of gates for quantum computation with optics can be quantum teleported through the use of EPR entangled states, homodyne detection, and linear optics and squeezing operations conditioned on measurement outcomes. This scheme may be used for fault-tolerant quantum computation in any optical scheme (qubit or continuous variable). The teleportation of nondeterministic nonlinear gates employed in linear optics quantum computation is discussed.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, published versio