766 research outputs found
Micromegas detector developments for MIMAC
The aim of the MIMAC project is to detect non-baryonic Dark Matter with a
directional TPC. The recent Micromegas efforts towards building a large size
detector will be described, in particular the characterization measurements of
a prototype detector of 10 10 cm with a 2 dimensional readout
plane. Track reconstruction with alpha particles will be shown.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures Proceedings of the 3rd International conference on
Directional Detection of Dark Matter (CYGNUS 2011), Aussois, France, 8-10
June 2011; corrections on author affiliation
Orientation and Alignment Echoes
We present what is probably the simplest classical system featuring the echo
phenomenon - a collection of randomly oriented free rotors with dispersed
rotational velocities. Following excitation by a pair of time-delayed impulsive
kicks, the mean orientation/alignment of the ensemble exhibits multiple echoes
and fractional echoes. We elucidate the mechanism of the echo formation by
kick-induced filamentation of phase space, and provide the first experimental
demonstration of classical alignment echoes in a thermal gas of CO_2 molecules
excited by a pair of femtosecond laser pulses
Risk analysis to support operation and maintenance of an ageing dock-gate for the Port of Marseille Authority
The dry dock n°10 is a strategic infrastructure of the Port of Marseille Authority: its dimensions (465 x 85 m) place it among the biggest dry docks in Europe. Built in the seventies, it is isolated from the sea by a dock-gate in prestressed concrete. Faced to the ageing of this dock-gate, the Port of Marseille Authority wished to make the most of its knowledge in order to assess the feasibility of two considered operation scenarios: use the dry dock for ship repair or for building new civil engineering structures. In this context, OXAND and the Port of Marseille Authority worked together so as to obtain formal and objective decision-making indicators. These indicators took into account the different operation stakes of the dry dock (security, availability), the condition diagnosis and the ageing prognosis of components and facilities of the dock-gate, along with adapted maintenance actions and related costs. The risk analysis methodology used for this study allowed (1) to characterize the risks linked to each foreseen operation scenario, (2) to identify the most appropriate actions to control these risks, integrating operation constraints (e.g.: need to put the dock-gate in dry dock), (3) to rank these actions regarding their cost/benefit ratio and thus (4), to build a maintenance plan
Low energy electron/recoil discrimination for directional Dark Matter detection
Directional detection is a promising Dark Matter search strategy. Even though
it could accommodate to a sizeable background contamination, electron/recoil
discrimination remains a key and challenging issue as for direction-insensitive
detectors. The measurement of the 3D track may be used to discriminate
electrons from nuclear recoils. While a high rejection power is expected above
20 keV ionization, a dedicated data analysis is needed at low energy. After
identifying discriminant observables, a multivariate analysis, namely a Boosted
Decision Tree, is proposed, enabling an efficient event tagging for Dark Matter
search. We show that it allows us to optimize rejection while keeping a rather
high efficiency which is compulsory for rare event search.With respect to a
sequential analysis, the rejection is about 20 times higher with a multivariate
analysis, for the same Dark Matter exclusion limit.Comment: 20 pages, 20 figure
The BCS Functional for General Pair Interactions
The Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) functional has recently received renewed
attention as a description of fermionic gases interacting with local pairwise
interactions. We present here a rigorous analysis of the BCS functional for
general pair interaction potentials. For both zero and positive temperature, we
show that the existence of a non-trivial solution of the nonlinear BCS gap
equation is equivalent to the existence of a negative eigenvalue of a certain
linear operator. From this we conclude the existence of a critical temperature
below which the BCS pairing wave function does not vanish identically. For
attractive potentials, we prove that the critical temperature is non-zero and
exponentially small in the strength of the potential.Comment: Revised Version. To appear in Commun. Math. Phys
Discovering Optimal Imitation Strategies
This paper develops a general policy for learning relevant features of an imitation task. We restrict our study to imitation of manipulative tasks or of gestures. The imitation process is modeled as a hierarchical optimization system, which minimizes the discrepancy between two multi- dimensional datasets. To classify across manipulation strategies, we apply a probabilistic analysis to data in Cartesian and joint spaces. We determine a general metric that optimizes the policy of task reproduction, following strategy determination. The model successfully discovers strategies in six different imitative tasks and controls task reproduction by a full body humanoid robot
A fourfold coordinated point defect in silicon
Due to their technological importance, point defects in silicon are among the
best studied physical systems. The experimental examination of point defects
buried in bulk is difficult and evidence for the various defects usually
indirect. Simulations of defects in silicon have been performed at various
levels of sophistication ranging from fast force fields to accurate density
functional calculations. The generally accepted viewpoint from all these
studies is that vacancies and self interstitials are the basic point defects in
silicon. We challenge this point of view by presenting density functional
calculations that show that there is a new fourfold coordinated point defect in
silicon that is lower in energy
On embodied memetic evolution and the emergence of behavioural traditions in Robots
This paper describes ideas and initial experiments in embodied imitation using e-puck robots, developed as part of a project whose aim is to demonstrate the emergence of artificial culture in collective robot systems. Imitated behaviours (memes) will undergo variation because of the noise and heterogeneities of the robots and their sensors. Robots can select which memes to enact, and-because we have a multi-robot collective-memes are able to undergo multiple cycles of imitation, with inherited characteristics. We thus have the three evolutionary operators: variation, selection and inheritance, and-as we describe in this paper-experimental trials show that we are able to demonstrate embodied movement-meme evolution. © 2011 Springer-Verlag
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