969 research outputs found
Peculiarities of sub-barrier fusion with quantum diffusion approach
With the quantum diffusion approach the unexpected behavior of fusion cross
section, angular momentum, and astrophysical S-factor at sub-barrier energies
has been revealed. Out of the region of short-range nuclear interaction and
action of friction at turning point the decrease rate of the cross section
under the barrier becomes smaller. The calculated results for the reactions
with spherical nuclei are in a good agreement with the existing experimental
data.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure
Measuring CMB Polarization with BOOMERANG
BOOMERANG is a balloon-borne telescope designed for long duration (LDB)
flights around Antarctica. The second LDB Flight of BOOMERANG took place in
January 2003. The primary goal of this flight was to measure the polarization
of the CMB. The receiver uses polarization sensitive bolometers at 145 GHz.
Polarizing grids provide polarization sensitivity at 245 and 345 GHz. We
describe the BOOMERANG telescope noting changes made for 2003 LDB flight, and
discuss some of the issues involved in the measurement of polarization with
bolometers. Lastly, we report on the 2003 flight and provide an estimate of the
expected results.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures, To be published in the proceedings of "The
Cosmic Microwave Background and its Polarization", New Astronomy Reviews,
(eds. S. Hanany and K.A. Olive). Fixed typos, and reformatted citation
SPIDER: Probing the Early Universe with a Suborbital Polarimeter
We evaluate the ability of SPIDER, a balloon-borne polarimeter, to detect a
divergence-free polarization pattern ("B-modes") in the Cosmic Microwave
Background (CMB). In the inflationary scenario, the amplitude of this signal is
proportional to that of the primordial scalar perturbations through the
tensor-to-scalar ratio r. We show that the expected level of systematic error
in the SPIDER instrument is significantly below the amplitude of an interesting
cosmological signal with r=0.03. We present a scanning strategy that enables us
to minimize uncertainty in the reconstruction of the Stokes parameters used to
characterize the CMB, while accessing a relatively wide range of angular
scales. Evaluating the amplitude of the polarized Galactic emission in the
SPIDER field, we conclude that the polarized emission from interstellar dust is
as bright or brighter than the cosmological signal at all SPIDER frequencies
(90 GHz, 150 GHz, and 280 GHz), a situation similar to that found in the
"Southern Hole." We show that two ~20-day flights of the SPIDER instrument can
constrain the amplitude of the B-mode signal to r<0.03 (99% CL) even when
foreground contamination is taken into account. In the absence of foregrounds,
the same limit can be reached after one 20-day flight.Comment: 29 pages, 8 figures, 4 tables; v2: matches published version, flight
schedule updated, two typos fixed in Table 2, references and minor
clarifications added, results unchange
Palaeontology, the biogeohistory of Victoria
The broad-scale distribution of fossils within Victoria is controlled by general global patterns in the biological evolution of life on Earth, the local development and environmental evolution of habitats, and the occurrence of geological processes conducive to the preservation of fossil floras and faunas. Early Palaeozoic fossils are mostly marine in origin because of the predominance of marine sedimentary rocks in Victoria and because life on land was not significant during most of this time interval. Middle Palaeozoic sequences have both terrestrial and marine fossil records. Within Victoria, marine rocks are only very minor components of strata deposited during the late Palaeozoic, so that few marine fossils are known from this time period. A similar situation existed during most of the Mesozoic except towards the end of this era when marine conditions began to prevail in the Bass Strait region. During long intervals in the Cainozoic, large areas of Victoria were flooded by shallow-marine seas, particularly in the southern basins of Bass Strait, as well as in the northwest of the State (Murray Basin). Cainozoic sediments contain an extraordinary range of animal and plant fossils. During the Quaternary, the landscape of Victoria became, and continues to be, dominated by continental environments including, at times, extensive freshwater lake systems. Fossil floras and faunas from sediments deposited in these lake systems and from other continental sediments, as well as from Quaternary sediments deposited in marginal marine environments, collectively record a history of rapid fluctuations in climate and sea level.<br /
Branch-and-lift algorithm for deterministic global optimization in nonlinear optimal control
This paper presents a branch-and-lift algorithm for solving optimal control problems with smooth nonlinear dynamics and potentially nonconvex objective and constraint functionals to guaranteed global optimality. This algorithm features a direct sequential method and builds upon a generic, spatial branch-and-bound algorithm. A new operation, called lifting, is introduced, which refines the control parameterization via a Gram-Schmidt orthogonalization process, while simultaneously eliminating control subregions that are either infeasible or that provably cannot contain any global optima. Conditions are given under which the image of the control parameterization error in the state space contracts exponentially as the parameterization order is increased, thereby making the lifting operation efficient. A computational technique based on ellipsoidal calculus is also developed that satisfies these conditions. The practical applicability of branch-and-lift is illustrated in a numerical example. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York
Wetting films on chemically heterogeneous substrates
Based on a microscopic density functional theory we investigate the
morphology of thin liquidlike wetting films adsorbed on substrates endowed with
well-defined chemical heterogeneities. As paradigmatic cases we focus on a
single chemical step and on a single stripe. In view of applications in
microfluidics the accuracy of guiding liquids by chemical microchannels is
discussed. Finally we give a general prescription of how to investigate
theoretically the wetting properties of substrates with arbitrary chemical
structures.Comment: 56 pages, RevTeX, 20 Figure
First Results from the Arcminute Cosmology Bolometer Array Receiver
We review the first science results from the Arcminute Cosmology Bolometer
Array Receiver (ACBAR); a multifrequency millimeter-wave receiver optimized for
observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) and the
Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect in clusters of galaxies. ACBAR was installed on
the 2 m Viper telescope at the South Pole in January 2001 and the results
presented here incorporate data through July 2002. We present the power
spectrum of the CMB at 150 GHz over the range \ell = 150 - 3000 measured by
ACBAR as well as estimates for the values of the cosmological parameters within
the context of Lambda-CDM models. We find that the inclusion of Omega_Lambda
greatly improves the fit to the power spectrum. We also observe a slight excess
of small-scale anisotropy at 150 GHz; if interpreted as power from the SZ
effect of unresolved clusters, the measured signal is consistent with CBI and
BIMA within the context of the SZ power spectrum models tested.Comment: To be published in the proceedings of "The Cosmic Microwave
Background and its Polarization", New Astronomy Reviews, (eds. S. Hanany and
K.A. Olive). 10 pages, 2 figure
Carrier relaxation, pseudogap, and superconducting gap in high-Tc cuprates: A Raman scattering study
We describe results of electronic Raman-scattering experiments in differently
doped single crystals of Y-123 and Bi-2212. The comparison of AF insulating and
metallic samples suggests that at least the low-energy part of the spectra
originates predominantly from excitations of free carriers. We therefore
propose an analysis of the data in terms of a memory function approach.
Dynamical scattering rates and mass-enhancement factors for the carriers are
obtained. In B2g symmetry the Raman data compare well to the results obtained
from ordinary and optical transport. For underdoped materials the dc scattering
rates in B1g symmetry become temperature independent and considerably larger
than in B2g symmetry. This increasing anisotropy is accompanied by a loss of
spectral weight in B2g symmetry in the range between the superconducting
transition at Tc and a characteristic temperature T* of order room temperature
which compares well with the pseudogap temperature found in other experiments.
The energy range affected by the pseudogap is doping and temperature
independent. The integrated spectral loss is approximately 25% in underdoped
samples and becomes much weaker towards higher carrier concentration. In
underdoped samples, superconductivity related features in the spectra can be
observed only in B2g symmetry. The peak frequencies scale with Tc. We do not
find a direct relation between the pseudogap and the superconducting gap.Comment: RevTeX, 21 pages, 24 gif figures. For PostScript with embedded eps
figures, see http://www.wmi.badw-muenchen.de/~opel/k2.htm
Inflation Physics from the Cosmic Microwave Background and Large Scale Structure
Fluctuations in the intensity and polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and the large-scale distribution of matter in the universe each contain clues about the nature of the earliest moments of time. The next generation of CMB and large-scale structure (LSS) experiments are poised to test the leading paradigm for these earliest moments---the theory of cosmic inflation---and to detect the imprints of the inflationary epoch, thereby dramatically increasing our understanding of fundamental physics and the early universe. A future CMB experiment with sufficient angular resolution and frequency coverage that surveys at least 1 of the sky to a depth of 1 uK-arcmin can deliver a constraint on the tensor-to-scalar ratio that will either result in a 5-sigma measurement of the energy scale of inflation or rule out all large-field inflation models, even in the presence of foregrounds and the gravitational lensing B-mode signal. LSS experiments, particularly spectroscopic surveys such as the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument, will complement the CMB effort by improving current constraints on running of the spectral index by up to a factor of four, improving constraints on curvature by a factor of ten, and providing non-Gaussianity constraints that are competitive with the current CMB bounds
A measurement of the tau mass and the first CPT test with tau leptons
We measure the mass of the tau lepton to be 1775.1+-1.6(stat)+-1.0(syst.) MeV
using tau pairs from Z0 decays. To test CPT invariance we compare the masses of
the positively and negatively charged tau leptons. The relative mass difference
is found to be smaller than 3.0 10^-3 at the 90% confidence level.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, Submitted to Phys. Letts.
- …