12,193 research outputs found
Optimizing photon indistinguishability in the emission from incoherently-excited semiconductor quantum dots
Most optical quantum devices require deterministic single-photon emitters.
Schemes so far demonstrated in the solid state imply an energy relaxation which
tends to spoil the coherent nature of the time evolution, and with it the
photon indistinguishability. We focus our theoretical investigation on
semiconductor quantum dots embedded in microcavities. Simple and general
relations are identified between the photon indistinguishability and the
collection efficiency. The identification of the key parameters and of their
interplay provides clear indications for the device optimization
Physical fitness and prior physical activity are both associated with less cortisol secretion during psychosocial stress
Background: Evidence linking fitness and decreased psychosocial stress comes from studies of athletes and typically relies upon self-report measures. Furthermore, there is little evidence regarding the impact of physical activity (PA) prior to a stressor. The aims of this study were to determine whether fitness and prior PA influence cortisol concentrations during psychosocial stress.
Methods: Seventy-five non-athletic participants took part in a submaximal walk prior to the Trier Social Stress Test for Groups (TSST-G). During the walk, fitness was assessed using heart rate (HR). A further 89 participants took part in the TSST-G without the walk. Stress responsiveness was assessed using salivary cortisol collected at 10-min intervals on seven occasions.
Results: Hierarchical multiple regression revealed that average walking HR accounted for 9% of the variance in cortisol secretion (P = .016), where a higher HR was associated with higher cortisol secretion. Between-subjects ANCOVA revealed that the walking group had a significantly lower cortisol secretion than the non-walking group (P = .009).
Conclusions: These findings indicate that fitter individuals have reduced cortisol secretion during psychosocial stress. They also indicate that prior PA can reduce cortisol concentrations during psychosocial stress and are suggestive of a role of PA in reducing the impact of stress on health
Stability of Filters for the Navier-Stokes Equation
Data assimilation methodologies are designed to incorporate noisy
observations of a physical system into an underlying model in order to infer
the properties of the state of the system. Filters refer to a class of data
assimilation algorithms designed to update the estimation of the state in a
on-line fashion, as data is acquired sequentially. For linear problems subject
to Gaussian noise filtering can be performed exactly using the Kalman filter.
For nonlinear systems it can be approximated in a systematic way by particle
filters. However in high dimensions these particle filtering methods can break
down. Hence, for the large nonlinear systems arising in applications such as
weather forecasting, various ad hoc filters are used, mostly based on making
Gaussian approximations. The purpose of this work is to study the properties of
these ad hoc filters, working in the context of the 2D incompressible
Navier-Stokes equation. By working in this infinite dimensional setting we
provide an analysis which is useful for understanding high dimensional
filtering, and is robust to mesh-refinement. We describe theoretical results
showing that, in the small observational noise limit, the filters can be tuned
to accurately track the signal itself (filter stability), provided the system
is observed in a sufficiently large low dimensional space; roughly speaking
this space should be large enough to contain the unstable modes of the
linearized dynamics. Numerical results are given which illustrate the theory.
In a simplified scenario we also derive, and study numerically, a stochastic
PDE which determines filter stability in the limit of frequent observations,
subject to large observational noise. The positive results herein concerning
filter stability complement recent numerical studies which demonstrate that the
ad hoc filters perform poorly in reproducing statistical variation about the
true signal
Development of a new machine system for the forming of micro-sheet-products
Most of the developed micro-forming machines were based on standalone concepts which do not support efficient integration to make them fully automated and integrated. At present, material feeding in micro-forming is not of sufficient precision and reliability for high throughput manufacturing applications. Precise feeding is necessary to ensure that micro-parts can be produced with sufficient accuracy, especially in multi-stage forming, while high-speed feeding is a must to meet the production-rate requirements. Therefore, design of a new high-precision and high-speed feeder for micro-forming is proposed. Several possible approaches are examined with a view to establishing feasible concepts. Based on the investigation, several concepts for thin sheet-metal feeding for micro-forming are generated, they being argued and assessed with applicable loads and forces analysis. These form a basis of designing a new feeder
Dynamic depletion in a Bose condensate via a sudden increase of the scattering length
We examine the time-dependent quantum depletion of a trapped Bose condensate
arising from a rapid increase of the scattering length. Our solution indicates
that a significant buildup of incoherent atoms can occur within a
characteristic time short compared with the harmonic trap period. We discuss
how the depletion density and the characteristic time depend on the physical
parameters of the condensate
Nonthermal Emission from the Arches Cluster (G0.121+0.017) and the Origin of -ray Emission from 3EG J1746-2851
High resolution VLA observations of the Arches cluster near the Galactic
center show evidence of continuum emission at 3.6, 6, 20 and 90cm. The
continuum emission at 90cm is particularly striking because thermal
sources generally become optically thick at longer wavelengths and fall off in
brightness whereas non-thermal sources increase in brightness. It is argued
that the radio emission from this unique source has compact and diffuse
components produced by thermal and nonthermal processes, respectively. Compact
sources within the cluster arise from stellar winds of mass-losing stars (Lang,
Goss & Rodriguez 2001a) whereas diffuse emission is likely to be due to
colliding wind shocks of the cluster flow generating relativistic particles due
to diffuse shock acceleration. We also discuss the possibility that
-ray emission from 3EG J1746--2851, located within 3.3 of the Arches
cluster, results from the inverse Compton scattering of the radiation field of
the cluster.Comment: 15 pages, four figures, ApJL (in press
High speed quantum gates with cavity quantum electrodynamics
Cavity quantum electrodynamic schemes for quantum gates are amongst the
earliest quantum computing proposals. Despite continued progress, and the
dramatic recent demonstration of photon blockade, there are still issues with
optimal coupling and gate operation involving high-quality cavities. Here we
show dynamic control techniques that allow scalable cavity-QED based quantum
gates, that use the full bandwidth of the cavities. When applied to quantum
gates, these techniques allow an order of magnitude increase in operating
speed, and two orders of magnitude reduction in cavity Q, over passive
cavity-QED architectures. Our methods exploit Stark shift based Q-switching,
and are ideally suited to solid-state integrated optical approaches to quantum
computing.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, minor revision
The cortisol awakening response predicts a same-day index of executive function in healthy young adults
The cortisol awakening response (CAR) is associated with various aspects of cognition, including executive function, in older adult and clinical samples. However, the association between these variables in the healthy functioning population is not well understood due to the limited number of appropriately controlled studies. This study explored the association between the CAR and a set shifting index of executive function in 55 (44 females) healthy participants aged 20.2 ± 3.0 years. Notoriously, assessment of the CAR from self-collected saliva samples within the domestic setting is subject to sample timing error, so electronic monitoring of both awakening and sampling times were employed. Participants attended the laboratory in the afternoon of CAR assessment for testing on the Attention Switching Task of the CANTAB neuropsychological testing battery. A positive association was found between CAR magnitude and attention-switching performance in the afternoon of the same day. This was independent of known relevant CAR covariates, but only evident in CAR data collected without delay exceeding 8 min post-awakening. These findings offer insight into a potential role for the CAR in modulating cognitive functions associated with the pre-frontal cortex
Electromagnetic Leptogenesis
We present a new leptogenesis scenario, where the lepton asymmetry is
generated by CP violating decays of heavy electroweak singlet neutrinos via
electromagnetic dipole moment couplings to the ordinary light neutrinos. Akin
to the usual scenario where the decays are mediated through Yukawa
interactions, we have shown, by explicit calculations, that the desired
asymmetry can be produced through the interference of the corresponding
tree-level and one-loop decay amplitudes involving the effective dipole moment
operators. We also find that the relationship of the leptogenesis scale to the
light neutrino masses is similar to that for the standard Yukawa-mediated
mechanism.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures; v2: some references added, minor change to
discussion, accepted by PR
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