SETI science working group report

This report covers the initial activities and deliberations of a continuing working group asked to assist the SETI Program Office at NASA. Seven chapters present the group's consensus on objectives, strategies, and plans for instrumental R&D and for a microwave search for extraterrestrial in intelligence (SETI) projected for the end of this decade. Thirteen appendixes reflect the views of their individual authors. Included are discussions of the 8-million-channel spectrum analyzer architecture and the proof-of-concept device under development; signal detection, recognition, and identification on-line in the presence of noise and radio interference; the 1-10 GHz sky survey and the 1-3 GHz targeted search envisaged; and the mutual interests of SETI and radio astronomy. The report ends with a selective, annotated SETI reading list of pro and contra SETI publications

Restoring Rights to Rites: The Religious Motivation Test and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act

This Note argues that the religious motivation test best secures the religious liberty guaranteed by the Constitution and the RFRA. Part I examines the text and legislative history of the Act and establishes that Congress intended to protect religiously motivated practices. Part II argues that the free exercise case law prior to Smith, to which the RFRA explicitly appeals, did not require litigants to prove centrality or compulsion. Part III demonstrates that the religious motivation test protects the full spectrum of religious practices and religious groups, unlike the centrality test and the compulsion test. Part IV illustrates that the motivation test, unlike competing approaches, does not require courts to make judgments that exceed the bounds of their capacity and their authority. This Note concludes that a claimant who demonstrates a government infringement of a religiously motivated practice satisfies the substantial burden requirement of the RFRA

Time-resolved measurement of the local equivalence ratio in a gaseous propane injection process using laser-induced gratings

This paper was published in Optics Express and is made available as an electronic reprint with the permission of OSA. The paper can be found at the following URL on the OSA website: http://www.opticsinfobase.org/abstract.cfm?URI=oe-14-26-12994. Systematic or multiple reproduction or distribution to multiple locations via electronic or other means is prohibited and is subject to penalties under law.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

The Path Integral for 1+1-dimensional QCD

We derive a path integral expression for the transition amplitude in 1+1-dimensional QCD starting from canonically quantized QCD. Gauge fixing after quantization leads to a formulation in terms of gauge invariant but curvilinear variables. Remainders of the curved space are Jacobians, an effective potential, and sign factors just as for the problem of a particle in a box. Based on this result we derive a Faddeev-Popov like expression for the transition amplitude avoiding standard infinities that are caused by integrations over gauge equivalent configurations.Comment: 16 pages, LaTeX, 3 PostScript figures, uses epsf.st

Polaron Transport in the Paramagnetic Phase of Electron-Doped Manganites

The electrical resistivity, Hall coefficient, and thermopower as functions of temperature are reported for lightly electron-doped Ca(1-x)La(x)MnO(3)(0 <= x <= 0.10). Unlike the case of hole-doped ferromagnetic manganites, the magnitude and temperature dependence of the Hall mobility for these compounds is found to be inconsistent with small-polaron theory. The transport data are better described by the Feynman polaron theory and imply intermediate coupling (alpha \~ 5.4) with a band effective mass, m*~4.3 m_0, and a polaron mass, m_p ~ 10 m_0.Comment: 7 pp., 7 Fig.s, to be published, PR

Vafa-Witten Estimates for Compact Symmetric Spaces

We give an optimal upper bound for the first eigenvalue of the untwisted Dirac operator on a compact symmetric space G/H with rk G-rk H\le 1 with respect to arbitrary Riemannian metrics. We also prove a rigidity statement.Comment: LaTeX, 11 pages. V2: Rigidity statement added, minor changes. To appea