Enhanced collimated GeV monoenergetic ion acceleration from a shaped foil target irradiated by a circularly polarized laser pulse

Using multi-dimensional particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations we study ion acceleration from a foil irradiated by a circularly polarized laser pulse at 1022W/cm^2 intensity. When the foil is shaped initially in the transverse direction to match the laser intensity profile, the center part of the target can be uniformly accelerated for a longer time compared to a usual flat target. Target deformation and undesirable plasma heating are effectively suppressed. The final energy spectrum of the accelerated ion beam is improved dramatically. Collimated GeV quasi-mono-energetic ion beams carrying as much as 18% of the laser energy are observed in multi-dimensional simulations. Radiation damping effects are also checked in the simulations.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Flowers, leaves or both? How to obtain suitable images for automated plant identification

Background: Deep learning algorithms for automated plant identification need large quantities of precisely labelled images in order to produce reliable classification results. Here, we explore what kind of perspectives and their combinations contain more characteristic information and therefore allow for higher identification accuracy. Results: We developed an image-capturing scheme to create observations of flowering plants. Each observation comprises five in-situ images of the same individual from predefined perspectives (entire plant, flower frontal- and lateral view, leaf top- and back side view). We collected a completely balanced dataset comprising 100 observations for each of 101 species with an emphasis on groups of conspecific and visually similar species including twelve Poaceae species. We used this dataset to train convolutional neural networks and determine the prediction accuracy for each single perspective and their combinations via score level fusion. Top-1 accuracies ranged between 77% (entire plant) and 97% (fusion of all perspectives) when averaged across species. Flower frontal view achieved the highest accuracy (88%). Fusing flower frontal, flower lateral and leaf top views yields the most reasonable compromise with respect to acquisition effort and accuracy (96%). The perspective achieving the highest accuracy was species dependent. Conclusions: We argue that image databases of herbaceous plants would benefit from multi organ observations, comprising at least the front and lateral perspective of flowers and the leaf top view

Nonsingular density profiles of dark matter halos and Strong gravitational lensing

We use the statistics of strong gravitational lenses to investigate whether mass profiles with a flat density core are supported. The probability for lensing by halos modeled by a nonsingular truncated isothermal sphere (NTIS) with image separations greater than a certain value (ranging from zero to ten arcseconds) is calculated. NTIS is an analytical model for the postcollapse equilibrium structure of virialized objects derived by Shapiro, Iliev & Raga. This profile has a soft core and matches quite well with the mass profiles of dark matter-dominated dwarf galaxies deduced from their observed rotation curves. It also agrees well with the NFW (Navarro-Frenk-White) profile at all radii outside of a few NTIS core radii. Unfortunately, comparing the results with those for singular lensing halos (NFW and SIS+NFW) and strong lensing observations, the probabilities for lensing by NTIS halos are far too low. As this result is valid for any other nonsingular density profiles (with a large core radius), we conclude that nonsingular density profiles (with a large core radius) for CDM halos are ruled out by statistics of strong gravitational lenses.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures, ApJ accepted. Final version matches the proofs. A curve in figure 2 is corrected, conclusions unchange

Advection Dominated Accretion Flows Around Kerr Black Holes

We derive all relevant equations needed for constructing a global general relativistic model of advectively cooled, very hot, optically thin accretion disks around black holes and present solutions which describe advection dominated flows in the gravitational field of a Kerr black hole.Comment: ApJ submitte

A model of a dual-core matter-wave soliton laser

We propose a system which can generate a periodic array of solitary-wave pulses from a finite reservoir of coherent Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). The system is built as a set of two parallel quasi-one-dimensional traps (the reservoir proper and a pulse-generating cavity), which are linearly coupled by the tunneling of atoms. The scattering length is tuned to be negative and small in the absolute value in the cavity, and still smaller but positive in the reservoir. Additionally, a parabolic potential profile is created around the center of the cavity. Both edges of the reservoir and one edge of the cavity are impenetrable. Solitons are released through the other cavity's edge, which is semi-transparent. Two different regimes of the intrinsic operation of the laser are identified: circulations of a narrow wave-function pulse in the cavity, and oscillations of a broad standing pulse. The latter regime is stable, readily providing for the generation of an array containing up to 10,000 permanent-shape pulses. The circulation regime provides for no more than 40 cycles, and then it transforms into the oscillation mode. The dependence of the dynamical regime on parameters of the system is investigated in detail.Comment: Journal of Physics B, in pres

Surface Roughness Dominated Pinning Mechanism of Magnetic Vortices in Soft Ferromagnetic Films

Although pinning of domain walls in ferromagnets is ubiquitous, the absence of an appropriate characterization tool has limited the ability to correlate the physical and magnetic microstructures of ferromagnetic films with specific pinning mechanisms. Here, we show that the pinning of a magnetic vortex, the simplest possible domain structure in soft ferromagnets, is strongly correlated with surface roughness, and we make a quantitative comparison of the pinning energy and spatial range in films of various thickness. The results demonstrate that thickness fluctuations on the lateral length scale of the vortex core diameter, i.e. an effective roughness at a specific length scale, provides the dominant pinning mechanism. We argue that this mechanism will be important in virtually any soft ferromagnetic film.Comment: 4 figure

Characterization of nanometer-sized, mechanically exfoliated graphene on the H-passivated Si(100) surface using scanning tunnelling microscopy

We have developed a method for depositing graphene monolayers and bilayers with minimum lateral dimensions of 2-10 nm by the mechanical exfoliation of graphite onto the Si(100)-2x1:H surface. Room temperature, ultra-high vacuum (UHV) tunnelling spectroscopy measurements of nanometer-sized single-layer graphene reveal a size dependent energy gap ranging from 0.1-1 eV. Furthermore, the number of graphene layers can be directly determined from scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM) topographic contours. This atomistic study provides an experimental basis for probing the electronic structure of nanometer-sized graphene which can assist the development of graphene-based nanoelectronics.Comment: Accepted for publication in Nanotechnolog

Using Sensor Metadata Streams to Identify Topics of Local Events in the City

In this paper, we study the emerging Information Retrieval (IR) task of local event retrieval using sensor metadata streams. Sensor metadata streams include information such as the crowd density from video processing, audio classifications, and social media activity. We propose to use these metadata streams to identify the topics of local events within a city, where each event topic corresponds to a set of terms representing a type of events such as a concert or a protest. We develop a supervised approach that is capable of mapping sensor metadata observations to an event topic. In addition to using a variety of sensor metadata observations about the current status of the environment as learning features, our approach incorporates additional background features to model cyclic event patterns. Through experimentation with data collected from two locations in a major Spanish city, we show that our approach markedly outperforms an alternative baseline. We also show that modelling background information improves event topic identification