30,918 research outputs found
Quantum phase slip interference device based on superconducting nanowire
We propose a transistor-like circuit including two serially connected
segments of a narrow superconducting nanowire joint by a wider segment with a
capacitively coupled gate in between. This circuit is made of amorphous NbSi
film and embedded in a network of on-chip Cr microresistors ensuring a
sufficiently high external electromagnetic impedance. Assuming a virtual regime
of quantum phase slips (QPS)in two narrow segments of the wire, leading to
quantum interference of voltages on these segments, this circuit is dual to the
dc SQUID. Our samples demonstrated appreciable Coulomb blockade voltage (analog
of critical current of the SQUIDs) and periodic modulation of this blockade by
an electrostatic gate (analog of flux modulation in the SQUIDs). The model of
this QPS transistor is discussed.Comment: 5 pages including 3 figures; in v2 the title was updated, typos were
fixed and 4 references adde
An experimental investigation into the constant velocity water entry of wedge-shaped sections
Constant velocity water entry is important in understanding planing and slamming of marine vessels. A test rig has been developed that drives a wedge section with end plates down guides to enter the water vertically at near constant velocity. Entry force and velocity are measured. Analysis of the test data shows that the wetting factor is about 1.6 at low deadrise angles and reduces nearly linearly to 1.3 at 451 deadrise angle. The added mass increases quadratically with immersed depth until the chines become wetted. It then continues to increase at a reducing rate, reaching a maximum value between 20% and 80% greater than at chine immersion. The flow momentum drag coefficient is estimated from the results to be 0.78 at 51 deadrise angle reducing to 0.41 at 451 deadrise angles. Constant velocity exit tests show that the momentum of the added mass is expended in driving the water above the surface level and that exit forces are low and equivalent to a drag coefficient of about 1.0-1.3. Considerable dynamic noise limits the accuracy of the results, particularly after chine immersion
Normal metal - insulator - superconductor interferometer
Hybrid normal metal - insulator - superconductor microstructures suitable for
studying an interference of electrons were fabricated. The structures consist
of a superconducting loop connected to a normal metal electrode through a
tunnel barrier . An optical interferometer with a beam splitter can be
considered as a classical analogue for this system. All measurements were
performed at temperatures well below 1 K. The interference can be observed as
periodic oscillations of the tunnel current (voltage) through the junction at
fixed bias voltage (current) as a function of a perpendicular magnetic field.
The magnitude of the oscillations depends on the bias point. It reaches a
maximum at energy which is close to the superconducting gap and decreases
with an increase of temperature. Surprisingly, the period of the oscillations
in units of magnetic flux is equal neither to nor to
, but significantly exceeds these values for larger loop circumferences.
The origin of the phenomena is not clear.Comment: 11 pages and 8 figure
Entangling flux qubits with a bipolar dynamic inductance
We propose a scheme to implement variable coupling between two flux qubits
using the screening current response of a dc Superconducting QUantum
Interference Device (SQUID). The coupling strength is adjusted by the current
bias applied to the SQUID and can be varied continuously from positive to
negative values, allowing cancellation of the direct mutual inductance between
the qubits. We show that this variable coupling scheme permits efficient
realization of universal quantum logic. The same SQUID can be used to determine
the flux states of the qubits.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
XMM-Newton Observation of the Northwest Radio Relic Region in Abell 3667
Abell 3667 is the archetype of a merging cluster with radio relics. The NW
radio relic is the brightest cluster relic or halo known, and is believed to be
due to a strong merger shock. We have observed the NW relic for 40 ksec of net
XMM time. We observe a global decline of temperature across the relic from 6 to
1 keV, similar to the Suzaku results. Our new observations reveal a sharp
change of both temperature and surface brightness near the position of the
relic. The increased X-ray emission on the relic can be equivalently well
described by either a thermal or nonthermal spectral model. The parameters of
the thermal model are consistent with a Mach number M~2 shock and a shock speed
of ~1200 km s^-1. The energy content of the relativistic particles in the radio
relic can be explained if they are (re)-accelerated by the shock with an
efficiency of ~0.2%. Comparing the limit on the inverse Compton X-ray emission
with the measured radio synchrotron emission, we set a lower limit to the
magnetic field in the relic of 3 muG. If the emission from the relic is
non-thermal, this lower limit is in fact the required magnetic field.Comment: 11 pages, ApJ in pres
When images work faster than words: The integration of content-based image retrieval with the Northumbria Watermark Archive
Information on the manufacture, history, provenance, identification, care and conservation of paper-based artwork/objects is disparate and not always readily available. The Northumbria Watermark Archive will incorporate such material into a database, which will be made freely available on the Internet providing an invaluable resource for conservation, research and education. The efficiency of a database is highly dependant on its search mechanism. Text based mechanisms are frequently ineffective when a range of descriptive terminologies might be used i.e. when describing images or translating from foreign languages. In such cases a Content Based Image Retrieval (CBIR) system can be more effective. Watermarks provide paper with unique visual identification characteristics and have been used to provide a point of entry to the archive that is more efficient and effective than a text based search mechanism. The research carried out has the potential to be applied to any numerically large collection of images with distinctive features of colour, shape or texture i.e. coins, architectural features, picture frame profiles, hallmarks, Japanese artists stamps etc. Although the establishment of an electronic archive incorporating a CBIR system can undoubtedly improve access to large collections of images and related data, the development is rarely trouble free. This paper discusses some of the issues that must be considered i.e. collaboration between disciplines; project management; copying and digitising objects; content based image retrieval; the Northumbria Watermark Archive; the use of standardised terminology within a database as well as copyright issues
Observations of the Io plasma torus
The short wavelength spectrography on the IUE satellite was used to obtain spectra of the plasma torus near the orbit of Io about Jupiter. Three exposures of about 8 hours each taken in March and May 1979 show emission features due to SII, SIII, and OIII. The absence of features at other wavelengths permits upper limits to be other species in the torus
Observations of polar aurora on Jupiter
North-south spatial maps of Jupiter were obtained with the SWP camera in IUE observations of 10 December 1978, 19 May 1979, and 7 June 1979. Bright auroral emissions were detected from the north and south polar regions at H Ly alpha (1216 A) and in the H2 Lyman bands (1250-1608 A) on 19 May 1979; yet no enhanced polar emission was detected on the other days. The relationship between the IUE observing geometry and the geometry of the Jovian magnetosphere is discussed
Learning a Static Analyzer from Data
To be practically useful, modern static analyzers must precisely model the
effect of both, statements in the programming language as well as frameworks
used by the program under analysis. While important, manually addressing these
challenges is difficult for at least two reasons: (i) the effects on the
overall analysis can be non-trivial, and (ii) as the size and complexity of
modern libraries increase, so is the number of cases the analysis must handle.
In this paper we present a new, automated approach for creating static
analyzers: instead of manually providing the various inference rules of the
analyzer, the key idea is to learn these rules from a dataset of programs. Our
method consists of two ingredients: (i) a synthesis algorithm capable of
learning a candidate analyzer from a given dataset, and (ii) a counter-example
guided learning procedure which generates new programs beyond those in the
initial dataset, critical for discovering corner cases and ensuring the learned
analysis generalizes to unseen programs.
We implemented and instantiated our approach to the task of learning
JavaScript static analysis rules for a subset of points-to analysis and for
allocation sites analysis. These are challenging yet important problems that
have received significant research attention. We show that our approach is
effective: our system automatically discovered practical and useful inference
rules for many cases that are tricky to manually identify and are missed by
state-of-the-art, manually tuned analyzers
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