75 research outputs found
Scalable Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning for Warehouse Logistics with Robotic and Human Co-Workers
We envision a warehouse in which dozens of mobile robots and human pickers
work together to collect and deliver items within the warehouse. The
fundamental problem we tackle, called the order-picking problem, is how these
worker agents must coordinate their movement and actions in the warehouse to
maximise performance (e.g. order throughput). Established industry methods
using heuristic approaches require large engineering efforts to optimise for
innately variable warehouse configurations. In contrast, multi-agent
reinforcement learning (MARL) can be flexibly applied to diverse warehouse
configurations (e.g. size, layout, number/types of workers, item replenishment
frequency), as the agents learn through experience how to optimally cooperate
with one another. We develop hierarchical MARL algorithms in which a manager
assigns goals to worker agents, and the policies of the manager and workers are
co-trained toward maximising a global objective (e.g. pick rate). Our
hierarchical algorithms achieve significant gains in sample efficiency and
overall pick rates over baseline MARL algorithms in diverse warehouse
configurations, and substantially outperform two established industry
heuristics for order-picking systems
Atomic Dark Matter
We propose that dark matter is dominantly comprised of atomic bound states.
We build a simple model and map the parameter space that results in the early
universe formation of hydrogen-like dark atoms. We find that atomic dark matter
has interesting implications for cosmology as well as direct detection:
Protohalo formation can be suppressed below for weak scale dark matter due to Ion-Radiation interactions in the
dark sector. Moreover, weak-scale dark atoms can accommodate hyperfine
splittings of order 100 \kev, consistent with the inelastic dark matter
interpretation of the DAMA data while naturally evading direct detection
bounds.Comment: 17 pages, 3 figure
Dark matter search in a Beam-Dump eXperiment (BDX) at Jefferson Lab
MeV-GeV dark matter (DM) is theoretically well motivated but remarkably
unexplored. This Letter of Intent presents the MeV-GeV DM discovery potential
for a 1 m segmented plastic scintillator detector placed downstream of the
beam-dump at one of the high intensity JLab experimental Halls, receiving up to
10 electrons-on-target (EOT) in a one-year period. This experiment
(Beam-Dump eXperiment or BDX) is sensitive to DM-nucleon elastic scattering at
the level of a thousand counts per year, with very low threshold recoil
energies (1 MeV), and limited only by reducible cosmogenic backgrounds.
Sensitivity to DM-electron elastic scattering and/or inelastic DM would be
below 10 counts per year after requiring all electromagnetic showers in the
detector to exceed a few-hundred MeV, which dramatically reduces or altogether
eliminates all backgrounds. Detailed Monte Carlo simulations are in progress to
finalize the detector design and experimental set up. An existing 0.036 m
prototype based on the same technology will be used to validate simulations
with background rate estimates, driving the necessary RD towards an
optimized detector. The final detector design and experimental set up will be
presented in a full proposal to be submitted to the next JLab PAC. A fully
realized experiment would be sensitive to large regions of DM parameter space,
exceeding the discovery potential of existing and planned experiments by two
orders of magnitude in the MeV-GeV DM mass range.Comment: 28 pages, 17 figures, submitted to JLab PAC 4
MFV Reductions of MSSM Parameter Space
The 100+ free parameters of the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM)
make it computationally difficult to compare systematically with data,
motivating the study of specific parameter reductions such as the cMSSM and
pMSSM. Here we instead study the reductions of parameter space implied by using
minimal flavour violation (MFV) to organise the R-parity conserving MSSM, with
a view towards systematically building in constraints on flavour-violating
physics. Within this framework the space of parameters is reduced by expanding
soft supersymmetry-breaking terms in powers of the Cabibbo angle, leading to a
24-, 30- or 42-parameter framework (which we call MSSM-24, MSSM-30, and MSSM-42
respectively), depending on the order kept in the expansion. We provide a
Bayesian global fit to data of the MSSM-30 parameter set to show that this is
manageable with current tools. We compare the MFV reductions to the
19-parameter pMSSM choice and show that the pMSSM is not contained as a subset.
The MSSM-30 analysis favours a relatively lighter TeV-scale pseudoscalar Higgs
boson and with multi-TeV sparticles.Comment: 2nd version, minor comments and references added, accepted for
publication in JHE
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