Deployment/retraction ground testing of a large flexible solar array

The simulated zero-gravity ground testing of the flexible fold-up solar array consisting of eighty-four full-size panels (.368 m x .4 m each) is addressed. Automatic, hands-off extension, retraction, and lockup operations are included. Three methods of ground testing were investigated: (1) vertical testing; (2) horizontal testing, using an overhead water trough to support the panels; and (3) horizontal testing, using an overhead track in conjunction with a counterweight system to support the panels. Method 3 was selected as baseline. The wing/assembly vertical support structure, the five-tier overhead track, and the mast-element support track comprise the test structure. The flexible solar array wing assembly was successfully extended and retracted numerous times under simulated zero-gravity conditions

A Possible Resolution of the Black Hole Information Puzzle

The problem of information loss is considered under the assumption that the process of black hole evaporation terminates in the decay of the black hole interior into a baby universe. We show that such theories can be decomposed into superselection sectors labeled by eigenvalues of the third-quantized baby universe field operator, and that scattering is unitary within each superselection sector. This result relies crucially on the quantum-mechanical variability of the decay time. It is further argued that the decay rate in the black hole rest frame is necessarily proportional to $e^{-S_{tot}}$, where $S_{tot}$ is the total entropy produced during the evaporation process, entailing a very long-lived remnant.Comment: 15 pages, 3 uuencoded figures. Revised version contains some notational simplification

Progress toward the development of dual junction GaAs/Ge solar cells

Large area GaAs/Ge cells offer substantial promise for increasing the power output from existing silicon solar array designs and for providing an enabled technology for missions hitherto impossible using silicon. Single junction GaAs/Ge cells offer substantial advantages in both size, weight, and cost compared to GaAs cells but the efficiency is limited to approximately 19.2 to 20 percent AMO. The thermal absorptance of GaAs/Ge cells is also worse than GaAs/GaAs cells (0.88 vs 0.81 typ.) due to the absorption in the Ge substrate. On the other hand dual junction GaAs/Ge cells offer efficiencies up to ultimately 24 percent AMO in sizes up to 8 x 8 cm but there are still technological issues remaining to achieve current matching in the GaAs and Ge cells. This can be achieved through tuned antireflection (AR) coatings, improved quality of the GaAs growth, improved quality Ge wafers and the use of a Back Surface Field (BSF)/Back Surface Reflector (BSR) in the Ge cell. Although the temperature coefficients of efficiency and voltage are higher for dual junction GaAs/Ge cells, it has been shown elsewhere that for typical 28 C cell efficiencies of 22 percent (dual junction) vs 18.5 percent (single junction) there is a positive power tradeoff up to temperatures as high as 120 C. Due to the potential ease of fabrication of GaAs/Ge dual junction cells there is likely to be only a small cost differential compared to single junction cells

Topological Quantum Computing with p-Wave Superfluid Vortices

It is shown that Majorana fermions trapped in three vortices in a p-wave superfluid form a qubit in a topological quantum computing (TQC). Several similar ideas have already been proposed: Ivanov [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 86}, 268 (2001)] and Zhang {\it et al.} [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 99}, 220502 (2007)] have proposed schemes in which a qubit is implemented with two and four Majorana fermions, respectively, where a qubit operation is performed by exchanging the positions of Majorana fermions. The set of gates thus obtained is a discrete subset of the relevant unitary group. We propose, in this paper, a new scheme, where three Majorana fermions form a qubit. We show that continuous 1-qubit gate operations are possible by exchanging the positions of Majorana fermions complemented with dynamical phase change. 2-qubit gates are realized through the use of the coupling between Majorana fermions of different qubits.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures. Two-qubit gate implementation is added

On the gravitational production of superheavy dark matter

The dark matter in the universe can be in the form of a superheavy matter species (WIMPZILLA). Several mechanisms have been proposed for the production of WIMPZILLA particles during or immediately following the inflationary epoch. Perhaps the most attractive mechanism is through gravitational particle production, where particles are produced simply as a result of the expansion of the universe. In this paper we present a detailed numerical calculation of WIMPZILLA gravitational production in hybrid-inflation models and natural-inflation models. Generalizing these findings, we also explore the dependence of the gravitational production mechanism on various models of inflation. We show that superheavy dark matter production seems to be robust, with Omega_X h^2 ~ (M_X / (10^11 GeV))^2 (T_RH / (10^9 GeV)), so long as M_X < H_I, where M_X is the WIMPZILLA mass, T_RH is the reheat temperature, and H_I is the expansion rate of the universe during inflation.Comment: 26 pages, 7 figures; LaTeX; submitted to Physical Review D; minor typographical error correcte

Quintessential Kination and Leptogenesis

Thermal leptogenesis induced by the CP-violating decay of a right-handed neutrino (RHN) is discussed in the background of quintessential kination, i.e., in a cosmological model where the energy density of the early Universe is assumed to be dominated by the kinetic term of a quintessence field during some epoch of its evolution. This assumption may lead to very different observational consequences compared to the case of a standard cosmology where the energy density of the Universe is dominated by radiation. We show that, depending on the choice of the temperature T_r above which kination dominates over radiation, any situation between the strong and the super--weak wash--out regime are equally viable for leptogenesis, even with the RHN Yukawa coupling fixed to provide the observed atmospheric neutrino mass scale ~ 0.05 eV. For M< T_r < M/100, i.e., when kination stops to dominate at a time which is not much later than when leptogenesis takes place, the efficiency of the process, defined as the ratio between the produced lepton asymmetry and the amount of CP violation in the RHN decay, can be larger than in the standard scenario of radiation domination. This possibility is limited to the case when the neutrino mass scale is larger than about 0.01 eV. The super--weak wash--out regime is obtained for T_r << M/100, and includes the case when T_r is close to the nucleosynthesis temperature ~ 1 MeV. Irrespective of T_r, we always find a sufficient window above the electroweak temperature T ~ 100 GeV for the sphaleron transition to thermalize, so that the lepton asymmetry can always be converted to the observed baryon asymmetry.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figure

Indium segregation during III-V quantum wire and quantum dot formation on patterned substrates

We report a model for metalorganic vapor-phase epitaxy on non-planar substrates, specifically V-grooves and pyramidal recesses, which we apply to the growth of InGaAs nanostructures. This model, based on a set of coupled reaction-diffusion equations, one for each facet in the system, accounts for the facet-dependence of all kinetic processes (e.g., precursor decomposition, adatom diffusion, and adatom lifetimes) and has been previously applied to account for the temperature, concentration, and temporal-dependence of AlGaAs nanostructures on GaAs (111)B surfaces with V-grooves and pyramidal recesses. In the present study, the growth of In$_{0.12}$Ga$_{0.88}$As quantum wires at the bottom of V-grooves is used to determine a set of optimized kinetic parameters. Based on these parameters, we have modeled the growth of In$_{0.25}$Ga$_{0.75}$As nanostructures formed in pyramidal site-controlled quantum-dot systems, successfully producing a qualitative explanation for the temperature-dependence of their optical properties, which have been reported in previous studies. Finally, we present scanning electron and cross-sectional atomic force microscopy images which show previously unreported facetting at the bottom of the pyramidal recesses that allow quantum dot formation.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figure

Quantum criticality in Kondo quantum dot coupled to helical edge states of interacting 2D topological insulators

We investigate theoretically the quantum phase transition (QPT) between the one-channel Kondo (1CK) and two-channel Kondo (2CK) fixed points in a quantum dot coupled to helical edge states of interacting 2D topological insulators (2DTI) with Luttinger parameter $0<K<1$. The model has been studied in Ref. 21, and was mapped onto an anisotropic two-channel Kondo model via bosonization. For K<1, the strong coupling 2CK fixed point was argued to be stable for infinitesimally weak tunnelings between dot and the 2DTI based on a simple scaling dimensional analysis[21]. We re-examine this model beyond the bare scaling dimension analysis via a 1-loop renormalization group (RG) approach combined with bosonization and re-fermionization techniques near weak-coupling and strong-coupling (2CK) fixed points. We find for K -->1 that the 2CK fixed point can be unstable towards the 1CK fixed point and the system may undergo a quantum phase transition between 1CK and 2CK fixed points. The QPT in our model comes as a result of the combined Kondo and the helical Luttinger physics in 2DTI, and it serves as the first example of the 1CK-2CK QPT that is accessible by the controlled RG approach. We extract quantum critical and crossover behaviors from various thermodynamical quantities near the transition. Our results are robust against particle-hole asymmetry for 1/2<K<1.Comment: 17 pages, 9 figures, more details added, typos corrected, revised Sec. IV, V, Appendix A and