26,512 research outputs found
Statistical Modelling of Information Sharing: Community, Membership and Content
File-sharing systems, like many online and traditional information sharing
communities (e.g. newsgroups, BBS, forums, interest clubs), are dynamical
systems in nature. As peers get in and out of the system, the information
content made available by the prevailing membership varies continually in
amount as well as composition, which in turn affects all peers' join/leave
decisions. As a result, the dynamics of membership and information content are
strongly coupled, suggesting interesting issues about growth, sustenance and
stability.
In this paper, we propose to study such communities with a simple statistical
model of an information sharing club. Carrying their private payloads of
information goods as potential supply to the club, peers join or leave on the
basis of whether the information they demand is currently available.
Information goods are chunked and typed, as in a file sharing system where
peers contribute different files, or a forum where messages are grouped by
topics or threads. Peers' demand and supply are then characterized by
statistical distributions over the type domain.
This model reveals interesting critical behaviour with multiple equilibria. A
sharp growth threshold is derived: the club may grow towards a sustainable
equilibrium only if the value of an order parameter is above the threshold, or
shrink to emptiness otherwise. The order parameter is composite and comprises
the peer population size, the level of their contributed supply, the club's
efficiency in information search, the spread of supply and demand over the type
domain, as well as the goodness of match between them.Comment: accepted in International Symposium on Computer Performance,
Modeling, Measurements and Evaluation, Juan-les-Pins, France, October-200
Fast beam stacking using RF barriers
Two barrier RF systems were fabricated, tested and installed in the Fermilab
Main Injector. Each can provide 8 kV rectangular pulses (the RF barriers) at 90
kHz. When a stationary barrier is combined with a moving barrier, injected
beams from the Booster can be continuously deflected, folded and stacked in the
Main Injector, which leads to doubling of the beam intensity. This paper gives
a report on the beam experiment using this novel technology.Comment: 2007 Particle Accelerator Conference (PAC07
Information and Particle Physics
Information measures for relativistic quantum spinors are constructed to
satisfy various postulated properties such as normalisation invariance and
positivity. Those measures are then used to motivate generalised Lagrangians
meant to probe shorter distance physics within the maximum uncertainty
framework. The modified evolution equations that follow are necessarily
nonlinear and simultaneously violate Lorentz invariance, supporting previous
heuristic arguments linking quantum nonlinearity with Lorentz violation. The
nonlinear equations also break discrete symmetries. We discuss the implications
of our results for physics in the neutrino sector and cosmology
From computation to black holes and space-time foam
We show that quantum mechanics and general relativity limit the speed
of a simple computer (such as a black hole) and its memory space
to \tilde{\nu}^2 I^{-1} \lsim t_P^{-2}, where is the Planck time.
We also show that the life-time of a simple clock and its precision are
similarly limited. These bounds and the holographic bound originate from the
same physics that governs the quantum fluctuations of space-time. We further
show that these physical bounds are realized for black holes, yielding the
correct Hawking black hole lifetime, and that space-time undergoes much larger
quantum fluctuations than conventional wisdom claims -- almost within range of
detection with modern gravitational-wave interferometers.Comment: A misidentification of computer speeds is corrected. Our results for
black hole computation now agree with those given by S. Lloyd. All other
conclusions remain unchange
Electron-spectroscopic investigation of metal-insulator transition in Sr2Ru1-xTixO4 (x=0.0-0.6)
We investigate the nature and origin of the metal-insulator transition in
Sr2Ru1-xTixO4 as a function of increasing Ti content (x). Employing detailed
core, valence, and conduction band studies with x-ray and ultraviolet
photoelectron spectroscopies along with Bremsstrahlung isochromat spectroscopy,
it is shown that a hard gap opens up for Ti content greater than equal to 0.2,
while compositions with x<0.2 exhibit finite intensity at the Fermi energy.
This establishes that the metal-insulator transition in this homovalent
substituted series of compounds is driven by Coulomb interaction leading to the
formation of a Mott gap, in contrast to transitions driven by disorder effects
or band flling.Comment: Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.
Collapse of Vacuum Bubbles in a Vacuum
Motivated by the discovery of a plenitude of metastable vacua in a string
landscape and the possibility of rapid tunneling between these vacua, we
revisit the dynamics of a false vacuum bubble in a background de Sitter
spacetime. We find that there exists a large parameter space that allows the
bubble to collapse into a black hole or to form a wormhole. This may have
interesting implications to inflationary physics.Comment: 8 pages including 6 figures, LaTex; references adde
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