Planetary systems around close binary stars: the case of the very dusty, Sun-like, spectroscopic binary BD+20 307

Field star BD+20 307 is the dustiest known main sequence star, based on the fraction of its bolometric luminosity, 4%, that is emitted at infrared wavelengths. The particles that carry this large IR luminosity are unusually warm, comparable to the temperature of the zodiacal dust in the solar system, and their existence is likely to be a consequence of a fairly recent collision of large objects such as planets or planetary embryos. Thus, the age of BD+20 307 is potentially of interest in constraining the era of terrestrial planet formation. The present project was initiated with an attempt to derive this age using the Chandra X-ray Observatory to measure the X-ray flux of BD+20 307 in conjunction with extensive photometric and spectroscopic monitoring observations from Fairborn Observatory. However, the recent realization that BD+20 307 is a short period, double-line, spectroscopic binary whose components have very different lithium abundances, vitiates standard methods of age determination. We find the system to be metal-poor; this, combined with its measured lithium abundances, indicates that BD+20 307 may be several to many Gyr old. BD+20 307 affords astronomy a rare peek into a mature planetary system in orbit around a close binary star (because such systems are not amenable to study by the precision radial velocity technique).Comment: accepted for ApJ, December 10, 200

An exploratory study of influences on retail service quality: a focus on Kuwait and Lebanon.

Abstract: The Middle East is a growing and lucrative marketplace. This exploratory study examines retail service in Kuwait and Lebanon, regions with long histories of trade. Retail service, however, has not been well documented in this region. To our knowledge, this is the first study that examines customer and salespeople perceptions of service encounters in these countries, in light of their culture, religion, and nationalities. As retailers expand into new markets worldwide, such information is vital to their success. Future research directions are discussed

Spanning Trees on Lattices and Integration Identities

For a lattice $\Lambda$ with $n$ vertices and dimension $d$ equal or higher than two, the number of spanning trees $N_{ST}(\Lambda)$ grows asymptotically as $\exp(n z_\Lambda)$ in the thermodynamic limit. We present exact integral expressions for the asymptotic growth constant $z_\Lambda$ for spanning trees on several lattices. By taking different unit cells in the calculation, many integration identities can be obtained. We also give $z_{\Lambda (p)}$ on the homeomorphic expansion of $k$-regular lattices with $p$ vertices inserted on each edge.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl

Chirped pulse Raman amplification in plasma

Raman amplification in plasma has been proposed to be a promising method of amplifying short radiation pulses. Here, we investigate chirped pulse Raman amplification (CPRA) where the pump pulse is chirped and leads to spatiotemporal distributed gain, which exhibits superradiant scaling in the linear regime, usually associated with the nonlinear pump depletion and Compton amplification regimes. CPRA has the potential to serve as a high-efficiency high-fidelity amplifier/compressor stage

Multi-phase High-Velocity Clouds toward HE 0226-4110 and PG 0953+414

We study the physical conditions, elemental abundances, and kinematics of the high-velocity clouds (HVCs) along the sight lines toward active galaxies HE0226-4110 and PG0953+414 using Hubble Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph and Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer data. Our observations reveal multiple components of HVC absorption in lines of HI, CII, CIII, CIV, OVI, SiII, SiIII, and SiIV in both directions. We investigate whether photoionization by the extragalactic background radiation or by escaping Milky Way radiation can explain the observed ionization pattern. We find that photoionization is a good explanation for the CII, CIII, SiII, and SiIII features, but not for the OVI or CIV associated with the HVCs, suggesting that two principal phases exist: a warm (T~10^4K), photoionized phase and a hotter (T=1-3x10^5K), collisionally-ionized phase. The warm HVCs toward HE0226-4110 have high levels of ionization (97-99%), and metallicities ([Z/H] between -0.9 and -0.4) close to those in the Magellanic Stream, which lies eleven degrees away on the sky at similar velocities. These HVCs have thermal pressures that would place them close to equilibrium in a fully ionized 10^6 K Galactic corona with n_H=4-9x10^{-5}cm^{-3} at 50 kpc. A mini-survey of the hot, collisionally ionized HVC components seen here and in five other sight lines finds that in 11/12 cases, the high ions have kinematics and ionic ratios that are consistent with an origin in conductive interfaces. However, the broad absorption wing on the OVI profile toward PG0953+414 is not completely explained by the interface scenario, and may be tracing the outflow of hot gas into the Milky Way halo as part of a Galactic fountain or wind.Comment: 27 pages, 12 figures (9 in color), accepted for publication in Ap

Pepper-pot emittance measurement of laser-plasma wakefield accelerated electrons

The transverse emittance is an important parameter governing the brightness of an electron beam. Here we present the first pepper-pot measurement of the transverse emittance for a mono-energetic electron beam from a laser-plasma wakefield accelerator, carried out on the Advanced Laser-Plasma High Energy Accelerators towards X-Rays (ALPHA-X) beam line. Mono-energetic electrons are passed through an array of 52 mu m diameter holes in a tungsten mask. The pepper-pot results set an upper limit for the normalised emittance at 5.5 +/- 1 pi mm mrad for an 82 MeV beam

Quantum Cryptography using larger alphabets

Like all of quantum information theory, quantum cryptography is traditionally based on two level quantum systems. In this letter, a new protocol for quantum key distribution based on higher dimensional systems is presented. An experimental realization using an interferometric setup is also proposed. Analyzing this protocol from the practical side, one finds an increased key creation rate while keeping the initial laser pulse rate constant. Analyzing it for the case of intercept/resend eavesdropping strategy, an increased error rate is found compared to two dimensional systems, hence an advantage for the legitimate users to detect an eavesdropper.Comment: 12 pages, 2 (eps) figure

Hiding solutions in random satisfiability problems: A statistical mechanics approach

A major problem in evaluating stochastic local search algorithms for NP-complete problems is the need for a systematic generation of hard test instances having previously known properties of the optimal solutions. On the basis of statistical mechanics results, we propose random generators of hard and satisfiable instances for the 3-satisfiability problem (3SAT). The design of the hardest problem instances is based on the existence of a first order ferromagnetic phase transition and the glassy nature of excited states. The analytical predictions are corroborated by numerical results obtained from complete as well as stochastic local algorithms.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, revised version to app. in PR

Monomer-dimer model in two-dimensional rectangular lattices with fixed dimer density

The classical monomer-dimer model in two-dimensional lattices has been shown to belong to the \emph{``#P-complete''} class, which indicates the problem is computationally ``intractable''. We use exact computational method to investigate the number of ways to arrange dimers on $m \times n$ two-dimensional rectangular lattice strips with fixed dimer density $\rho$. For any dimer density $0 < \rho < 1$, we find a logarithmic correction term in the finite-size correction of the free energy per lattice site. The coefficient of the logarithmic correction term is exactly -1/2. This logarithmic correction term is explained by the newly developed asymptotic theory of Pemantle and Wilson. The sequence of the free energy of lattice strips with cylinder boundary condition converges so fast that very accurate free energy $f_2(\rho)$ for large lattices can be obtained. For example, for a half-filled lattice, $f_2(1/2) = 0.633195588930$, while $f_2(1/4) = 0.4413453753046$ and $f_2(3/4) = 0.64039026$. For $\rho < 0.65$, $f_2(\rho)$ is accurate at least to 10 decimal digits. The function $f_2(\rho)$ reaches the maximum value $f_2(\rho^*) = 0.662798972834$ at $\rho^* = 0.6381231$, with 11 correct digits. This is also the \md constant for two-dimensional rectangular lattices. The asymptotic expressions of free energy near close packing are investigated for finite and infinite lattice widths. For lattices with finite width, dependence on the parity of the lattice width is found. For infinite lattices, the data support the functional form obtained previously through series expansions.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figures, 5 table