361 research outputs found
Atomic displacements accompanying deformation twinning: shears and shuffles
Deformation twins grow by the motion of disconnections along their interfaces, thereby coupling shear with migration. Atomic-scale simulations of this mechanism have advanced to the point where the trajectory of each atom can be followed as it transits from a site in the shrinking grain, through the interface, and onwards to a site in the growing twin. Historically, such trajectories have been factorised into shear and shuffle components according to some defined convention. In the present article, we introduce a method of factorisation consistent with disconnection motion. This procedure is illustrated for the case of {10-12} twinning in hcp materials, and shown to agree with simulated atomic trajectories for Zr.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version
Weak gravitational lensing
In this brief review I consider the advances made in weak gravitational
lensing over the last 8 years, concentrating on the large scales - cosmic
shear. I outline the theoretical developments, observational status, and the
challenges which cosmic shear must overcome to realise its full potential.
Finally I consider the prospects for probing Dark Energy and extra-dimensional
gravity theories with future experiments.Comment: 6 pages. Short version of invited review at Moriond Cosmology 200
The Influence of Free Quintessence on Gravitational Frequency Shift and Deflection of Light with 4D momentum
Based on the 4D momentum, the influence of quintessence on the gravitational
frequency shift and the deflection of light are examined in modified
Schwarzschild space. We find that the frequency of photon depends on the state
parameter of quintessence : the frequency increases for and
decreases for . Meanwhile, we adopt an integral power number
() to solve the orbital equation of photon. The photon's
potentials become higher with the decrease of . The behavior of
bending light depends on the state parameter sensitively. In
particular, for the case of , there is no influence on the
deflection of light by quintessence. Else, according to the H-masers of GP-A
redshift experiment and the long-baseline interferometry, the constraints on
the quintessence field in Solar system are presented here.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures, 4 tables. European Physical Journal C in pres
Constraining warm dark matter with cosmic shear power spectra
We investigate potential constraints from cosmic shear on the dark matter
particle mass, assuming all dark matter is made up of light thermal relic
particles. Given the theoretical uncertainties involved in making cosmological
predictions in such warm dark matter scenarios we use analytical fits to linear
warm dark matter power spectra and compare (i) the halo model using a mass
function evaluated from these linear power spectra and (ii) an analytical fit
to the non-linear evolution of the linear power spectra. We optimistically
ignore the competing effect of baryons for this work. We find approach (ii) to
be conservative compared to approach (i). We evaluate cosmological constraints
using these methods, marginalising over four other cosmological parameters.
Using the more conservative method we find that a Euclid-like weak lensing
survey together with constraints from the Planck cosmic microwave background
mission primary anisotropies could achieve a lower limit on the particle mass
of 2.5 keV.Comment: 26 pages, 9 figures, minor changes to match the version accepted for
publication in JCA
Heating and decoherence suppression using decoupling techniques
We study the application of decoupling techniques to the case of a damped
vibrational mode of a chain of trapped ions, which can be used as a quantum bus
in linear ion trap quantum computers. We show that vibrational heating could be
efficiently suppressed using appropriate ``parity kicks''. We also show that
vibrational decoherence can be suppressed by this decoupling procedure, even
though this is generally more difficult because the rate at which the parity
kicks have to applied increases with the effective bath temperature.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures. Typos corrected, references adde
Assessment of clinical trial protocols for pathology content using the SPIRIT-Path guidelines highlights areas for improvement
The SPIRIT (Standard Protocol Items: Recommendations for Interventional Trials) 2013 Statement provides evidence-based recommendations for the minimum content of clinical trial protocols. The Cellular Molecular Pathology Initiative, hosted by the UK National Cancer Research Institute, developed an extension, SPIRIT-Path, describing how to effectively incorporate pathology support into clinical trial protocols. The current study assessed the inclusion of SPIRIT-Path items in protocols of active clinical trials. Publicly available clinical trial protocols were identified for assessment against the new guidelines using a single UK hospital as the âtest siteâ. One hundred and ninety interventional clinical trials were identified as receiving support from the pathology department. However, only 38 had publicly available full trial protocols (20%) and following application of the inclusion/exclusion criteria, 19 were assessed against the SPIRIT-Path guidelines. The reviewed clinical trial protocols showed some areas of compliance and highlighted other items that were inadequately described. The latter lacked information about the individuals responsible for the pathology content of the trial protocol, how pathology activities and roles were organised in the trial, where the laboratory work would be carried out, and the accreditation status of the laboratory. Only one trial had information specific to digital pathology, a technology certain to become more prevalent in the future. Adoption of the SPIRIT-Path checklist will facilitate comprehensive trial protocols that address all the key cellular and molecular pathology aspects of interventional clinical trials. This study highlights once again the lack of public availability of trial protocols. Full trial protocols should be available for scrutiny by the scientific community and the public who participate in the studies, increasing the transparency of clinical trial activity and improving quality
Encoded Recoupling and Decoupling: An Alternative to Quantum Error Correcting Codes, Applied to Trapped Ion Quantum Computation
A recently developed theory for eliminating decoherence and design
constraints in quantum computers, ``encoded recoupling and decoupling'', is
shown to be fully compatible with a promising proposal for an architecture
enabling scalable ion-trap quantum computation [D. Kielpinski et al., Nature
417, 709 (2002)]. Logical qubits are encoded into pairs of ions. Logic gates
are implemented using the Sorensen-Molmer (SM) scheme applied to pairs of ions
at a time. The encoding offers continuous protection against collective
dephasing. Decoupling pulses, that are also implemented using the SM scheme
directly to the encoded qubits, are capable of further reducing various other
sources of qubit decoherence, such as due to differential dephasing and due to
decohered vibrational modes. The feasibility of using the relatively slow SM
pulses in a decoupling scheme quenching the latter source of decoherence
follows from the observed 1/f spectrum of the vibrational bath.Comment: 12 pages, no figure
Cosmological parameters from SDSS and WMAP
We measure cosmological parameters using the three-dimensional power spectrum
P(k) from over 200,000 galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) in
combination with WMAP and other data. Our results are consistent with a
``vanilla'' flat adiabatic Lambda-CDM model without tilt (n=1), running tilt,
tensor modes or massive neutrinos. Adding SDSS information more than halves the
WMAP-only error bars on some parameters, tightening 1 sigma constraints on the
Hubble parameter from h~0.74+0.18-0.07 to h~0.70+0.04-0.03, on the matter
density from Omega_m~0.25+/-0.10 to Omega_m~0.30+/-0.04 (1 sigma) and on
neutrino masses from <11 eV to <0.6 eV (95%). SDSS helps even more when
dropping prior assumptions about curvature, neutrinos, tensor modes and the
equation of state. Our results are in substantial agreement with the joint
analysis of WMAP and the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey, which is an impressive
consistency check with independent redshift survey data and analysis
techniques. In this paper, we place particular emphasis on clarifying the
physical origin of the constraints, i.e., what we do and do not know when using
different data sets and prior assumptions. For instance, dropping the
assumption that space is perfectly flat, the WMAP-only constraint on the
measured age of the Universe tightens from t0~16.3+2.3-1.8 Gyr to
t0~14.1+1.0-0.9 Gyr by adding SDSS and SN Ia data. Including tensors, running
tilt, neutrino mass and equation of state in the list of free parameters, many
constraints are still quite weak, but future cosmological measurements from
SDSS and other sources should allow these to be substantially tightened.Comment: Minor revisions to match accepted PRD version. SDSS data and ppt
figures available at http://www.hep.upenn.edu/~max/sdsspars.htm
Weak lensing, dark matter and dark energy
Weak gravitational lensing is rapidly becoming one of the principal probes of
dark matter and dark energy in the universe. In this brief review we outline
how weak lensing helps determine the structure of dark matter halos, measure
the expansion rate of the universe, and distinguish between modified gravity
and dark energy explanations for the acceleration of the universe. We also
discuss requirements on the control of systematic errors so that the
systematics do not appreciably degrade the power of weak lensing as a
cosmological probe.Comment: Invited review article for the GRG special issue on gravitational
lensing (P. Jetzer, Y. Mellier and V. Perlick Eds.). V3: subsection on
three-point function and some references added. Matches the published versio
Weak Lensing and Dark Energy
We study the power of upcoming weak lensing surveys to probe dark energy.
Dark energy modifies the distance-redshift relation as well as the matter power
spectrum, both of which affect the weak lensing convergence power spectrum.
Some dark-energy models predict additional clustering on very large scales, but
this probably cannot be detected by weak lensing alone due to cosmic variance.
With reasonable prior information on other cosmological parameters, we find
that a survey covering 1000 sq. deg. down to a limiting magnitude of R=27 can
impose constraints comparable to those expected from upcoming type Ia supernova
and number-count surveys. This result, however, is contingent on the control of
both observational and theoretical systematics. Concentrating on the latter, we
find that the {\it nonlinear} power spectrum of matter perturbations and the
redshift distribution of source galaxies both need to be determined accurately
in order for weak lensing to achieve its full potential. Finally, we discuss
the sensitivity of the three-point statistics to dark energy.Comment: 16 pages, revtex. Peacock-Dodds PS used for all w, which weakens the
constraints. Tomography sec. expanded, estimate included of how well
systematics need to be controlle
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