Diel and seasonal timing of sound production by black drum (Pogonias cromis)

Acoustic recorders were used to document black drum (Pogonias cromis) sound production during their spawning season in southwest Florida. Diel patterns of sound production were similar to those of other sciaenid fishes and demonstrated increased sound levels from the late afternoon to early evening—a period that lasted up to 12 hours during peak season. Peak sound production occurred from January through March when water temperatures were between 18° and 22°C. Seasonal trends in sound production matched patterns of black drum reproductive readiness and spawning reported previously for populations in the Gulf of Mexico. Total acoustic energy of nightly chorus events was estimated by integration of the sound pressure amplitude with duration above a threshold based on daytime background levels. Maximum chorus sound level was highly correlated with total acoustic energy and was used to quantitatively represent nightly black drum sound production. This study gives evidence that long-term passive acoustic recordings can provide information on the timing and location of black drum reproductive behavior that is similar to that provided by traditional, more costly methods. The methods and results have broad application for the study of many other fish species, including commercially and recreationally valuable reef fishes that produce sound in association with reproductive beha

Inflationary spectra and violations of Bell inequalities

In spite of the macroscopic character of the primordial fluctuations, the standard inflationary distribution (that obtained using linear mode equations) exhibits inherently quantum properties, that is, properties which cannot be mimicked by any stochastic distribution. This is demonstrated by a Gedanken experiment for which certain Bell inequalities are violated. These violations are {\it in principle} measurable because, unlike for Hawking radiation from black holes, in inflationary cosmology we can have access to both members of correlated pairs of modes delivered in the same state. We then compute the effect of decoherence and show that the violations persist provided the decoherence level (and thus the entropy) lies below a certain non-vanishing threshold. Moreover, there exists a higher threshold above which no violation of any Bell inequality can occur. In this regime, the distributions are ``separable'' and can be interpreted as stochastic ensembles of fluctuations. Unfortunately, the precision which is required to have access to the quantum properties is so high that, {\it in practice}, an observational verification seems excluded.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure; new presentation and extended discussio

Isotropic magnetometry with simultaneous excitation of orientation and alignment CPT resonances

Atomic magnetometers have very high absolute precision and sensitivity to magnetic fields but suffer from a fundamental problem: the vectorial or tensorial interaction of light with atoms leads to "dead zones", certain orientations of magnetic field where the magnetometer loses its sensitivity. We demonstrate a simple polarization modulation scheme that simultaneously creates coherent population trapping (CPT) in orientation and alignment, thereby eliminating dead zones. Using $^{87}$Rb in a 10 Torr buffer gas cell we measure narrow, high-contrast CPT transparency peaks in all orientations and also show absence of systematic effects associated with non-linear Zeeman splitting.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Observable effects caused by vacuum pair creation in the field of high-power optical lasers

We consider the possibility of an experimental proof of vacuum e+e- pair creation in the focus of two counter-propagating optical laser beams with an intensity of the order of 10^20 - 10^22 W/cm^2. Our approach is based on the collisionless kinetic equation for the distribution function of the e+e- pairs with the source term for particle production. As a possible experimental signal of vacuum pair production we consider the refraction of a high-frequency probe laser beam by the produced e+e- plasma to be observed by an interference filter. The generation of higher harmonics of the laser frequency in the self-consistent electric field is also investigated.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures; typos corrected, Eq.(16) corrected, reference adde