When Church Teachings and Policy Commitments Collide: Perspectives on Catholics in the U.S. House of Representatives

This article investigates the influence of religious values on domestic social policy-making, with a particular focus on Catholics. We analyze roll call votes in the 109th Congress and find that Catholic identification is associated with support for Catholic Social Teaching, but both younger Catholics and Republican Catholics are found less supportive. In followup interviews with a small sample of Catholic Republicans, we find that they justify voting contrary to Church teaching by seeing its application to domestic social issues as less authoritative than Church moral teachings on issues like abortion

Satellite altimeters after Skylab and GEOS-C - should they utilize a single transmitter or an array of pulsed amplifiers?

An attempt was made to determine if future satellite altimeters, operating at K-band, should use a single transmitter or an array of pulsed amplifiers. The two systems were compared as a function of reliability, power, service life, system requirements, and weight. Preliminary results indicate the modular system to be superior in service life and reliability although it requires more power and is substantially heavier than the single system. No concrete conclusions were reached as to which system should be used

Pauli Spin Blockade of Heavy Holes in a Silicon Double Quantum Dot

In this work, we study hole transport in a planar silicon metal-oxide-semiconductor based double quantum dot. We demonstrate Pauli spin blockade in the few hole regime and map the spin relaxation induced leakage current as a function of inter-dot level spacing and magnetic field. With varied inter-dot tunnel coupling we can identify different dominant spin relaxation mechanisms. Applying a strong out-of-plane magnetic field causes an avoided singlet-triplet level crossing, from which the heavy hole g-factor $\sim$ 0.93, and the strength of spin-orbit interaction $\sim$ 110 $\mu$eV, can be obtained. The demonstrated strong spin-orbit interaction of heavy hole promises fast local spin manipulation using only electrical fields, which is of great interest for quantum information processing.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figure

Prospects for measuring the electric dipole moment of the electron using electrically trapped polar molecules

Heavy polar molecules can be used to measure the electric dipole moment of the electron, which is a sensitive probe of physics beyond the Standard Model. The value is determined by measuring the precession of the molecule's spin in a plane perpendicular to an applied electric field. The longer this precession evolves coherently, the higher the precision of the measurement. For molecules in a trap, this coherence time could be very long indeed. We evaluate the sensitivity of an experiment where neutral molecules are trapped electrically, and compare this to an equivalent measurement in a molecular beam. We consider the use of a Stark decelerator to load the trap from a supersonic source, and calculate the deceleration efficiency for YbF molecules in both strong-field seeking and weak-field seeking states. With a 1s holding time in the trap, the statistical sensitivity could be ten times higher than it is in the beam experiment, and this could improve by a further factor of five if the trap can be loaded from a source of larger emittance. We study some effects due to field inhomogeneity in the trap and find that rotation of the electric field direction, leading to an inhomogeneous geometric phase shift, is the primary obstacle to a sensitive trap-based measurement.Comment: 22 pages, 7 figures, prepared for Faraday Discussion 14

Electrolyte effects on polyacrylic acid-polyvinylpyrrolidone aqueous glycol mixtures for use as de-icing fluids

Rheological and wind tunnels measurements are presented for mixtures of polymers polyacrylic acid [PAA] and polyvinylpyrrolidone [PVP] polymers dispersed in water-1,2 propylene glycol mixture to examine their use as potential aircraft de-icing fluids. PAA solutions which form the basis of de-icing fluids are known to result in undesirable gelation which may lead to undesirable and catastrophic consequences in such applications. In this study, we examine the blending of PVP with PAA blends as alternative de-icing fluid formulations that can reduce the likelihood of forming such irreversible gel deposits. Through adjustment of the electrolyte concentration, the ratio of PAA to PVP as well as the molecular weight of PVP, it is possible to achieve a required viscosity profile to that exhibited by a model de-icing fluid across a range of appropriate temperatures. Wind tunnel tests indicate that the mixtures are capable of meeting the necessary requirements for boundary layer depletion as well as having sufficient capability of retaining a stable layer required during aircraft taxiing

Stochastic multi-channel lock-in detection

High-precision measurements benefit from lock-in detection of small signals. Here we discuss the extension of lock-in detection to many channels, using mutually orthogonal modulation waveforms, and show how the the choice of waveforms affects the information content of the signal. We also consider how well the detection scheme rejects noise, both random and correlated. We address the particular difficulty of rejecting a background drift that makes a reproducible offset in the output signal and we show how a systematic error can be avoided by changing the waveforms between runs and averaging over many runs. These advances made possible a recent measurement of the electron's electric dipole moment.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figure

Preliminary results of the University of California X-ray experiment on the OSO-3

Cosmic and solar X ray data obtained by Orbiting Solar Observatory /OSO-3

Probing the electron EDM with cold molecules

We present progress towards a new measurement of the electron electric dipole moment using a cold supersonic beam of YbF molecules. Data are currently being taken with a sensitivity of $10^{-27}\textrm{e.cm}/\sqrt{\textrm{day}}$. We therefore expect to make an improvement over the Tl experiment of Commins' group, which currently gives the most precise result. We discuss the systematic and statistical errors and comment on the future prospect of making a measurement at the level of $10^{-29}\textrm{e.cm}/\sqrt{\textrm{day}}$.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, proceedings of ICAP 200