250 research outputs found
Self-organized criticality induced by quenched disorder: experiments on flux avalanches in NbH films
We present an experimental study of the influence of quenched disorder on the
distribution of flux avalanches in type-II superconductors. In the presence of
much quenched disorder, the avalanche sizes are power-law distributed and show
finite size scaling, as expected from self-organized criticality (SOC).
Furthermore, the shape of the avalanches is observed to be fractal. In the
absence of quenched disorder, a preferred size of avalanches is observed and
avalanches are smooth. These observations indicate that a certain minimum
amount of disorder is necessary for SOC behavior. We relate these findings to
the appearance or non-appearance of SOC in other experimental systems,
particularly piles of sand.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
The High-Flux Backscattering Spectrometer at the NIST Center for Neutron Research
We describe the design and current performance of the high-flux
backscattering spectrometer located at the NIST Center for Neutron Research.
The design incorporates several state-of-the-art neutron optical devices to
achieve the highest flux on sample possible while maintaining an energy
resolution of less than 1mueV. Foremost among these is a novel phase-space
transformation chopper that significantly reduces the mismatch between the beam
divergences of the primary and secondary parts of the instrument. This resolves
a long-standing problem of backscattering spectrometers, and produces a
relative gain in neutron flux of 4.2. A high-speed Doppler-driven monochromator
system has been built that is capable of achieving energy transfers of up to
+-50mueV, thereby extending the dynamic range of this type of spectrometer by
more than a factor of two over that of other reactor-based backscattering
instruments
Positive approximations of the inverse of fractional powers of SPD M-matrices
This study is motivated by the recent development in the fractional calculus
and its applications. During last few years, several different techniques are
proposed to localize the nonlocal fractional diffusion operator. They are based
on transformation of the original problem to a local elliptic or
pseudoparabolic problem, or to an integral representation of the solution, thus
increasing the dimension of the computational domain. More recently, an
alternative approach aimed at reducing the computational complexity was
developed. The linear algebraic system , is considered, where is a properly normalized (scalded) symmetric
and positive definite matrix obtained from finite element or finite difference
approximation of second order elliptic problems in ,
. The method is based on best uniform rational approximations (BURA)
of the function for and natural .
The maximum principles are among the major qualitative properties of linear
elliptic operators/PDEs. In many studies and applications, it is important that
such properties are preserved by the selected numerical solution method. In
this paper we present and analyze the properties of positive approximations of
obtained by the BURA technique. Sufficient conditions for
positiveness are proven, complemented by sharp error estimates. The theoretical
results are supported by representative numerical tests
A note on the convergence of parametrised non-resonant invariant manifolds
Truncated Taylor series representations of invariant manifolds are abundant
in numerical computations. We present an aposteriori method to compute the
convergence radii and error estimates of analytic parametrisations of
non-resonant local invariant manifolds of a saddle of an analytic vector field,
from such a truncated series. This enables us to obtain local enclosures, as
well as existence results, for the invariant manifolds
The Complexity of Flat Freeze LTL
We consider the model-checking problem for freeze LTL on one-counter automata (OCAs). Freeze LTL extends LTL with the freeze quantifier, which allows one to store different counter values of a run in registers so that they can be compared with one another. As the model-checking problem is undecidable in general, we focus on the flat fragment of freeze LTL, in which the usage of the freeze quantifier is restricted. Recently, Lechner et al. showed that model checking for flat freeze LTL on OCAs with binary encoding of counter updates is decidable and in 2NEXPTIME. In this paper, we prove that the problem is, in fact, NEXPTIME-complete no matter whether counter updates are encoded in unary or binary. Like Lechner et al., we rely on a reduction to the reachability problem in OCAs with parameterized tests (OCAPs). The new aspect is that we simulate OCAPs by alternating two-way automata over words. This implies an exponential upper bound on the parameter values that we exploit towards an NP algorithm for reachability in OCAPs with unary updates. We obtain our main result as a corollary
On the convex central configurations of the symmetric (â„“ + 2)-body problem
For the 4-body problem there is the following conjecture: Given arbitrary positive masses, the planar 4-body problem has a unique convex central configuration for each ordering of the masses on its convex hull. Until now this conjecture has remained open. Our aim is to prove that this conjecture cannot be extended to the (ℓ + 2)-body problem with ℓ ⩾ 3. In particular, we prove that the symmetric (2n + 1)-body problem with masses m1 = … = m2n−1 = 1 and m2n = m2n+1 = m sufficiently small has at least two classes of convex central configuration when n = 2, five when n = 3, and four when n = 4. We conjecture that the (2n + 1)-body problem has at least n classes of convex central configurations for n > 4 and we give some numerical evidence that the conjecture can be true. We also prove that the symmetric (2n + 2)-body problem with masses m1 = … = m2n = 1 and m2n+1 = m2n+2 = m sufficiently small has at least three classes of convex central configuration when n = 3, two when n = 4, and three when n = 5. We also conjecture that the (2n + 2)-body problem has at least [(n +1)/2] classes of convex central configurations for n > 5 and we give some numerical evidences that the conjecture can be true
Hull Consistency Under Monotonicity
International audienceWe prove that hull consistency for a system of equations or inequalities can be achieved in polynomial time providing that the underlying functions are monotone with respect to each variable. This result holds including when variables have multiple occurrences in the expressions of the functions, which is usually a pitfall for interval-based contractors. For a given constraint, an optimal contractor can thus be enforced quickly under monotonicity and the practical significance of this theoretical result is illustrated on a simple example
Reflection and Transmission in a Neutron-Spin Test of the Quantum Zeno Effect
The dynamics of a quantum system undergoing frequent "measurements", leading
to the so-called quantum Zeno effect, is examined on the basis of a
neutron-spin experiment recently proposed for its demonstration. When the
spatial degrees of freedom are duely taken into account, neutron-reflection
effects become very important and may lead to an evolution which is totally
different from the ideal case.Comment: 26 pages, 6 figure
Probability Theory Compatible with the New Conception of Modern Thermodynamics. Economics and Crisis of Debts
We show that G\"odel's negative results concerning arithmetic, which date
back to the 1930s, and the ancient "sand pile" paradox (known also as "sorites
paradox") pose the questions of the use of fuzzy sets and of the effect of a
measuring device on the experiment. The consideration of these facts led, in
thermodynamics, to a new one-parameter family of ideal gases. In turn, this
leads to a new approach to probability theory (including the new notion of
independent events). As applied to economics, this gives the correction, based
on Friedman's rule, to Irving Fisher's "Main Law of Economics" and enables us
to consider the theory of debt crisis.Comment: 48p., 14 figs., 82 refs.; more precise mathematical explanations are
added. arXiv admin note: significant text overlap with arXiv:1111.610
The temperature-dependent magnetization profile across an epitaxial bilayer of ferromagnetic La2/3Ca1/3MnO3 and superconducting YBa2Cu3O7-d
Epitaxial bilayers of ferromagnetic La2/3Ca1/3MnO3 (LCMO) and superconducting
YBa2Cu3O7-d (YBCO) have been grown on single-crystalline SrTiO3 (STO)
substrates by pulsed laser deposition. The Manganese magnetization profile
across the FM layer has been determined with high spatial resolution at low
temperatures by X-ray resonant magnetic reflectivity (XRMR). It is found that
not only the adjacent superconductor but also the substrate underneath
influences the magnetization of the LCMO film at the interfaces at low
temperatures. Both effects can be investigated individually by XRMR
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