874 research outputs found
Solar wind maintenance of the nighttime Venus ionosphere
An attempt is made to establish an ionization source capable of maintaining the nighttime Venus ionosphere. The corpuscular ionization and heating caused by the penetration of solar wind plasma into the nightside ionosphere was suggested as a possible source. Theoretical tests, using an interacting solar wind model, were made of the electron density and the results compared with observed electron density profiles. Results indicate the solar wind could maintain the nighttime ionosphere of Venus
The Quantum Mechanical Arrows of Time
The familiar textbook quantum mechanics of laboratory measurements
incorporates a quantum mechanical arrow of time --- the direction in time in
which state vector reduction operates. This arrow is usually assumed to
coincide with the direction of the thermodynamic arrow of the quasiclassical
realm of everyday experience. But in the more general context of cosmology we
seek an explanation of all observed arrows, and the relations between them, in
terms of the conditions that specify our particular universe. This paper
investigates quantum mechanical and thermodynamic arrows in a time-neutral
formulation of quantum mechanics for a number of model cosmologies in fixed
background spacetimes. We find that a general universe may not have well
defined arrows of either kind. When arrows are emergent they need not point in
the same direction over the whole of spacetime. Rather they may be local,
pointing in different directions in different spacetime regions. Local arrows
can therefore be consistent with global time symmetry.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, revtex4, typos correcte
Wind enhanced planetary escape: Collisional modifications
The problem of thermal escape is considered in which both the effects of thermospheric winds at the exobase and collisions below the exobase are included in a Monte Carlo calculation. The collisions are included by means of a collisional relaxation layer of a background gas which models the transition region between the exosphere and the thermosphere. The wind effects are considered in the limiting cases of vertical and horizontal flows. Two species are considered: terrestrial hydrogen and terrestrial helium. In the cases of terrestrial hydrogen the escape fluxes were found to be strongly filtered or throttled by collisions at high exospheric temperatures. The model is applied to molecular hydrogen diffusing through a methane relaxation layer under conditions possible on Titan. The results are similar to the case of terrestrial hydrogen with wind enhanced escape being strongly suppressed by collisions. It is concluded that wind enhanced escape is not an important process on Titan
Model for energy transfer in the solar wind: Formulation of model
The two-fluid solar-wind model is extended by including the collisionless dissipation of hydromagnetic waves originating at the sun. A series of solar wind models is generated, parameterized by the total energy flux of hydromagnetic waves at the base of the model. The resulting properties of propagation and dissipating of hydromagnetic waves on this model are presented
An Invertible Linearization Map for the Quartic Oscillator
The set of world lines for the non-relativistic quartic oscillator satisfying
Newton's equation of motion for all space and time in 1-1 dimensions with no
constraints other than the "spring" restoring force is shown to be equivalent
(1-1-onto) to the corresponding set for the harmonic oscillator. This is
established via an energy preserving invertible linearization map which
consists of an explicit nonlinear algebraic deformation of coordinates and a
nonlinear deformation of time coordinates involving a quadrature. In the
context stated, the map also explicitly solves Newton's equation for the
quartic oscillator for arbitrary initial data on the real line. This map is
extended to all attractive potentials given by even powers of the space
coordinate. It thus provides classes of new solutions to the initial value
problem for all these potentials
Do macroscopic properties dictate microscopic probabilities?
Aharonov and Reznik have recently (in quant-ph/0110093) argued that the form
of the probabilistic predictions of quantum theory can be seen to follow from
properties of macroscopic systems. An error in their argument is identified.Comment: LaTeX, 6 pages, no figure
The solution to Wheeler-DeWitt is eight
We describe a new geometrical solution to the Wheeler-DeWitt equation in two
dimensional quantum gravity. The solution is the amplitude of a surface whose
boundary consists of two tangent loops. We further discuss a new method for
estimating singular geometries amplitudes, which uses explicit recursive
counting of discrete surfaces.Comment: 10 tex pages + 5 ps figure
One Gravitational Potential or Two? Forecasts and Tests
The metric of a perturbed Robertson-Walker spacetime is characterized by
three functions: a scale-factor giving the expansion history and two potentials
which generalize the single potential of Newtonian gravity. The Newtonian
potential induces peculiar velocities and, from these, the growth of matter
fluctuations. Massless particles respond equally to the Newtonian potential and
to a curvature potential. The difference of the two potentials, called the
gravitational slip, is predicted to be very small in general relativity but can
be substantial in modified gravity theories. The two potentials can be
measured, and gravity tested on cosmological scales, by combining weak
gravitational lensing or the Integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect with galaxy peculiar
velocities or clustering.Comment: 15 pages, invited research article for Theo Murphy Meeting "Testing
general relativity with cosmology
Conditional probabilities in Ponzano-Regge minisuperspace
We examine the Hartle-Hawking no-boundary initial state for the Ponzano-Regge
formulation of gravity in three dimensions. We consider the behavior of
conditional probabilities and expectation values for geometrical quantities in
this initial state for a simple minisuperspace model consisting of a
two-parameter set of anisotropic geometries on a 2-sphere boundary. We find
dependence on the cutoff used in the construction of Ponzano-Regge amplitudes
for expectation values of edge lengths. However, these expectation values are
cutoff independent when computed in certain, but not all, conditional
probability distributions. Conditions that yield cutoff independent expectation
values are those that constrain the boundary geometry to a finite range of edge
lengths. We argue that such conditions have a correspondence to fixing a range
of local time, as classically associated with the area of a surface for
spatially closed cosmologies. Thus these results may hint at how classical
spacetime emerges from quantum amplitudes.Comment: 26 pages including 10 figures, some reorganization in the
presentation of results, expanded discussion of results in the context of 2+1
gravity in the Witten variables, 3 new reference
Time-of-arrival probabilities and quantum measurements: II Application to tunneling times
We formulate quantum tunneling as a time-of-arrival problem: we determine the
detection probability for particles passing through a barrier at a detector
located a distance L from the tunneling region. For this purpose, we use a
Positive-Operator-Valued-Measure (POVM) for the time-of-arrival determined in
quant-ph/0509020 [JMP 47, 122106 (2006)]. This only depends on the initial
state, the Hamiltonian and the location of the detector. The POVM above
provides a well-defined probability density and an unambiguous interpretation
of all quantities involved. We demonstrate that for a class of localized
initial states, the detection probability allows for an identification of
tunneling time with the classic phase time. We also establish limits to the
definability of tunneling time.
We then generalize these results to a sequential measurement set-up: the
phase space properties of the particles are determined by an unsharp sampling
before their attempt to cross the barrier. For such measurements the tunneling
time is defined as a genuine observable. This allows us to construct a
probability distribution for its values that is definable for all initial
states and potentials. We also identify a regime, in which these probabilities
correspond to a tunneling-time operator.Comment: 26 pages--revised version, small changes, to appear in J. Math. Phy
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