A progressive refinement approach for the visualisation of implicit surfaces

Visualising implicit surfaces with the ray casting method is a slow procedure. The design cycle of a new implicit surface is, therefore, fraught with long latency times as a user must wait for the surface to be rendered before being able to decide what changes should be introduced in the next iteration. In this paper, we present an attempt at reducing the design cycle of an implicit surface modeler by introducing a progressive refinement rendering approach to the visualisation of implicit surfaces. This progressive refinement renderer provides a quick previewing facility. It first displays a low quality estimate of what the final rendering is going to be and, as the computation progresses, increases the quality of this estimate at a steady rate. The progressive refinement algorithm is based on the adaptive subdivision of the viewing frustrum into smaller cells. An estimate for the variation of the implicit function inside each cell is obtained with an affine arithmetic range estimation technique. Overall, we show that our progressive refinement approach not only provides the user with visual feedback as the rendering advances but is also capable of completing the image faster than a conventional implicit surface rendering algorithm based on ray casting

Non-abelian plane waves and stochastic regimes for (2+1)-dimensional gauge field models with Chern-Simons term

An exact time-dependent solution of field equations for the 3-d gauge field model with a Chern-Simons (CS) topological mass is found. Limiting cases of constant solution and solution with vanishing topological mass are considered. After Lorentz boost, the found solution describes a massive nonlinear non-abelian plane wave. For the more complicate case of gauge fields with CS mass interacting with a Higgs field, the stochastic character of motion is demonstrated.Comment: LaTeX 2.09, 13 pages, 11 eps figure

Electronic structure of fluorides: general trends for ground and excited state properties

The electronic structure of fluorite crystals are studied by means of density functional theory within the local density approximation for the exchange correlation energy. The ground-state electronic properties, which have been calculated for the cubic structures $CaF_{2}$,$SrF_{2}$, $BaF_{2}$, $CdF_{2}$, $HgF_{2}$, $\beta$-$PbF_{2}$, using a plane waves expansion of the wave functions, show good comparison with existing experimental data and previous theoretical results. The electronic density of states at the gap region for all the compounds and their energy-band structure have been calculated and compared with the existing data in the literature. General trends for the ground-state parameters, the electronic energy-bands and transition energies for all the fluorides considered are given and discussed in details. Moreover, for the first time results for $HgF_{2}$ have been presented

X-Ray Magnetic Circular Dichroism at the K edge of Mn3GaC

We theoretically investigate the origin of the x-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) spectra at the K edges of Mn and Ga in the ferromagnetic phase of Mn3GaC on the basis of an ab initio calculation. Taking account of the spin-orbit interaction in the LDA scheme, we obtain the XMCD spectra in excellent agreement with the recent experiment. We have analyzed the origin of each structure, and thus elucidated the mechanism of inducing the orbital polarization in the p symmetric states. We also discuss a simple sum rule connecting the XMCD spectra with the orbital moment in the p symmetric states.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in Physical Review

Spin polarization of the L-gap surface states on Au(111)

The electron spin polarization (ESP) of the L-gap surface states on Au(111) is investigated theoretically by means of first-principles electronic-structure and photoemission calculations. The surface states show a large spin-orbit induced in-plane ESP which is perpendicular to the in-plane wavevector, in close analogy to a two-dimensional electron gas with Rashba spin-orbit interaction. The surface corrugation leads to a small ESP component normal to the surface, being not reported so far. The surface-states ESP can be probed qualitatively and quantitatively by spin- and angle-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy, provided that the initial-state ESP is retained in the photoemission process and not obscured by spin-orbit induced polarization effects. Relativistic photoemission calculations provide detailed information on what photoemission set-ups allow to conclude from the photoelectron ESP on that of the surface states.Comment: 22 pages with 8 figure

Measurement of Masses and Widths of Excited Charm Mesons D2∗D_2^* and Evidence for Broad States

Using data from the FOCUS experiment we analyze the $D^+\pi^-$ and $D^0\pi^+$ invariant mass distributions. We measure the $D_2^{*0}$ mass M_{D_2^{*0}} = (2464.5 \pm 1.1 \pm 1.9) \mev and width \Gamma_{D_2^{*0}} = (38.7 \pm 5.3 \pm 2.9) \mev, and the $D_2^{*+}$ mass M_{D_2^{*+}} = (2467.6 \pm 1.5 \pm 0.76) \mev and width \Gamma_{D_2^{*+}} = (34.1 \pm 6.5 \pm 4.2) \mev. We find evidence for broad structures over background in both the neutral and charged final state. If each is interpreted as evidence for a single L=1, $j_q=1/2$ excited charm meson resonance, the masses and widths are M_{1/2}^0 =(2407 \pm 21 \pm 35) \mev, \Gamma_{1/2}^0 = (240 \pm 55 \pm 59) \mev, and M_{1/2}^+ = (2403 \pm 14 \pm 35) \mev \Gamma_{1/2}^+ = (283 \pm 24 \pm 34) \mev, respectively.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures. Submitted to Phys. Lett. B. Added preprint number

Precision study of radio emission from air showers at LOFAR

Radio detection as well as modeling of cosmic rays has made enormous progress in the past years. We show this by using the subtle circular polarization of the radio pulse from air showers measured in fair weather conditions and the intensity of radio emission from an air shower under thunderstorm conditions

Wave functions and decay constants of BB and DD mesons in the relativistic potential model

With the decay constants of $D$ and $D_s$ mesons measured in experiment recently, we revisit the study of the bound states of quark and antiquark in $B$ and $D$ mesons in the relativistic potential model. The relativistic bound state wave equation is solved numerically. The masses, decay constants and wave functions of $B$ and $D$ mesons are obtained. Both the masses and decay constants obtained here can be consistent with the experimental data. The wave functions can be used in the study of $B$ and $D$ meson decays.Comment: more discussion added, to appear in EPJ

Thunderstorm electric fields probed by extensive air showers through their polarized radio emission

Contains fulltext : 173575.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access

Determining electric fields in thunderclouds with the radiotelescope LOFAR

An analysis is presented of electric fields in thunderclouds using a recently proposed method based on measuring radio emission from extensive air shower events during thunderstorm conditions. This method can be regarded as a tomography of thunderclouds using cosmic rays as probes. The data cover the period from December 2011 till August 2014. We have developed an improved fitting procedure to be able to analyze the data. Our measurements show evidence for the main negative-charge layer near the −10° isotherm. This we have seen for a winter as well as for a summer cloud where multiple events pass through the same cloud and also the vertical component of the electric field could be reconstructed. On the day of measurement of some cosmic-ray events showing evidence for strong fields, no lightning activity was detected within 100 km distance. For the winter events, the top heights were between 5 and 6 km, while in the summer, typical top heights of 9 km were seen. Large horizontal components in excess of 70 kV/m of the electric fields are observed in the middle and top layers