4,164 research outputs found
Lorentz Invariant Superluminal Tunneling
It is shown that superluminal optical signalling is possible without
violating Lorentz invariance and causality via tunneling through photonic band
gaps in inhomogeneous dielectrics of a special kind.Comment: 10 pages revtex, no figure, more discussions added, submitted to
Phys. Rev.
Tunneling dynamics in relativistic and nonrelativistic wave equations
We obtain the solution of a relativistic wave equation and compare it with
the solution of the Schroedinger equation for a source with a sharp onset and
excitation frequencies below cut-off. A scaling of position and time reduces to
a single case all the (below cut-off) nonrelativistic solutions, but no such
simplification holds for the relativistic equation, so that qualitatively
different ``shallow'' and ``deep'' tunneling regimes may be identified
relativistically. The nonrelativistic forerunner at a position beyond the
penetration length of the asymptotic stationary wave does not tunnel;
nevertheless, it arrives at the traversal (semiclassical or
B\"uttiker-Landauer) time "tau". The corresponding relativistic forerunner is
more complex: it oscillates due to the interference between two saddle point
contributions, and may be characterized by two times for the arrival of the
maxima of lower and upper envelops. There is in addition an earlier
relativistic forerunner, right after the causal front, which does tunnel.
Within the penetration length, tunneling is more robust for the precursors of
the relativistic equation
Investigating populations via penguins and their poo!
We describe an activity that introduces students to population modelling, enables them to use estimates obtained from a sample to infer back to the population, and understands how the findings are translatable via penguins and their poo
Multibarrier tunneling
We study the tunneling through an arbitrary number of finite rectangular
opaque barriers and generalize earlier results by showing that the total
tunneling phase time depends neither on the barrier thickness nor on the
inter-barrier separation. We also predict two novel peculiar features of the
system considered, namely the independence of the transit time (for non
resonant tunneling) and the resonant frequency on the number of barriers
crossed, which can be directly tested in photonic experiments. A thorough
analysis of the role played by inter-barrier multiple reflections and a
physical interpretation of the results obtained is reported, showing that
multibarrier tunneling is a highly non-local phenomenon.Comment: RevTex, 7 pages, 1 eps figur
Political opportunism and countercyclical fiscal policy in election-year recessions
Political budget cycles (PBCs) have been well documented in the literature, albeit not for all circumstances. Similarly, there is clear evidence on the positive effect of economic growth on electoral success. However, no work has been done on the impact of economic growth on the magnitude of PBCs. The theoretical model argues that a government has an incentive to increase fiscal manipulations when a recession is expected to hit and curtail reelection chances; this amounts to countercyclical policy for opportunistic rather than Keynesian motives. Very robust evidence for this behavior is found in Portuguese municipalities; in election years, budget deficits go up even more and significantly so, when a recession is expected.Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT
Smell and taste disorders
Smell and taste disorders can markedly affect the quality of life. In recent years we have become much better in the assessment of the ability to smell and taste. In addition, information is now available to say something about the prognosis of individual patients. With regard to therapy there also seems to be low but steady progress. Of special importance for the treatment is the ability of the olfactory epithelium to regenerate
How Do Tourists React to Political Violence? An Empirical Analysis of Tourism in Egypt
This paper uses a detailed database of political violence in Egypt to study European and US tourists' attitudes towards a conflict region. We study the heterogeneous impacts of different dimensions of political violence and counter-violence on tourist flows to Egypt in the 1990s. Both US and EU tourists respond negatively to attacks on tourists, but are not influenced by casualties arising in confrontations between domestic groups. However, European tourists are sensitive to the counter-violence measures implemented by the Egyptian government. There is also evidence of arrivals of tourists into Egypt rising when fatalities in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict increase.</p
Advanced Denoising for X-ray Ptychography
The success of ptychographic imaging experiments strongly depends on
achieving high signal-to-noise ratio. This is particularly important in
nanoscale imaging experiments when diffraction signals are very weak and the
experiments are accompanied by significant parasitic scattering (background),
outliers or correlated noise sources. It is also critical when rare events such
as cosmic rays, or bad frames caused by electronic glitches or shutter timing
malfunction take place.
In this paper, we propose a novel iterative algorithm with rigorous analysis
that exploits the direct forward model for parasitic noise and sample
smoothness to achieve a thorough characterization and removal of structured and
random noise. We present a formal description of the proposed algorithm and
prove its convergence under mild conditions. Numerical experiments from
simulations and real data (both soft and hard X-ray beamlines) demonstrate that
the proposed algorithms produce better results when compared to
state-of-the-art methods.Comment: 24 pages, 9 figure
On "the authentic damping mechanism" of the phonon damping model
Some general features of the phonon damping model are presented. It is
concluded that the fits performed within this model have no physical content
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