On the structure of the Si(103) surface

Although (103) is a stable nominal orientation for both silicon and germanium, experimental observations revealed that in the case of silicon this surface remains disordered on an atomic scale even after careful annealing. We report here a set of low-energy reconstruction models corresponding to $1\times 2$, $2\times 2$, and $1\times 4$ periodicities, and propose that the observed disorder stems from the presence of several coexisting reconstructions with different morphologies and nearly equal surface energies. These models also suggest that the model structures previously reported in the literature for the (103) orientation have very high surface energies and are thus unlikely to be experimentally observed.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, submitted for publicatio

Model reconstructions for the Si(337) orientation

Although unstable, the Si(337) orientation has been known to appear in diverse experimental situations such as the nanoscale faceting of Si(112), or in the case of miscutting a Si(113) surface. Various models for Si(337) have been proposed over time, which motivates a comprehensive study of the structure of this orientation. Such a study is undertaken in this article, where we report the results of a genetic algorithm optimization of the Si(337)-$(2\times 1)$ surface. The algorithm is coupled with a highly optimized empirical potential for silicon, which is used as an efficient way to build a set of possible Si(337) models; these structures are subsequently relaxed at the level of ab initio density functional methods. Using this procedure, we retrieve most of the (337) reconstructions proposed in previous works, as well as a number of novel ones.Comment: 5 figures (low res.); to appear in J. Appl. Phy

Geologic Mapping of the Mawrth Vallis Region, Mars: MTM Quadrangles 25022, 25017, 25012, 20022, 20017, and 20012

Mawrth Vallis is a 15-25 km wide, 500 km long sinuous channel that winds through the highlands of Arabia Terra and debouches into the lowlands of Acidalia Planitia. The Mawrth Vallis region lies along the gradational zone between southern hemisphere thick crust and northern hemisphere thin crust, a topographically distinct portion of the Martian crustal dichotomy. The origin and age of the dichotomy boundary are controversial and are further complicated by the multi-stage and multi-process geologic history that has modified this approximately 6000 km section of the highland-lowland boundary (approximately 5 N, 330E to approximately 30 N, 80 E; herein referred as the Arabia Terra boundary). Furthermore, the Arabia Terra boundary has been subjected to many post-boundary processes such as outflow floods to the west, volcanism and tectonism to the east, and potential volatile deposition and glacial modification to the north. This study seeks to better understand the history of the Mawrth Vallis region by mapping six MTM quadrangles (17.5-27.5 N, 335-350 E) at 1:1M scale using traditional and modern digital geologic mapping techniques

Quantum gates on hybrid qudits

We introduce quantum hybrid gates that act on qudits of different dimensions. In particular, we develop two representative two-qudit hybrid gates (SUM and SWAP) and many-qudit hybrid Toffoli and Fredkin gates. We apply the hybrid SUM gate to generating entanglement, and find that operator entanglement of the SUM gate is equal to the entanglement generated by it for certain initial states. We also show that the hybrid SUM gate acts as an automorphism on the Pauli group for two qudits of different dimension under certain conditions. Finally, we describe a physical realization of these hybrid gates for spin systems.Comment: 8 pages and 1 figur

Resistance and resilience of social–ecological systems to recurrent typhoon disturbance on a subtropical island: Taiwan

Tropical cyclones (TCs) have major effects on ecological and social systems. However, studies integrating the effects of TCs on both social and ecological systems are rare, especially in the northwest Pacific, where the frequency of TCs (locally named typhoons) is the highest in the world. We synthesized studies of effects of recurrent typhoons on social and ecological systems in Taiwan over the last several decades. Many responses to TCs are comparable between social and ecological systems. High forest ecosystem resistance, evident from tree mortality below 2% even following multiple strong typhoons, is comparable with resistance of social systems, including the only 4% destruction of river embankments following a typhoon that brought nearly 3000 mm rainfall in three days. High resilience as reflected by quick returns of leaf area index, mostly in one year, and streamwater chemistry, one to several weeks to pre‐typhoon levels of ecosystems, are comparable to quick repair of the power grid within one to several days and returns of vegetable price within several weeks to pre‐typhoon levels of the social systems. Landslides associated with intense typhoons have buried mountain villages and transported large quantities of woody debris to the coast, affecting the coastal plains and reefs, illustrating a ridge‐to‐reef link between ecological and societal systems. Metrics of both social and ecological function showed large fluctuations in response to typhoons but quickly returned to pre‐disturbance levels, except when multiple intense typhoons occurred within a single season. Our synthesis illustrates that the social–ecological systems in Taiwan are highly dynamic and responsive to frequent typhoon disturbance, with extraordinarily high resistance and resilience. For ecosystems, the efficient responsiveness results from the selective force of TCs on ecosystem structure and processes. For social systems, it is the result of the effects of TCs on planning and decision making by individuals (e.g., farmers), management sectors, and ultimately the government. In regions with frequent TCs, the social–ecological systems are inevitably highly dynamic and rapid responses are fundamental to system resistance and resilience which in turn is key to maintaining structure and function of the social–ecological systems

ROM-based quantum computation: Experimental explorations using Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, and future prospects

ROM-based quantum computation (QC) is an alternative to oracle-based QC. It has the advantages of being less ``magical'', and being more suited to implementing space-efficient computation (i.e. computation using the minimum number of writable qubits). Here we consider a number of small (one and two-qubit) quantum algorithms illustrating different aspects of ROM-based QC. They are: (a) a one-qubit algorithm to solve the Deutsch problem; (b) a one-qubit binary multiplication algorithm; (c) a two-qubit controlled binary multiplication algorithm; and (d) a two-qubit ROM-based version of the Deutsch-Jozsa algorithm. For each algorithm we present experimental verification using NMR ensemble QC. The average fidelities for the implementation were in the ranges 0.9 - 0.97 for the one-qubit algorithms, and 0.84 - 0.94 for the two-qubit algorithms. We conclude with a discussion of future prospects for ROM-based quantum computation. We propose a four-qubit algorithm, using Grover's iterate, for solving a miniature ``real-world'' problem relating to the lengths of paths in a network.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure

A system dynamics model of the fire department EMS in Taiwan

Allocation of pre-hospital EMS (Emergency Medical Service) resources and effectiveness of emergency medical training are critical to patients. The demands for EMS are expected to increase in the future. By analysing the relationship between emergency response and the survival rates, the effectiveness of EMS resources and competence of personnel were evaluated. In other words, the current EMS resources will be insufficient, and the ratio of busy ambulances will increase. Patients may need to wait for an ambulance. In this paper, indicates that three more ambulances should be added and the priorities of resources to be allocated to suffice future demands are simulated. Through arrangement of extra hours of training, ROSC of patients within the system can be enhanced. Besides, by accelerating the travel speed of ambulances and shortening the average response time to 6.5 minutes, survival rate of patients could be increased and allow the EMS teams to take another 2.6 cases

Tests of redshift-space distortions models in configuration space for the analysis of the BOSS final data release

Citation: White, M., Reid, B., Chuang, C. H., Tinker, J. L., McBride, C. K., Prada, F., & Samushia, L. (2015). Tests of redshift-space distortions models in configuration space for the analysis of the BOSS final data release. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 447(1), 234-245. doi:10.1093/mnras/stu2460Observations of redshift-space distortions in spectroscopic galaxy surveys offer an attractive method for observing the build-up of cosmological structure, which depends both on the expansion rate of the Universe and our theory of gravity. In preparation for analysis of redshift-space distortions from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) final data release, we compare a number of analytic and phenomenological models, specified in configuration space, to mock catalogues derived in different ways from several N-body simulations. The galaxies in each mock catalogue have properties similar to those of the higher redshift galaxies measured by BOSS but differ in the details of how small-scale velocities and halo occupancy are determined. We find that all of the analytic models fit the simulations over a limited range of scales while failing at small scales. We discuss which models are most robust and on which scales they return reliable estimates of the rate of growth of structure: we find that models based on some form of resummation can fit our N-body data for BOSS-like galaxies above 30 h(-1) Mpc well enough to return unbiased parameter estimates

Reconstruction of Liouvillian Superoperators

We show how to determine (reconstruct) a master equation governing the time evolution of an open quantum system. We present a general algorithm for the reconstruction of the corresponding Liouvillian superoperators. Dynamics of a two-level atom in various environments is discussed in detail.Comment: 4 pages, revtex, 1 eps figure, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.