15,567 research outputs found
Ultralight reactive metal foams produced as structural shapes in space: System design
This autonomous experiment for foaming metals in space involved: (1) payload support structure; (2) furnace and foaming apparatus; (3) electronic controls; (4) battery power; and (5) metallurgy. Emphasis was laid on a modular design which was easily modifiable and which offered maximum durability, safety, and failure tolerance
Reconstruction of primordial density fields
The Monge-Ampere-Kantorovich (MAK) reconstruction is tested against
cosmological N-body simulations. Using only the present mass distribution
sampled with particles, and the assumption of homogeneity of the primordial
distribution, MAK recovers for each particle the non-linear displacement field
between its present position and its Lagrangian position on a primordial
uniform grid. To test the method, we examine a standard LCDM N-body simulation
with Gaussian initial conditions and 6 models with non-Gaussian initial
conditions: a chi-squared model, a model with primordial voids and four weakly
non-Gaussian models. Our extensive analyses of the Gaussian simulation show
that the level of accuracy of the reconstruction of the nonlinear displacement
field achieved by MAK is unprecedented, at scales as small as about 3 Mpc. In
particular, it captures in a nontrivial way the nonlinear contribution from
gravitational instability, well beyond the Zel'dovich approximation. This is
also confirmed by our analyses of the non-Gaussian samples. Applying the
spherical collapse model to the probability distribution function of the
divergence of the displacement field, we also show that from a
well-reconstructed displacement field, such as that given by MAK, it is
possible to accurately disentangle dynamical contributions induced by
gravitational clustering from possible initial non-Gaussianities, allowing one
to efficiently test the non-Gaussian nature of the primordial fluctuations. In
addition, a simple application of MAK using the Zel'dovich approximation allows
one to also recover accurately the present-day peculiar velocity field on
scales of about 8 Mpc.Comment: Version to appear in MNRAS, 24 pages, 21 figures appearing (uses 35
figure files), 1 tabl
Charged-Current Disappearance Measurements in the NuMI Off-Axis Beam
This article studies the potential of combining charged-current disappearance
measurements of \nu_{\mu} to \nu_{\tau} from MINOS and an off-axis beam. I find
that the error on \Delta m^2 from a 100 kt-yr off-axis measurement is a few
percent of itself. Further, I find little improvement to an off-axis
measurement by combining it with MINOS.Comment: Presented at NuFact'02. Four pages, three figure
Streaming velocities as a dynamical estimator of Omega
It is well known that estimating the pairwise velocity of galaxies, v_{12},
from the redshift space galaxy correlation function is difficult because this
method is highly sensitive to the assumed model of the pairwise velocity
dispersion. Here we propose an alternative method to estimate v_{12} directly
from peculiar velocity samples, which contain redshift-independent distances as
well as galaxy redshifts. In contrast to other dynamical measures which
determine beta = sigma_8 x Omega^{0.6}, our method can provide an estimate of
(sigma_8)^2 x Omega^{0.6} for a range of sigma_8 (here Omega is the
cosmological mass density parameter while sigma_8 is the standard normalization
parameter for the spectrum of matter density fluctuations). We demonstrate how
to measure this quantity from realistic catalogues.Comment: 8 pages of text, 4 figures Subject headings: Cosmology: theory -
observation - peculiar velocities: large scale flows Last name of one of the
authors was misspelled. It is now corrected. Otherwise the manuscript is
identical to its original versio
Measuring Omega with Galaxy Streaming Velocities
The mean pairwise velocity of galaxies has traditionally been estimated from
the redshift space galaxy correlation function. This method is notorious for
being highly sensitive to the assumed model of the pairwise velocity
dispersion. Here we propose an alternative method to estimate the streaming
velocity directly from peculiar velocity samples, which contain
redshift-independent distances as well as galaxy redshifts. This method can
provide an estimate of for a range of where
is the cosmological density parameter, while is the
standard normalization for the power spectrum of density fluctuations. We
demonstrate how to measure this quantity from realistic catalogues and identify
the main sources of bias and errorsComment: Proceedings of New Worlds in Astroparticle Physics, 6 pages, 2
figure
Evidence for a low-density Universe from the relative velocities of galaxies
The motions of galaxies can be used to constrain the cosmological density
parameter Omega and the clustering amplitude of matter on large scales. The
mean relative velocity of galaxy pairs, estimated from the Mark III survey,
indicates that Omega = 0.35 +0.35/-0.25. If the clustering of galaxies is
unbiased on large scales, Omega = 0.35 +/- 0.15, so that an unbiased
Einstein-de Sitter model (Omega = 1) is inconsistent with the data.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures, to appear in the Jan.7 issue of ``Science''; In
the original version, the title appeared twice. This problem has now been
corrected. No other changes were mad
Hubble Space Telescope Ultraviolet Imaging and High-Resolution Spectroscopy of Water Photodissociation Products in Comet Hyakutake (C/1996 B2)
Comet Hyakutake (C/1996 B2) provided a target of opportunity for performing a systematic study of water photodissociation products in which we obtained data from three instruments on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The HST Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph (GHRS) was used to measure the line profile of hydrogen Lyα (H Lyα) at six locations around the coma of the comet, ranging from the nucleus to a displacement of 100,000 km, and covering different directions compared with the comet-sun line. GHRS yielded line profiles with a spectral resolution (FWHM ~4 km s^(-1)) that was a factor of 2-3 better than any previous H Lyα or Hα ground-based measurements. The Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) and the Woods filter were used to obtain H Lyα images of the inner coma. The faint object spectrograph (FOS) was used to determine the OH production rate and monitor its variation throughout the HST observing sequence. The GHRS H Lyα line profiles show the behavior of a line profile that is optically thick in the core for positions near the nucleus (<5000 km) and gradually becoming more optically thin at larger displacements and lower column abundances. A composite H Lyα image constructed from four separate WFPC2 exposures is consistent with the relative fluxes seen in GHRS observations and clearly shows the dayside enhancement of a solar illuminated optically thick coma. These data were analyzed self-consistently to test our understanding of the detailed physics and chemistry of the expanding coma and our ability to obtain accurate water production rates from remote observations of gaseous hydrogen (H) and hydroxyl (OH), the major water dissociation products. Our hybrid kinetic/hydrodynamic model of the coma combined with a spherical radiative transfer calculation is able to account for (1) the velocity distribution of H atoms, (2) the spatial distribution of the H Lyα emission in the inner coma, and (3) the absolute intensities of H and OH emissions, giving a water production rate of (2.6 ± 0.4) × 10^(29) s^(-1) on 1996 April 4
Fermionic functional renormalization group for first-order phase transitions: a mean-field model
First-order phase transitions in many-fermion systems are not detected in the
susceptibility analysis of common renormalization-group (RG) approaches. Here
we introduce a counterterm technique within the functional
renormalization-group (fRG) formalism which allows access to all stable and
metastable configurations. It becomes possible to study symmetry-broken states
which occur through first-order transitions as well as hysteresis phenomena.
For continuous transitions, the standard results are reproduced. As an example,
we study discrete-symmetry breaking in a mean-field model for a commensurate
charge-density wave. An additional benefit of the approach is that away from
the critical temperature for the breaking of discrete symmetries large
interactions can be avoided at all RG scales.Comment: 17 pages, 8 figures. v2 corrects typos, adds references and a
discussion of the literatur
An influence assessment method based on co-occurrence for topologically reduced big data sets
Interior Point Decoding for Linear Vector Channels
In this paper, a novel decoding algorithm for low-density parity-check (LDPC)
codes based on convex optimization is presented. The decoding algorithm, called
interior point decoding, is designed for linear vector channels. The linear
vector channels include many practically important channels such as inter
symbol interference channels and partial response channels. It is shown that
the maximum likelihood decoding (MLD) rule for a linear vector channel can be
relaxed to a convex optimization problem, which is called a relaxed MLD
problem. The proposed decoding algorithm is based on a numerical optimization
technique so called interior point method with barrier function. Approximate
variations of the gradient descent and the Newton methods are used to solve the
convex optimization problem. In a decoding process of the proposed algorithm, a
search point always lies in the fundamental polytope defined based on a
low-density parity-check matrix. Compared with a convectional joint message
passing decoder, the proposed decoding algorithm achieves better BER
performance with less complexity in the case of partial response channels in
many cases.Comment: 18 pages, 17 figures, The paper has been submitted to IEEE
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