1,162 research outputs found
The Fisher-Rao metric for projective transformations of the line
A conditional probability density function is defined for measurements arising from a projective transformation of the line. The conditional density is a member of a parameterised family of densities in which the parameter takes values in the three dimensional manifold of projective transformations of the line. The Fisher information of the family defines on the manifold a Riemannian metric known as the Fisher-Rao metric. The Fisher-Rao metric has an approximation which is accurate if the variance of the measurement errors is small. It is shown that the manifold of parameter values has a finite volume under the approximating metric.
These results are the basis of a simple algorithm for detecting those projective transformations of the line which are compatible with a given set of measurements. The algorithm searches a finite list of representative parameter values for those values compatible with the measurements. Experiments with the algorithm suggest that it can detect a projective transformation of the line even when the correspondences between the components of the measurements in the domain and the range of the projective transformation are unknown
Time without time: a stochastic clock model
We study a classical reparametrization-invariant system, in which ``time'' is
not a priori defined. It consists of a nonrelativistic particle moving in five
dimensions, two of which are compactified to form a torus. There, assuming a
suitable potential, the internal motion is ergodic or more strongly irregular.
We consider quasi-local observables which measure the system's ``change'' in a
coarse-grained way. Based on this, we construct a statistical timelike
parameter, particularly with the help of maximum entropy method and Fisher-Rao
information metric. The emergent reparametrization-invariant ``time'' does not
run smoothly but is simply related to the proper time on the average. For
sufficiently low energy, the external motion is then described by a unitary
quantum mechanical evolution in accordance with the Schr\"odinger equation.Comment: 18 pages; LaTeX. 4 (.ps) plus 2 (.gif) figure file
Crossover from 2-dimensional to 1-dimensional collective pinning in NbSe3
We have fabricated NbSe structures with widths comparable to the
Fukuyama-Lee-Rice phase-coherence length. For samples already in the
2-dimensional pinning limit, we observe a crossover from 2-dimensional to
1-dimensional collective pinning when the crystal width is less than 1.6
m, corresponding to the phase-coherence length in this direction. Our
results show that surface pinning is negligible in our samples, and provide a
means to probe the dynamics of single domains giving access to a new regime in
charge-density wave physics.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, and 1 table. Accepted for publication in Physical
Review
Study of heterogeneous nucleation of eutectic Si in high-purity Al-Si alloys with Sr addition
The official published version can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2010 The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society and ASM InternationalAl-5 wt pct Si master-alloys with controlled Sr and/or P addition/s were produced using super purity Al 99.99 wt pct and Si 99.999 wt pct materials in an arc melter. The master-alloy was melt-spun resulting in the production of thin ribbons. The Al matrix of the ribbons contained entrained Al-Si eutectic droplets that were subsequently investigated. Differential scanning calorimetry, thermodynamic calculations, and transmission electron microscopy techniques were employed to examine the effect of the Sr and P additions on eutectic undercoolings and nucleation phenomenon. Results indicate that, unlike P, Sr does not promote nucleation. Increasing Sr additions depressed the eutectic nucleation temperature. This may be a result of the formation of a Sr phase that could consume or detrimentally affect potent AlP nucleation sites.This work is financially supported by the
Higher Education Commission of Pakistan and managerially supported from the OAD
Salt grains in hypervelocity impacts in the laboratory: Methods to sample plumes from the ice worlds Enceladus and Europa
The plumes naturally erupting from the icy satellite Enceladus were sampled by the Cassini spacecraft in high-speed fly-bys, which gave evidence of salt. This raises the question of how salt behaves under high-speed impact, and how it can best be sampled in future missions to such plumes. We present the results of 35 impacts onto aluminum targets by a variety of salts (NaCl, NaHCO3, MgSO4, and MgSO4·7H2O) at speeds from 0.26 to 7.3 km sâ1. Using SEM-EDX, identifiable projectile residue was found in craters at all speeds. It was possible to distinguish NaCl and NaHCO3 from each other, and from the magnesium sulfates, but not to separate the hydrous from anhydrous magnesium sulfates. Raman spectroscopy on the magnesium sulfates and NaHCO3 residues failed to find a signal at low impact speeds (<0.5 km sâ1) where there was insufficient projectile material deposited at the impact sites. At intermediate speeds (0.5 to 2â3 km sâ1), identifiable Raman spectra were found in the impact craters, but not at higher impact speeds, indicating a loss of structure during the high speed impacts. Thus, intact capture of identifiable salt residues on solid metal surfaces requires impact speeds between 0.75 and 2 km sâ1
Low-energy p-d Scattering: High Precision Data, Comparisons with Theory, and Phase-Shift Analyses
Angular distributions of sigma(theta), A_y, iT_11, T_20, T_21, and T_22 have
been measured for d-p scattering at E_c.m.=667 keV. This set of high-precision
data is compared to variational calculations with the nucleon-nucleon potential
alone and also to calculations including a three-nucleon (3N) potential.
Agreement with cross-section and tensor analyzing power data is excellent when
a 3N potential is used. However, a comparison between the vector analyzing
powers reveals differences of approximately 40% in the maxima of the angular
distributions which is larger than reported at higher energies for both p-d and
n-d scattering. Single-energy phase-shift analyses were performed on this data
set and a similar data set at E_c.m.=431.3 keV. The role of the different
phase-shift parameters in fitting these data is discussed.Comment: 18 pages, 6 figure
Characterization of a Li-6 loaded liquid organic scintillator for fast neutron spectrometry and thermal neutron detection
The characterization of a liquid scintillator incorporating an aqueous
solution of enriched lithium chloride to produce a scintillator with 0.40% Li-6
is presented, including the performance of the scintillator in terms of its
optical properties and neutron response. The scintillator was incorporated into
a fast neutron spectrometer, and the light output spectra from 2.5 MeV, 14.1
MeV, and Cf-252 neutrons were measured using capture-gated coincidence
techniques. The spectrometer was operated without coincidence to perform
thermal neutron measurements. Possible improvements in spectrometer performance
are discussed.Comment: Submitted to Applied Radiation and Isotopes. 11 pages, 7 figures, 3
tables. Revision addresses reviewers' comment
Emergence of pulled fronts in fermionic microscopic particle models
We study the emergence and dynamics of pulled fronts described by the
Fisher-Kolmogorov-Petrovsky-Piscounov (FKPP) equation in the microscopic
reaction-diffusion process A + A A$ on the lattice when only a particle is
allowed per site. To this end we identify the parameter that controls the
strength of internal fluctuations in this model, namely, the number of
particles per correlated volume. When internal fluctuations are suppressed, we
explictly see the matching between the deterministic FKPP description and the
microscopic particle model.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. E as a
Rapid Communicatio
Random walks and polymers in the presence of quenched disorder
After a general introduction to the field, we describe some recent results
concerning disorder effects on both `random walk models', where the random walk
is a dynamical process generated by local transition rules, and on `polymer
models', where each random walk trajectory representing the configuration of a
polymer chain is associated to a global Boltzmann weight. For random walk
models, we explain, on the specific examples of the Sinai model and of the trap
model, how disorder induces anomalous diffusion, aging behaviours and Golosov
localization, and how these properties can be understood via a strong disorder
renormalization approach. For polymer models, we discuss the critical
properties of various delocalization transitions involving random polymers. We
first summarize some recent progresses in the general theory of random critical
points : thermodynamic observables are not self-averaging at criticality
whenever disorder is relevant, and this lack of self-averaging is directly
related to the probability distribution of pseudo-critical temperatures
over the ensemble of samples of size . We describe the
results of this analysis for the bidimensional wetting and for the
Poland-Scheraga model of DNA denaturation.Comment: 17 pages, Conference Proceedings "Mathematics and Physics", I.H.E.S.,
France, November 200
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