5,793 research outputs found
Level-3 Calorimetric Resolution available for the Level-1 and Level-2 CDF Triggers
As the Tevatron luminosity increases sophisticated selections are required to
be efficient in selecting rare events among a very huge background. To cope
with this problem, CDF has pushed the offline calorimeter algorithm
reconstruction resolution up to Level 2 and, when possible, even up to Level 1,
increasing efficiency and, at the same time, keeping under control the rates.
The CDF Run II Level 2 calorimeter trigger is implemented in hardware and is
based on a simple algorithm that was used in Run I. This system has worked well
for Run II at low luminosity. As the Tevatron instantaneous luminosity
increases, the limitation due to this simple algorithm starts to become clear:
some of the most important jet and MET (Missing ET) related triggers have large
growth terms in cross section at higher luminosity. In this paper, we present
an upgrade of the Level 2 Calorimeter system which makes the calorimeter
trigger tower information available directly to a CPU allowing more
sophisticated algorithms to be implemented in software. Both Level 2 jets and
MET can be made nearly equivalent to offline quality, thus significantly
improving the performance and flexibility of the jet and MET related triggers.
However in order to fully take advantage of the new L2 triggering capabilities
having at Level 1 the same L2 MET resolution is necessary. The new Level-1 MET
resolution is calculated by dedicated hardware. This paper describes the
design, the hardware and software implementation and the performance of the
upgraded calorimeter trigger system both at Level 2 and Level 1.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures,34th International Conference on High Energy
Physics, Philadelphia, 200
Predicting the Starquakes in PSR J0537-6910
We report on more than 7 years of monitoring of PSR J0537-6910, the 16 ms
pulsar in the Large Magellanic Cloud, using data acquired with the RXTE. During
this campaign the pulsar experienced 23 sudden increases in frequency
(``glitches'') amounting to a total gain of over six ppm of rotation frequency
superposed on its gradual spindown of d(nu)/d(t) = -2e-10 Hz/s. The time
interval from one glitch to the next obeys a strong linear correlation to the
amplitude of the first glitch, with a mean slope of about 400 days ppm (6.5
days per uHz), such that these intervals can be predicted to within a few days,
an accuracy which has never before been seen in any other pulsar. There appears
to be an upper limit of ~40 uHz for the size of glitches in_all_ pulsars, with
the 1999 April glitch of J0537 as the largest so far. The change in the
spindown of J0537 across the glitches, Delta(d(nu)/d(t)), appears to have the
same hard lower limit of -1.5e-13 Hz/s, as, again, that observed in all other
pulsars. The spindown continues to increase in the long term,
d(d(nu)/d(t))/d(t) = -1e-21 Hz/s/s, and thus the timing age of J0537 (-0.5 nu
d(nu)/d(t)) continues to decrease at a rate of nearly one year every year,
consistent with movement of its magnetic moment away from its rotational axis
by one radian every 10,000 years, or about one meter per year. J0537 was likely
to have been born as a nearly-aligned rotator spinning at 75-80 Hz, with a
|d(nu)/d(t)| considerably smaller than its current value of 2e-10 Hz/s. The
pulse profile of J0537 consists of a single pulse which is found to be flat at
its peak for at least 0.02 cycles.Comment: 54 pages, 12 figures. Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical
Journal. Cleaner figure 2. V4 -- in line with version accepted by Ap
Prospects for joint radio telescope and gravitational wave searches for astrophysical transients
The radio skies remain mostly unobserved when it comes to transient
phenomena. The direct detection of gravitational waves will mark a major
milestone of modern astronomy, as an entirely new window will open on the
universe. Two apparently independent phenomena can be brought together in a
coincident effort that has the potential to boost both searches. In this paper
we will outline the scientific case that stands behind these future joint
observations and will describe the methods that might be used to conduct the
searches and analyze the data. The targeted sources are binary systems of
compact objects, known to be strong candidate sources for gravitational waves.
Detection of transients coincident in these two channels would be a significant
smoking gun for first direct detection of gravitational waves, and would open
up a new field for characterization of astrophysical transients involving
massive compact objects.Comment: 12 pages, Amaldi 8 Conference (New York, 2009) proceedings pape
Sensitivity of wide band detectors to quintessential gravitons
There are no reasons why the energy spectra of the relic gravitons, amplified
by the pumping action of the background geometry, should not increase at high
frequencies. A typical example of this behavior are quintessential inflationary
models where the slopes of the energy spectra can be either blue or mildly
violet. In comparing the predictions of scenarios leading to blue and violet
graviton spectra we face the problem of correctly deriving the sensitivities of
the interferometric detectors. Indeed, the expression of the signal-to-noise
ratio not only depends upon the noise power spectra of the detectors but also
upon the spectral form of the signal and, therefore, one can reasonably expect
that models with different spectral behaviors will produce different
signal-to-noise ratios. By assuming monotonic (blue) spectra of relic gravitons
we will give general expressions for the signal-to-noise ratio in this class of
models. As an example we studied the case of quintessential gravitons. The
minimum achievable sensitivity to of different pairs of
detectors is computed, and compared with the theoretical expectations.Comment: 10 pages in Revtex style, 3 figure
Abstract Learning Frameworks for Synthesis
We develop abstract learning frameworks (ALFs) for synthesis that embody the
principles of CEGIS (counter-example based inductive synthesis) strategies that
have become widely applicable in recent years. Our framework defines a general
abstract framework of iterative learning, based on a hypothesis space that
captures the synthesized objects, a sample space that forms the space on which
induction is performed, and a concept space that abstractly defines the
semantics of the learning process. We show that a variety of synthesis
algorithms in current literature can be embedded in this general framework.
While studying these embeddings, we also generalize some of the synthesis
problems these instances are of, resulting in new ways of looking at synthesis
problems using learning. We also investigate convergence issues for the general
framework, and exhibit three recipes for convergence in finite time. The first
two recipes generalize current techniques for convergence used by existing
synthesis engines. The third technique is a more involved technique of which we
know of no existing instantiation, and we instantiate it to concrete synthesis
problems
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Evidence for back scattering of near-podal seismic P'P' waves from the 150-220 km zone in Earth's upper mantle
The deepest and most inaccessible parts of Earth's interior--the core and core-mantle boundary regions can be studied from compressional waves that turn in the core and are routinely observed following large earthquakes at epicentral distances between 145{sup o} and 180{sup o} (also called P', PKIKP or PKP waves). P'P' (PKPPKP) are P' waves that travel from a hypocenter through the Earth's core, reflect from the free surface and travel back through the core to a recording station on the surface. P'P' waves are sometimes accompanied by precursors, which were reported first in the 1960s as small-amplitude arrivals on seismograms at epicentral distances of about 50{sup o}-70{sup o}. Most prominent of these observed precursors were explained by P'P' waves generated by earthquakes or explosions that did not reach the Earth's surface but were reflected from the underside of first order velocity discontinuities at 410 and 660 km in the upper mantle mantle. Here we report the discovery of hitherto unobserved near-podal P'P' waves (at epicentral distance less than 10{sup o}) and very prominent precursors preceding the main energy by as much as 55 seconds. We interpret these precursors as a back scattered energy from undocumented structure in the upper mantle, in a zone between 150 and 220 km depth beneath Earth's surface. From these observations, we identify a frequency dependence of Q (attenuation quality factor) in the lithosphere that can be modeled by a flat relaxation spectrum below about 0.05-0.1 Hz and increasing with as the first power of frequency above this value, confirming pioneering work by B. Gutenberg
Measuring gravitational waves from binary black hole coalescences: II. the waves' information and its extraction, with and without templates
We discuss the extraction of information from detected binary black hole
(BBH) coalescence gravitational waves, focusing on the merger phase that occurs
after the gradual inspiral and before the ringdown. Our results are: (1) If
numerical relativity simulations have not produced template merger waveforms
before BBH detections by LIGO/VIRGO, one can band-pass filter the merger waves.
For BBHs smaller than about 40 solar masses detected via their inspiral waves,
the band pass filtering signal to noise ratio indicates that the merger waves
should typically be just barely visible in the noise for initial and advanced
LIGO interferometers. (2) We derive an optimized (maximum likelihood) method
for extracting a best-fit merger waveform from the noisy detector output; one
"perpendicularly projects" this output onto a function space (specified using
wavelets) that incorporates our prior knowledge of the waveforms. An extension
of the method allows one to extract the BBH's two independent waveforms from
outputs of several interferometers. (3) If numerical relativists produce codes
for generating merger templates but running the codes is too expensive to allow
an extensive survey of the merger parameter space, then a coarse survey of this
parameter space, to determine the ranges of the several key parameters and to
explore several qualitative issues which we describe, would be useful for data
analysis purposes. (4) A complete set of templates could be used to test the
nonlinear dynamics of general relativity and to measure some of the binary
parameters. We estimate the number of bits of information obtainable from the
merger waves (about 10 to 60 for LIGO/VIRGO, up to 200 for LISA), estimate the
information loss due to template numerical errors or sparseness in the template
grid, and infer approximate requirements on template accuracy and spacing.Comment: 33 pages, Rextex 3.1 macros, no figures, submitted to Phys Rev
Detecting relic gravitational radiation from string cosmology with LIGO
A characteristic spectrum of relic gravitational radiation is produced by a
period of ``stringy inflation" in the early universe. This spectrum is unusual,
because the energy-density rises rapidly with frequency. We show that
correlation experiments with the two gravitational wave detectors being built
for the Laser Interferometric Gravitational Observatory (LIGO) could detect
this relic radiation, for certain ranges of the parameters that characterize
the underlying string cosmology model.Comment: 6 pages, 5 eps figures, Revte
Bayesian Analysis of the Polarization of Distant Radio Sources: Limits on Cosmological Birefringence
A recent study of the rotation of the plane of polarization of light from 160
cosmological sources claims to find significant evidence for cosmological
anisotropy. We point out methodological weaknesses of that study, and reanalyze
the same data using Bayesian methods that overcome these problems. We find that
the data always favor isotropic models for the distribution of observed
polarizations over counterparts that have a cosmological anisotropy of the type
advocated in the earlier study. Although anisotropic models are not completely
ruled out, the data put strong lower limits on the length scale (in
units of the Hubble length) associated with the anisotropy; the lower limits of
95% credible regions for lie between 0.43 and 0.62 in all anisotropic
models we studied, values several times larger than the best-fit value of
found in the earlier study. The length scale is not
constrained from above. The vast majority of sources in the data are at
distances closer than 0.4 Hubble lengths (corresponding to a redshift of
0.8); the results are thus consistent with there being no significant
anisotropy on the length scale probed by these data.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures; submitted to Phys. Rev.
Inflationary Cosmologies in an Anisotropic Brane World
A new cosmological solution of the gravitational field equations in the
generalized Randall-Sundrum model for an anisotropic brane with Bianchi I
geometry and with perfect fluid as matter sources is presented. The matter is
described by a scalar field. The solution admits inflationary era and at a
later epoch the anisotropy of the universe washes out. We obtain two classes of
cosmological scenario, in the first case universe evolves from singularity and
in the second case universe expands without singularity.Comment: 15 pages, no figures, LaTe
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