Time-dependent gravity in southern California, May 1974 - Apr 1979

Gravity measurements were coordinated with the long baseline three dimensional geodetic measurements of the Astronomical Radio Interferometric Earth Surveying project which used radio interferometry with extra-galactic radio sources. Gravity data from 28 of the stations had a single reading standard deviation of 11 microgal which gives a relative single determination between stations a standard deviation of 16 microgal. The largest gravity variation observed, 80 microgal, correlated with nearby waterwell variations and with smoothed rainfall. Smoothed rainfall data appeared to be a good indicator of the qualitative response of gravity to changing groundwater levels at other suprasediment stations, but frequent measurement of gravity at a station was essential until the quantitative calibration of the station's response to groundwater variations was accomplished

Stress Buffer or Identity Threat?: Negative Media Portrayal, Public and Private Religious Involvement, and Mental Health in a National Sample of US Adults

Guided by the stress process tradition, complex links between religion and mental health have received growing attention from researchers. This study gauges individuals’ public and private religiosity, uses a novel measure of environmental stress—negative media portrayal of religion—and presents two divergent hypotheses: (1) religiosity as stress-exacerbating attachment to valued identities producing mental health vulnerability to threat and (2) religiosity as stress-buffering social psychological resource. To assess these hypotheses, we analyze three mental health outcomes (generalized anxiety, social anxiety, and general mental health problems) in national U.S. data from 2010 (N = 1,714). Our findings align with the stress-buffering perspective. Results show that individuals low in public and private religiosity tend to have worse mental health with greater negative media portrayal. High public or private religiosity tends to nullify the relationship between negative media portrayal and mental health

Fluctuations of prolonged grief disorder reactions in the daily life of bereaved people:An experience sampling study

IntroductionLoss-adaptation has been described as being characterized by ‘waves of grief’, whichmay result in a Prolonged Grief Disorder (PGD). Although this assumption about thefluctuating nature of grief is supported by theoretical work, it is not (yet) supported byempirical work. We are the first to explore to what extent PGD reactions fluctuate ineveryday life and whether fluctuations in PGD reactions are related to overall PGDlevels using experience sampling methodology (ESM).MethodsData from 38 bereaved individuals (74% women, on average 6 years post-loss, 47%lost a parent) were analyzed. For two weeks, five times per day, participants reportedon the severity of 11 PGD reactions in the past three hours (ESM-PGD). At baseline,overall PGD severity (B-PGD) in the past two weeks was assessed with telephone interviews using the Traumatic Grief Inventory–Clinician Administered. Root MeanSquare of Successive Differences (RMSSD) were calculated to reflect fluctuations inESM-PGD. Spearman correlations between RMSSD values of the 11 ESM-PGDreactions and B-PGD scores were computed.ResultsMean B-PGD scores were below the clinical cut-off. Some fluctuations in ESM-PGDreactions were found, as indicated by varying RMSSD values, but also floor effectswere detected. B-PGD levels were related to RMSSD values for ESM-PGD (ρ between.37 and .68, all p < .05; and between .36 and .63 after removal of floor effects).DiscussionWe found that (some) ESM-PGD reactions fluctuated in everyday life. This may offernew theoretical insights into loss-adaptation, which may result in optimizing PGDtreatment

Squeezed-field injection for gravitational wave interferometers

In a recent table-top experiment, we demonstrated the compatibility of three advanced interferometer techniques for gravitational wave detection, namely power-recycling, detuned signal recycling and squeezed-field injection. The interferometer's signal-to-noise ratio was improved by up to 2.8 dB beyond the coherent state's shot-noise. This value was mainly limited by optical losses on the squeezed field. We present a detailed analysis of the optical losses in our experiment and provide an estimation of the possible nonclassical performance of a future squeezed-field enhanced GEO 600 detector

Squeezed light at sideband frequencies below 100 kHz from a single OPA

Quantum noise of the electromagnetic field is one of the limiting noise sources in interferometric gravitational wave detectors. Shifting the spectrum of squeezed vacuum states downwards into the acoustic band of gravitational wave detectors is therefore of challenging demand to quantum optics experiments. We demonstrate a system that produces nonclassical continuous variable states of light that are squeezed at sideband frequencies below 100 kHz. A single optical parametric amplifier (OPA) is used in an optical noise cancellation scheme providing squeezed vacuum states with coherent bright phase modulation sidebands at higher frequencies. The system has been stably locked for half an hour limited by thermal stability of our laboratory.Comment: 3 pages, 3 figure

High quality anti-relaxation coating material for alkali atom vapor cells

We present an experimental investigation of alkali atom vapor cells coated with a high quality anti-relaxation coating material based on alkenes. The prepared cells with single compound alkene based coating showed the longest spin relaxation times which have been measured up to now with room temperature vapor cells. Suggestions are made that chemical binding of a cesium atom and an alkene molecule by attack to the C=C bond plays a crucial role in such improvement of anti-relaxation coating quality

On the distillation and purification of phase-diffused squeezed states

Recently it was discovered that non-Gaussian decoherence processes, such as phase-diffusion, can be counteracted by purification and distillation protocols that are solely built on Gaussian operations. Here, we make use of this experimentally highly accessible regime, and provide a detailed experimental and theoretical analysis of several strategies for purification/distillation protocols on phase-diffused squeezed states. Our results provide valuable information for the optimization of such protocols with respect to the choice of the trigger quadrature, the trigger threshold value and the probability of generating a distilled state