5,369 research outputs found
Agricultural risk management in Europe
Replaced with revised version of paper 11/18/08Risk management policy, agricultural insurance, calamity funds, ad-hoc aids, natural disaster, Production Economics, Risk and Uncertainty,
Effective sigma models and lattice Ward identities
We perform a lattice analysis of the Faddeev-Niemi effective action
conjectured to describe the low-energy sector of SU(2) Yang-Mills theory. To
this end we generate an ensemble of unit vector fields ("color spins") n from
the Wilson action. The ensemble does not show long-range order but exhibits a
mass gap of the order of 1 GeV. From the distribution of color spins we
reconstruct approximate effective actions by means of exact lattice
Schwinger-Dyson and Ward identities ("inverse Monte Carlo"). We show that the
generated ensemble cannot be recovered from a Faddeev-Niemi action, modified in
a minimal way by adding an explicit symmetry-breaking term to avoid the
appearance of Goldstone modes.Comment: 25 pages, 17 figures, JHEP styl
Two-Qubit Separability Probabilities and Beta Functions
Due to recent important work of Zyczkowski and Sommers (quant-ph/0302197 and
quant-ph/0304041), exact formulas are available (both in terms of the
Hilbert-Schmidt and Bures metrics) for the (n^2-1)-dimensional and
(n(n-1)/2-1)-dimensional volumes of the complex and real n x n density
matrices. However, no comparable formulas are available for the volumes (and,
hence, probabilities) of various separable subsets of them. We seek to clarify
this situation for the Hilbert-Schmidt metric for the simplest possible case of
n=4, that is, the two-qubit systems. Making use of the density matrix (rho)
parameterization of Bloore (J. Phys. A 9, 2059 [1976]), we are able to reduce
each of the real and complex volume problems to the calculation of a
one-dimensional integral, the single relevant variable being a certain ratio of
diagonal entries, nu = (rho_{11} rho_{44})/{rho_{22} rho_{33})$. The associated
integrand in each case is the product of a known (highly oscillatory near nu=1)
jacobian and a certain unknown univariate function, which our extensive
numerical (quasi-Monte Carlo) computations indicate is very closely
proportional to an (incomplete) beta function B_{nu}(a,b), with a=1/2,
b=sqrt{3}in the real case, and a=2 sqrt{6}/5, b =3/sqrt{2} in the complex case.
Assuming the full applicability of these specific incomplete beta functions, we
undertake separable volume calculations.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures, paper is substantially rewritten and
reorganized, with the quasi-Monte Carlo integration sample size being greatly
increase
Analysis of new high-precision transit light curves of WASP-10 b: starspot occultations, small planetary radius, and high metallicity
The WASP-10 planetary system is intriguing because different values of radius
have been reported for its transiting exoplanet. The host star exhibits
activity in terms of photometric variability, which is caused by the rotational
modulation of the spots. Moreover, a periodic modulation has been discovered in
transit timing of WASP-10 b, which could be a sign of an additional body
perturbing the orbital motion of the transiting planet. We attempt to refine
the physical parameters of the system, in particular the planetary radius,
which is crucial for studying the internal structure of the transiting planet.
We also determine new mid-transit times to confirm or refute observed anomalies
in transit timing. We acquired high-precision light curves for four transits of
WASP-10 b in 2010. Assuming various limb-darkening laws, we generated best-fit
models and redetermined parameters of the system. The prayer-bead method and
Monte Carlo simulations were used to derive error estimates. Three transit
light curves exhibit signatures of the occultations of dark spots by the planet
during its passage across the stellar disk. The influence of stellar activity
on transit depth is taken into account while determining system parameters. The
radius of WASP-10 b is found to be no greater than 1.03 Jupiter radii, a value
significantly smaller than most previous studies indicate. We calculate
interior structure models of the planet, assuming a two-layer structure with
one homogeneous envelope atop a rock core. The high value of the WASP-10 b's
mean density allows one to consider the planet's internal structure including
270 to 450 Earth masses of heavy elements. Our new mid-transit times confirm
that transit timing cannot be explained by a constant period if all literature
data points are considered. They are consistent with the ephemeris assuming a
periodic variation of transit timing...Comment: Accepted for publication in A&
A priori probability that a qubit-qutrit pair is separable
We extend to arbitrarily coupled pairs of qubits (two-state quantum systems)
and qutrits (three-state quantum systems) our earlier study (quant-ph/0207181),
which was concerned with the simplest instance of entangled quantum systems,
pairs of qubits. As in that analysis -- again on the basis of numerical
(quasi-Monte Carlo) integration results, but now in a still higher-dimensional
space (35-d vs. 15-d) -- we examine a conjecture that the Bures/SD (statistical
distinguishability) probability that arbitrarily paired qubits and qutrits are
separable (unentangled) has a simple exact value, u/(v Pi^3)= >.00124706, where
u = 2^20 3^3 5 7 and v = 19 23 29 31 37 41 43 (the product of consecutive
primes). This is considerably less than the conjectured value of the Bures/SD
probability, 8/(11 Pi^2) = 0736881, in the qubit-qubit case. Both of these
conjectures, in turn, rely upon ones to the effect that the SD volumes of
separable states assume certain remarkable forms, involving "primorial"
numbers. We also estimate the SD area of the boundary of separable qubit-qutrit
states, and provide preliminary calculations of the Bures/SD probability of
separability in the general qubit-qubit-qubit and qutrit-qutrit cases.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables, LaTeX, we utilize recent exact
computations of Sommers and Zyczkowski (quant-ph/0304041) of "the Bures
volume of mixed quantum states" to refine our conjecture
Bures volume of the set of mixed quantum states
We compute the volume of the N^2-1 dimensional set M_N of density matrices of
size N with respect to the Bures measure and show that it is equal to that of a
N^2-1 dimensional hyper-halfsphere of radius 1/2. For N=2 we obtain the volume
of the Uhlmann 3-D hemisphere, embedded in R^4. We find also the area of the
boundary of the set M_N and obtain analogous results for the smaller set of all
real density matrices. An explicit formula for the Bures-Hall normalization
constants is derived for an arbitrary N.Comment: 15 revtex pages, 2 figures in .eps; ver. 3, Eq. (4.19) correcte
- …