5,203 research outputs found
Large deviations in boundary-driven systems: Numerical evaluation and effective large-scale behavior
We study rare events in systems of diffusive fields driven out of equilibrium
by the boundaries. We present a numerical technique and use it to calculate the
probabilities of rare events in one and two dimensions. Using this technique,
we show that the probability density of a slowly varying configuration can be
captured with a small number of long wave-length modes. For a configuration
which varies rapidly in space this description can be complemented by a local
equilibrium assumption
Transport of Cosmic Rays in Chaotic Magnetic Fields
The transport of charged particles in disorganised magnetic fields is an
important issue which concerns the propagation of cosmic rays of all energies
in a variety of astrophysical environments, such as the interplanetary,
interstellar and even extra-galactic media, as well as the efficiency of Fermi
acceleration processes. We have performed detailed numerical experiments using
Monte-Carlo simulations of particle propagation in stochastic magnetic fields
in order to measure the parallel and transverse spatial diffusion coefficients
and the pitch angle scattering time as a function of rigidity and strength of
the turbulent magnetic component. We confirm the extrapolation to high
turbulence levels of the scaling predicted by the quasi-linear approximation
for the scattering frequency and parallel diffusion coefficient at low
rigidity. We show that the widely used Bohm diffusion coefficient does not
provide a satisfactory approximation to diffusion even in the extreme case
where the mean field vanishes. We find that diffusion also takes place for
particles with Larmor radii larger than the coherence length of the turbulence.
We argue that transverse diffusion is much more effective than predicted by the
quasi-linear approximation, and appears compatible with chaotic magnetic
diffusion of the field lines. We provide numerical estimates of the Kolmogorov
length and magnetic line diffusion coefficient as a function of the level of
turbulence. Finally we comment on applications of our results to astrophysical
turbulence and the acceleration of high energy cosmic rays in supernovae
remnants, in super-bubbles, and in jets and hot spots of powerful
radio-galaxies.Comment: To be published in Physical Review D, 20 pages 9 figure
Ensemble v-representable ab-initio density functional calculation of energy and spin in atoms: atest of exchange-correlation approximations
The total energies and the spin states for atoms and their first ions with Z
= 1-86 are calculated within the the local spin-density approximation (LSDA)
and the generalized-gradient approximation (GGA) to the exchange-correlation
(xc) energy in density-functional theory. Atoms and ions for which the
ground-state density is not pure-state v-representable, are treated as ensemble
v- representable with fractional occupations of the Kohn-Sham system. A newly
developed algorithm which searches over ensemble v-representable densities [E.
Kraisler et al., Phys. Rev. A 80, 032115 (2009)] is employed in calculations.
It is found that for many atoms the ionization energies obtained with the GGA
are only modestly improved with respect to experimental data, as compared to
the LSDA. However, even in those groups of atoms where the improvement is
systematic, there remains a non-negligible difference with respect to the
experiment. The ab-initio electronic configuration in the Kohn-Sham reference
system does not always equal the configuration obtained from the spectroscopic
term within the independent-electron approximation. It was shown that use of
the latter configuration can prevent the energy-minimization process from
converging to the global minimum, e.g. in lanthanides. The spin values
calculated ab-initio fit the experiment for most atoms and are almost
unaffected by the choice of the xc-functional. Among the systems with
incorrectly obtained spin there exist some cases (e.g. V, Pt) for which the
result is found to be stable with respect to small variations in the
xc-approximation. These findings suggest a necessity for a significant
modification of the exchange-correlation functional, probably of a non-local
nature, to accurately describe such systems. PACS numbers: 31.15.
Transition temperature of a dilute homogeneous imperfect Bose gas
The leading-order effect of interactions on a homogeneous Bose gas is
theoretically predicted to shift the critical temperature by an amount
\Delta\Tc = # a_{scatt} n^{1/3} T_0 from the ideal gas result T_0, where
a_{scatt} is the scattering length and n is the density. There have been
several different theoretical estimates for the numerical coefficient #. We
claim to settle the issue by measuring the numerical coefficient in a lattice
simulation of O(2) phi^4 field theory in three dimensions---an effective theory
which, as observed previously in the literature, can be systematically matched
to the dilute Bose gas problem to reproduce non-universal quantities such as
the critical temperature. We find # = 1.32 +- 0.02.Comment: 4 pages, submitted to Phys. Rev. Lett; minor changes due to
improvement of analysis in the longer companion pape
Auxiliary master equation for nonequilibrium dual-fermion approach
We introduce auxiliary quantum master equation - dual fermion approach
(QME-DF) and argue that it presents a convenient way to describe steady-states
of correlated impurity systems. The combined scheme yields an expansion around
a reference much closer to the true nonequilibrium state than in the original
dual fermion formulation. In steady-state situations, the scheme is numerically
cheaper and allows to avoid long time propagation of previous considerations.
Anderson impurity is used as a test model. The QME-DF simulations are compared
with numerically exact tdDMRG results.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure
Sow body condition at weaning and reproduction performance in organic piglet production
The objective was to investigate the variation in backfat at weaning and its relations to reproduction results in organic sow herds in Denmark. The study included eight herds and 573 sows. The average backfat at weaning mean�13 mm; SD�4.2 mm) ranging from 10.5 to 17.3 mm among herds shows that it is possible to avoid poor body condition at weaning even with a lactation length of seven weeks or more. No main effect of backfat at weaning on reproduction performance was found, but the probability of a successful reproduction after weaning tended to decrease with decreasing backfat for first parity sows, whereas the opposite was the case for multiparous sows
The robustness of speech representations obtained from simulated auditory nerve fibers under different noise conditions
Different methods of extracting speech features from an auditory model were systematically investigated in terms of their robustness to different noises. The methods either computed the average firing rate within frequency channels (spectral features) or inter-spike-intervals (timing features) from the simulated auditory nerve response. When used as the front-end for an automatic speech recognizer, timing features outperformed spectral features in Gaussian noise. However, this advantage was lost in babble, because timing features extracted the spectro-temporal structure of babble noise, which is similar to the target speaker. This suggests that different feature extraction methods are optimal depending on the background noise
Graph Treewidth and Geometric Thickness Parameters
Consider a drawing of a graph in the plane such that crossing edges are
coloured differently. The minimum number of colours, taken over all drawings of
, is the classical graph parameter "thickness". By restricting the edges to
be straight, we obtain the "geometric thickness". By further restricting the
vertices to be in convex position, we obtain the "book thickness". This paper
studies the relationship between these parameters and treewidth.
Our first main result states that for graphs of treewidth , the maximum
thickness and the maximum geometric thickness both equal .
This says that the lower bound for thickness can be matched by an upper bound,
even in the more restrictive geometric setting. Our second main result states
that for graphs of treewidth , the maximum book thickness equals if and equals if . This refutes a conjecture of Ganley and
Heath [Discrete Appl. Math. 109(3):215-221, 2001]. Analogous results are proved
for outerthickness, arboricity, and star-arboricity.Comment: A preliminary version of this paper appeared in the "Proceedings of
the 13th International Symposium on Graph Drawing" (GD '05), Lecture Notes in
Computer Science 3843:129-140, Springer, 2006. The full version was published
in Discrete & Computational Geometry 37(4):641-670, 2007. That version
contained a false conjecture, which is corrected on page 26 of this versio
Lagrange formalism of memory circuit elements: classical and quantum formulations
The general Lagrange-Euler formalism for the three memory circuit elements,
namely, memristive, memcapacitive, and meminductive systems, is introduced. In
addition, {\it mutual meminductance}, i.e. mutual inductance with a state
depending on the past evolution of the system, is defined. The Lagrange-Euler
formalism for a general circuit network, the related work-energy theorem, and
the generalized Joule's first law are also obtained. Examples of this formalism
applied to specific circuits are provided, and the corresponding Hamiltonian
and its quantization for the case of non-dissipative elements are discussed.
The notion of {\it memory quanta}, the quantum excitations of the memory
degrees of freedom, is presented. Specific examples are used to show that the
coupling between these quanta and the well-known charge quanta can lead to a
splitting of degenerate levels and to other experimentally observable quantum
effects
Two superluminous supernovae from the early universe discovered by the Supernova Legacy Survey
We present spectra and lightcurves of SNLS 06D4eu and SNLS 07D2bv, two
hydrogen-free superluminous supernovae discovered by the Supernova Legacy
Survey. At z = 1.588, SNLS 06D4eu is the highest redshift superluminous SN with
a spectrum, at M_U = -22.7 is one of the most luminous SNe ever observed, and
gives a rare glimpse into the restframe ultraviolet where these supernovae put
out their peak energy. SNLS 07D2bv does not have a host galaxy redshift, but
based on the supernova spectrum, we estimate it to be at z ~ 1.5. Both
supernovae have similar observer-frame griz lightcurves, which map to restframe
lightcurves in the U-band and UV, rising in ~ 20 restframe days or longer, and
declining over a similar timescale. The lightcurves peak in the shortest
wavelengths first, consistent with an expanding blackbody starting near 15,000
K and steadily declining in temperature. We compare the spectra to theoretical
models, and identify lines of C II, C III, Fe III, and Mg II in the spectrum of
SNLS 06D4eu and SCP 06F6, and find that they are consistent with an expanding
explosion of only a few solar masses of carbon, oxygen, and other trace metals.
Thus the progenitors appear to be related to those suspected for SNe Ic. A high
kinetic energy, 10^52 ergs, is also favored. Normal mechanisms of powering
core- collapse or thermonuclear supernovae do not seem to work for these
supernovae. We consider models powered by 56Ni decay and interaction with
circumstellar material, but find that the creation and spin-down of a magnetar
with a period of 2ms, magnetic field of 2 x 10^14 Gauss, and a 3 solar mass
progenitor provides the best fit to the data.Comment: ApJ, accepted, 43 pages, 15 figure
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