7,884 research outputs found
Apollo PLSS: Environmental control of the smallest manned space vehicle
The production of a portable life support system (PLSS) and associated backup equipment for supporting an astronaut working outside of the lunar module (LM) either in space or on the lunar surface is reported. Described are the system, the philosophy behind its design, basic requirements imposed on the system, and some of the evolutionary processes that led to the present configuration
Trapped-ion quantum error-correcting protocols using only global operations
Quantum error-correcting codes are many-body entangled states that are
prepared and measured using complex sequences of entangling operations. Each
element of such an entangling sequence introduces noise to delicate quantum
information during the encoding or reading out of the code. It is important
therefore to find efficient entangling protocols to avoid the loss of
information. Here we propose an experiment that uses only global entangling
operations to encode an arbitrary logical qubit to either the five-qubit
repetition code or the five-qubit code, with a six-ion Coulomb crystal
architecture in a Penning trap. We show that the use of global operations
enables us to prepare and read out these codes using only six and ten global
entangling pulses, respectively. The proposed experiment also allows the
acquisition of syndrome information during readout. We provide a noise analysis
for the presented protocols, estimating that we can achieve a six-fold
improvement in coherence time with noise as high as on each
entangling operation.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, published version, comments are welcom
Calculation of static longitudinal aerodynamic characteristics of STOL aircraft with upper surface blown flaps
An existing prediction method developed for EBF aircraft configurations was applied to USB configurations to determine its potential utility in predicting USB aerodynamic characteristics. An existing wing-flap vortex-lattice computer program was modified to handle multiple spanwise flap segments at different flap angles. A potential flow turbofan wake model developed for circular cross-section jets was used to model a rectangular cross-section jet wake by placing a number of circular jets side by side. The calculation procedure was evaluated by comparison of measured and predicted aerodynamic characteristics on a variety of USB configurations. The method is limited to the case where the flow and geometry of the configuration are symmetric about a vertical plane containing the wing root chord. Comparison of predicted and measured lift and pitching moment coefficients were made on swept wings with one and two engines per wing panel, various flap deflection angles, and a range of thrust coefficients. The results indicate satisfactory prediction of lift for flap deflections up to 55 and thrust coefficients less than 2. The applicability of the prediction procedure to USB configurations is evaluated, and specific recommendations for improvements are discussed
Globalising assessment: an ethnography of literacy assessment, camels and fast food in the Mongolian Gobi
What happens when standardised literacy assessments travel globally? The paper presents an ethnographic account of adult literacy assessment events in rural Mongolia. It examines the dynamics of literacy assessment in terms of the movement and re-contextualisation of test items as they travel globally and are received locally by Mongolian respondents. The analysis of literacy assessment events is informed by Goodwin’s ‘participation framework’ on language as embodied and situated interactive phenomena and by Actor Network Theory. Actor Network Theory (ANT) is applied to examine literacy assessment events as processes of translation shaped by an ‘assemblage’ of human and non-human actors (including the assessment texts)
Half-life of the electron-capture decay of 97Ru: Precision measurement shows no temperature dependence
We have measured the half-life of the electron-capture (ec) decay of 97Ru in
a metallic environment, both at low temperature (19K), and also at room
temperature. We find the half-lives at both temperatures to be the same within
0.1%. This demonstrates that a recent claim that the ec decay half-life for 7Be
changes by $0.9% +/- 0.2% under similar circumstances certainly cannot be
generalized to other ec decays. Our results for the half-life of 97Ru,
2.8370(14)d at room temperature and 2.8382(14)d at 19K, are consistent with,
but much more precise than, previous room-temperature measurements. In
addition, we have also measured the half-lives of the beta-emitters 103Ru and
105Rh at both temperatures, and found them also to be unchanged.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figure
High-rate, high-fidelity entanglement of qubits across an elementary quantum network
We demonstrate remote entanglement of trapped-ion qubits via a
quantum-optical fiber link with fidelity and rate approaching those of local
operations. Two Sr qubits are entangled via the polarization
degree of freedom of two photons which are coupled by high-numerical-aperture
lenses into single-mode optical fibers and interfere on a beamsplitter. A novel
geometry allows high-efficiency photon collection while maintaining unit
fidelity for ion-photon entanglement. We generate remote Bell pairs with
fidelity at an average rate (success
probability ).Comment: v2 updated to include responses to reviewers, as published in PR
The construction of non-spherical models of quasi-relaxed stellar systems
Spherical models of collisionless but quasi-relaxed stellar systems have long
been studied as a natural framework for the description of globular clusters.
Here we consider the construction of self-consistent models under the same
physical conditions, but including explicitly the ingredients that lead to
departures from spherical symmetry. In particular, we focus on the effects of
the tidal field associated with the hosting galaxy. We then take a stellar
system on a circular orbit inside a galaxy represented as a "frozen" external
field. The equilibrium distribution function is obtained from the one
describing the spherical case by replacing the energy integral with the
relevant Jacobi integral in the presence of the external tidal field. Then the
construction of the model requires the investigation of a singular perturbation
problem for an elliptic partial differential equation with a free boundary, for
which we provide a method of solution to any desired order, with explicit
solutions to two orders. We outline the relevant parameter space, thus opening
the way to a systematic study of the properties of a two-parameter family of
physically justified non-spherical models of quasi-relaxed stellar systems. The
general method developed here can also be used to construct models for which
the non-spherical shape is due to internal rotation. Eventually, the models
will be a useful tool to investigate whether the shapes of globular clusters
are primarily determined by internal rotation, by external tides, or by
pressure anisotropy.Comment: AASTeX v5.2, 37 pages with 2 figures, accepted for publication in The
Astrophysical Journa
Probing Qubit Memory Errors at the Part-per-Million Level
Robust qubit memory is essential for quantum computing, both for near-term
devices operating without error correction, and for the long-term goal of a
fault-tolerant processor. We directly measure the memory error for
a Ca trapped-ion qubit in the small-error regime and find
for storage times t\lesssim50\,\mbox{ms}. This exceeds
gate or measurement times by three orders of magnitude. Using randomized
benchmarking, at t=1\,\mbox{ms} we measure ,
around ten times smaller than that extrapolated from the time,
and limited by instability of the atomic clock reference used to benchmark the
qubit.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure
The orbit structure of Dynkin curves
Let G be a simple algebraic group over an algebraically closed field k;
assume that Char k is zero or good for G. Let \cB be the variety of Borel
subgroups of G and let e in Lie G be nilpotent. There is a natural action of
the centralizer C_G(e) of e in G on the Springer fibre \cB_e = {B' in \cB | e
in Lie B'} associated to e. In this paper we consider the case, where e lies in
the subregular nilpotent orbit; in this case \cB_e is a Dynkin curve. We give a
complete description of the C_G(e)-orbits in \cB_e. In particular, we classify
the irreducible components of \cB_e on which C_G(e) acts with finitely many
orbits. In an application we obtain a classification of all subregular orbital
varieties admitting a finite number of B-orbits for B a fixed Borel subgroup of
G.Comment: 12 pages, to appear in Math
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