15,279 research outputs found
Neighborhood income inequality
This paper offers a descriptive empirical analysis of the geographic pattern of income inequality within a sample of 359 US metropolitan areas between 1980 and 2000. Specifically, we decompose the variance of metropolitan area-level household income into two parts: one associated with the degree of variation among household incomes within neighborhoods - defined by block groups and tracts - and the other associated with the extent of variation among households in different neighborhoods. Consistent with previous work, the results reveal that the vast majority of a city’s overall income inequality - at least three quarters - is driven by within-neighborhood variation rather than between-neighborhood variation, although we find that the latter rose significantly during the 1980s, especially between block groups. We then identify a number of metropolitan area-level characteristics that are associated with both levels of and changes in the degree of each type of residential income inequality.Income distribution ; Income
Uncertainty Relations for Positive Operator Valued Measures
How much unavoidable randomness is generated by a Positive Operator Valued
Measure (POVM)? We address this question using two complementary approaches.
First we study the variance of a real variable associated to the POVM outcomes.
In this context we introduce an uncertainty operator which measures how much
additional noise is introduced by carrying out a POVM rather than a von Neumann
measurement. We illustrate this first approach by studying the variances of
joint estimates of \sigma_x and \sigma_z for spin 1/2 particles. We show that
for unbiased measurements the sum of these variances is lower bounded by 1. In
our second approach we study the entropy of the POVM outcomes. In particular we
try to establish lower bounds on the entropy of the POVM outcomes. We
illustrate this second approach by examples.Comment: 5 pages, minor modifications and clarification
Lorentz transformations of open systems
We consider open dynamical systems, subject to external interventions by
agents that are not completely described by the theory (classical or quantal).
These interventions are localized in regions that are relatively spacelike.
Under these circumstances, no relativistic transformation law exists that
relates the descriptions of the physical system by observers in relative
motion. Still, physical laws are the same in all Lorentz frames.Comment: Final version submitted to J. Mod. Opt. (Proc. of Gdansk conference
The existence of time
Of those gauge theories of gravity known to be equivalent to general
relativity, only the biconformal gauging introduces new structures - the
quotient of the conformal group of any pseudo-Euclidean space by its Weyl
subgroup always has natural symplectic and metric structures. Using this metric
and symplectic form, we show that there exist canonically conjugate,
orthogonal, metric submanifolds if and only if the original gauged space is
Euclidean or signature 0. In the Euclidean cases, the resultant configuration
space must be Lorentzian. Therefore, in this context, time may be viewed as a
derived property of general relativity.Comment: 21 pages (Reduced to clarify and focus on central argument; some
calculations condensed; typos corrected
Measuring Which-Path Information with Coupled Electronic Mach-Zehnder Interferometers
We theoretically investigate a generalized "which-path" measurement on an
electronic Mach-Zehnder Interferometer (MZI) implemented via Coulomb coupling
to a second electronic MZI acting as a detector. The use of contextual values,
or generalized eigenvalues, enables the precise construction of which-path
operator averages that are valid for any measurement strength from the
available drain currents. The form of the contextual values provides direct
physical insight about the measurement being performed, providing information
about the correlation strength between system and detector, the measurement
inefficiency, and the proper background removal. We find that the detector
interferometer must display maximal wave-like behavior to optimally measure the
particle-like which-path information in the system interferometer,
demonstrating wave-particle complementarity between the system and detector. We
also find that the degree of quantum erasure that can be achieved by
conditioning on a specific detector drain is directly related to the ambiguity
of the measurement. Finally, conditioning the which-path averages on a
particular system drain using the zero frequency cross-correlations produces
conditioned averages that can become anomalously large due to quantum
interference; the weak coupling limit of these conditioned averages can produce
both weak values and detector-dependent semi-weak values.Comment: 17 pages, 12 figures, published version including appendi
Quantum Darwinism in quantum Brownian motion: the vacuum as a witness
We study quantum Darwinism -- the redundant recording of information about a
decohering system by its environment -- in zero-temperature quantum Brownian
motion. An initially nonlocal quantum state leaves a record whose redundancy
increases rapidly with its spatial extent. Significant delocalization (e.g., a
Schroedinger's Cat state) causes high redundancy: many observers can measure
the system's position without perturbing it. This explains the objective (i.e.
classical) existence of einselected, decoherence-resistant pointer states of
macroscopic objects.Comment: 5 page
Fast algorithms for computing defects and their derivatives in the Regge calculus
Any practical attempt to solve the Regge equations, these being a large
system of non-linear algebraic equations, will almost certainly employ a
Newton-Raphson like scheme. In such cases it is essential that efficient
algorithms be used when computing the defect angles and their derivatives with
respect to the leg-lengths. The purpose of this paper is to present details of
such an algorithm.Comment: 38 pages, 10 figure
Development of a selective bait for rabbits
It has long been recognised that a means of killing rabbits selectively in the presence of stock would be a major advance in rabbit control. It would enable a whole farm to be treated for rabbit control at one time, saving operational costs and cutting down reinfestation of rabbits into treated areas from untreated areas.
A literature search and some pilot trials indicated that indandione derivatives were more toxic to rabbits than to ruminants.
Pindone (2- pivalyl-l,3-indandione) was selected for evaluation
Hamiltonian Formulation of Two Body Problem in Wheeler-Feynman electrodynamics
A Hamiltonian formulation for the classical problem of electromagnetic
interaction of two charged relativistic particles is found.Comment: 22 pages, 8 Uuencoded Postscript figure
New representation and a vacuum state for canonical quantum gravity
A new representation for canonical gravity and supergravity is presented,
which combines advantages of Ashtekar's and the Wheeler~DeWitt representation:
it has a nice geometric structure and the singular metric problem is absent. A
formal state functional can be given, which has some typical features of a
vacuum state in quantum field theory. It can be canonically transformed into
the metric representation. Transforming the constraints too, one recovers the
Wheeler~DeWitt equation up to an anomalous term. A modified Dirac quantization
is proposed to handle possible anomalies in the constraint algebra.Comment: 28 pages, LaTe
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