3,000 research outputs found
Lensing Bias to CMB Measurements of Compensated Isocurvature Perturbations
Compensated isocurvature perturbations (CIPs) are modes in which the baryon
and dark matter density fluctuations cancel. They arise in the curvaton
scenario as well as some models of baryogenesis. While they leave no observable
effects on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) at linear order, they do
spatially modulate two-point CMB statistics and can be reconstructed in a
manner similar to gravitational lensing. Due to the similarity between the
effects of CMB lensing and CIPs, lensing contributes nearly Gaussian random
noise to the CIP estimator that approximately doubles the reconstruction noise
power. Additionally, the cross correlation between lensing and the integrated
Sachs-Wolfe (ISW) effect generates a correlation between the CIP estimator and
the temperature field even in the absence of a correlated CIP signal. For
cosmic-variance limited temperature measurements out to multipoles , subtracting a fixed lensing bias degrades the detection threshold for
CIPs by a factor of , whether or not they are correlated with the
adiabatic mode.Comment: 10 pages, 12 figures; one of the authors Chen He Heinrich was
previously known as Chen H
Magnetic Reversal on Vicinal Surfaces
We present a theoretical study of in-plane magnetization reversal for vicinal
ultrathin films using a one-dimensional micromagnetic model with
nearest-neighbor exchange, four-fold anisotropy at all sites, and two-fold
anisotropy at step edges. A detailed "phase diagram" is presented that catalogs
the possible shapes of hysteresis loops and reversal mechanisms as a function
of step anisotropy strength and vicinal terrace length. The steps generically
nucleate magnetization reversal and pin the motion of domain walls. No sharp
transition separates the cases of reversal by coherent rotation and reversal by
depinning of a ninety degree domain wall from the steps. Comparison to
experiment is made when appropriate.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figure
Quantum nondemolition measurement of mechanical motion quanta
The fields of opto- and electromechanics have facilitated numerous advances
in the areas of precision measurement and sensing, ultimately driving the
studies of mechanical systems into the quantum regime. To date, however, the
quantization of the mechanical motion and the associated quantum jumps between
phonon states remains elusive. For optomechanical systems, the coupling to the
environment was shown to preclude the detection of the mechanical mode
occupation, unless strong single photon optomechanical coupling is achieved.
Here, we propose and analyse an electromechanical setup, which allows to
overcome this limitation and resolve the energy levels of a mechanical
oscillator. We find that the heating of the membrane, caused by the interaction
with the environment and unwanted couplings, can be suppressed for carefully
designed electromechanical systems. The results suggest that phonon number
measurement is within reach for modern electromechanical setups.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures plus 24 pages, 11 figures supplemental materia
Turnip mosaic potyvirus probably first spread to Eurasian brassica crops from wild orchids about 1000 years ago
Turnip mosaic potyvirus (TuMV) is probably the most widespread and damaging virus that infects cultivated brassicas worldwide. Previous work has indicated that the virus originated in western Eurasia, with all of its closest relatives being viruses of monocotyledonous plants. Here we report that we have identified a sister lineage of TuMV-like potyviruses (TuMV-OM) from European orchids. The isolates of TuMV-OM form a monophyletic sister lineage to the brassica-infecting TuMVs (TuMV-BIs), and are nested within a clade of monocotyledon-infecting viruses. Extensive host-range tests showed that all of the TuMV-OMs are biologically similar to, but distinct from, TuMV-BIs and do not readily infect brassicas. We conclude that it is more likely that TuMV evolved from a TuMV-OM-like ancestor than the reverse. We did Bayesian coalescent analyses using a combination of novel and published sequence data from four TuMV genes [helper component-proteinase protein (HC-Pro), protein 3(P3), nuclear inclusion b protein (NIb), and coat protein (CP)]. Three genes (HC-Pro, P3, and NIb), but not the CP gene, gave results indicating that the TuMV-BI viruses diverged from TuMV-OMs around 1000 years ago. Only 150 years later, the four lineages of the present global population of TuMV-BIs diverged from one another. These dates are congruent with historical records of the spread of agriculture in Western Europe. From about 1200 years ago, there was a warming of the climate, and agriculture and the human population of the region greatly increased. Farming replaced woodlands, fostering viruses and aphid vectors that could invade the crops, which included several brassica cultivars and weeds. Later, starting 500 years ago, inter-continental maritime trade probably spread the TuMV-BIs to the remainder of the world
Graphene-based surface heater for de-icing applications
© 2018 The Royal Society of Chemistry. Graphene-based de-icing composites are of great interest due to incredible thermal, electrical and mechanical properties of graphene. Moreover, current technologies possess a number of challenges such as expensive, high power consumption, limited life time and adding extra weight to the composites. Here, we report a scalable process of making highly conductive graphene-based glass fibre rovings for de-icing applications. We also use a scalable process of making graphene-based conductive ink by microfluidic exfoliation technique. The glass fibre roving is then coated with graphene-based conductive inks using a dip-dry-cure technique which could potentially be scaled up into an industrial manufacturing unit. The graphene-coated glass roving demonstrates lower electrical resistances (∼1.7 Ω cm-1) and can heat up rapidly to a required temperature. We integrate these graphene-coated glass rovings into a vacuum-infused epoxy-glass fabric composite and also demonstrate the potential use of as prepared graphene-based composites for de-icing applications
NeurIPS 2020 EfficientQA Competition: Systems, Analyses and Lessons Learned
We review the EfficientQA competition from NeurIPS 2020. The competition focused on open-domain question answering (QA), where systems take natural language questions as input and return natural language answers. The aim of the competition was to build systems that can predict correct answers while also satisfying strict on-disk memory budgets. These memory budgets were designed to encourage contestants to explore the trade-off between storing retrieval corpora or the parameters of learned models. In this report, we describe the motivation and organization of the competition, review the best submissions, and analyze system predictions to inform a discussion of evaluation for open-domain QA
Impact of the solvent capacity constraint on E. coli metabolism
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Obtaining quantitative predictions for cellular metabolic activities requires the identification and modeling of the physicochemical constraints that are relevant at physiological growth conditions. Molecular crowding in a cell's cytoplasm is one such potential constraint, as it limits the solvent capacity available to metabolic enzymes.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Using a recently introduced flux balance modeling framework (FBAwMC) here we demonstrate that this constraint determines a metabolic switch in <it>E. coli </it>cells when they are shifted from low to high growth rates. The switch is characterized by a change in effective optimization strategy, the excretion of acetate at high growth rates, and a global reorganization of <it>E. coli </it>metabolic fluxes, the latter being partially confirmed by flux measurements of central metabolic reactions.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These results implicate the solvent capacity as an important physiological constraint acting on <it>E. coli </it>cells operating at high metabolic rates and for the activation of a metabolic switch when they are shifted from low to high growth rates. The relevance of this constraint in the context of both the aerobic ethanol excretion seen in fast growing yeast cells (Crabtree effect) and the aerobic glycolysis observed in rapidly dividing cancer cells (Warburg effect) should be addressed in the future.</p
Search for Kaluza-Klein Graviton Emission in Collisions at TeV using the Missing Energy Signature
We report on a search for direct Kaluza-Klein graviton production in a data
sample of 84 of \ppb collisions at = 1.8 TeV, recorded
by the Collider Detector at Fermilab. We investigate the final state of large
missing transverse energy and one or two high energy jets. We compare the data
with the predictions from a -dimensional Kaluza-Klein scenario in which
gravity becomes strong at the TeV scale. At 95% confidence level (C.L.) for
=2, 4, and 6 we exclude an effective Planck scale below 1.0, 0.77, and 0.71
TeV, respectively.Comment: Submitted to PRL, 7 pages 4 figures/Revision includes 5 figure
Measurement of the cross-section and charge asymmetry of bosons produced in proton-proton collisions at TeV with the ATLAS detector
This paper presents measurements of the and cross-sections and the associated charge asymmetry as a
function of the absolute pseudorapidity of the decay muon. The data were
collected in proton--proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV with
the ATLAS experiment at the LHC and correspond to a total integrated luminosity
of 20.2~\mbox{fb^{-1}}. The precision of the cross-section measurements
varies between 0.8% to 1.5% as a function of the pseudorapidity, excluding the
1.9% uncertainty on the integrated luminosity. The charge asymmetry is measured
with an uncertainty between 0.002 and 0.003. The results are compared with
predictions based on next-to-next-to-leading-order calculations with various
parton distribution functions and have the sensitivity to discriminate between
them.Comment: 38 pages in total, author list starting page 22, 5 figures, 4 tables,
submitted to EPJC. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at
https://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/STDM-2017-13
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