Single- and double-beta decay Fermi-transitions in an exactly solvable model

An exactly solvable model suitable for the description of single and double-beta decay processes of the Fermi-type is introduced. The model is equivalent to the exact shell-model treatment of protons and neutrons in a single j-shell. Exact eigenvalues and eigenvectors are compared to those corresponding to the hamiltonian in the quasiparticle basis (qp) and with the results of both the standard quasiparticle random phase approximation (QRPA) and the renormalized one (RQRPA). The role of the scattering term of the quasiparticle hamiltonian is analyzed. The presence of an exact eigenstate with zero energy is shown to be related to the collapse of the QRPA. The RQRPA and the qp solutions do not include this zero-energy eigenvalue in their spectra, probably due to spurious correlations. The meaning of this result in terms of symmetries is presented.Comment: 29 pages, 9 figures included in a Postsript file. Submitted to Physcal Review

Timelike self-similar spherically symmetric perfect-fluid models

Einstein's field equations for timelike self-similar spherically symmetric perfect-fluid models are investigated. The field equations are rewritten as a first-order system of autonomous differential equations. Dimensionless variables are chosen in such a way that the number of equations in the coupled system is reduced as far as possible and so that the reduced phase space becomes compact and regular. The system is subsequently analysed qualitatively using the theory of dynamical systems.Comment: 23 pages, 6 eps-figure

Extreme times in financial markets

We apply the theory of continuous time random walks to study some aspects of the extreme value problem applied to financial time series. We focus our attention on extreme times, specifically the mean exit time and the mean first-passage time. We set the general equations for these extremes and evaluate the mean exit time for actual data.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure

Exact Hybrid Covariance Thresholding for Joint Graphical Lasso

This paper considers the problem of estimating multiple related Gaussian graphical models from a $p$-dimensional dataset consisting of different classes. Our work is based upon the formulation of this problem as group graphical lasso. This paper proposes a novel hybrid covariance thresholding algorithm that can effectively identify zero entries in the precision matrices and split a large joint graphical lasso problem into small subproblems. Our hybrid covariance thresholding method is superior to existing uniform thresholding methods in that our method can split the precision matrix of each individual class using different partition schemes and thus split group graphical lasso into much smaller subproblems, each of which can be solved very fast. In addition, this paper establishes necessary and sufficient conditions for our hybrid covariance thresholding algorithm. The superior performance of our thresholding method is thoroughly analyzed and illustrated by a few experiments on simulated data and real gene expression data

The use of calorimetry in nuclear materials management

A calorimeter is a device to measure evolved or adsorbed heat. For our purposes, the heat measured is that associated with radioactive decay and the unit of measurement is the watt. Each time an atom decays, energy is released and absorbed by the surroundings and heat generated. For each isotope, this heat is a constant related to the energy of the decay particles and the half-life of the isotope. A point which is often overlooked is that calorimetry is one of the oldest techniques known for measuring radioactivity. In 1903, Pierre Curie and A. Laborde used a twin microcalorimeter to determine that one gram of radium generates about 100 calories per hour. Several months later, Curie and Dewar used liquid oxygen and hydrogen to show that the amount of energy developed by radium and other radioactive elements did not depend on temperature. At that time, this observation was extremely important. It indicated that the nature of radioactivity is entirely different and cannot be compared with any known phenomena. In all other thermal processes known in physics and chemistry, the rate at which heat is developed changes with temperature. In 1942, Monsanto was asked by General Leslie Groves, Head of the Manhattan Project, to accept the responsibility for the chemistry and metallurgy of radioactive polonium. Late in 1943, two Monsanto scientists began a study of the half-life of polonium-210 using calorimetry

Modeling the series of (n x 2) Si-rich reconstructions of beta-SiC(001): a prospective atomic wire?

We perform ab initio plane wave supercell density functional calculations on three candidate models of the (3 x 2) reconstruction of the beta-SiC(001) surface. We find that the two-adlayer asymmetric-dimer model (TAADM) is unambiguously favored for all reasonable values of Si chemical potential. We then use structures derived from the TAADM parent to model the silicon lines that are observed when the (3 x 2) reconstruction is annealed (the (n x 2) series of reconstructions), using a tight-binding method. We find that as we increase n, and so separate the lines, a structural transition occurs in which the top addimer of the line flattens. We also find that associated with the separation of the lines is a large decrease in the HOMO-LUMO gap, and that the HOMO state becomes quasi-one-dimensional. These properties are qualititatively and quantitatively different from the electronic properties of the original (3 x 2) reconstruction.Comment: 22 pages, including 6 EPS figure

A white-light trap for Bose-Einstein condensates

We propose a novel method for trapping Bose-condensed atoms using a white-light interference fringe. Confinement frequencies of tens of kHz can be achieved in conjunction with trap depths of only a few micro-K. We estimate that lifetimes on the order of 10 s can be achieved for small numbers of atoms. The tight confinement and shallow depth permit tunneling processes to be used for studying interaction effects and for applications in quantum information.Comment: 10 pages with 3 figure

Fully-Renormalized QRPA fulfills Ikeda sum rule exactly

The renormalized quasiparticle-RPA is reformulated for even-even nuclei using restrictions imposed by the commutativity of the phonon creation operator with the total particle number operator. This new version, Fully-Renormalized QRPA (FR-QRPA), is free from the spurious low-energy solutions. Analytical proof is given that the Ikeda sum rule is fullfiled within the FR-QRPA.Comment: 9 page

Scintillator counters with WLS fiber/MPPC readout for the side muon range detector (SMRD)of the T2K experiment

The T2K neutrino experiment at J-PARC uses a set of near detectors to measure the properties of an unoscillated neutrino beam and neutrino interaction cross-sections. One of the sub-detectors of the near-detector complex, the side muon range detector (SMRD), is described in the paper. The detector is designed to help measure the neutrino energy spectrum, to identify background and to calibrate the other detectors. The active elements of the SMRD consist of 0.7 cm thick extruded scintillator slabs inserted into air gaps of the UA1 magnet yokes. The readout of each scintillator slab is provided through a single WLS fiber embedded into a serpentine shaped groove. Two Hamamatsu multi-pixel avalanche photodiodes (MPPC's) are coupled to both ends of the WLS fiber. This design allows us to achieve a high MIP detection efficiency of greater than 99%. A light yield of 25-50 p.e./MIP, a time resolution of about 1 ns and a spatial resolution along the slab better than 10 cm were obtained for the SMRD counters.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures; talk at TIPP09, March 12-17, Tsukuba, Japan; to be published in the conference proceeding

Staggering effects in nuclear and molecular spectra

It is shown that the recently observed Delta J = 2 staggering effect (i.e. the relative displacement of the levels with angular momenta J, J+4, J+8, ..., relatively to the levels with angular momenta J+2, J+6, J+10, ...) seen in superdeformed nuclear bands is also occurring in certain electronically excited rotational bands of diatomic molecules (YD, CrD, CrH, CoH), in which it is attributed to interband interactions (bandcrossings). In addition, the Delta J = 1 staggering effect (i.e. the relative displacement of the levels with even angular momentum J with respect to the levels of the same band with odd J) is studied in molecular bands free from Delta J = 2 staggering (i.e. free from interband interactions/bandcrossings). Bands of YD offer evidence for the absence of any Delta J = 1 staggering effect due to the disparity of nuclear masses, while bands of sextet electronic states of CrD demonstrate that Delta J = 1 staggering is a sensitive probe of deviations from rotational behaviour, due in this particular case to the spin-rotation and spin-spin interactions.Comment: LaTeX, 16 pages plus 30 figures given in separate .ps files. To appear in the proceedings of the 4th European Workshop on Quantum Systems in Chemistry and Physics (Marly-le-Roi, France, 1999), ed. J. Maruani et al. (Kluwer, Dordrecht