647 research outputs found
Thyr: a volumetric ray-marching tool for simulating microwave emission
Gyrosynchrotron radiation is produced by solar flares, and can be used to infer properties of the accelerated electrons and magnetic field of the flaring region. This microwave emission is highly dependent on many local plasma parameters, and the viewing angle. To correctly interpret observations, detailed simulations of the emission are required. Additionally, gyrosynchrotron emission from the chromosphere has been largely ignored in modelling efforts, and recent studies have shown the importance of thermal emission at millimetric wavelengths. Thyr is a new tool for modelling microwave emission from three-dimensional flaring loops with spatially varying atmosphere and increased resolution in the lower corona and chromosphere. Thyr is modular and open-source, consisting of separate components to compute the thermal and non-thermal microwave emission coefficients and perform three-dimensional radiative transfer (in local thermodynamic equilibrium). The radiative transfer integral is computed by a novel ray-marching technique to efficiently compute the contribution of many volume elements. This technique can also be employed on a variety of astrophysics problems. Herein we present a review of the theory of gyrosynchrotron radiation, and two simulations of identical flare loops in low- and high resolution performed with Thyr, with a spectral imaging analysis of differing regions. The high-resolution simulation presents a spectral hardening at higher frequencies. This hardening originates around the top of the chromosphere due to the strong convergence of the magnetic field, and is not present in previous models due to insufficient resolution. This hardening could be observed with a coordinated flare observation from active radio observatories
On the practicality of time-optimal two-qubit Hamiltonian simulation
What is the time-optimal way of using a set of control Hamiltonians to obtain
a desired interaction? Vidal, Hammerer and Cirac [Phys. Rev. Lett. 88 (2002)
237902] have obtained a set of powerful results characterizing the time-optimal
simulation of a two-qubit quantum gate using a fixed interaction Hamiltonian
and fast local control over the individual qubits. How practically useful are
these results? We prove that there are two-qubit Hamiltonians such that
time-optimal simulation requires infinitely many steps of evolution, each
infinitesimally small, and thus is physically impractical. A procedure is given
to determine which two-qubit Hamiltonians have this property, and we show that
almost all Hamiltonians do. Finally, we determine some bounds on the penalty
that must be paid in the simulation time if the number of steps is fixed at a
finite number, and show that the cost in simulation time is not too great.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figure
Entanglement between a qubit and the environment in the spin-boson model
The quantitative description of the quantum entanglement between a qubit and
its environment is considered. Specifically, for the ground state of the
spin-boson model, the entropy of entanglement of the spin is calculated as a
function of , the strength of the ohmic coupling to the environment,
and , the level asymmetry. This is done by a numerical
renormalization group treatment of the related anisotropic Kondo model. For
, the entanglement increases monotonically with , until it
becomes maximal for . For fixed , the entanglement
is a maximum as a function of for a value, .Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures. Shortened version restricted to groundstate
entanglemen
A High Luminosity e+e- Collider to study the Higgs Boson
A strong candidate for the Standard Model Scalar boson, H(126), has been
discovered by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiments. In order to study
this fundamental particle with unprecedented precision, and to perform
precision tests of the closure of the Standard Model, we investigate the
possibilities offered by An e+e- storage ring collider. We use a design
inspired by the B-factories, taking into account the performance achieved at
LEP2, and imposing a synchrotron radiation power limit of 100 MW. At the most
relevant centre-of-mass energy of 240 GeV, near-constant luminosities of 10^34
cm^{-2}s^{-1} are possible in up to four collision points for a ring of 27km
circumference. The achievable luminosity increases with the bending radius, and
for 80km circumference, a luminosity of 5 10^34 cm^{-2}s^{-1} in four collision
points appears feasible. Beamstrahlung becomes relevant at these high
luminosities, leading to a design requirement of large momentum acceptance both
in the accelerating system and in the optics. The larger machine could reach
the top quark threshold, would yield luminosities per interaction point of
10^36 cm^{-2}s^{-1} at the Z pole (91 GeV) and 2 10^35 cm^{-2}s^{-1} at the W
pair production threshold (80 GeV per beam). The energy spread is reduced in
the larger ring with respect to what is was at LEP, giving confidence that beam
polarization for energy calibration purposes should be available up to the W
pair threshold. The capabilities in term of physics performance are outlined.Comment: Submitted to the European Strategy Preparatory Group 01-04-2013 new
version as re-submitted to PRSTA
LEAP2 changes with body mass and food intake in humans and mice
Acyl-ghrelin administration increases food intake, body weight, and blood glucose. In contrast, mice lacking ghrelin or ghrelin receptors (GHSRs) exhibit life-threatening
hypoglycemia during starvation-like conditions but do not consistently exhibit overt metabolic phenotypes when given ad libitum food access. These results, and findings of
ghrelin resistance in obese states, imply nutritional state-dependence of ghrelin’s metabolic actions. Here, we hypothesized that LEAP2 (liver enriched antimicrobial
peptide-2), a recently-characterized endogenous GHSR antagonist, blunts ghrelin action during obese states and post-prandially. To test this hypothesis, we determined
changes in plasma LEAP2 and acyl-ghrelin due to fasting, eating, obesity, Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB), vertical sleeve gastrectomy (VSG), oral glucose administration,
and type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) using humans and/or mice. Our results suggest that plasma LEAP2 is regulated by metabolic status: its levels increase with body mass
and blood glucose, and decrease with fasting, RYGB, and in post-prandial states following VSG. These changes were mostly opposite to those of acyl-ghrelin. Furthermore, using electrophysiology, we showed that LEAP2 both hyperpolarizes and prevents acyl-ghrelin from activating arcuate NPY neurons. We predict that the plasma LEAP2:acyl-ghrelin molar ratio may be a key determinant modulating acyl-ghrelin
activity in response to body mass, feeding status, and blood glucose
Entanglement of two-mode Bose-Einstein condensates
We investigate the entaglement characteristics of two general bimodal
Bose-Einstein condensates - a pair of tunnel-coupled Bose-Einstein condensates
and the atom-molecule Bose-Einstein condensate. We argue that the entanglement
is only physically meaningful if the system is viewed as a bipartite system,
where the subsystems are the two modes. The indistinguishibility of the
particles in the condensate means that the atomic constituents are physically
inaccessible and thus the degree of entanglement between individual particles,
unlike the entanglement between the modes, is not experimentally relevant so
long as the particles remain in the condensed state. We calculate the
entanglement between the modes for the exact ground state of the two bimodal
condensates and consider the dynamics of the entanglement in the tunnel-coupled
case.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, submitted to Physical Review A, to be presented
at the third UQ Mathematical Physics workshop, Oct. 4-6; changes made in
response to referee comment
Mixtures of Bosonic and Fermionic Atoms in Optical Lattices
We discuss the theory of mixtures of Bosonic and Fermionic atoms in periodic
potentials at zero temperature. We derive a general Bose--Fermi Hubbard
Hamiltonian in a one--dimensional optical lattice with a superimposed harmonic
trapping potential. We study the conditions for linear stability of the mixture
and derive a mean field criterion for the onset of a Bosonic superfluid
transition. We investigate the ground state properties of the mixture in the
Gutzwiller formulation of mean field theory, and present numerical studies of
finite systems. The Bosonic and Fermionic density distributions and the onset
of quantum phase transitions to demixing and to a Bosonic Mott--insulator are
studied as a function of the lattice potential strength. The existence is
predicted of a disordered phase for mixtures loaded in very deep lattices. Such
a disordered phase possessing many degenerate or quasi--degenerate ground
states is related to a breaking of the mirror symmetry in the lattice.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures; added discussions; conclusions and references
expande
Calculating Quenching Weights
We calculate the probability (``quenching weight'') that a hard parton
radiates an additional energy fraction due to scattering in spatially extended
QCD matter. This study is based on an exact treatment of finite in-medium path
length, it includes the case of a dynamically expanding medium, and it extends
to the angular dependence of the medium-induced gluon radiation pattern. All
calculations are done in the multiple soft scattering approximation
(Baier-Dokshitzer-Mueller-Peign\'e-Schiff--Zakharov ``BDMPS-Z''-formalism) and
in the single hard scattering approximation (N=1 opacity approximation). By
comparison, we establish a simple relation between transport coefficient, Debye
screening mass and opacity, for which both approximations lead to comparable
results. Together with this paper, a CPU-inexpensive numerical subroutine for
calculating quenching weights is provided electronically. To illustrate its
applications, we discuss the suppression of hadronic transverse momentum
spectra in nucleus-nucleus collisions. Remarkably, the kinematic constraint
resulting from finite in-medium path length reduces significantly the
transverse momentum dependence of the nuclear modification factor, thus leading
to consistency with the data measured at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider
(RHIC).Comment: 45 pages LaTeX, 20 eps-figure
The Swift-XRT imaging Performances and Serendipitous Survey
We are exploiting thc Swift X-ray Telescope (XRT) deepest GR.B follow-up observations to study the cosmic X-Ray Background (XRB) population in the 0.2-10 keV energy band. We present some preliminary results of a serendipitous survey performed on 221 fields observed with exposure longer than 10 ks. We show that the XRT is a profitable instrument for surveys and that it is particularly suitable for the search and observation of ext,ended objects like clusters of galaxies. We used the brightest serendipitous sources and the longest observations to test. the XRT optics performance and the background characteristics all over the field of view, in different energy bands during the first 2.5 years of fully operational missions
Fertility, Living Arrangements, Care and Mobility
There are four main interconnecting themes around which the contributions in this book are based. This introductory chapter aims to establish the broad context for the chapters that follow by discussing each of the themes. It does so by setting these themes within the overarching demographic challenge of the twenty-first century – demographic ageing. Each chapter is introduced in the context of the specific theme to which it primarily relates and there is a summary of the data sets used by the contributors to illustrate the wide range of cross-sectional and longitudinal data analysed
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