1,514 research outputs found
Systems and methods for determining radio frequency interference
The presence, frequency and amplitude of radio frequency interference superimposed on communication links originating from a terrestrial region and including a relay in a geostationary spacecraft are determined by pointing a narrow beam antenna on the satellite at the terrestrial region. The level of noise radiated from the region to the antenna is measured at a terrestrial station that is usually remote from the region. Calibrating radio signals having a plurality of predetermined EIRP's (Effective Isotropic Radiated Power) and frequencies in the spectrum are transmitted from the region through the spacecraft narrow beam antenna back to the station. At the station, the levels of the received calibrating signals are separately measured for each of the frequency bands and EIRP's
Magnetised Accretion Discs in Kerr Spacetimes II: Hot Spots
Context. Quasi-periodic variability has been observed in a number of X-ray
binaries harboring black hole candidates. In general relativity, black holes
are uniquely described by the Kerr metric and, according to the cosmic
censorship conjecture, curvature singularities always have to be clothed by an
event horizon. Aims. In this paper, we study the effect of an external magnetic
field on the observed light curves of orbiting hot spots in thin accretion
discs around Kerr black holes and naked singularities. Methods. We employ a
ray-tracing algorithm to calculate the light curves and power spectra of such
hot spots as seen by a distant observer for uniform and dipolar magnetic field
configurations assuming a weak coupling between the magnetic field and the disc
matter. Results. We show that the presence of an external dipolar magnetic
field leads to potentially observable modifications of these signals for both
Kerr black holes and naked singularities, while an external uniform magnetic
field has practically no effect. In particular, we demonstrate that the
emission from a hot spot orbiting near the innermost stable circular orbit of a
naked singularity in a dipolar magnetic field can be significantly harder than
the emission of the same hot spot in the absence of such a magnetic field.
Conclusions. The comparison of our model with observational data may allow us
study the geometry of magnetic fields around compact objects and to test the
cosmic censorship conjecture in conjunction with other observables such as
thermal continuum spectra and iron line profiles.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Astronomy and Astrophysic
The Right Mutation Strength for Multi-Valued Decision Variables
The most common representation in evolutionary computation are bit strings.
This is ideal to model binary decision variables, but less useful for variables
taking more values. With very little theoretical work existing on how to use
evolutionary algorithms for such optimization problems, we study the run time
of simple evolutionary algorithms on some OneMax-like functions defined over
. More precisely, we regard a variety of
problem classes requesting the component-wise minimization of the distance to
an unknown target vector . For such problems we see a crucial
difference in how we extend the standard-bit mutation operator to these
multi-valued domains. While it is natural to select each position of the
solution vector to be changed independently with probability , there are
various ways to then change such a position. If we change each selected
position to a random value different from the original one, we obtain an
expected run time of . If we change each selected position
by either or (random choice), the optimization time reduces to
. If we use a random mutation strength with probability inversely proportional to and change
the selected position by either or (random choice), then the
optimization time becomes , bringing down
the dependence on from linear to polylogarithmic. One of our results
depends on a new variant of the lower bounding multiplicative drift theorem.Comment: an extended abstract of this work is to appear at GECCO 201
Non-Linear Effects in Non-Kerr spacetimes
There is a chance that the spacetime around massive compact objects which are
expected to be black holes is not described by the Kerr metric, but by a metric
which can be considered as a perturbation of the Kerr metric. These non-Kerr
spacetimes are also known as bumpy black hole spacetimes. We expect that, if
some kind of a bumpy black hole exists, the spacetime around it should possess
some features which will make the divergence from a Kerr spacetime detectable.
One of the differences is that these non-Kerr spacetimes do not posses all the
symmetries needed to make them integrable. We discuss how we can take advantage
of this fact by examining EMRIs into the Manko-Novikov spacetime.Comment: 8 pages, 3 Figures; to appear in the proceedings of the conference
"Relativity and Gravitation: 100 Years after Einstein in Prague" (2012
Evidence of reduced surface electron-phonon scattering in the conduction band of Bi_{2}Se_{3} by non-equilibrium ARPES
The nature of the Dirac quasiparticles in topological insulators calls for a
direct investigation of the electron-phonon scattering at the \emph{surface}.
By comparing time-resolved ARPES measurements of the TI Bi_{2}Se_{3} with
different probing depths we show that the relaxation dynamics of the electronic
temperature of the conduction band is much slower at the surface than in the
bulk. This observation suggests that surface phonons are less effective in
cooling the electron gas in the conduction band.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
A non trivial extension of the two-dimensional Ising model: the d-dimensional "molecular" model
A recently proposed molecular model is discussed as a non-trivial extension
of the Ising model. For d=2 the two models are shown to be equivalent, while
for d>2 the molecular model describes a peculiar second order transition from
an isotropic high temperature phase to a low-dimensional anisotropic low
temperature state. The general mean field analysis is compared with the results
achieved by a variational Migdal-Kadanoff real space renormalization group
method and by standard Monte Carlo sampling for d=3. By finite size scaling the
critical exponent has been found to be 0.44\pm 0.02 thus establishing that the
molecular model does not belong to the universality class of the Ising model
for d>2.Comment: 25 pages, 5 figure
The momentum and photon energy dependence of the circular dichroic photoemission in the bulk Rashba semiconductors BiTeX (X = I, Br, Cl)
Bulk Rashba systems BiTeX (X = I, Br, Cl) are emerging as important
candidates for developing spintronics devices, because of the coexistence of
spin-split bulk and surface states, along with the ambipolar character of the
surface charge carriers. The need of studying the spin texture of strongly
spin-orbit coupled materials has recently promoted circular dichroic Angular
Resolved Photoelectron Spectroscopy (cd-ARPES) as an indirect tool to measure
the spin and the angular degrees of freedom. Here we report a detailed photon
energy dependent study of the cd-ARPES spectra in BiTeX (X = I, Br and Cl). Our
work reveals a large variation of the magnitude and sign of the dichroism.
Interestingly, we find that the dichroic signal modulates differently for the
three compounds and for the different spin-split states. These findings show a
momentum and photon energy dependence for the cd-ARPES signals in the bulk
Rashba semiconductor BiTeX (X = I, Br, Cl). Finally, the outcome of our
experiment indicates the important relation between the modulation of the
dichroism and the phase differences between the wave-functions involved in the
photoemission process. This phase difference can be due to initial or final
state effects. In the former case the phase difference results in possible
interference effects among the photo-electrons emitted from different atomic
layers and characterized by entangled spin-orbital polarized bands. In the
latter case the phase difference results from the relative phases of the
expansion of the final state in different outgoing partial waves.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure
Dispersion enhancement and damping by buoyancy driven flows in 2D networks of capillaries
The influence of a small relative density difference on the displacement of
two miscible liquids is studied experimentally in transparent 2D networks of
micro channels. Both stable displacements in which the denser fluid enters at
the bottom of the cell and displaces the lighter one and unstable displacements
in which the lighter fluid is injected at the bottom and displaces the denser
one are realized. Except at the lowest mean flow velocity U, the average
of the relative concentration satisfies a convection-dispersion
equation. The dispersion coefficient is studied as function of the relative
magnitude of fluid velocity and of the velocity of buoyancy driven fluid
motion. A model is suggested and its applicability to previous results obtained
in 3D media is discussed
Three-body Faddeev Calculation for 11Li with Separable Potentials
The halo nucleus Li is treated as a three-body system consisting of an
inert core of Li plus two valence neutrons. The Faddeev equations are
solved using separable potentials to describe the two-body interactions,
corresponding in the n-Li subsystem to a p resonance plus a
virtual s-wave state. The experimental Li energy is taken as input and
the Li transverse momentum distribution in Li is studied.Comment: 6 pages, RevTeX, 1 figur
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