124 research outputs found
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Multi-model ensemble predictions of aviation turbulence
Turbulence remains one of the leading causes of aviation incidents. Climate change is predicted to increase the occurrence of Clear‐Air Turbulence (CAT), and therefore forecasting turbulence will become more important in the future. Currently the two World Area Forecast Centres (WAFCs) use deterministic numerical weather prediction models to predict clear‐air turbulence operationally, it has been shown that ensemble forecasts improve the forecast skill of traditional meteorological variables. This study applies multi‐model ensemble forecasting to aviation turbulence for the first time. It is shown in a 12‐month global trial from May 2016 to April 2017, that combining two different ensembles yields a similar forecast skill to a single model ensemble, and yields an improvement in forecast value at low cost/loss ratios. This finding is consistent with previous work showing that the use of ensembles in turbulence forecasting is beneficial. Using a multi‐model approach is an effective way to improve the forecast skill and provide pilots and flight planners with more information about the forecast confidence, allowing them to make a more informed decision about what action needs to be taken, such as diverting around the turbulence or requiring passengers and flight attendants to be seatbelted. The multi‐model ensemble approach is intended to be made operational by both WAFCs in the near future and this study lays the foundations to make this possible
Dynamical electron transport through a nanoelectromechanical wire in a magnetic field
We investigate dynamical transport properties of interacting electrons moving
in a vibrating nanoelectromechanical wire in a magnetic field. We have built an
exactly solvable model in which electric current and mechanical oscillation are
treated fully quantum mechanically on an equal footing. Quantum mechanically
fluctuating Aharonov-Bohm phases obtained by the electrons cause nontrivial
contribution to mechanical vibration and electrical conduction of the wire. We
demonstrate our theory by calculating the admittance of the wire which are
influenced by the multiple interplay between the mechanical and the electrical
energy scales, magnetic field strength, and the electron-electron interaction
Electron spin coherence in semiconductors: Considerations for a spin-based solid state quantum computer architecture
We theoretically consider coherence times for spins in two quantum computer
architectures, where the qubit is the spin of an electron bound to a P donor
impurity in Si or within a GaAs quantum dot. We show that low temperature
decoherence is dominated by spin-spin interactions, through spectral diffusion
and dipolar flip-flop mechanisms. These contributions lead to 1-100 s
calculated spin coherence times for a wide range of parameters, much higher
than former estimates based on measurements.Comment: Role of the dipolar interaction clarified; Included discussion on the
approximations employed in the spectral diffusion calculation. Final version
to appear in Phys. Rev.
Theory of nuclear induced spectral diffusion: Spin decoherence of phosphorus donors in Si and GaAs quantum dots
We propose a model for spectral diffusion of localized spins in
semiconductors due to the dipolar fluctuations of lattice nuclear spins. Each
nuclear spin flip-flop is assumed to be independent, the rate for this process
being calculated by a method of moments. Our calculated spin decoherence time
ms for donor electron spins in Si:P is a factor of two longer than
spin echo decay measurements. For P nuclear spins we show that spectral
diffusion is well into the motional narrowing regime. The calculation for GaAs
quantum dots gives s depending on the quantum dot size. Our
theory indicates that nuclear induced spectral diffusion should not be a
serious problem in developing spin-based semiconductor quantum computer
architectures.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.
Fermion Chern Simons Theory of Hierarchical Fractional Quantum Hall States
We present an effective Chern-Simons theory for the bulk fully polarized
fractional quantum Hall (FQH) hierarchical states constructed as daughters of
general states of the Jain series, {\it i. e.} as FQH states of the
quasi-particles or quasi-holes of Jain states. We discuss the stability of
these new states and present two reasonable stability criteria. We discuss the
theory of their edge states which follows naturally from this bulk theory. We
construct the operators that create elementary excitations, and discuss the
scaling behavior of the tunneling conductance in different situations. Under
the assumption that the edge states of these fully polarized hierarchical
states are unreconstructed and unresolved, we find that the differential
conductance for tunneling of electrons from a Fermi liquid into {\em any}
hierarchical Jain FQH states has the scaling behavior with the
universal exponent , where is the filling fraction of the
hierarchical state. Finally, we explore alternative ways of constructing FQH
states with the same filling fractions as partially polarized states, and
conclude that this is not possible within our approach.Comment: 10 pages, 50 references, no figures; formerly known as "Composite
Fermions: The Next Generation(s)" (title changed by the PRB thought police).
This version has more references and a discussion of the stability of the new
states. Published version. One erroneous reference is correcte
A Compact Beam Stop for a Rare Kaon Decay Experiment
We describe the development and testing of a novel beam stop for use in a
rare kaon decay experiment at the Brookhaven AGS. The beam stop is located
inside a dipole spectrometer magnet in close proximity to straw drift chambers
and intercepts a high-intensity neutral hadron beam. The design process,
involving both Monte Carlo simulations and beam tests of alternative beam-stop
shielding arrangements, had the goal of minimizing the leakage of particles
from the beam stop and the resulting hit rates in detectors, while preserving
maximum acceptance for events of interest. The beam tests consisted of
measurements of rates in drift chambers, scintilation counter hodoscopes, a gas
threshold Cherenkov counter, and a lead glass array. Measurements were also
made with a set of specialized detectors which were sensitive to low-energy
neutrons, photons, and charged particles. Comparisons are made between these
measurements and a detailed Monte Carlo simulation.Comment: 39 pages, 14 figures, submitted to Nuclear Instruments and Method
Initial Teacher Education Policy and Practice
The purpose of this study was to generate a systematic description of policy and practice
across qualifications of initial teacher education in Aotearoa New Zealand. The study was
conducted in two phases. Data from publicly-available documentation of the 27 providers of
initial teacher education were recorded in an electronic data base as a means of compiling
individual profiles of each qualification. Subsequently, twenty-five providers participated in
interviews to ensure that profiles accurately reflected the policy and practice of the
qualification. Qualification profiles were reviewed to identify common and distinctive
characteristics of initial teacher education according to sector (early childhood, primary and
secondary), type of qualification and type of provider. Findings were considered within a
framework of contemporary national and international research and implications identified
for future research, policy and practice in initial teacher education.
This project confirms that initial teacher education is incredibly complex and multi-faceted
and that New Zealand qualifications reflect many of the achievements and the challenges of
implementing quality teacher education that are experienced internationally. The official
documentation reveals that there is a general lack of explicit coherence among components
of many qualifications, that in some cases there is no clearly articulated conceptual or
theoretical base underpinning qualifications, and, that, in the documentation of many
qualifications, there are conspicuous silences surrounding aspects of initial teacher education
critical to the New Zealand context. There is also evidence that the regulatory and
compliance environment within which providers operate is sometimes perceived as
distracting, rather than ensuring quality.
This national project has enabled us to identify key areas for further and ongoing attention
both by individual providers of initial teacher education and, more importantly, by the
professional community of teacher education in collaboration with the Ministry of
Education, the New Zealand Teachers Council and others. We need to determine, and thence
articulate more clearly, the fundamental goals of initial teacher education and to demonstrate
how programmes of ITE are coherent in their underlying values, goals, design, curriculum,
pedagogy and implementation. There is a need also to consider how current external quality
assurance processes can be made more coherent with fundamental goals of initial teacher
education and the research on theory and practice that underpins these goals
Electron Exchange Coupling for Single Donor Solid-State Qubits
Inter-valley interference between degenerate conduction band minima has been
shown to lead to oscillations in the exchange energy between neighbouring
phosphorus donor electron states in silicon \cite{Koiller02,Koiller02A}. These
same effects lead to an extreme sensitivity of the exchange energy on the
relative orientation of the donor atoms, an issue of crucial importance in the
construction silicon-based spin quantum computers. In this article we calculate
the donor electron exchange coupling as a function of donor position
incorporating the full Bloch structure of the Kohn-Luttinger electron
wavefunctions. It is found that due to the rapidly oscillating nature of the
terms they produce, the periodic part of the Bloch functions can be safely
ignored in the Heitler-London integrals as was done by Koiller et. al. [Phys.
Rev. Lett. 88,027903(2002),Phys. Rev. B. 66,115201(2002)], significantly
reducing the complexity of calculations.
We address issues of fabrication and calculate the expected exchange coupling
between neighbouring donors that have been implanted into the silicon substrate
using an 15keV ion beam in the so-called 'top down' fabrication scheme for a
Kane solid-state quantum computer. In addition we calculate the exchange
coupling as a function of the voltage bias on control gates used to manipulate
the electron wavefunctions and implement quantum logic operations in the Kane
proposal, and find that these gate biases can be used to both increase and
decrease the magnitude of the exchange coupling between neighbouring donor
electrons. The zero-bias results reconfirm those previously obtained by
Koiller.Comment: 10 Pages, 8 Figures. To appear in Physical Review
SO(10) unified models and soft leptogenesis
Motivated by the fact that, in some realistic models combining SO(10) GUTs
and flavour symmetries, it is not possible to achieve the required baryon
asymmetry through the CP asymmetry generated in the decay of right-handed
neutrinos, we take a fresh look on how deep this connection is in SO(10). The
common characteristics of these models are that they use the see-saw with
right-handed neutrinos, predict a normal hierarchy of masses for the neutrinos
observed in oscillating experiments and in the basis where the right-handed
Majorana mass is diagonal, the charged lepton mixings are tiny.
In addition these models link the up-quark Yukawa matrix to the neutrino
Yukawa matrix Y^\nu with the special feature of Y^\nu_{11}-> 0 Using this
condition, we find that the required baryon asymmetry of the Universe can be
explained by the soft leptogenesis using the soft B parameter of the second
lightest right-handed neutrino whose mass turns out to be around 10^8 GeV. It
is pointed out that a natural way to do so is to use no-scale supergravity
where the value of B ~1 GeV is set through gauge-loop corrections.Comment: 26 pages, 2 figures. Added references, new appendix of a relevant fit
and improved comment
Gluino Production in Electron-Positron Annihilation
We discuss the pair production of gluinos in electron-positron annihilation
at LEP, in a model with soft supersymmetry breaking, allowing for mixing
between the squarks. In much of the parameter space of the Minimal
Supersymmetric Model (MSSM) the cross section corresponds to a branching
ratio above , even up to . A non-observation of gluinos at
this level restricts the allowed MSSM parameter space. In particular, it leads
to lower bounds on the soft mass parameters in the squark sector.Comment: 24 pages LATEX plus 10 pages of figures (not included, available on
request). Full postscript version available by anonymous ftp at node
VSFYS1.FI.UIB.NO in subdirectory OSLAND, file BERGEN94-10.PS), Bergen
Scientific/Technical Report No. 1994-1
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