517 research outputs found
Beam Test of Silicon Strip Sensors for the ZEUS Micro Vertex Detector
For the HERA upgrade, the ZEUS experiment has designed and installed a high
precision Micro Vertex Detector (MVD) using single sided micro-strip sensors
with capacitive charge division. The sensors have a readout pitch of 120
microns, with five intermediate strips (20 micron strip pitch). An extensive
test program has been carried out at the DESY-II testbeam facility. In this
paper we describe the setup developed to test the ZEUS MVD sensors and the
results obtained on both irradiated and non-irradiated single sided micro-strip
detectors with rectangular and trapezoidal geometries. The performances of the
sensors coupled to the readout electronics (HELIX chip, version 2.2) have been
studied in detail, achieving a good description by a Monte Carlo simulation.
Measurements of the position resolution as a function of the angle of incidence
are presented, focusing in particular on the comparison between standard and
newly developed reconstruction algorithms.Comment: 41 pages, 21 figures, 2 tables, accepted for publication in NIM
Phenomenological template family for black-hole coalescence waveforms
Recent progress in numerical relativity has enabled us to model the
non-perturbative merger phase of the binary black-hole coalescence problem.
Based on these results, we propose a phenomenological family of waveforms which
can model the inspiral, merger, and ring-down stages of black hole coalescence.
We also construct a template bank using this family of waveforms and discuss
its implementation in the search for signatures of gravitational waves produced
by black-hole coalescences in the data of ground-based interferometers. This
template bank might enable us to extend the present inspiral searches to
higher-mass binary black-hole systems, i.e., systems with total mass greater
than about 80 solar masses, thereby increasing the reach of the current
generation of ground-based detectors.Comment: Minor changes, Submitted to Class. Quantum Grav. (Proc. GWDAW11
Simulation of Binary Black Hole Spacetimes with a Harmonic Evolution Scheme
A numerical solution scheme for the Einstein field equations based on
generalized harmonic coordinates is described, focusing on details not provided
before in the literature and that are of particular relevance to the binary
black hole problem. This includes demonstrations of the effectiveness of
constraint damping, and how the time slicing can be controlled through the use
of a source function evolution equation. In addition, some results from an
ongoing study of binary black hole coalescence, where the black holes are
formed via scalar field collapse, are shown. Scalar fields offer a convenient
route to exploring certain aspects of black hole interactions, and one
interesting, though tentative suggestion from this early study is that behavior
reminiscent of "zoom-whirl" orbits in particle trajectories is also present in
the merger of equal mass, non-spinning binaries, with appropriately fine-tuned
initial conditions.Comment: 16 pages, 14 figures; replaced with published versio
Gauge conditions for long-term numerical black hole evolutions without excision
Numerical relativity has faced the problem that standard 3+1 simulations of
black hole spacetimes without singularity excision and with singularity
avoiding lapse and vanishing shift fail after an evolution time of around
30-40M due to the so-called slice stretching. We discuss lapse and shift
conditions for the non-excision case that effectively cure slice stretching and
allow run times of 1000M and more.Comment: 19 pages, 14 figures, REVTeX, Added a missing Acknowledgmen
Are moving punctures equivalent to moving black holes?
When simulating the inspiral and coalescence of a binary black-hole system,
special care needs to be taken in handling the singularities. Two main
techniques are used in numerical-relativity simulations: A first and more
traditional one ``excises'' a spatial neighbourhood of the singularity from the
numerical grid on each spacelike hypersurface. A second and more recent one,
instead, begins with a ``puncture'' solution and then evolves the full
3-metric, including the singular point. In the continuum limit, excision is
justified by the light-cone structure of the Einstein equations and, in
practice, can give accurate numerical solutions when suitable discretizations
are used. However, because the field variables are non-differentiable at the
puncture, there is no proof that the moving-punctures technique is correct,
particularly in the discrete case. To investigate this question we use both
techniques to evolve a binary system of equal-mass non-spinning black holes. We
compare the evolution of two curvature 4-scalars with proper time along the
invariantly-defined worldline midway between the two black holes, using
Richardson extrapolation to reduce the influence of finite-difference
truncation errors. We find that the excision and moving-punctures evolutions
produce the same invariants along that worldline, and thus the same spacetimes
throughout that worldline's causal past. This provides convincing evidence that
moving-punctures are indeed equivalent to moving black holes.Comment: 4 pages, 3 eps color figures; v2 = major revisions to introduction &
conclusions based on referee comments, but no change in analysis or result
Expressivity in children's drawings of themselves for adult audiences with varied authority and familiarity
This study investigated whether children’s expressive drawings of themselves vary as a function of audience authority and familiarity. One hundred and seventy-five children, 85 boys and 90 girls, aged between 8 years 1 months and 9 years 2 months (M= 8 years 5 months) were allocated into seven groups; a reference group (n=25) where no audience was specified, and six audience groups (n=25 per group) varying by audience type (policeman vs. teacher vs. man) and familiarity (familiar vs. unfamiliar). They drew baseline then happy and sad drawings of themselves, rated affect towards drawings type, and rated perceived audience authority. Audience familiarity and authority impacted expressive drawing strategy use and this varied by gender. There was higher overall expressive strategy use for happy drawings and for girls, and influences of affect type, familiarity and authority were found. The implications of children’s perceptions of audience type on their expressive drawings are discussed
Towards absorbing outer boundaries in General Relativity
We construct exact solutions to the Bianchi equations on a flat spacetime
background. When the constraints are satisfied, these solutions represent in-
and outgoing linearized gravitational radiation. We then consider the Bianchi
equations on a subset of flat spacetime of the form [0,T] x B_R, where B_R is a
ball of radius R, and analyze different kinds of boundary conditions on
\partial B_R. Our main results are: i) We give an explicit analytic example
showing that boundary conditions obtained from freezing the incoming
characteristic fields to their initial values are not compatible with the
constraints. ii) With the help of the exact solutions constructed, we determine
the amount of artificial reflection of gravitational radiation from
constraint-preserving boundary conditions which freeze the Weyl scalar Psi_0 to
its initial value. For monochromatic radiation with wave number k and arbitrary
angular momentum number l >= 2, the amount of reflection decays as 1/(kR)^4 for
large kR. iii) For each L >= 2, we construct new local constraint-preserving
boundary conditions which perfectly absorb linearized radiation with l <= L.
(iv) We generalize our analysis to a weakly curved background of mass M, and
compute first order corrections in M/R to the reflection coefficients for
quadrupolar odd-parity radiation. For our new boundary condition with L=2, the
reflection coefficient is smaller than the one for the freezing Psi_0 boundary
condition by a factor of M/R for kR > 1.04. Implications of these results for
numerical simulations of binary black holes on finite domains are discussed.Comment: minor revisions, 30 pages, 6 figure
Binary black hole merger in the extreme mass ratio limit
We discuss the transition from quasi-circular inspiral to plunge of a system
of two nonrotating black holes of masses and in the extreme mass
ratio limit . In the spirit of the Effective One Body
(EOB) approach to the general relativistic dynamics of binary systems, the
dynamics of the two black hole system is represented in terms of an effective
particle of mass moving in a (quasi-)Schwarzschild
background of mass and submitted to an
radiation reaction force defined by Pad\'e resumming high-order Post-Newtonian
results. We then complete this approach by numerically computing, \`a la
Regge-Wheeler-Zerilli, the gravitational radiation emitted by such a particle.
Several tests of the numerical procedure are presented. We focus on
gravitational waveforms and the related energy and angular momentum losses. We
view this work as a contribution to the matching between analytical and
numerical methods within an EOB-type framework.Comment: 14 pages, six figures. Revised version. To appear in the CQG special
issue based around New Frontiers in Numerical Relativity conference, Golm
(Germany), July 17-21 200
Collaborative cognition: Co-creating children's artwork in an educational context
This paper presents an empirical analysis which addresses discursive and extra-discursive practices. A range of data which examines the co–creation of art in English primary schools is used to explore the use of ethnography within a critical realist framework. Case studies are presented to systematically analyse the different contextual layers which shaped the creation of children’s artwork. These are analysed multi-dimensionally presenting i) a photograph of a piece of artwork created during the lesson and ethnographic notes about the aims and scope of the class; ii) analysis of classroom interaction between children which shaped the creation of the artwork and iii) video stills and ethnographic notes to analyse the ways in which space and materials, shaped interaction and the creation of a material object – the artwork. Attention to meso, micro and extra-discursive contexts demonstrates how ethnographic methods might be used to examine interaction between discursive and extra-discursive practices
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