Investigating the Dirac operator evaluation with FPGAs

In recent years the computational capacity of single Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) devices as well as their versatility has increased significantly. Adding to that the High Level Synthesis frameworks allowing to program such processors in a high level language like C++, makes modern FPGA devices a serious candidate as building blocks of a general purpose High Performance Computing solution. In this contribution we describe benchmarks which we performed using a Lattice QCD code, a highly compute-demanding HPC academic code for elementary particle simulations. We benchmark the performance of a single FPGA device running in two modes: using the external or embedded memory. We discuss both approaches in detail using the Xilinx U250 device and provide estimates for the necessary memory throughput and the minimal amount of resources needed to deliver optimal performance depending on the available hardware platform.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure

Analytic calculation of Witten index in D=2 supersymmetric Yang-Mills quantum mechanics

We propose a method for the evaluation of Witten index in D=2 supersymmetric Yang-Mills quantum mechanics. We rederive a known result for the SU(2) gauge group and generalize it to any SU(N) gauge group.Comment: 21 pages, 5 figure

Simulation of some quantum gates, with decoherence

Methods and results for numerical simulations of one and two interacting rf-Squid systems suitable for adiabatic quantum gates are presented. These are based on high accuracy numerical solutions to the static and time dependent Schroedinger equation for the full Squid Hamiltonian in one and two variables. Among the points examined in the static analysis is the range of validity of the effective two-state or ``spin 1/2'' picture. A range of parameters is determined where the picture holds to good accuracy as the energy levels undergo gate manipulations. Some general points are presented concerning the relations between device parameters and ``good'' quantum mechanical state spaces. The time dependent simulations allow the examination of suitable conditions for adiabatic behavior, and permits the introduction of a random noise to simulate the effects of decoherence. A formula is derived and tested relating the random noise to the decoherence rate. Sensitivity to device and operating parameters for the logical gates NOT and CNOT are examined, with particular attention to values of the tunnel parameter beta slightly above one. It appears that with values of beta close to one, a quantum CNOT gate is possible even with rather short decoherence times. Many of the methods and results will apply to coupled double-potential well systems in general.Comment: 26 pages, 15 figures, Some clarification added on decoherence treatment, many small errors corrected, symbols on some figures enlarged, refs added. No change in conten

Object Mapping in the OPC-UA Protocol for Statically and Dynamically Typed Programming Languages

Two or more object-oriented components located in networked computers can form a distributed system to exchange information and execute methods. The most known approaches include object request broker architectures (e.g. CORBA), messaging-service architecture (e.g. based on ZMQ or JMS) or some variant of Service Oriented Architecture (e.g. SOAP). One of new approaches in the field is the OPC-UA protocol. While having common parts with all aforementioned architectures, it brings very rich and extensible information modelling capabilities, versatility and dynamic address space model, among others. This paper proposes a mapping of information model (applicable in the OPC-UA protocol) into class and object structure of an object-oriented programming language. Special attention is paid to whether given programming language is statically or dynamically typed, with examples and applications in C++ for the former case and Python for the latter. The study also covers the cases of using the proposed mapping at both server- and client-side of OPC-UA software

Weighted Supermembrane Toy Model

A weighted Hilbert space approach to the study of zero-energy states of supersymmetric matrix models is introduced. Applied to a related but technically simpler model, it is shown that the spectrum of the corresponding weighted Hamiltonian simplifies to become purely discrete for sufficient weights. This follows from a bound for the number of negative eigenvalues of an associated matrix-valued Schr\"odinger operator.Comment: 18 pages, 2 figures; to appear in Lett. Math. Phys

TOFtracker: combination of time-of-flight and high-accuracy bidimensional tracking in a single gaseous detector

A 5-gap timing RPC equipped with patterned electrodes coupled to both charge-sensitive and timing circuits yields a time accuracy of 77 ps along with a position accuracy of 38 μm. These results were obtained by calculating the straight-line fit residuals to the positions provided by a 3-layer telescope made out of identical detectors, detecting almost perpendicular cosmic-ray muons. The device may be useful for particle identification by time-of-flight, where simultaneous measurements of trajectory and time are necessary

Studies in a Random Noise Model of Decoherence

We study the effects of noise and decoherence for a double-potential well system, suitable for the fabrication of qubits and quantum logic elements. A random noise term is added to the hamiltonian, the resulting wavefunction found numerically and the density matrix obtained by averaging over noise signals. Analytic solutions using the two-state model are obtained and found to be generally in agreement. In particular, a simple formula for the decoherence rate in terms of the noise parameters in the two-state model is reviewed and verified for the full simulation with the multi-level system. The formalism is extended to describe multiple sources of noise or different "dephasing" axes at the same time. Furthermore, the old formula for the "Turing-Watched Pot" effect is generalized to the case where the environmental interactions do not conserve the "quality" in question. Various forms for the noise signal are investigated. An interesting result is the importance of the noise power at low frequency. If it vanishes there is, in leading order, no decoherence. This is verified in a numerical simulation where two apparently similar noise signals, but differing in the power at zero frequency, give strikingly different decoherence effects. A short discussion of situations dominated by low frequency noise is given.Comment: 27 pages, 10 figures. New section added on Very Low Frequency Noise, with two additional figures. Conclusions, Abstract modified accordingly. Various other small editorial changes and clarification

The Straw Tube Trackers of the PANDA Experiment

The PANDA experiment will be built at the FAIR facility at Darmstadt (Germany) to perform accurate tests of the strong interaction through bar pp and bar pA annihilation's studies. To track charged particles, two systems consisting of a set of planar, closed-packed, self-supporting straw tube layers are under construction. The PANDA straw tubes will have also unique characteristics in term of material budget and performance. They consist of very thin mylar-aluminized cathodes which are made self-supporting by means of the operation gas-mixture over-pressure. This solution allows to reduce at maximum the weight of the mechanical support frame and hence the detector material budget. The PANDA straw tube central tracker will not only reconstruct charged particle trajectories, but also will help in low momentum (< 1 GeV) particle identification via dE/dx measurements. This is a quite new approach that PANDA tracking group has first tested with detailed Monte Carlo simulations, and then with experimental tests of detector prototypes. This paper addresses the design issues of the PANDA straw tube trackers and the performance obtained in prototype tests.Comment: 7 pages,16 figure

System Response Kernel Calculation for List-mode Reconstruction in Strip PET Detector

Reconstruction of the image in Positron Emission Tomographs (PET) requires the knowledge of the system response kernel which describes the contribution of each pixel (voxel) to each tube of response (TOR). This is especially important in list-mode reconstruction systems, where an efficient analytical approximation of such function is required. In this contribution, we present a derivation of the system response kernel for a novel 2D strip PET.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures; Presented at Symposium on applied nuclear physics and innovative technologies, Cracow, 03-06 June 201