10,024 research outputs found
Single Potential Analysis of Cavernous Electric Activity (SPACE) -experiences and Refinements
Discontinuous shear modulus determines the glass transition temperature
A solid - amorphous or crystalline - is defined by a finite shear modulus
while a fluid lacks such. We thus experimentally investigate the elastic
properties of a colloidal glass former near the glass transition: spectroscopy
of vibrational excitations yields the dispersion relations of longitudinal and
transverse phonons in the glassy state. From the long wavelength limit of the
dispersion relation we extract the bulk and the shear modulus. As expected, the
latter disappear in a fluid and we measure a clearly resolved discontinuous
behaviour of the elastic moduli at the glass transition. This not only
determines the transition temperature T_G of the system but also directly
addresses recent discussions about elasticity during vitrification. We show
that low frequency excitations in our system are plane waves such that
continuum elasticity theory can be used to describe the macroscopic behaviour.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure
A parabolic free boundary problem with Bernoulli type condition on the free boundary
Consider the parabolic free boundary problem For a
realistic class of solutions, containing for example {\em all} limits of the
singular perturbation problem we prove that one-sided
flatness of the free boundary implies regularity.
In particular, we show that the topological free boundary
can be decomposed into an {\em open} regular set (relative to
) which is locally a surface with H\"older-continuous space
normal, and a closed singular set.
Our result extends the main theorem in the paper by H.W. Alt-L.A. Caffarelli
(1981) to more general solutions as well as the time-dependent case. Our proof
uses methods developed in H.W. Alt-L.A. Caffarelli (1981), however we replace
the core of that paper, which relies on non-positive mean curvature at singular
points, by an argument based on scaling discrepancies, which promises to be
applicable to more general free boundary or free discontinuity problems
Retrospective Analysis of Wood Anatomical Traits Reveals a Recent Extension in Tree Cambial Activity in Two High-Elevation Conifers
The study of xylogenesis or wood formation is a powerful, yet labor intensive monitoring approach to investigate intra-annual tree growth responses to environmental factors. However, it seldom covers more than a few growing seasons, so is in contrast to the much longer lifespan of woody plants and the time scale of many environmental processes. Here we applied a novel retrospective approach to test the long-term (1926–2012) consistency in the timing of onset and ending of cambial activity, and in the maximum cambial cell division rate in two conifer species, European larch and Norway spruce at high-elevation in the Alps. We correlated daily temperature with time series of cell number and lumen area partitioned into intra-annual sectors. For both species, we found a good correspondence (1–10 days offset) between the periods when anatomical traits had significant correlations with temperature in recent decades (1969–2012) and available xylogenesis data (1996–2005), previously collected at the same site. Yet, results for the 1926–1968 period indicate a later onset and earlier ending of the cambial activity by 6–30 days. Conversely, the peak in the correlation between annual cell number and temperature, which should correspond to the peak in secondary growth rate, was quite stable over time, with just a minor advance of 4–5 days in the recent decades. Our analyses on time series of wood anatomical traits proved useful to infer on past long-term changes in xylogenetic phases. Combined with intensive continuous monitoring, our approach will improve the understanding of tree responses to climate variability in both the short- and long-term context
Lepton asymmetry and primordial nucleosynthesis in the era of precision cosmology
We calculate and display the primordial light-element abundances as a
function of a neutrino degeneracy parameter \xi common to all flavors. It is
the only unknown parameter characterizing the thermal medium at the primordial
nucleosynthesis epoch. The observed primordial helium abundance Y_p is the most
sensitive cosmic ``leptometer.'' Adopting the conservative Y_p error analysis
of Olive and Skillman implies -0.04 \alt \xi \alt 0.07 whereas the errors
stated by Izotov and Thuan imply \xi=0.0245+-0.0092 (1 sigma). Improved
determinations of the baryon abundance have no significant impact on this
situation. A determination of Y_p that reliably distinguishes between a
vanishing or nonvanishing \xi is a crucial test of the cosmological standard
assumption that sphaleron effects equilibrate the cosmic lepton and baryon
asymmetries.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures; minor changes, references added, replaced to
match the published version in PRD (Brief Reports
A simple minimax estimator for quantum states
Quantum tomography requires repeated measurements of many copies of the
physical system, all prepared by a source in the unknown state. In the limit of
very many copies measured, the often-used maximum-likelihood (ML) method for
converting the gathered data into an estimate of the state works very well. For
smaller data sets, however, it often suffers from problems of rank deficiency
in the estimated state. For many systems of relevance for quantum information
processing, the preparation of a very large number of copies of the same
quantum state is still a technological challenge, which motivates us to look
for estimation strategies that perform well even when there is not much data.
In this article, we review the concept of minimax state estimation, and use
minimax ideas to construct a simple estimator for quantum states. We
demonstrate that, for the case of tomography of a single qubit, our estimator
significantly outperforms the ML estimator for small number of copies of the
state measured. Our estimator is always full-rank, and furthermore, has a
natural dependence on the number of copies measured, which is missing in the ML
estimator.Comment: 26 pages, 3 figures. v2 contains minor improvements to the text, and
an additional appendix on symmetric measurement
Quantum control of electron--phonon scatterings in artificial atoms
The phonon-induced dephasing dynamics in optically excited semiconductor
quantum dots is studied within the frameworks of the independent Boson model
and optimal control. We show that appropriate tailoring of laser pulses allows
a complete control of the optical excitation despite the phonon dephasing, a
finding in marked contrast to other environment couplings.Comment: to appear in Phys. Rev. Let
Studying carbonisation with raman spectroscopy
Raman spectroscopy can provide fast and non-destructive analysis of carbonaceous materials. As it is able to detect nanometre-sized structural features, Raman spectroscopy is widely used in the study of carbon nanotubes, fullerenes, graphenes, and many other carbon-rich materials. Raman analysis has previously shown potential for estimating the heat treatment temperatures (HTT) employed in the preparation of Japanese cedar charcoals which suggested future usefulness in quality control . In the current work, Raman spectroscopy was used to investigate the nanostructural development which had occurred within various chars prepared and carbonised at a range of heat treatment temperatures between ≈ 340°C and 1000°C. Chars were produced from sucrose sugar as standard precursor of high purity and two sources of biomass common in New Zealand (Radiata pine wood and Harakeke leaf fibres). In chars produced at lower HTTs, signals could be detected which were interpreted as representing hydrogen-rich amorphous carbon structures. In contrast, the Raman spectra of well-carbonised chars produced at higher HTTs featured signals consistent with graphene-like structures with coherent domains limited in size to below a few nanometres across. Measurement of such signals provides the ability to evaluate the extent of nanostructural development, identify char samples which are ‘undercooked’ when compared to other char samples, and estimate effective HTTs used in the production of a given char sample. More detailed Raman analysis of Radiata-derived chars was carried out, including analysis of chars produced from carbonising pyrolysis tars. Results of Raman analysis were correlated to H/C atom ratios obtained through elemental analysis for these chars produced from Radiata pine
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