6,561 research outputs found
Tunneling edges at strong disorder
Scattering between edge states that bound one-dimensional domains of opposite
potential or flux is studied, in the presence of strong potential or flux
disorder. A mobility edge is found as a function of disorder and energy, and we
have characterized the extended phase. "paper_FINAL.tex" 439 lines, 20366
characters In the presence of flux and/or potential disorder, the localization
length scales exponentially with the width of the barrier. We discuss
implications for the random-flux problem.Comment: RevTeX, 4 page
Towards photostatistics from photon-number discriminating detectors
We study the properties of a photodetector that has a number-resolving
capability. In the absence of dark counts, due to its finite quantum
efficiency, photodetection with such a detector can only eliminate the
possibility that the incident field corresponds to a number of photons less
than the detected photon number. We show that such a {\em non-photon}
number-discriminating detector, however, provides a useful tool in the
reconstruction of the photon number distribution of the incident field even in
the presence of dark counts.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure
Equilibrium Properties of Temporally Asymmetric Hebbian Plasticity
A theory of temporally asymmetric Hebb (TAH) rules which depress or
potentiate synapses depending upon whether the postsynaptic cell fires before
or after the presynaptic one is presented. Using the Fokker-Planck formalism,
we show that the equilibrium synaptic distribution induced by such rules is
highly sensitive to the manner in which bounds on the allowed range of synaptic
values are imposed. In a biologically plausible multiplicative model, we find
that the synapses in asynchronous networks reach a distribution that is
invariant to the firing rates of either the pre- or post-synaptic cells. When
these cells are temporally correlated, the synaptic strength varies smoothly
with the degree and phase of synchrony between the cells.Comment: 3 figures, minor corrections of equations and tex
From Linear Optical Quantum Computing to Heisenberg-Limited Interferometry
The working principles of linear optical quantum computing are based on
photodetection, namely, projective measurements. The use of photodetection can
provide efficient nonlinear interactions between photons at the single-photon
level, which is technically problematic otherwise. We report an application of
such a technique to prepare quantum correlations as an important resource for
Heisenberg-limited optical interferometry, where the sensitivity of phase
measurements can be improved beyond the usual shot-noise limit. Furthermore,
using such nonlinearities, optical quantum nondemolition measurements can now
be carried out at the single-photon level.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures; Submitted to a Special Issue of J. Opt. B on
"Fluctuations and Noise in Photonics and Quantum Optics" (Herman Haus
Memorial Issue); v2: minor change
ZFOURGE: Using Composite Spectral Energy Distributions to Characterize Galaxy Populations at 1<z<4
We investigate the properties of galaxies as they shut off star formation
over the 4 billion years surrounding peak cosmic star formation. To do this we
categorize galaxies from into groups based on the shape
of their spectral energy distributions (SEDs) and build composite SEDs with
resolution. These composite SEDs show a variety of spectral shapes
and also show trends in parameters such as color, mass, star formation rate,
and emission line equivalent width. Using emission line equivalent widths and
strength of the 4000\AA\ break, , we categorize the composite SEDs
into five classes: extreme emission line, star-forming, transitioning,
post-starburst, and quiescent galaxies. The transitioning population of
galaxies show modest H emission (\AA) compared to
more typical star-forming composite SEDs at
(\AA). Together with their smaller sizes (3 kpc vs. 4 kpc)
and higher S\'ersic indices (2.7 vs. 1.5), this indicates that morphological
changes initiate before the cessation of star formation. The transitional group
shows a strong increase of over one dex in number density from to
, similar to the growth in the quiescent population, while
post-starburst galaxies become rarer at . We calculate average
quenching timescales of 1.6 Gyr at and 0.9 Gyr at and
conclude that a fast quenching mechanism producing post-starbursts dominated
the quenching of galaxies at early times, while a slower process has become
more common since .Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa
Incidence and Outcomes of Acute Implant Extrusion Following Anterior Cervical Spine Surgery.
STUDY DESIGN: Multi-institutional retrospective case series of 8887 patients who underwent anterior cervical spine surgery.
OBJECTIVE: Anterior decompression from discectomy or corpectomy is not without risk. Surgical morbidity ranges from 9% to 20% and is likely underreported. Little is known of the incidence and effects of rare complications on functional outcomes following anterior spinal surgery. In this retrospective review, we examined implant extrusions (IEs) following anterior cervical fusion.
METHODS: A retrospective multicenter case series study involving 21 high-volume surgical centers from the AOSpine North America Clinical Research Network. Medical records for 17 625 patients who received cervical spine surgery (levels from C2 to C7) between January 1, 2005, and December 31, 2011, were reviewed to identify occurrence of 21 predefined treatment complications.
RESULTS: Following anterior cervical fusion, the incidence of IE ranged from 0.0% to 0.8% across 21 institutions with 11 cases reported. All surgeries involved multiple levels, and 7/11 (64%) involved either multilevel corpectomies or hybrid constructs with at least one adjacent discectomy to a corpectomy. In 7/11 (64%) patients, constructs ended with reconstruction or stabilization at C7. Nine patients required surgery for repair and stabilization following IE. Average length of hospital stay after IE was 5.2 days. Only 2 (18%) had residual deficits after reoperation.
CONCLUSIONS: IE is a very rare complication after anterior cervical spine surgery often requiring revision. Constructs requiring multilevel reconstruction, especially at the cervicothoracic junction, have a higher risk for failure, and surgeons should proceed with caution in using an anterior-only approach in these demanding cases. Surgeons can expect most patients to regain function after reoperation
Constraints on Supersymmetric Grand Unified Theories from Cosmology
Within the context of SUSY GUTs, cosmic strings are generically formed at the
end of hybrid inflation. However, the WMAP CMB measurements strongly constrain
the possible cosmic strings contribution to the angular power spectrum of
anisotropies. We investigate the parameter space of SUSY hybrid (F- and D-
term) inflation, to get the conditions under which theoretical predictions are
in agreement with data. The predictions of F-term inflation are in agreement
with data, only if the superpotential coupling is small. In
particular, for SUSY SO(10), the upper bound is \kappa\lsim 7\times 10^{-7}.
This fine tuning problem can be lifted if we employ the curvaton mechanism, in
which case \kappa\lsim 8\times 10^{-3}; higher values are not allowed by the
gravitino constraint. The constraint on is equivalent to a constraint
on the SSB mass scale , namely M \lsim 2\times 10^{15} GeV. The study of
D-term inflation shows that the inflaton field is of the order of the Planck
scale; one should therefore consider SUGRA. We find that the cosmic strings
contribution to the CMB anisotropies is not constant, but it is strongly
dependent on the gauge coupling and on the superpotential coupling
. We obtain g\lsim 2\times 10^{-2} and \lambda \lsim 3\times
10^{-5}. SUGRA corrections induce also a lower limit for .
Equivalently, the Fayet-Iliopoulos term must satisfy \sqrt\xi \lsim
2\times 10^{15} GeV. This constraint holds for all allowed values of .Comment: 32 pages, 7 figures. To match published versio
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