The StoreGate: a Data Model for the Atlas Software Architecture

The Atlas collaboration at CERN has adopted the Gaudi software architecture which belongs to the blackboard family: data objects produced by knowledge sources (e.g. reconstruction modules) are posted to a common in-memory data base from where other modules can access them and produce new data objects. The StoreGate has been designed, based on the Atlas requirements and the experience of other HENP systems such as Babar, CDF, CLEO, D0 and LHCB, to identify in a simple and efficient fashion (collections of) data objects based on their type and/or the modules which posted them to the Transient Data Store (the blackboard). The developer also has the freedom to use her preferred key class to uniquely identify a data object according to any other criterion. Besides this core functionality, the StoreGate provides the developers with a powerful interface to handle in a coherent fashion persistable references, object lifetimes, memory management and access control policy for the data objects in the Store. It also provides a Handle/Proxy mechanism to define and hide the cache fault mechanism: upon request, a missing Data Object can be transparently created and added to the Transient Store presumably retrieving it from a persistent data-base, or even reconstructing it on demand.Comment: Talk from the 2003 Computing in High Energy and Nuclear Physics (CHEP03), La Jolla, Ca, USA, March 2003, 4 pages, LaTeX, MOJT00

How Do Schr\"odinger's Cats Die?

Recent experiments with superconducting qubits are motivated by the goal of fabricating a quantum computer, but at the same time they illuminate the more fundamental aspects of quantum mechanics. In this paper we analyze the physics of switching current measurements from the point of view of macroscopic quantum mechanics.Comment: 4 figures, 12 page

Enhanced star formation: The importance of bars in spiral galaxies

It was found that among an IR luminous subset of nearby spiral galaxies, nearly all of the systems with IRAS colors and luminosities indicative of enhanced star formation are barred. Radio continuum and IR spectroscopic results support the hypothesis that this emission originates within the central 2 kpc; possibly in a circumnuclear ring. It was also found that outer rings are over represented among these barred systems and suggest possible reasons for this phenomena

Topological stripelike coreless textures with inner incommensurability in two-dimensional Heisenberg antiferromagnet

For two-dimensional Heisenberg antiferromagnet we present an analysis of topological coreless excitations having a stripe form. These textures are characterized by singularities at boundaries. A detailed classification of the stripe textures results in a certain analogy with the coreless excitations in $^3He-A$ phase: Mermin-Ho and Anderson-Toulouse coreless vortices. The excitations of the last type may have a low bulk energy. The stripe textures may be observed as an occurrence of short-range incommensurate order in the antiferromagnetic environment

Near-Infrared Spectroscopy of the Y0 WISEP J173835.52+273258.9 and the Y1 WISE J035000.32-565830.2: the Importance of Non-Equilibrium Chemistry

We present new near-infrared spectra, obtained at Gemini Observatory, for two Y dwarfs: WISE J035000.32-565830.2 (W0350) and WISEP J173835.52+273258.9 (W1738). A FLAMINGOS-2 R=540 spectrum was obtained for W0350, covering 1.0 < lambda um < 1.7, and a cross-dispersed GNIRS R=2800 spectrum was obtained for W1738, covering 0.993-1.087 um, 1.191-1.305 um, 1.589-1.631 um, and 1.985-2.175 um, in four orders. We also present revised YJH photometry for W1738, using new NIRI Y and J imaging, and a re-analysis of the previously published NIRI H band images. We compare these data, together with previously published data for late-T and Y dwarfs, to cloud-free models of solar metallicity, calculated both in chemical equilibrium and with disequilibrium driven by vertical transport. We find that for the Y dwarfs the non-equilibrium models reproduce the near-infrared data better than the equilibrium models. The remaining discrepancies suggest that fine-tuning the CH_4/CO and NH_3/N_2 balance is needed. Improved trigonometric parallaxes would improve the analysis. Despite the uncertainties and discrepancies, the models reproduce the observed near-infrared spectra well. We find that for the Y0, W1738, T_eff = 425 +/- 25 K and log g = 4.0 +/- 0.25, and for the Y1, W0350, T_eff = 350 +/- 25 K and log g = 4.0 +/- 0.25. W1738 may be metal-rich. Based on evolutionary models, these temperatures and gravities correspond to a mass range for both Y dwarfs of 3-9 Jupiter masses, with W0350 being a cooler, slightly older, version of W1738; the age of W0350 is 0.3-3 Gyr, and the age of W1738 is 0.15-1 Gyr.Comment: Accepted on March 30 2016 for publication in Ap

Rapid ramps across the BEC-BCS crossover: a novel route to measuring the superfluid gap

We investigate the response of superfluid Fermi gases to rapid changes of the three-dimensional s-wave scattering length a by solving the time-dependent Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations. In general the magnitude of the order parameter |\Delta| performs oscillations, which are sometimes called the "Higgs" mode, with the angular frequency 2 \Delta_{gap}/ \hbar, where \Delta_{gap} is the gap in the spectrum of fermionic excitations. Firstly, we excite the oscillations with a linear ramp of 1/a and study the evolution of |\Delta|. Secondly, we continously drive the system with a sinusoidal modulation of 1/a. In the first case, the oscillations in |\Delta| damp according to a power law. In the second case, the continued driving causes revivals in the oscillations. In both cases, the excitation of the oscillations causes a reduction in the time-averaged value of |\Delta|. We propose two experimental protocols, based around the two approaches, to measure the frequency and damping of the oscillations, and hence \Delta_{gap}.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figure