32,799 research outputs found
Density dependence of the Ionization Avalanche in ultracold Rydberg gases
We report on the behaviour of the ionization avalanche in an ensemble of
ultracold 87Rb atoms coupled to a high lying Rydberg state and investigate
extensions to the current model by including the effects of three-body
recombination and plasma expansion. To separate the two effects we study the
time dependence of the plasma formation at various densities as well as for
different nS and nD states. At medium densities and low n we observe the onset
of the avalanche as has been reported in other experiments, as well as a
subsequent turn-off of the avalanche for longer excitation times, which we
associate with plasma expansion. At higher densities and for higher lying
Rydberg states we observe a disappearance of the avalanche signature, which we
attribute to three-body recombination.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
A Similarity Measure for GPU Kernel Subgraph Matching
Accelerator architectures specialize in executing SIMD (single instruction,
multiple data) in lockstep. Because the majority of CUDA applications are
parallelized loops, control flow information can provide an in-depth
characterization of a kernel. CUDAflow is a tool that statically separates CUDA
binaries into basic block regions and dynamically measures instruction and
basic block frequencies. CUDAflow captures this information in a control flow
graph (CFG) and performs subgraph matching across various kernel's CFGs to gain
insights to an application's resource requirements, based on the shape and
traversal of the graph, instruction operations executed and registers
allocated, among other information. The utility of CUDAflow is demonstrated
with SHOC and Rodinia application case studies on a variety of GPU
architectures, revealing novel thread divergence characteristics that
facilitates end users, autotuners and compilers in generating high performing
code
Effects of chlorpyrifos on macroinvertebrate communities in coastal stream mesocosms
This study measured the effects of a single pulse of chlorpyrifos at nominal concentrations of 1 and 10 μg/l on the macroinvertebrate community structure of a coastal stream mesocosm system. Analysis of data using Principal Response Curves (PRC) and Monte Carlo tests showed significant changes in the treated stream mesocosms relative to that of the controls. These changes in the macroinvertebrate assemblages occurred within 6 h, and persisted for at least 124 days after dosing. Significant community-level effects were detected at the lowest concentration on days 2 and 16 post-dosing, giving a no-observed effect concentration (NOECcommunity) of 1.2 μg/l (measured). The mayflies Atalophlebia sp. and Koorrnonga sp., Chironomidae and Acarina were all sensitive to chlorpyrifos and decreased in abundance in treated mesocosms after dosing. The fauna of these coastal stream mesocosms showed similar sensitivity to chlorpyrifos with that of other reported studies, but there was no evidence of recovery after 124 days. © 2007 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
Probing Cosmology with Weak Lensing Minkowski Functionals
In this paper, we show that Minkowski Functionals (MFs) of weak gravitational
lensing (WL) convergence maps contain significant non-Gaussian,
cosmology-dependent information. To do this, we use a large suite of
cosmological ray-tracing N-body simulations to create mock WL convergence maps,
and study the cosmological information content of MFs derived from these maps.
Our suite consists of 80 independent 512^3 N-body runs, covering seven
different cosmologies, varying three cosmological parameters Omega_m, w, and
sigma_8 one at a time, around a fiducial LambdaCDM model. In each cosmology, we
use ray-tracing to create a thousand pseudo-independent 12 deg^2 convergence
maps, and use these in a Monte Carlo procedure to estimate the joint confidence
contours on the above three parameters. We include redshift tomography at three
different source redshifts z_s=1, 1.5, 2, explore five different smoothing
scales theta_G=1, 2, 3, 5, 10 arcmin, and explicitly compare and combine the
MFs with the WL power spectrum. We find that the MFs capture a substantial
amount of information from non-Gaussian features of convergence maps, i.e.
beyond the power spectrum. The MFs are particularly well suited to break
degeneracies and to constrain the dark energy equation of state parameter w (by
a factor of ~ three better than from the power spectrum alone). The
non-Gaussian information derives partly from the one-point function of the
convergence (through V_0, the "area" MF), and partly through non-linear spatial
information (through combining different smoothing scales for V_0, and through
V_1 and V_2, the boundary length and genus MFs, respectively). In contrast to
the power spectrum, the best constraints from the MFs are obtained only when
multiple smoothing scales are combined.Comment: 19 pages, 9 figures, 5 table
Malignancy within a tail gut cyst:a case of retrorectal carcinoid tumour
Purpose. Tailgut cysts with malignant transformation are rare entities. We discuss the diagnostic strategy and treatment of a malignancy within a tailgut cyst. Methods. In this study we report on the case of a 61-year-old man with a malignant neuroendocrine tumour arising within a tailgut cyst and an overview of the literature emphasising the histopathological characteristics and differential diagnosis. Results. Our patient presented with lower back pain, rectal pain, and increased urgency of defecation. MRI scan and CT-guided biopsy on histological analysis revealed a diagnosis of carcinoid tumour of the presacral space. The patient subsequently underwent an abdominoperineal excision of the rectum. Conclusions. This case highlights the importance of tailgut cysts as a differential diagnosis of presacral masses. It is a rare congenital lesion developing from remnants of the embryonic postanal gut and is predominantly benign in nature. Approximately half of cases remain asymptomatic; therefore, diagnosis is often delayed. Magnetic resonance imaging is the investigation of choice and an awareness of the possibility of malignant potential is critical to avoiding missed diagnosis and subsequent morbidity. Complete surgical excision allows accurate diagnosis, confirmation of oncological clearance, and prevention of mortality
Higher derivative theories with constraints : Exorcising Ostrogradski's Ghost
We prove that the linear instability in a non-degenerate higher derivative
theory, the Ostrogradski instability, can only be removed by the addition of
constraints if the original theory's phase space is reduced.Comment: 17 pages, no figures, version published in JCA
Resonant Coherent Phonon Spectroscopy of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes
Using femtosecond pump-probe spectroscopy with pulse shaping techniques, one
can generate and detect coherent phonons in chirality-specific semiconducting
single-walled carbon nanotubes. The signals are resonantly enhanced when the
pump photon energy coincides with an interband exciton resonance, and analysis
of such data provides a wealth of information on the chirality-dependence of
light absorption, phonon generation, and phonon-induced band structure
modulations. To explain our experimental results, we have developed a
microscopic theory for the generation and detection of coherent phonons in
single-walled carbon nanotubes using a tight-binding model for the electronic
states and a valence force field model for the phonons. We find that the
coherent phonon amplitudes satisfy a driven oscillator equation with the
driving term depending on photoexcited carrier density. We compared our
theoretical results with experimental results on mod 2 nanotubes and found that
our model provides satisfactory overall trends in the relative strengths of the
coherent phonon signal both within and between different mod 2 families. We
also find that the coherent phonon intensities are considerably weaker in mod 1
nanotubes in comparison with mod~2 nanotubes, which is also in excellent
agreement with experiment.Comment: 21 pages, 22 figure
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