15,282 research outputs found
Ballerina - Pirouettes in Search of Gamma Bursts
The cosmological origin of gamma ray bursts has now been established with
reasonable certainty. Many more bursts will need to be studied to establish the
typical distance scale, and to map out the large diversity in properties which
have been indicated by the first handful of events. We are proposing Ballerina,
a small satellite to provide accurate positions and new data on the gamma-ray
bursts. We anticipate a detection rate an order of magnitude larger than
obtained from Beppo-SAX.Comment: A&AS in press, proceedings of the Workshop "Gamma Ray Bursts in the
Afterglow Era" in Rome, November 199
Conditional Production of Superpositions of Coherent States with Inefficient Photon Detection
It is shown that a linear superposition of two macroscopically
distinguishable optical coherent states can be generated using a single photon
source and simple all-optical operations. Weak squeezing on a single photon,
beam mixing with an auxiliary coherent state, and photon detecting with
imperfect threshold detectors are enough to generate a coherent state
superposition in a free propagating optical field with a large coherent
amplitude () and high fidelity (). In contrast to all
previous schemes to generate such a state, our scheme does not need photon
number resolving measurements nor Kerr-type nonlinear interactions.
Furthermore, it is robust to detection inefficiency and exhibits some
resilience to photon production inefficiency.Comment: Some important new results added, to appear in Phys.Rev.A (Rapid
Communication
Production of superpositions of coherent states in traveling optical fields with inefficient photon detection
We develop an all-optical scheme to generate superpositions of
macroscopically distinguishable coherent states in traveling optical fields. It
non-deterministically distills coherent state superpositions (CSSs) with large
amplitudes out of CSSs with small amplitudes using inefficient photon
detection. The small CSSs required to produce CSSs with larger amplitudes are
extremely well approximated by squeezed single photons. We discuss some
remarkable features of this scheme: it effectively purifies mixed initial
states emitted from inefficient single photon sources and boosts negativity of
Wigner functions of quantum states.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev.
Effective slip boundary conditions for flows over nanoscale chemical heterogeneities
We study slip boundary conditions for simple fluids at surfaces with
nanoscale chemical heterogeneities. Using a perturbative approach, we examine
the flow of a Newtonian fluid far from a surface described by a heterogeneous
Navier slip boundary condition. In the far-field, we obtain expressions for an
effective slip boundary condition in certain limiting cases. These expressions
are compared to numerical solutions which show they work well when applied in
the appropriate limits. The implications for experimental measurements and for
the design of surfaces that exhibit large slip lengths are discussed.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figure
Experiments with explicit filtering for LES using a finite-difference method
The equations for large-eddy simulation (LES) are derived formally by applying a spatial filter to the Navier-Stokes equations. The filter width as well as the details of the filter shape are free parameters in LES, and these can be used both to control the effective resolution of the simulation and to establish the relative importance of different portions of the resolved spectrum. An analogous, but less well justified, approach to filtering is more or less universally used in conjunction with LES using finite-difference methods. In this approach, the finite support provided by the computational mesh as well as the wavenumber-dependent truncation errors associated with the finite-difference operators are assumed to define the filter operation. This approach has the advantage that it is also 'automatic' in the sense that no explicit filtering: operations need to be performed. While it is certainly convenient to avoid the explicit filtering operation, there are some practical considerations associated with finite-difference methods that favor the use of an explicit filter. Foremost among these considerations is the issue of truncation error. All finite-difference approximations have an associated truncation error that increases with increasing wavenumber. These errors can be quite severe for the smallest resolved scales, and these errors will interfere with the dynamics of the small eddies if no corrective action is taken. Years of experience at CTR with a second-order finite-difference scheme for high Reynolds number LES has repeatedly indicated that truncation errors must be minimized in order to obtain acceptable simulation results. While the potential advantages of explicit filtering are rather clear, there is a significant cost associated with its implementation. In particular, explicit filtering reduces the effective resolution of the simulation compared with that afforded by the mesh. The resolution requirements for LES are usually set by the need to capture most of the energy-containing eddies, and if explicit filtering is used, the mesh must be enlarged so that these motions are passed by the filter. Given the high cost of explicit filtering, the following interesting question arises. Since the mesh must be expanded in order to perform the explicit filter, might it be better to take advantage of the increased resolution and simply perform an unfiltered simulation on the larger mesh? The cost of the two approaches is roughly the same, but the philosophy is rather different. In the filtered simulation, resolution is sacrificed in order to minimize the various forms of numerical error. In the unfiltered simulation, the errors are left intact, but they are concentrated at very small scales that could be dynamically unimportant from a LES perspective. Very little is known about this tradeoff and the objective of this work is to study this relationship in high Reynolds number channel flow simulations using a second-order finite-difference method
Scattering of first and second sound waves by quantum vorticity in superfluid Helium
We study the scattering of first and second sound waves by quantum vorticity
in superfluid Helium using two-fluid hydrodynamics. The vorticity of the
superfluid component and the sound interact because of the nonlinear character
of these equations. Explicit expressions for the scattered pressure and
temperature are worked out in a first Born approximation, and care is exercised
in delimiting the range of validity of the assumptions needed for this
approximation to hold. An incident second sound wave will partly convert into
first sound, and an incident first sound wave will partly convert into second
sound. General considerations show that most incident first sound converts into
second sound, but not the other way around. These considerations are validated
using a vortex dipole as an explicitely worked out example.Comment: 24 pages, Latex, to appear in Journal of Low Temperature Physic
Violation of Leggett-Garg inequalities in quantum measurements with variable resolution and back-action
Quantum mechanics violates Leggett-Garg inequalities because the operator
formalism predicts correlations between different spin components that would
correspond to negative joint probabilities for the outcomes of joint
measurements. However, the uncertainty principle ensures that such joint
measurements cannot be implemented without errors. In a sequential measurement
of the spin components, the resolution and back-action errors of the
intermediate measurement can be described by random spin flips acting on an
intrinsic joint probability. If the error rates are known, the intrinsic joint
probability can be reconstructed from the noisy statistics of the actual
measurement outcomes. In this paper, we use the spin-flip model of measurement
errors to analyze experimental data on photon polarization obtained with an
interferometric setup that allows us to vary the measurement strength and hence
the balance between resolution and back-action errors. We confirm that the
intrinsic joint probability obtained from the experimental data is independent
of measurement strength and show that the same violation of the Leggett-Garg
inequality can be obtained for any combination of measurement resolution and
back-action.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figure
Measurement of the branching ratio for beta-delayed alpha decay of 16N
While the 12C(a,g)16O reaction plays a central role in nuclear astrophysics,
the cross section at energies relevant to hydrostatic helium burning is too
small to be directly measured in the laboratory. The beta-delayed alpha
spectrum of 16N can be used to constrain the extrapolation of the E1 component
of the S-factor; however, with this approach the resulting S-factor becomes
strongly correlated with the assumed beta-alpha branching ratio. We have
remeasured the beta-alpha branching ratio by implanting 16N ions in a segmented
Si detector and counting the number of beta-alpha decays relative to the number
of implantations. Our result, 1.49(5)e-5, represents a 24% increase compared to
the accepted value and implies an increase of 14% in the extrapolated S-factor
The electric vehicle integration into the power system: an application to the portuguese case
Electric vehicles (EV) offer a great potential to address the integration of renewable energy sources (RES) in the power grid, and thus reduce the dependence on oil as well as the greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions. The high share of wind energy in the Portuguese energy mix expected for 2020 can led to eventual curtailment, especially during the winter when high levels of hydro generation occur. In this paper a methodology based on a unit commitment and economic dispatch is implemented, and a hydro-thermal dispatch is performed in order to evaluate the impact of the EVs integration into the grid. Results show that the considered 10 % penetration of EVs in the Portuguese fleet would increase load in 3 % and would not integrate a significant amount of wind energy because curtailment is already reduced in the absence of EVs. According to the results, the EV is charged mostly with thermal generation and the associated emissions are much higher than if they were calculated based on the generation mix
Understanding visual map formation through vortex dynamics of spin Hamiltonian models
The pattern formation in orientation and ocular dominance columns is one of
the most investigated problems in the brain. From a known cortical structure,
we build spin-like Hamiltonian models with long-range interactions of the
Mexican hat type. These Hamiltonian models allow a coherent interpretation of
the diverse phenomena in the visual map formation with the help of relaxation
dynamics of spin systems. In particular, we explain various phenomena of
self-organization in orientation and ocular dominance map formation including
the pinwheel annihilation and its dependency on the columnar wave vector and
boundary conditions.Comment: 4 pages, 15 figure
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