Data report: Seismic structure beneath the North Cascadia drilling transect of IODP Expedition 311

Between 1999 and 2004, new seismic data became available for the study of gas hydrates on the northern Cascadia margin. These data consist of multi- and single-channel data with two- and partly three-dimensional subsurface coverage and were acquired and used in support of the proposal for Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) Expedition 311 carried out in 2005. The working area lies across the continental slope off the coast of central Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada, with water depths ranging from 2600 m in the trench to 500 m on the upper slope, where it is well above the minimum depth for gas hydrate stability. This paper gives the details of the data acquisition and conventional processing and then focuses on describing the new data at six individual sites along a transect across the gas hydrate zone. Five of the sites were drilled during the Expedition 311. The transect of sites commences at the almost undeformed incoming sediments seaward of the region where gas hydrates are observed; these ocean basin sediments were drilled at a site 40 km southeast during Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Leg 146. The transect continues up the continental slope into the area of hydrate stability, with a site on top of the frontal accretionary ridge where normal faulting indicates margin parallel extension; a site in the first slope basin overlying a buried ridge near a reflectivity wipe-out zone; a site adjacent to Site 889 of Leg 146 and therefore acting as a tie hole; the most landward site at the shallowest end of the hydrate stability field; and a cold vent site at one of several blank zones close to a bright spot region in the seismic records

Constructing sonified haptic line graphs for the blind student: first steps

Line graphs stand as an established information visualisation and analysis technique taught at various levels of difficulty according to standard Mathematics curricula. It has been argued that blind individuals cannot use line graphs as a visualisation and analytic tool because they currently primarily exist in the visual medium. The research described in this paper aims at making line graphs accessible to blind students through auditory and haptic media. We describe (1) our design space for representing line graphs, (2) the technology we use to develop our prototypes and (3) the insights from our preliminary work

A low-loss, broadband antenna for efficient photon collection from a coherent spin in diamond

We report the creation of a low-loss, broadband optical antenna giving highly directed output from a coherent single spin in the solid-state. The device, the first solid-state realization of a dielectric antenna, is engineered for individual nitrogen vacancy (NV) electronic spins in diamond. We demonstrate a directionality close to 10. The photonic structure preserves the high spin coherence of single crystal diamond (T2>100us). The single photon count rate approaches a MHz facilitating efficient spin readout. We thus demonstrate a key enabling technology for quantum applications such as high-sensitivity magnetometry and long-distance spin entanglement.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures and supplementary information (5 pages, 8 figures). Comments welcome. Further information under http://www.quantum-sensing.physik.unibas.c

Towards magnetic slowing of atoms and molecules

We outline a method to slow paramagnetic atoms or molecules using pulsed magnetic fields. We also discuss the possibility of producing trapped particles by adiabatic deceleration of a magnetic trap. We present numerical simulation results for the slowing and trapping of molecular oxygen