13,194 research outputs found
Accepting Collective Responsibility for the Future
Existing institutions do not seem well-designed to address paradigmatically global, intergenerational and ecological problems, such as climate change. 1 In particular, they tend to crowd out intergenerational concern, and thereby facilitate a “tyranny of the contemporary” in which successive generations exploit the future to their own advantage in morally indefensible ways (albeit perhaps unintentionally). Overcoming such a tyranny will require both accepting responsibility for the future and meeting the institutional gap. I propose that we approach the first in terms of a traditional “delegated responsibility” model of the transmission of individual responsibility to collectives, and the second with a call for a global constitutional convention focused on future generations. In this paper, I develop the delegated responsibility model by suggesting how it leads us to understand both past failures and prospective responsibility. I then briefly defend the call for a global constitutional convention
The Magnetic Rayleigh-Taylor Instability in Three Dimensions
We study the magnetic Rayleigh-Taylor instability in three dimensions, with
focus on the nonlinear structure and evolution that results from different
initial field configurations. We study strong fields in the sense that the
critical wavelength l_c at which perturbations along the field are stable is a
large fraction of the size of the computational domain. We consider magnetic
fields which are initially parallel to the interface, but have a variety of
configurations, including uniform everywhere, uniform in the light fluid only,
and fields which change direction at the interface. Strong magnetic fields do
not suppress instability, in fact by inhibiting secondary shear instabilities,
they reduce mixing between the heavy and light fluid, and cause the rate of
growth of bubbles and fingers to increase in comparison to hydrodynamics.
Fields parallel to, but whose direction changes at, the interface produce long,
isolated fingers separated by the critical wavelength l_c, which may be
relevant to the morphology of the optical filaments in the Crab nebula.Comment: 14 pages, 9 pages, accepted by Ap
Quantum Kinetic Theory VI: The Growth of a Bose-Einstein Condensate
A detailed analysis of the growth of a BEC is given, based on quantum kinetic
theory, in which we take account of the evolution of the occupations of lower
trap levels, and of the full Bose-Einstein formula for the occupations of
higher trap levels, as well as the Bose stimulated direct transfer of atoms to
the condensate level introduced by Gardiner et al. We find good agreement with
experiment at higher temperatures, but at lower temperatures the experimentally
observed growth rate is somewhat more rapid. We also confirm the picture of the
``kinetic'' region of evolution, introduced by Kagan et al., for the time up to
the initiation of the condensate. The behavior after initiation essentially
follows our original growth equation, but with a substantially increased rate
coefficient.
Our modelling of growth implicitly gives a model of the spatial shape of the
condensate vapor system as the condensate grows, and thus provides an
alternative to the present phenomenological fitting procedure, based on the sum
of a zero-chemical potential vapor and a Thomas-Fermi shaped condensate. Our
method may give substantially different results for condensate numbers and
temperatures obtained from phenomentological fits, and indicates the need for
more systematic investigation of the growth dynamics of the condensate from a
supersaturated vapor.Comment: TeX source; 29 Pages including 26 PostScript figure
\u3ci\u3eHippodamia Variegata\u3c/i\u3e (Goeze) (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) Detected in Michigan Soybean Fields
Since its initial detection near Montreal, Canada in 1984, the variegated lady beetle Hippodamia variegata (Goeze) (Coleoptera:Coccinellidae) has spread throughout the northeastern United States. In 2005, this immigrant Old World species was detected in Michigan for the first time. Twenty-nine adults were found in soybean fields in 4 counties: Ingham, Gratiot, Kalamazoo, and Saginaw.The first individuals were found in Gratiot County on 22 June 2005; we continued to detect individuals until 18 Aug 2005 (2 individuals collected in Saginaw Co.) when sampling ended. Prior to this study, H. variegata had not been known to prey on the soybean aphid, Aphis glycines Matsumura (Homoptera: Aphididae). The establishment of soybean aphid throughout the north-central U.S. may aid the spread of H. variegata throughout the region
A New Godunov Scheme for MHD, with Application to the MRI in disks
We describe a new numerical scheme for MHD which combines a higher order
Godunov method (PPM) with Constrained Transport. The results from a selection
of multidimensional test problems are presented. The complete test suite used
to validate the method, as well as implementations of the algorithm in both F90
and C, are available from the web. A fully three-dimensional version of the
algorithm has been developed, and is being applied to a variety of
astrophysical problems including the decay of supersonic MHD turbulence, the
nonlinear evolution of the MHD Rayleigh-Taylor instability, and the saturation
of the magnetorotational instability in the shearing box. Our new simulations
of the MRI represent the first time that a higher-order Godunov scheme has been
applied to this problem, providing a quantitative check on the accuracy of
previous results computed with ZEUS; the latter are found to be reliable.Comment: 11 pages, style files included, Conference Proceedings: "Magnetic
Fields in the Universe: from Laboratory and Stars to Primordial Structures",
More information on Athena can be found at
http://www.astro.princeton.edu/~jstone/athena.htm
Nonlinear Evolution of the Magnetohydrodynamic Rayleigh-Taylor Instability
We study the nonlinear evolution of the magnetic Rayleigh-Taylor instability
using three-dimensional MHD simulations. We consider the idealized case of two
inviscid, perfectly conducting fluids of constant density separated by a
contact discontinuity perpendicular to the effective gravity g, with a uniform
magnetic field B parallel to the interface. Modes parallel to the field with
wavelengths smaller than l_c = [B B/(d_h - d_l) g] are suppressed (where d_h
and d_l are the densities of the heavy and light fluids respectively), whereas
modes perpendicular to B are unaffected. We study strong fields with l_c
varying between 0.01 and 0.36 of the horizontal extent of the computational
domain. Even a weak field produces tension forces on small scales that are
significant enough to reduce shear (as measured by the distribution of the
amplitude of vorticity), which in turn reduces the mixing between fluids, and
increases the rate at which bubbles and finger are displaced from the interface
compared to the purely hydrodynamic case. For strong fields, the highly
anisotropic nature of unstable modes produces ropes and filaments. However, at
late time flow along field lines produces large scale bubbles. The kinetic and
magnetic energies transverse to gravity remain in rough equipartition and
increase as t^4 at early times. The growth deviates from this form once the
magnetic energy in the vertical field becomes larger than the energy in the
initial field. We comment on the implications of our results to Z-pinch
experiments, and a variety of astrophysical systems.Comment: 25 pages, accepted by Physics of Fluids, online version of journal
has high resolution figure
Correcting low-frequency noise with continuous measurement
Low-frequency noise presents a serious source of decoherence in solid-state
qubits. When combined with a continuous weak measurement of the eigenstates,
the low-frequency noise induces a second-order relaxation between the qubit
states. Here we show that the relaxation provides a unique approach to
calibrate the low-frequency noise in the time-domain. By encoding one qubit
with two physical qubits that are alternatively calibrated, quantum logic gates
with high fidelity can be performed.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, submitte
Lower limit on the achievable temperature in resonator-based sideband cooling
A resonator can be effectively used as a cooler for another linear oscillator
with a much smaller frequency. A huge cooling effect, which could be used to
cool a mechanical oscillator below the energy of quantum fluctuations, has been
predicted by several authors. However, here we show that there is a lower limit
T* on the achievable temperature that was not considered in previous works and
can be higher than the quantum limit in realistic experimental realizations. We
also point out that the decay rate of the resonator, which previous studies
stress should be small, must be larger than the decay rate of the cooled
oscillator for effective cooling.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, uses psfra
Number-Phase Wigner Representation for Efficient Stochastic Simulations
Phase-space representations based on coherent states (P, Q, Wigner) have been
successful in the creation of stochastic differential equations (SDEs) for the
efficient stochastic simulation of high dimensional quantum systems. However
many problems using these techniques remain intractable over long integrations
times. We present a number-phase Wigner representation that can be unraveled
into SDEs. We demonstrate convergence to the correct solution for an anharmonic
oscillator with small dampening for significantly longer than other phase space
representations. This process requires an effective sampling of a non-classical
probability distribution. We describe and demonstrate a method of achieving
this sampling using stochastic weights.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figur
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