134 research outputs found
Colloquium: Comparison of Astrophysical and Terrestrial Frequency Standards
We have re-analyzed the stability of pulse arrival times from pulsars and
white dwarfs using several analysis tools for measuring the noise
characteristics of sampled time and frequency data. We show that the best
terrestrial artificial clocks substantially exceed the performance of
astronomical sources as time-keepers in terms of accuracy (as defined by cesium
primary frequency standards) and stability. This superiority in stability can
be directly demonstrated over time periods up to two years, where there is high
quality data for both. Beyond 2 years there is a deficiency of data for
clock/clock comparisons and both terrestrial and astronomical clocks show equal
performance being equally limited by the quality of the reference timescales
used to make the comparisons. Nonetheless, we show that detailed accuracy
evaluations of modern terrestrial clocks imply that these new clocks are likely
to have a stability better than any astronomical source up to comparison times
of at least hundreds of years. This article is intended to provide a correct
appreciation of the relative merits of natural and artificial clocks. The use
of natural clocks as tests of physics under the most extreme conditions is
entirely appropriate; however, the contention that these natural clocks,
particularly white dwarfs, can compete as timekeepers against devices
constructed by mankind is shown to be doubtful.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures; presented at the International Frequency Control
Symposium, Newport Beach, Calif., June, 2010; presented at Pulsar Conference
2010, October 12th, Sardinia; accepted 13th September 2010 for publication in
Reviews of Modern Physic
Comparison of VLBI, TV and traveling clock techniques for time transfer
A three part experiment was conducted to develop and compare time transfer techniques. The experiment consisted of (1) a very long baseline interferometer (VLBI), (2) a high precision portable clock time transfer system between the two sites, and (3) a television time transfer. A comparison of the VLBI and traveling clock shows each technique can perform satisfactorily at the five nsec level. There was a systematic offset of 59 nsec between the two methods, which we attributed to a difference in epochs between VLBI formatter and station clock. The VLBI method had an internal random error of one nsec at the three sigma level for a two day period. Thus, the Mark II system performed well, and VLBI shows promise of being an accurate method of time transfer. The TV system, which had technical problems during the experiment, transferred time with a random error of about 50 nsec
Fuzzy directional enlacement landscapes
International audienceSpatial relations between objects represented in images are of high importance in various application domains related to pattern recognition and computer vision. By definition, most relations are vague, ambiguous and difficult to formalize precisely by humans. The issue of describing complex spatial configurations, where objects can be imbri-cated in each other, is addressed in this article. A novel spatial relation, called enlacement, is presented and designed using a directional fuzzy landscape approach. We propose a generic fuzzy model that allows to visualize and evaluate complex enlacement configurations between crisp objects, with directional granularity. The interest and the behavior of this approach is highlighted on several characteristic examples
Quasar Proper Motions and Low-Frequency Gravitational Waves
We report observational upper limits on the mass-energy of the cosmological
gravitational-wave background, from limits on proper motions of quasars.
Gravitational waves with periods longer than the time span of observations
produce a simple pattern of apparent proper motions over the sky, composed
primarily of second-order transverse vector spherical harmonics. A fit of such
harmonics to measured motions yields a 95%-confidence limit on the mass-energy
of gravitational waves with frequencies <2e-9 Hz, of <0.11/h*h times the
closure density of the universe.Comment: 15 pages, 1 figure. Also available at
http://charm.physics.ucsb.edu:80/people/cgwinn/cgwinn_group/index.htm
The notion of histogram of forces : a new way to represent the relative position of 2D-objects
The assessment of the directional spatial relations (such as "to the right of", "to the south of" . . .) between 2D-objects
relies generally on the computation of a histogram of angles, which is supposed to provide a reasonably good representation o f
the relative position of an object with regard to another . In this paper, we introduce the notion of histogram of forces . It generalize s
and supersedes the one of histogram of angles . The objects are handled as longitudinal sections (1D-entities) . It is thus possibl e
to benefit in full by the power of integral calculus and to ensure a rapid processing of raster data as well as of vector data unde r
explicit consideration of both angular and metric information .L'évaluation des relations spatiales directionnelles (telles que « à droite de », « au sud de » ...) entre objets 2D repose généralement sur la constitution d'un histogramme d'angles. Un tel histogramme est supposé constituer une bonne représentation de la position relative d'un objet par rapport à un autre. Dans cet article, nous introduisons la notion d'histogramme de forces. Elle généralise et supplante celle d'histogramme d'angles. La manipulation des objets (entités de dimension 2) est ramenée à celle de leurs sections longitudinales (entités de dimension 1), non pas à celle de points. Il est ainsi possible de bénéficier de la puissance du calcul intégral et d'assurer un traitement incomparablement plus rapide aussi bien de données rasters que vecteurs, tout en tenant compte explicitement aussi bien de l'information angulaire que de l'information métrique
Gravitational wave detection using pulsars: status of the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array project
The first direct detection of gravitational waves may be made through
observations of pulsars. The principal aim of pulsar timing array projects
being carried out worldwide is to detect ultra-low frequency gravitational
waves (f ~ 10^-9 to 10^-8 Hz). Such waves are expected to be caused by
coalescing supermassive binary black holes in the cores of merged galaxies. It
is also possible that a detectable signal could have been produced in the
inflationary era or by cosmic strings. In this paper we review the current
status of the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array project (the only such project in the
Southern hemisphere) and compare the pulsar timing technique with other forms
of gravitational-wave detection such as ground- and space-based interferometer
systems.Comment: Accepted for publication in PAS
Prospects for Detecting Dark Matter Halo Substructure with Pulsar Timing
One of the open questions of modern cosmology is the nature and properties of
the Dark Matter halo and its substructures. In this work we study the
gravitational effect of dark matter substructures on pulsar timing
observations. Since millisecond pulsars are stable and accurate emitters, they
have been proposed as plausible astrophysical tools to probe the gravitational
effects of dark matter structures. We study this effect on pulsar timing
through Shapiro time delay (or Integrated Sachs-Wolfe (ISW) effect) and Doppler
effects statistically, showing that the latter dominates the signal. For this
task, we relate the power spectrum of pulsar frequency change to the matter
power spectrum on small scales, which we compute using the stable clustering
hypothesis. We compare this power spectrum with the reach of current and future
observations of pulsar timing designed for gravitational wave (GW) detection.
Our results show that while current observations are unable to detect these
signals, the sensitivity of the upcoming Square Kilometer Array (SKA) is only a
factor of few weaker than our optimistic predictions.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures. Final Versio
Status Update of the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array
The Parkes Pulsar Timing Array project aims to make a direct detection of a
gravitational-wave background through timing of millisecond pulsars. In this
article, the main requirements for that endeavour are described and recent and
ongoing progress is outlined. We demonstrate that the timing properties of
millisecond pulsars are adequate and that technological progress is timely to
expect a successful detection of gravitational waves within a decade, or
alternatively to rule out all current predictions for gravitational wave
backgrounds formed by supermassive black-hole mergers.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, Amaldi 8 conference proceedings, accepted by
Classical & Quantum Gravit
Key Rotation for Authenticated Encryption
A common requirement in practice is to periodically rotate the keys used to
encrypt stored data. Systems used by Amazon and Google do so using a hybrid
encryption technique which is eminently practical but has questionable
security in the face of key compromises and does not provide full key
rotation. Meanwhile, symmetric updatable encryption schemes (introduced by
Boneh et al. CRYPTO 2013) support full key rotation without performing
decryption: ciphertexts created under one key can be rotated to ciphertexts
created under a different key with the help of a re-encryption token. By
design, the tokens do not leak information about keys or plaintexts and so
can be given to storage providers without compromising security. But the
prior work of Boneh et al. addresses relatively weak confidentiality goals
and does not consider integrity at all. Moreover, as we show, a subtle issue
with their concrete scheme obviates a security proof even for confidentiality
against passive attacks.
This paper presents a systematic study of updatable Authenticated Encryption
(AE). We provide a set of security notions that strengthen those in prior
work. These notions enable us to tease out real-world security requirements
of different strengths and build schemes that satisfy them efficiently. We
show that the hybrid approach currently used in industry achieves relatively
weak forms of confidentiality and integrity, but can be modified at low cost
to meet our stronger confidentiality and integrity goals. This leads to a
practical scheme that has negligible overhead beyond conventional AE. We then
introduce re-encryption indistinguishability, a security notion that formally
captures the idea of fully refreshing keys upon rotation. We show how to
repair the scheme of Boneh et al., attaining our stronger confidentiality
notion. We also show how to extend the scheme to provide integrity, and we
prove that it meets our re- encryption indistinguishability notion. Finally,
we discuss how to instantiate our scheme efficiently using off-the-shelf
cryptographic components (AE, hashing, elliptic curves). We report on the
performance of a prototype implementation, showing that fully secure key
rotations can be performed at a throughput of approximately 116 kB/s
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