Proton electron elastic scattering and the proton charge radius

It is suggested that proton elastic scattering on atomic electrons allows a precise measurement of the proton charge radius. Very small values of transferred momenta (up to four order of magnitude smaller than the ones presently available) can be reached with high probability.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Elastic deformation due to tangential capillary forces \ud

A sessile liquid drop can deform the substrate on which it rests if the solid is sufficiently “soft.” In this paper we compute the detailed spatial structure of the capillary forces exerted by the drop on the solid substrate using a model based on Density Functional Theory. We show that, in addition to the normal forces, the drop exerts a previously unaccounted tangential force. The resultant effect on the solid is a pulling force near the contact line directed towards the interior of the drop, i.e., not along the interface. The resulting elastic deformations of the solid are worked out and illustrate the importance of the tangential force

Contact angles on a soft solid: from Young's law to Neumann's law

The contact angle that a liquid drop makes on a soft substrate does not obey the classical Young's relation, since the solid is deformed elastically by the action of the capillary forces. The finite elasticity of the solid also renders the contact angles different from that predicted by Neumann's law, which applies when the drop is floating on another liquid. Here we derive an elasto-capillary model for contact angles on a soft solid, by coupling a mean-field model for the molecular interactions to elasticity. We demonstrate that the limit of vanishing elastic modulus yields Neumann's law or a slight variation thereof, depending on the force transmission in the solid surface layer. The change in contact angle from the rigid limit (Young) to the soft limit (Neumann) appears when the length scale defined by the ratio of surface tension to elastic modulus $\gamma/E$ reaches a few molecular sizes

Evaluating the pronunciation component of text-to-speech systems for English: A performance comparison of different approaches

The automatic derivation of word pronunciations from input text is a central task for any text-to-speech system. For general English text at least, this is often thought to be a solved problem, with manually-derived linguistic rules assumed capable of handling `novel' words missing from the system dictionary. Data-driven methods, based on machine learning of the regularities implicit in a large pronouncing dictionary, have received considerable attention recently but are generally thought to perform less well. However, these tentative beliefs are at best uncertain without powerful methods for comparing text-to-phoneme subsystems. This paper contributes to the development of such methods by comparing the performance of four representative approaches to automatic phonemisation on the same test dictionary. As well as rule-based approaches, three data-driven techniques are evaluated: pronunciation by analogy (PbA), NETspeak and IB1-IG (a modified k-nearest neighbour method). Issues involved in comparative evaluation are detailed and elucidated. The data-driven techniques outperform rules in accuracy of letter-to-phoneme translation by a very significant margin but require aligned text-phoneme training data and are slower. Best translation results are obtained with PbA at approximately 72% words correct on a reasonably large pronouncing dictionary, compared to something like 26% words correct for the rules, indicating that automatic pronunciation of text is not a solved problem

New pixelized Micromegas detector for the COMPASS experiment

New Micromegas (Micro-mesh gaseous detectors) are being developed in view of the future physics projects planned by the COMPASS collaboration at CERN. Several major upgrades compared to present detectors are being studied: detectors standing five times higher luminosity with hadron beams, detection of beam particles (flux up to a few hundred of kHz/mm^2, 10 times larger than for the present detectors) with pixelized read-out in the central part, light and integrated electronics, and improved robustness. Studies were done with the present detectors moved in the beam, and two first pixelized prototypes are being tested with muon and hadron beams in real conditions at COMPASS. We present here this new project and report on two series of tests, with old detectors moved into the beam and with pixelized prototypes operated in real data taking condition with both muon and hadron beams.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, proceedings to the Micro-Pattern Gaseous Detectors conference (MPGD2009), 12-15 June 2009, Kolympari, Crete, Greece Minor details added and language corrections don

The Meissner effect in a strongly underdoped cuprate above its critical temperature

The Meissner effect and the associated perfect "bulk" diamagnetism together with zero resistance and gap opening are characteristic features of the superconducting state. In the pseudogap state of cuprates unusual diamagnetic signals as well as anomalous proximity effects have been detected but a Meissner effect has never been observed. Here we have probed the local diamagnetic response in the normal state of an underdoped La1.94Sr0.06CuO4 layer (up to 46 nm thick, critical temperature Tc' < 5 K) which was brought into close contact with two nearly optimally doped La1.84Sr0.16CuO4 layers (Tc \approx 32 K). We show that the entire 'barrier' layer of thickness much larger than the typical c axis coherence lengths of cuprates exhibits a Meissner effect at temperatures well above Tc' but below Tc. The temperature dependence of the effective penetration depth and superfluid density in different layers indicates that superfluidity with long-range phase coherence is induced in the underdoped layer by the proximity to optimally doped layers; however, this induced order is very sensitive to thermal excitation.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures + Erratu