1,351 research outputs found
Eco-aesthetic dimensions: Herbert Marcuse, ecollogy and art
In his last book, The Aesthetic Dimension (1978), Marcuse argued that a concern for aesthetics is justified when political change is unlikely. But the relation between aesthetics and politics is oblique: “Art cannot change the world, but it can contribute to changing the consciousness … of the men and women who could change the world.” (p. 33). Marcuse also linked his critique of capitalism to environmentalism in the early 1970s: “the violation of the Earth is a vital aspect of the counterrevolution.” (Ecology and Revolution, in The New Left and the 1960s, Collected Papers 3, 2005, p. 173). This article revisits Marcuse’s ideas on aesthetics and ecology, and reviews two recent art projects which engage their audiences in ecological issues: The Jetty Project (2014) by Wolfgang Weileder—which used recycled material and community participation to construct a temporary monument within a wider conservation project on the Tyne, N-E England—and Fracking Futures by HeHe (Helen Evans and Heiko Hansen)—which turned the interior of the gallery at FACT, Liverpool, into what appeared to be a fracking site. The aim is not to evaluate the projects, nor to test the efficacy of Marcuse’s ideas, more to ask again whether art has a role in a shift of attitude which might contribute to dealing with the political and economic causes of climate change
Classical simulation of Quantum Entanglement using Optical Transverse Modes in Multimode Waveguides
We discuss mode-entangled states based on the optical transverse modes of the
optical field propagating in multi-mode waveguides, which are classical analogs
of the quantum entangled states. The analogs are discussed in detail, including
the violation of the Bell inequality and the correlation properties of optical
pulses' group delays. The research on these analogs may be important, for it
not only provides useful insights into fundamental features of quantum
entanglement, but also yields new insights into quantum computation and quantum
communication.Comment: RevTeX v4, 17 pages and 4 figure
Scarring in a driven system with wave chaos
We consider acoustic wave propagation in a model of a deep ocean acoustic
waveguide with a periodic range-dependence. Formally, the wave field is
described by the Schrodinger equation with a time-dependent Hamiltonian. Using
methods borrowed from the quantum chaos theory it is shown that in the driven
system under consideration there exists a "scarring" effect similar to that
observed in autonomous quantum systems.Comment: 5 pages, 7 figure
Bound whispering gallery modes in circular arrays of dielectric spherical particles
Low-dimensional ordered arrays of optical elements can possess bound modes
having an extremely high quality factor. Typically, these arrays consist of
metal elements which have significantly high light absorption thus restricting
performance. In this paper we address the following question: can bound modes
be formed in dielectric systems where the absorption of light is negligible?
Our investigation of circular arrays of spherical particles shows that (1) high
quality modes in an array of 10 or more particles can be attained at least for
a refractive index , so optical materials like TiO or GaAs can
be used; (2) the most bound modes have nearly transverse polarization
perpendicular to the circular plane; (3) in a particularly interesting case of
TiO particles (rutile phase, ), the quality factor of the most
bound mode increases almost by an order of magnitude with the addition of 10
extra particles, while for particles made of GaAs the quality factor increases
by almost two orders of magnitude with the addition of ten extra particles. We
hope that this preliminary study will stimulate experimental investigations of
bound modes in low-dimensional arrays of dielectric particles.Comment: Submitted to Physical Review
Unified theory for Goos-H\"{a}nchen and Imbert-Fedorov effects
A unified theory is advanced to describe both the lateral Goos-H\"{a}nchen
(GH) effect and the transverse Imbert-Fedorov (IF) effect, through representing
the vector angular spectrum of a 3-dimensional light beam in terms of a 2-form
angular spectrum consisting of its 2 orthogonal polarized components. From this
theory, the quantization characteristics of the GH and IF displacements are
obtained, and the Artmann formula for the GH displacement is derived. It is
found that the eigenstates of the GH displacement are the 2 orthogonal linear
polarizations in this 2-form representation, and the eigenstates of the IF
displacement are the 2 orthogonal circular polarizations. The theoretical
predictions are found to be in agreement with recent experimental results.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figure
Effect of an atom on a quantum guided field in a weakly driven fiber-Bragg-grating cavity
We study the interaction of an atom with a quantum guided field in a weakly
driven fiber-Bragg-grating (FBG) cavity. We present an effective Hamiltonian
and derive the density-matrix equations for the combined atom-cavity system. We
calculate the mean photon number, the second-order photon correlation function,
and the atomic excited-state population. We show that, due to the confinement
of the guided cavity field in the fiber cross-section plane and in the space
between the FBG mirrors, the presence of the atom in the FBG cavity can
significantly affect the mean photon number and the photon statistics even
though the cavity finesse is moderate, the cavity is long, and the probe field
is weak.Comment: Accepted for Phys. Rev.
Subclinical myasthenia gravis in thymomas
Background: A proportion of thymoma-patients without a history of myasthenia gravis (MG) before thymectomy, appears to have positive anti-AChR-antibodies in the serum. These subclinical MG-patients could be under diagnosed because analyzation of anti-AChR-antibodies in thymomas is not always performed in patients who did not experience neurological symptoms. The prevalence and long-term outcomes of subclinical MG are never described in literature yet.Methods: We retrospectively analyzed 398 consecutive patients who underwent a robotic-assisted thoracoscopic surgery at the Maastricht University Medical Center+ (MUMC+) between April 2004 and December 2018. In the MUMC+, a robotic approach is the standard surgical approach in patients with thymic diseases. Inclusion criteria were thymomas, thymectomy performed in the MUMC + with a follow-up of at least one year and age above 18 years old. Exclusion criteria were patients with thymic carcinomas, refused participation, or those who were lost to follow-up.Results: Of the 102 included thymoma-patients, 87 patients (85 %) were tested for anti-AChR-antibodies before thymectomy, of which 57 patients were diagnosed with clinical MG and seven subclinical MG-patients were found. Of the 15 patients who were not tested for anti-AChR-antibodies, four more subclinical MG-patients were discovered in the years after thymectomy. The median follow-up time was 62 months. In total, 11 subclinical MG-patients were found, with a mean age of 54 years and predominantly females (64 %). Ten subclinical MG patients (91 %) developed clinical-MG, within six years after thymectomy. Immunosuppressive drugs were prescribed in five patients. Four patients were diagnosed with a recurrence of the thymoma. No surgical mortality was reported. Two patients died due to a myasthenic crisis.Conclusions: The prevalence of subclinical MG in thymomas was found to be 10.8 %. One in four patients who experienced no neurological symptoms before thymectomy, appeared to have anti-AChR-antibodies and 91 % of these patients developed clinical MG within six years after the thymectomy. Analyzing anti-AChR-antibodies in the serum is recommended in all suspected thymomas before a thymectomy is performed
Stochastic collective dynamics of charged--particle beams in the stability regime
We introduce a description of the collective transverse dynamics of charged
(proton) beams in the stability regime by suitable classical stochastic
fluctuations. In this scheme, the collective beam dynamics is described by
time--reversal invariant diffusion processes deduced by stochastic variational
principles (Nelson processes). By general arguments, we show that the diffusion
coefficient, expressed in units of length, is given by ,
where is the number of particles in the beam and the Compton
wavelength of a single constituent. This diffusion coefficient represents an
effective unit of beam emittance. The hydrodynamic equations of the stochastic
dynamics can be easily recast in the form of a Schr\"odinger equation, with the
unit of emittance replacing the Planck action constant. This fact provides a
natural connection to the so--called ``quantum--like approaches'' to beam
dynamics. The transition probabilities associated to Nelson processes can be
exploited to model evolutions suitable to control the transverse beam dynamics.
In particular we show how to control, in the quadrupole approximation to the
beam--field interaction, both the focusing and the transverse oscillations of
the beam, either together or independently.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figure
Propagation of transverse intensity correlations of a two-photon state
The propagation of transverse spatial correlations of photon pairs through
arbitrary first-order linear optical systems is studied experimentally and
theoretically using the fractional Fourier transform. Highly-correlated photon
pairs in an EPR-like state are produced by spontaneous parametric
down-conversion and subject to optical fractional Fourier transform systems. It
is shown that the joint detection probability can display either correlation,
anti-correlation, or no correlation, depending on the sum of the orders
and of the transforms of the down-converted photons. We
present analytical results for the propagation of the perfectly correlated EPR
state, and numerical results for the propagation of the two-photon state
produced from parametric down-conversion. We find good agreement between theory
and experiment.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, to appear PR
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