10,342 research outputs found
Who is coming from Vanuatu to New Zealand under the new Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) program?
New Zealand’s new Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) program allows workers from the Pacific Islands to come to New Zealand for up to seven months to work in the horticulture and viticulture industries. One of the explicit objectives of the program is to encourage economic development in the Pacific. In this paper we report on the results of a baseline survey taken in Vanuatu, which allows us to
examine who wants to participate in the program, and who is selected amongst those interested. We find the main participants are males in their late 20s to early
40s, most of whom are married and have children. Most workers are subsistence farmers in Vanuatu and have not completed more than 10 years of schooling. Such
workers would be unlikely to be accepted under existing migration channels. Nevertheless, we find RSE workers from Vanuatu to come from wealthier households, and have better English literacy and health than individuals not applying
for the program. Lack of knowledge about the policy and the costs of applying appear to be the main barriers preventing poorer individuals applying
Reconstructing the Local Twist of Coronal Magnetic Fields and the Three-Dimensional Shape of the Field Lines from Coronal Loops in EUV and X-Ray Images
Non-linear force-free fields are the most general case of force-free fields,
but the hardest to model as well. There are numerous methods of computing such
fields by extrapolating vector magnetograms from the photosphere, but very few
attempts have so far made quantitative use of coronal morphology. We present a
method to make such quantitative use of X-Ray and EUV images of coronal loops.
Each individual loop is fit to a field line of a linear force-free field,
allowing the estimation of the field line's twist, three-dimensional geometry
and the field strength along it.
We assess the validity of such a reconstruction since the actual corona is
probably not a linear force-free field and that the superposition of linear
force-free fields is generally not itself a force-free field. To do so, we
perform a series of tests on non-linear force-free fields, described in Low &
Lou (1990). For model loops we project field lines onto the photosphere. We
compare several results of the method with the original field, in particular
the three-dimensional loop shapes, local twist (coronal alpha), distribution of
twist in the model photosphere and strength of the magnetic field. We find
that, (i) for these trial fields, the method reconstructs twist with mean
absolute deviation of at most 15% of the range of photospheric twist, (ii) that
heights of the loops are reconstructed with mean absolute deviation of at most
5% of the range of trial heights and (iii) that the magnitude of non-potential
contribution to photospheric field is reconstructed with mean absolute
deviation of at most 10% of the maximal value.Comment: submitted to Ap
Spin Bose-Metal phase in a spin-1/2 model with ring exchange on a two-leg triangular strip
Recent experiments on triangular lattice organic Mott insulators have found
evidence for a 2D spin liquid in proximity to the metal-insulator transition. A
Gutzwiller wavefunction study of the triangular lattice Heisenberg model with
appropriate four-spin ring exchanges has found that the projected spinon Fermi
sea state has a low variational energy. This wavefunction, together with a
slave particle gauge theory, suggests that such spin liquid possesses spin
correlations that are singular along surfaces in momentum space ("Bose
surfaces"). Signatures of this state, which we refer to as a "Spin Bose-Metal"
(SBM), are expected to be manifest in quasi-1D ladder systems: The discrete
transverse momenta cut through the 2D Bose surface leading to a distinct
pattern of 1D gapless modes. Here we search for a quasi-1D descendant of the
triangular lattice SBM state by exploring the Heisenberg plus ring model on a
two-leg strip (zigzag chain). Using DMRG, variational wavefunctions, and a
Bosonization analysis, we map out the full phase diagram. Without ring exchange
the model is equivalent to the J_1 - J_2 Heisenberg chain, and we find the
expected Bethe-chain and dimerized phases. Remarkably, moderate ring exchange
reveals a new gapless phase over a large swath of the phase diagram. Spin and
dimer correlations possess particular singular wavevectors and allow us to
identify this phase as the hoped for quasi-1D descendant SBM state. We derive a
low energy theory and find three gapless modes and one Luttinger parameter
controlling all power laws. Potential instabilities out of the zigzag SBM give
rise to other interesting phases such as a period-3 VBS or a period-4 Chirality
order, which we discover in the DMRG; we also find an interesting SBM state
with partial ferromagnetism.Comment: 30 pages, 23 figure
Apparent Violation of the Wiedemann-Franz law near a magnetic field tuned metal-antiferromagnetic quantum critical point
The temperature dependence of the interlayer electrical and thermal
resistivity in a layered metal are calculated for Fermi liquid quasiparticles
which are scattered inelastically by two-dimensional antiferromagnetic spin
fluctuations. Both resistivities have a linear temperature dependence over a
broad temperature range. Extrapolations to zero temperature made from this
linear- range give values that appear to violate the Wiedemann-Franz law.
However, below a low-temperature scale, which becomes small close to the
critical point, a recovery of this law occurs. Our results describe recent
measurements on CeCoIn near a magnetic field-induced quantum phase
transition. Hence, the experiments do not necessarily imply a non-Fermi liquid
ground state.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures; accepted to Phys. Rev. Let
A Method to Determine the In-Air Spatial Spread of Clinical Electron Beams
We propose and analyze in detail a method to measure the in-air spatial
spread parameter of clinical electron beams. Measurements are performed at the
center of the beam and below the adjustable collimators sited in asymmetrical
configuration in order to avoid the distortions due to the presence of the
applicator. The main advantage of our procedure lies in the fact that the dose
profiles are fitted by means of a function which includes, additionally to the
Gaussian step usually considered, a background which takes care of the dose
produced by different mechanisms that the Gaussian model does not account for.
As a result, the spatial spread is obtained directly from the fitting procedure
and the accuracy permits a good determination of the angular spread. The way
the analysis is done is alternative to that followed by the usual methods based
on the evaluation of the penumbra width. Besides, the spatial spread found
shows the quadratic-cubic dependence with the distance to the source predicted
by the Fermi-Eyges theory. However, the corresponding values obtained for the
scattering power are differing from those quoted by ICRU nr. 35 by a factor ~2
or larger, what requires of a more detailed investigation.Comment: 11 pages, 5 Postscript figures, to be published in Medical Physic
Experimental Demonstration of Time-Delay Interferometry for the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna
We report on the first demonstration of time-delay interferometry (TDI) for
LISA, the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna. TDI was implemented in a
laboratory experiment designed to mimic the noise couplings that will occur in
LISA. TDI suppressed laser frequency noise by approximately 10^9 and clock
phase noise by 6x10^4, recovering the intrinsic displacement noise floor of our
laboratory test bed. This removal of laser frequency noise and clock phase
noise in post-processing marks the first experimental validation of the LISA
measurement scheme.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, to appear in Physical Review Letters end of May
201
Discrete Lie Advection of Differential Forms
In this paper, we present a numerical technique for performing Lie advection
of arbitrary differential forms. Leveraging advances in high-resolution finite
volume methods for scalar hyperbolic conservation laws, we first discretize the
interior product (also called contraction) through integrals over Eulerian
approximations of extrusions. This, along with Cartan's homotopy formula and a
discrete exterior derivative, can then be used to derive a discrete Lie
derivative. The usefulness of this operator is demonstrated through the
numerical advection of scalar fields and 1-forms on regular grids.Comment: Accepted version; to be published in J. FoC
Dynamic evolution of the source volumes of gradual and impulsive solar flare emissions
This study compares flare source volumes inferred from impulsive hard X-rays and microwaves with those derived from density sensitive soft X-ray line ratios in the O VII spectrum. The data for this study were obtained with the SMM Hard X-Ray Burst Spectrometer, Earth-based radio observatories, and the SOLEX-B spectrometer on the P78-1 satellite. Data were available for the flares of 1980 April 8, 1980 May 9, and 1981 February 26. The hard X-ray/microwave source volume is determined under the assumption that the same electron temperature or power law index characterizes both the source of hard X-rays and the source of microwaves. The O VII line ratios yield the density and volume of the 2 X 10 to the 6th K plasma. For all three flares, the O VII source volume is found to be smallest at the beginning of the flare, near the time when the impulsive hard X-ray/microwave volume reaches its first maximum. At this time, the O VII volume is three to four orders of magnitude smaller than that inferred from the hard X-ray/microwave analysis. Subsequently, the O VII source volume increases by one or two orders of magnitude then remains almost constant until the end of the flare when it apparently increases again
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