3,440 research outputs found
Statistical Basis for Predicting Technological Progress
Forecasting technological progress is of great interest to engineers, policy
makers, and private investors. Several models have been proposed for predicting
technological improvement, but how well do these models perform? An early
hypothesis made by Theodore Wright in 1936 is that cost decreases as a power
law of cumulative production. An alternative hypothesis is Moore's law, which
can be generalized to say that technologies improve exponentially with time.
Other alternatives were proposed by Goddard, Sinclair et al., and Nordhaus.
These hypotheses have not previously been rigorously tested. Using a new
database on the cost and production of 62 different technologies, which is the
most expansive of its kind, we test the ability of six different postulated
laws to predict future costs. Our approach involves hindcasting and developing
a statistical model to rank the performance of the postulated laws. Wright's
law produces the best forecasts, but Moore's law is not far behind. We discover
a previously unobserved regularity that production tends to increase
exponentially. A combination of an exponential decrease in cost and an
exponential increase in production would make Moore's law and Wright's law
indistinguishable, as originally pointed out by Sahal. We show for the first
time that these regularities are observed in data to such a degree that the
performance of these two laws is nearly tied. Our results show that
technological progress is forecastable, with the square root of the logarithmic
error growing linearly with the forecasting horizon at a typical rate of 2.5%
per year. These results have implications for theories of technological change,
and assessments of candidate technologies and policies for climate change
mitigation
Giant QCD K-factors beyond NLO
Hadronic observables in Z+jet events can be subject to large NLO corrections
at TeV scales, with K-factors that even reach values of order 50 in some cases.
We develop a method, LoopSim, by which approximate NNLO predictions can be
obtained for such observables, supplementing NLO Z+jet and NLO Z+2-jet results
with a unitarity-based approximation for missing higher loop terms. We first
test the method against known NNLO results for Drell-Yan lepton pt spectra. We
then show our approximate NNLO results for the Z+jet observables. Finally we
examine whether the LoopSim method can provide useful information even in cases
without giant K-factors, with results for observables in dijet events that can
be compared to early LHC data.Comment: 38 pages, 13 figures; v2 includes additional reference
Renormalization of QCD_2
The low energy infrared scaling of the multi-color 2-dimensional quantum
chromodynamics is determined in the framework of its bosonized model by using
the functional renormalization group method with gliding sharp cut-off k in
momentum space in the local potential approximation. The model exhibits a
single phase with a superuniversal effective potential.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures, final versio
Functional renormalization group with a compactly supported smooth regulator function
The functional renormalization group equation with a compactly supported
smooth (CSS) regulator function is considered. It is demonstrated that in an
appropriate limit the CSS regulator recovers the optimized one and it has
derivatives of all orders. The more generalized form of the CSS regulator is
shown to reduce to all major type of regulator functions (exponential,
power-law) in appropriate limits. The CSS regulator function is tested by
studying the critical behavior of the bosonized two-dimensional quantum
electrodynamics in the local potential approximation and the sine-Gordon scalar
theory for d<2 dimensions beyond the local potential approximation. It is shown
that a similar smoothing problem in nuclear physics has already been solved by
introducing the so called Salamon-Vertse potential which can be related to the
CSS regulator.Comment: JHEP style, 11 pages, 2 figures, proofs corrected, accepted for
publication by JHE
Next-to-leading order QCD corrections to electroweak Zjj production in the POWHEGBOX
We present an implementation of electroweak Z-boson production in association
with two jets at hadron colliders in the POWHEG framework, a method that allows
the interfacing of NLO-QCD calculations with parton-shower Monte Carlo
programs. We focus on the leptonic decays of the weak gauge boson, and take
photonic and non-resonant contributions to the matrix elements fully into
account. We provide results for observables of particular importance for the
suppression of QCD backgrounds to vector-boson fusion processes by means of
central-jet-veto techniques. While parton-shower effects are small for most
observables associated with the two hardest jets, they can be more pronounced
for distributions that are employed in central-jet-veto studies.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figure
Cross Section Ratios between different CM energies at the LHC: opportunities for precision measurements and BSM sensitivity
The staged increase of the LHC beam energy provides a new class of
interesting observables, namely ratios and double ratios of cross sections of
various hard processes. The large degree of correlation of theoretical
systematics in the cross section calculations at different energies leads to
highly precise predictions for such ratios. We present in this letter few
examples of such ratios, and discuss their possible implications, both in terms
of opportunities for precision measurements and in terms of sensitivity to
Beyond the Standard Model dynamics.Comment: 19 pages, 9 figure
Phase Structure and Compactness
In order to study the influence of compactness on low-energy properties, we
compare the phase structures of the compact and non-compact two-dimensional
multi-frequency sine-Gordon models. It is shown that the high-energy scaling of
the compact and non-compact models coincides, but their low-energy behaviors
differ. The critical frequency at which the sine-Gordon model
undergoes a topological phase transition is found to be unaffected by the
compactness of the field since it is determined by high-energy scaling laws.
However, the compact two-frequency sine-Gordon model has first and second order
phase transitions determined by the low-energy scaling: we show that these are
absent in the non-compact model.Comment: 21 pages, 5 figures, minor changes, final version, accepted for
publication in JHE
Next-to-leading order predictions for Z gamma+jet and Z gamma gamma final states at the LHC
We present next-to-leading order predictions for final states containing
leptons produced through the decay of a Z boson in association with either a
photon and a jet, or a pair of photons. The effect of photon radiation from the
final state leptons is included and we also allow for contributions arising
from fragmentation processes. Phenomenological studies are presented for the
LHC in the case of final states containing charged leptons and in the case of
neutrinos. We also use the procedure introduced by Stewart and Tackmann to
provide a reliable estimate of the scale uncertainty inherent in our
theoretical calculations of jet-binned Z gamma cross sections. These
computations have been implemented in the public code MCFM.Comment: 30 pages, 10 figure
Validity of Different Models of Interfaces in Adhesion and Diffusion Bonded Joints
The need to characterise thin layers between thicker sections of material arises in several current NDE problems, for example the oxide layer between the adhesive and adherend in an adhesively bonded joint, and an interlayer of a different material in a diffusion bonded joint. Many workers have attempted to characterise these layers by ultrasonic reflection coefficient measurements
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