15,400 research outputs found
Collective dipole excitations in sodium clusters
Some properties of small and medium sodium clusters are described within the
RPA approach using a projected spherical single particle basis. The oscillator
strengths calculated with a Schiff-like dipole transition operator and folded
with Lorentzian functions are used to calculate the photoabsorbtion cross
section spectra. The results are further employed to establish the dependence
of the plasmon frequency on the number of cluster components. Static electric
polarizabilities of the clusters excited in a RPA dipole state are also
calculated.
Comparison of our results with the corresponding experimental data show an
overall good agreement.Comment: 23 pages, 5 figure
Novel self-assembled morphologies from isotropic interactions
We present results from particle simulations with isotropic medium range
interactions in two dimensions. At low temperature novel types of aggregated
structures appear. We show that these structures can be explained by
spontaneous symmetry breaking in analytic solutions to an adaptation of the
spherical spin model. We predict the critical particle number where the
symmetry breaking occurs and show that the resulting phase diagram agrees well
with results from particle simulations.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Scalable designs for quantum computing with rare-earth-ion-doped crystals
Due to inhomogeneous broadening, the absorption lines of rare-earth-ion
dopands in crystals are many order of magnitudes wider than the homogeneous
linewidths. Several ways have been proposed to use ions with different
inhomogeneous shifts as qubit registers, and to perform gate operations between
such registers by means of the static dipole coupling between the ions.
In this paper we show that in order to implement high-fidelity quantum gate
operations by means of the static dipole interaction, we require the
participating ions to be strongly coupled, and that the density of such
strongly coupled registers in general scales poorly with register size.
Although this is critical to previous proposals which rely on a high density of
functional registers, we describe architectures and preparation strategies that
will allow scalable quantum computers based on rare-earth-ion doped crystals.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev.
QuantEYE: The Quantum Optics Instrument for OWL
QuantEYE is designed to be the highest time-resolution instrument on ESO:s
planned Overwhelmingly Large Telescope, devised to explore astrophysical
variability on microsecond and nanosecond scales, down to the quantum-optical
limit. Expected phenomena include instabilities of photon-gas bubbles in
accretion flows, p-mode oscillations in neutron stars, and quantum-optical
photon bunching in time. Precise timescales are both variable and unknown, and
studies must be of photon-stream statistics, e.g., their power spectra or
autocorrelations. Such functions increase with the square of the intensity,
implying an enormously increased sensitivity at the largest telescopes.
QuantEYE covers the optical, and its design involves an array of
photon-counting avalanche-diode detectors, each viewing one segment of the OWL
entrance pupil. QuantEYE will work already with a partially filled OWL main
mirror, and also without [full] adaptive optics.Comment: 7 pages; Proceedings from meeting 'Instrumentation for Extremely
Large Telescopes', held at Ringberg Castle, July 2005 (T.Herbst, ed.
Hybrid Simulation Safety: Limbos and Zero Crossings
Physical systems can be naturally modeled by combining continuous and
discrete models. Such hybrid models may simplify the modeling task of complex
system, as well as increase simulation performance. Moreover, modern simulation
engines can often efficiently generate simulation traces, but how do we know
that the simulation results are correct? If we detect an error, is the error in
the model or in the simulation itself? This paper discusses the problem of
simulation safety, with the focus on hybrid modeling and simulation. In
particular, two key aspects are studied: safe zero-crossing detection and
deterministic hybrid event handling. The problems and solutions are discussed
and partially implemented in Modelica and Ptolemy II
The nature of close companions of the BL Lac Objects 1ES 0502+675 and 1ES 1440+122
We report on deep radio images and optical spectroscopy of two BL Lac objects
that have very close compact companions. The two targets, 1ES 0502+675 and 1ES
1440+122, were selected from the HST imaging survey of 110 BL Lacs as
candidates for possible gravitational lensing. The new observations clearly
demonstrate that the companion objects are not secondary images of the active
nuclei but, in spite of the relatively low chance projection probability,
foreground Galactic stars. Gravitational lensing appears to be unimportant to
the BL Lac phenomenon. We discuss the radio properties of the BL Lac objects in
the context of standard beaming models, and show they are as expected for
beamed FRI radio galaxies.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, ApJ in pres
Stellar properties of z ~ 1 Lyman-break galaxies from ACS slitless grism spectra
Lyman-break galaxies are now regularly found in the high redshift Universe by
searching for the break in the galaxy spectrum caused by the Lyman-limit
redshifted into the optical or even near-IR. At lower redshift, this break is
covered by the GALEX UV channels and small samples of z ~ 1 LBGs have been
presented in the literature. Here we give results from fitting the spectral
energy distributions of a small sub-set of low redshift LBGs and demonstrate
the advantage of including photometric points derived from HST ACS slitless
grism observations. The results show these galaxies to have very young, star
forming populations, while still being massive and dusty. LBGs at low and high
redshift show remarkable similarities in their properties, indicating that the
LBG selection method picks similar galaxies throughout the Universe.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables, accepted in A&
Double Lobed Radio Quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
We have combined a sample of 44984 quasars, selected from the Sloan Digital
Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 3, with the FIRST radio survey. Using a novel
technique where the optical quasar position is matched to the complete radio
environment within 450", we are able to characterize the radio morphological
make-up of what is essentially an optically selected quasar sample, regardless
of whether the quasar (nucleus) itself has been detected in the radio. About
10% of the quasar population have radio cores brighter than 0.75 mJy at 1.4
GHz, and 1.7% have double lobed FR2-like radio morphologies. About 75% of the
FR2 sources have a radio core (> 0.75 mJy). A significant fraction (~40%) of
the FR2 quasars are bent by more than 10 degrees, indicating either
interactions of the radio plasma with the ICM or IGM. We found no evidence for
correlations with redshift among our FR2 quasars: radio lobe flux densities and
radio source diameters of the quasars have similar distributions at low (mean
0.77) and high (mean 2.09) redshifts. Using a smaller high reliability FR2
sample of 422 quasars and two comparison samples of radio-quiet and non-FR2
radio-loud quasars, matched in their redshift distributions, we constructed
composite optical spectra from the SDSS spectroscopic data. Based on these
spectra we can conclude that the FR2 quasars have stronger high-ionization
emission lines compared to both the radio quiet and non-FR2 radio loud sources.
This is consistent with the notion that the emission lines are brightened by
ongoing shock ionization of ambient gas in the quasar host as the radio source
expands.Comment: 20 pages, 10 figures - some of which have been reduced in quality /
size. Accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journa
Optics-less smart sensors and a possible mechanism of cutaneous vision in nature
Optics-less cutaneous (skin) vision is not rare among living organisms,
though its mechanisms and capabilities have not been thoroughly investigated.
This paper demonstrates, using methods from statistical parameter estimation
theory and numerical simulations, that an array of bare sensors with a natural
cosine-law angular sensitivity arranged on a flat or curved surface has the
ability to perform imaging tasks without any optics at all. The working
principle of this type of optics-less sensor and the model developed here for
determining sensor performance may be used to shed light upon possible
mechanisms and capabilities of cutaneous vision in nature
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