Some Effects of 30 Years of Weir-Management on Coastal Marsh Aquatic Vegetation and Implications to Waterfowl Management

Aquatic vegetation was compared between weir-managed and unmanaged brackish marsh ponds at Marsh Island, Louisiana, parts of which have been weir-managed since 1958. Coverage by aquatic vegetation was greater in weir-managed ponds than in unmanaged ponds, but weir-management affected individual species differently. Eleocharis parvula was more common in unmanaged ponds than in managed ponds during the early 1960s but has not occurred in any ponds sampled since then. Ceratophyllum demersum and the dominant plants Myriophyllum spicatum and Ruppia maritima were more common in weir-managed ponds than in unmanaged ponds, although the magnitude of the difference varied greatly among sample dates. Because Myriophyllum spicatum and Ruppia maritima are important and preferred duck foods in Louisiana brackish marsh, it was concluded that weir-management improved habitat quality for migrant and resident ducks at Marsh Island. Weir-managed ponds contained more aquatic vegetation than unmanaged ponds in 1988, even though the crest of weirs had lost 15 cm of elevation relative to rising sea level and the accreting marsh surface. This suggests that aquatic vegetation can be increased with a greater degree of water exchange than previously believed, which is desired to reduce interference to juvenile fish and crustacean movement. Weir-managed and unmanaged ponds did not differ in pond depth, which suggests that weir-management did not affect sedimentation

How to estimate the differential acceleration in a two-species atom interferometer to test the equivalence principle

We propose a scheme for testing the weak equivalence principle (Universality of Free Fall) using an atom-interferometric measurement of the local differential acceleration between two atomic species with a large mass ratio as test masses. A apparatus in free fall can be used to track atomic free-fall trajectories over large distances. We show how the differential acceleration can be extracted from the interferometric signal using Bayesian statistical estimation, even in the case of a large mass and laser wavelength difference. We show that this statistical estimation method does not suffer from acceleration noise of the platform and does not require repeatable experimental conditions. We specialize our discussion to a dual potassium/rubidium interferometer and extend our protocol with other atomic mixtures. Finally, we discuss the performances of the UFF test developed for the free-fall (0-g) airplane in the ICE project (\verb"http://www.ice-space.fr"

Breakdown of Temporal Coherence in Photon Condensates

The temporal coherence of an ideal Bose gas increases as the system approaches the Bose-Einstein condensation threshold from below, with coherence time diverging at the critical point. However, counter-examples have been observed for condensates of photons formed in an externally pumped, dye-filled microcavity, wherein the coherence time decreases rapidly for increasing particle number above threshold. This paper establishes intermode correlations as the central explanation for the experimentally observed dramatic decrease in the coherence time beyond critical pump power.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Photon-photon correlation of condensed light in a microcavity

The study of temporal coherence in a Bose-Einstein condensate of photons can be challenging, especially in the presence of correlations between the photonic modes. In this work, we use a microscopic, multimode model of photonic condensation inside a dye-filled microcavity and the quantum regression theorem, to derive an analytical expression for the equation of motion of the photon-photon correlation function. This allows us to derive the coherence time of the photonic modes and identify a nonmonotonic dependence of the temporal coherence of the condensed light with the cutoff frequency of the microcavity.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figure

I.C.E.: a Transportable Atomic Inertial Sensor for Test in Microgravity

We present our the construction of an atom interferometer for inertial sensing in microgravity, as part of the I.C.E. (\textit{Interf\'{e}rom\'{e}trie Coh\'{e}rente pour l'Espace}) collaboration. On-board laser systems have been developed based on fibre-optic components, which are insensitive to mechanical vibrations and acoustic noise, have sub-MHz linewidth, and remain frequency stabilised for weeks at a time. A compact, transportable vacuum system has been built, and used for laser cooling and magneto-optical trapping. We will use a mixture of quantum degenerate gases, bosonic $^{87}$Rb and fermionic $^{40}$K, in order to find the optimal conditions for precision and sensitivity of inertial measurements. Microgravity will be realised in parabolic flights lasting up to 20s in an Airbus. We show that the factors limiting the sensitivity of a long-interrogation-time atomic inertial sensor are the phase noise in reference frequency generation for Raman-pulse atomic beam-splitters and acceleration fluctuations during free fall

Radio Observations of the Hubble Deep Field South region: I. Survey Description and Initial Results

This paper is the first of a series describing the results of the Australia Telescope Hubble Deep Field South (ATHDFS) radio survey. The survey was conducted at four wavelengths - 20, 11, 6, and 3 cm, over a 4-year period, and achieves an rms sensitivity of about 10 microJy at each wavelength. We describe the observations and data reduction processes, and present data on radio sources close to the centre of the HDF-S. We discuss in detail the properties of a subset of these sources. The sources include both starburst galaxies and galaxies powered by an active galactic nucleus, and range in redshift from 0.1 to 2.2. Some of them are characterised by unusually high radio-to-optical luminosities, presumably caused by dust extinction.Comment: Accepted by AJ. 32 pages, 4 tables, 3 figures. PDF with full-resolution figures is on http://www.atnf.csiro.au/people/rnorris/N197.pd