1,081 research outputs found
An instructional experience for pre-service teachers: integrating simulations and hands-on activities in physics teaching
Simulations are a valuable tool in teaching modern science. We report on an experiment in a physics laboratory on electricity using both simulations as well as hands-on activities. The laboratory was implemented as part of a course for pre-service secondary school physics teachers. The 45 participants were divided into two groups, one performing first simulations and then hands-on activities, the other in the reversed order. The laboratory activities focused on DC circuits related to real-life situations, like a multiple socket or a chandelier modeled with simple wires, batteries and bulbs. The participants were asked to make predictions of the outcome before conducting each task and to compare their predictions with the observations and measurements they made during the activities. The participants were asked to make predictions of the outcome before conducting each task and to compare their predictions with the observations and measurements they made during the activities. No significant differences in performance were observed between the two groups, suggesting that in this experiment simulations did not help the pre-service teachers in transferring their conceptual knowledge to practical application
Student interviews on inspirational and drop-out factors progress report (Sub-Group WG1-B)
Progress report on the survey on inspirational and drop-out factors we carried out, within the activities of WG1, through individual interviews to physics students. In particular, we present: 1) the research groups involved in the survey and in the data analysis; 2) the sample; 3) the research questions; 4) the quantitative and qualitative research methods of data analysis we are designing; 4) the preliminary analysis and the problematic issues we are dealing with; 5) discussion, implications and future plans
What inspires young people to study physics? Results from the WG1 interviews survey
The talk will focus on the main results of an Interview based Survey of 1st Year University Physics Students, carried out within Working Group 1 (WG1) of the HOPE project. Among the HOPE activities, 112 interviews have been conducted in 16 universities, in order to investigate in some depth the factors that inspire young people to study physics and to identify possible critical factors which can produce the dropping out.The individual interviews have been carried out on a selection of students who had previously answered the WG1 Questionnaire on the inspirational factors, led by Gareth Jones from the Imperial College, London. In the talk, we will show how the interviews helped us to unpack the main results achieved with the questionnaire survey. In particular, we will present a comprehensive picture of \u201ccuriosity\u201d which turned out to be the predominant motivating factor and we will show how the interviews can throw extra light on reasons for comparatively low scores for factors like (i) enhancing employment prospects, (ii) effect of physics teacher, (iii) scientists in the family
The resonance spectrum of the cusp map in the space of analytic functions
We prove that the Frobenius--Perron operator of the cusp map
, (which is an approximation of the
Poincar\'e section of the Lorenz attractor) has no analytic eigenfunctions
corresponding to eigenvalues different from 0 and 1. We also prove that for any
the spectrum of in the Hardy space in the disk
\{z\in\C:|z-q|<1+q\} is the union of the segment and some finite or
countably infinite set of isolated eigenvalues of finite multiplicity.Comment: Submitted to JMP; The description of the spectrum in some Hardy
spaces is adde
Oldest known pantherine skull and evolution of the tiger
The tiger is one of the most iconic extant animals, and its origin and evolution have been intensely debated. Fossils attributable to extant pantherine species-lineages are less than 2 MYA and the earliest tiger fossils are from the Calabrian, Lower Pleistocene. Molecular studies predict a much younger age for the divergence of modern tiger subspecies at <100 KYA, although their cranial morphology is readily distinguishable, indicating that early Pleistocene tigers would likely have differed markedly anatomically from extant tigers. Such inferences are hampered by the fact that well-known fossil tiger material is middle to late Pleistocene in age. Here we describe a new species of pantherine cat from Longdan, Gansu Province, China, Panthera zdanskyi sp. nov. With an estimated age of 2.55–2.16 MYA it represents the oldest complete skull of a pantherine cat hitherto found. Although smaller, it appears morphologically to be surprisingly similar to modern tigers considering its age. Morphological, morphometric, and cladistic analyses are congruent in confirming its very close affinity to the tiger, and it may be regarded as the most primitive species of the tiger lineage, demonstrating the first unequivocal presence of a modern pantherine species-lineage in the basal stage of the Pleistocene (Gelasian; traditionally considered to be Late Pliocene). This find supports a north-central Chinese origin of the tiger lineage, and demonstrates that various parts of the cranium, mandible, and dentition evolved at different rates. An increase in size and a reduction in the relative size of parts of the dentition appear to have been prominent features of tiger evolution, whereas the distinctive cranial morphology of modern tigers was established very early in their evolutionary history. The evolutionary trend of increasing size in the tiger lineage is likely coupled to the evolution of its primary prey species
Quantum memory based on phase matching control
We discuss a class of quantum memory (QM) scheme based on phase matching control (PMC). A single-photon wave packet can be mapped into and retrieved on demand from a long-lived spin grating in the presence of a control field, forming along with the signal field a Raman configuration, when the wave vector of the control field is continuously changed in time. Such mapping and retrieval takes place due to the phase matching condition and requires neither a variation of the amplitude of the control field nor inhomogeneous broadening of the medium. We discuss the general model of PMC QM and its specific implementation via (i) modulation of the refractive index, (ii) angular scanning of the control field, and (iii) its frequency chirp. We show that the performance of the PMC QM protocol may be as good as those realized in the gradient echo memory (GEM) but achieved with less stringent requirements on the medium. We suggest the experimental realization of PMC QM in nitrogen vacancies (NV) and silicon vacancies (SiV) in diamond as well as in rare-earth doped crystals. © 2014 Astro Ltd
Discrete Symmetry and Stability in Hamiltonian Dynamics
In this tutorial we address the existence and stability of periodic and
quasiperiodic orbits in N degree of freedom Hamiltonian systems and their
connection with discrete symmetries. Of primary importance in our study are the
nonlinear normal modes (NNMs), i.e periodic solutions which represent
continuations of the system's linear normal modes in the nonlinear regime. We
examine the existence of such solutions and discuss different methods for
constructing them and studying their stability under fixed and periodic
boundary conditions. In the periodic case, we employ group theoretical concepts
to identify a special type of NNMs called one-dimensional "bushes". We describe
how to use linear combinations such NNMs to construct s(>1)-dimensional bushes
of quasiperiodic orbits, for a wide variety of Hamiltonian systems and exploit
the symmetries of the linearized equations to simplify the study of their
destabilization. Applying this theory to the Fermi Pasta Ulam (FPU) chain, we
review a number of interesting results, which have appeared in the recent
literature. We then turn to an analytical and numerical construction of
quasiperiodic orbits, which does not depend on the symmetries or boundary
conditions. We demonstrate that the well-known "paradox" of FPU recurrences may
be explained in terms of the exponential localization of the energies Eq of
NNM's excited at the low part of the frequency spectrum, i.e. q=1,2,3,....
Thus, we show that the stability of these low-dimensional manifolds called
q-tori is related to the persistence or FPU recurrences at low energies.
Finally, we discuss a novel approach to the stability of orbits of conservative
systems, the GALIk, k=2,...,2N, by means of which one can determine accurately
and efficiently the destabilization of q-tori, leading to the breakdown of
recurrences and the equipartition of energy, at high values of the total energy
E.Comment: 50 pages, 13 figure
Interacting Dark Resonances: Interference Effects Induced by Coherently Altered Quantum Superpositions
We predict the possibility of sharp, high-contrast resonances in the optical
response of a broad class of systems, wherein interference effects are
generated by coherent perturbation or interaction of dark states. The
properties of these resonances can be manipulated to design a desired atomic
response.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, RevTeX, submitted to PRL; changed three numbers
in Fig. 3 (caption
Hydrodynamic dispersion within porous biofilms
Many microorganisms live within surface-associated consortia, termed biofilms, that can form intricate porous structures interspersed with a network of fluid channels. In such systems, transport phenomena, including flow and advection, regulate various aspects of cell behavior by controlling nutrient supply, evacuation of waste products, and permeation of antimicrobial agents. This study presents multiscale analysis of solute transport in these porous biofilms. We start our analysis with a channel-scale description of mass transport and use the method of volume averaging to derive a set of homogenized equations at the biofilm-scale in the case where the width of the channels is significantly smaller than the thickness of the biofilm. We show that solute transport may be described via two coupled partial differential equations or telegrapher's equations for the averaged concentrations. These models are particularly relevant for chemicals, such as some antimicrobial agents, that penetrate cell clusters very slowly. In most cases, especially for nutrients, solute penetration is faster, and transport can be described via an advection-dispersion equation. In this simpler case, the effective diffusion is characterized by a second-order tensor whose components depend on (1) the topology of the channels' network; (2) the solute's diffusion coefficients in the fluid and the cell clusters; (3) hydrodynamic dispersion effects; and (4) an additional dispersion term intrinsic to the two-phase configuration. Although solute transport in biofilms is commonly thought to be diffusion dominated, this analysis shows that hydrodynamic dispersion effects may significantly contribute to transport
Sub-kHz-level relative stabilization of an intracavity doubled continuous wave optical parametric oscillator using Pound-Drever-Hall scheme
We report the relative frequency stabilization of an intracavity frequency
doubled singly resonant optical parametric oscillator on a Fabry-Perot\'etalon.
The red/orange radiation produced by the frequency doubling of the intracavity
resonant idler is stabilized using the Pound-Drever-Hall locking technique. The
relative frequency noise of this orange light, when integrated from 1 Hz to 50
kHz, corresponds to a standard deviation of 700 Hz. The frequency noise of the
pump laser is shown experimentally to be transferred to the non resonant signal
beam
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