10,997 research outputs found
Axion Cosmology Revisited
The misalignment mechanism for axion production depends on the
temperature-dependent axion mass. The latter has recently been determined
within the interacting instanton liquid model (IILM), and provides for the
first time a well-motivated axion mass for all temperatures. We reexamine the
constraints placed on the axion parameter space in the light of this new mass
function. We find an accurate and updated constraint f_a \le 2.8(\pm2)\times
10^{11}\units{GeV} or m_a \ge 21(\pm2) \units{\mu eV} from the misalignment
mechanism in the classic axion window (thermal scenario). However, this is
superseded by axion string radiation which leads to f_a \lesssim
3.2^{+4}_{-2} \times 10^{10} \units{GeV} or m_a \gtrsim 0.20 ^{+0.2}_{-0.1}
\units{meV}. In this analysis, we take care to precisely compute the effective
degrees of freedom and, to fill a gap in the literature, we present accurate
fitting formulas. We solve the evolution equations exactly, and find that
analytic results used to date generally underestimate the full numerical
solution by a factor 2-3. In the inflationary scenario, axions induce
isocurvature fluctuations and constrain the allowed inflationary scale .
Taking anharmonic effects into account, we show that these bounds are actually
weaker than previously computed. Considering the fine-tuning issue of the
misalignment angle in the whole of the anthropic window, we derive new bounds
which open up the inflationary window near . In particular,
we find that inflationary dark matter axions can have masses as high as
0.01--1\units{meV}, covering the whole thermal axion range, with values of
up to GeV. Quantum fluctuations during inflation exclude dominant
dark matter axions with masses above meV.Comment: 42 pages, 12 figures, version as accepted by Phys.Rev.
First experimental demonstration of temporal hypertelescope operation with a laboratory prototype
In this paper, we report the first experimental demonstration of a Temporal
HyperTelescope (THT). Our breadboard including 8 telescopes is firstly tested
in a manual cophasing configuration on a 1D object. The Point Spread Function
(PSF) is measured and exhibits a dynamics in the range of 300. A quantitative
analysis of the potential biases demonstrates that this limitation is related
to the residual phase fluctuation on each interferometric arm. Secondly, an
unbalanced binary star is imaged demonstrating the imaging capability of THT.
In addition, 2D PSF is recorded even if the telescope array is not optimized
for this purpose.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS. 11 pages, 25 figure
Fine frequency shift of sigle vortex entrance and exit in superconducting loops
The heat capacity of an array of independent aluminum rings has been
measured under an external magnetic field using highly sensitive
ac-calorimetry based on a silicon membrane sensor. Each superconducting vortex
entrance induces a phase transition and a heat capacity jump and hence
oscillates with . This oscillatory and non-stationary behaviour
measured versus the magnetic field has been studied using the Wigner-Ville
distribution (a time-frequency representation). It is found that the
periodicity of the heat capacity oscillations varies significantly with the
magnetic field; the evolution of the period also depends on the sweeping
direction of the field. This can be attributed to a different behavior between
expulsion and penetration of vortices into the rings. A variation of more than
15% of the periodicity of the heat capacity jumps is observed as the magnetic
field is varied. A description of this phenomenon is given using an analytical
solution of the Ginzburg-Landau equations of superconductivity
Moving walls accelerate mixing
Mixing in viscous fluids is challenging, but chaotic advection in principle
allows efficient mixing. In the best possible scenario,the decay rate of the
concentration profile of a passive scalar should be exponential in time. In
practice, several authors have found that the no-slip boundary condition at the
walls of a vessel can slow down mixing considerably, turning an exponential
decay into a power law. This slowdown affects the whole mixing region, and not
just the vicinity of the wall. The reason is that when the chaotic mixing
region extends to the wall, a separatrix connects to it. The approach to the
wall along that separatrix is polynomial in time and dominates the long-time
decay. However, if the walls are moved or rotated, closed orbits appear,
separated from the central mixing region by a hyperbolic fixed point with a
homoclinic orbit. The long-time approach to the fixed point is exponential, so
an overall exponential decay is recovered, albeit with a thin unmixed region
near the wall.Comment: 17 pages, 13 figures. PDFLaTeX with RevTeX 4-1 styl
Chaos in computer performance
Modern computer microprocessors are composed of hundreds of millions of
transistors that interact through intricate protocols. Their performance during
program execution may be highly variable and present aperiodic oscillations. In
this paper, we apply current nonlinear time series analysis techniques to the
performances of modern microprocessors during the execution of prototypical
programs. Our results present pieces of evidence strongly supporting that the
high variability of the performance dynamics during the execution of several
programs display low-dimensional deterministic chaos, with sensitivity to
initial conditions comparable to textbook models. Taken together, these results
show that the instantaneous performances of modern microprocessors constitute a
complex (or at least complicated) system and would benefit from analysis with
modern tools of nonlinear and complexity science
Aeolian sans ripples: experimental study of saturated states
We report an experimental investigation of aeolian sand ripples, performed
both in a wind tunnel and on stoss slopes of dunes. Starting from a flat bed,
we can identify three regimes: appearance of an initial wavelength, coarsening
of the pattern and finally saturation of the ripples. We show that both initial
and final wavelengths, as well as the propagative speed of the ripples, are
linear functions of the wind velocity. Investigating the evolution of an
initially corrugated bed, we exhibit non-linear stable solutions for a finite
range of wavelengths, which demonstrates the existence of a saturation in
amplitude. These results contradict most of the models.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. Lett. Title changed,
figures corrected and simplified, more field data included, text clarifie
Orthogonal Polynomial Representation of Imaginary-Time Green's Functions
We study the expansion of single-particle and two-particle imaginary-time
Matsubara Green's functions of quantum impurity models in the basis of Legendre
orthogonal polynomials. We discuss various applications within the dynamical
mean-field theory (DMFT) framework. The method provides a more compact
representation of the Green's functions than standard Matsubara frequencies and
therefore significantly reduces the memory-storage size of these quantities.
Moreover, it can be used as an efficient noise filter for various physical
quantities within the continuous-time quantum Monte Carlo impurity solvers
recently developed for DMFT and its extensions. In particular, we show how to
use it for the computation of energies in the context of realistic DMFT
calculations in combination with the local density approximation to the density
functional theory (LDA+DMFT) and for the calculation of lattice
susceptibilities from the local irreducible vertex function.Comment: 14 pages, 11 figure
Transition from overscreening to underscreening in the multichannel Kondo model: exact solution at large N
A novel large-N limit of the multichannel Kondo model is introduced, for
representations of the impurity spin described by Schwinger bosons. Three cases
are found, associated with underscreening, overscreening and exact Kondo
screening of the impurity. The saddle-point equations derived in this limit are
reminiscent of the ``non-crossing approximation'', but preserve the
Fermi-liquid nature of the model in the exactly screened case. Several physical
quantities are computed, both numerically, and analytically in the low-\omega,T
limit, and compared to other approaches.Comment: 4 pages, RevTeX3.0, 2 EPS figures. Published versio
Quantum interference of ultrastable twin optical beams
We report the first measurement of the quantum phase-difference noise of an
ultrastable nondegenerate optical parametric oscillator that emits twin beams
classically phase-locked at exact frequency degeneracy. The measurement
illustrates the property of a lossless balanced beam-splitter to convert
number-difference squeezing into phase-difference squeezing and, thus, provides
indirect evidence for Heisenberg-limited interferometry using twin beams. This
experiment is a generalization of the Hong-Ou-Mandel interference effect for
continuous variables and constitutes a milestone towards continuous-variable
entanglement of bright, ultrastable nondegenerate beams.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figs, accepted by Phys. Rev. Let
A versatile source of polarisation entangled photons for quantum network applications
We report a versatile and practical approach for generating high-quality
polarization entanglement in a fully guided-wave fashion. Our setup relies on a
high-brilliance type-0 waveguide generator producing paired photon at a telecom
wavelength associated with an advanced energy-time to polarisation transcriber.
The latter is capable of creating any pure polarization entangled state, and
allows manipulating single photon bandwidths that can be chosen at will over
five orders of magnitude, ranging from tens of MHz to several THz. We achieve
excellent entanglement fidelities for particular spectral bandwidths, i.e. 25
MHz, 540 MHz and 100 GHz, proving the relevance of our approach. Our scheme
stands as an ideal candidate for a wide range of network applications, ranging
from dense division multiplexing quantum key distribution to heralded optical
quantum memories and repeaters.Comment: 5 figure
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