1,115 research outputs found
A model of ant route navigation driven by scene familiarity
In this paper we propose a model of visually guided route navigation in ants that captures the known properties of real behaviour whilst retaining mechanistic simplicity and thus biological plausibility. For an ant, the coupling of movement and viewing direction means that a familiar view specifies a familiar direction of movement. Since the views experienced along a habitual route will be more familiar, route navigation can be re-cast as a search for familiar views. This search can be performed with a simple scanning routine, a behaviour that ants have been observed to perform. We test this proposed route navigation strategy in simulation, by learning a series of routes through visually cluttered environments consisting of objects that are only distinguishable as silhouettes against the sky. In the first instance we determine view familiarity by exhaustive comparison with the set of views experienced during training. In further experiments we train an artificial neural network to perform familiarity discrimination using the training views. Our results indicate that, not only is the approach successful, but also that the routes that are learnt show many of the characteristics of the routes of desert ants. As such, we believe the model represents the only detailed and complete model of insect route guidance to date. What is more, the model provides a general demonstration that visually guided routes can be produced with parsimonious mechanisms that do not specify when or what to learn, nor separate routes into sequences of waypoints
Nonlinear field-dependence and f-wave interactions in superfluid 3He
We present results of transverse acoustics studies in superfluid ^{3}He-B at
fields up to 0.11 T. Using acoustic cavity interferometry, we observe the
Acoustic Faraday Effect for a transverse sound wave propagating along the
magnetic field, and we measure Faraday rotations of the polarization as large
as 1710^{\circ}. We use these results to determine the Zeeman splitting of the
Imaginary Squashing mode, an order parameter collective mode with total angular
momentum J=2. We show that the pairing interaction in the f-wave channel is
attractive at a pressure of P=6 bar. We also report nonlinear field dependence
of the Faraday rotation at frequencies substantially above the mode frequency
not accounted for in the theory of the transverse acoustic dispersion relation
formulated for frequencies near the mode. Consequently, we have identified the
region of validity of the theory allowing us to make corrections to the
analysis of Faraday rotation experiments performed in earlier work.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure
Quantum-state input-output relations for absorbing cavities
The quantized electromagnetic field inside and outside an absorbing high-
cavity is studied, with special emphasis on the absorption losses in the
coupling mirror and their influence on the outgoing field. Generalized operator
input-output relations are derived, which are used to calculate the Wigner
function of the outgoing field. To illustrate the theory, the preparation of
the outgoing field in a Schr\"{o}dinger cat-like state is discussed.Comment: 12 pages, 5 eps figure
A non-Markovian quantum trajectory approach to radiation into structured continuum
We present a non-Markovian quantum trajectory method for treating atoms
radiating into a reservoir with a non-flat density of states. The results of an
example numerical simulation of the case where the free space modes of the
reservoir are altered by the presence of a cavity are presented and compared
with those of an extended system approach
Spectral degeneracy and escape dynamics for intermittent maps with a hole
We study intermittent maps from the point of view of metastability. Small
neighbourhoods of an intermittent fixed point and their complements form pairs
of almost-invariant sets. Treating the small neighbourhood as a hole, we first
show that the absolutely continuous conditional invariant measures (ACCIMs)
converge to the ACIM as the length of the small neighbourhood shrinks to zero.
We then quantify how the escape dynamics from these almost-invariant sets are
connected with the second eigenfunctions of Perron-Frobenius (transfer)
operators when a small perturbation is applied near the intermittent fixed
point. In particular, we describe precisely the scaling of the second
eigenvalue with the perturbation size, provide upper and lower bounds, and
demonstrate convergence of the positive part of the second eigenfunction
to the ACIM as the perturbation goes to zero. This perturbation and associated
eigenvalue scalings and convergence results are all compatible with Ulam's
method and provide a formal explanation for the numerical behaviour of Ulam's
method in this nonuniformly hyperbolic setting. The main results of the paper
are illustrated with numerical computations.Comment: 34 page
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