429 research outputs found
Silicon-on-insulator photonic crystal miniature devices with slow light enhanced third-order nonlinearities
The effects of the slow-down factor on third-order nonlinear effects in silicon-on-insulator photonic crystal channel waveguides were investigated. In the slow light regime, with a group index equal to 99, these nonlinear effects are enhanced but the enhancement produced depends on the input peak power level. Simulations indicate the possibility of soliton-like propagation of 1 ps pulses at an input peak power level of 50 mW inside such a photonic crystal waveguide. The increase in the induced phase shift produced by lower group velocities can be used to decrease the size and power requirements needed to operate devices such as optical switches, logic gates, and wavelength translators
Exponential separation between quantum communication and logarithm of approximate rank
Chattopadhyay, Mande and Sherif (ECCC 2018) recently exhibited a total Boolean function, the sink function, that has polynomial approximate rank and polynomial randomized communication complexity. This gives an exponential separation between randomized communication complexity and logarithm of the approximate rank, refuting the log-approximate-rank conjecture. We show that even the quantum communication complexity of the sink function is polynomial, thus also refuting the quantum log-approximate-rank conjecture. Our lower bound is based on the fooling distribution method introduced by Rao and Sinha (ECCC 2015) for the classical case and extended by Anshu, Touchette, Yao and Yu (STOC 2017) for the quantum case. We also give a new proof of the classical lower bound using the fooling distribution method.</p
From Network Structure to Dynamics and Back Again: Relating dynamical stability and connection topology in biological complex systems
The recent discovery of universal principles underlying many complex networks
occurring across a wide range of length scales in the biological world has
spurred physicists in trying to understand such features using techniques from
statistical physics and non-linear dynamics. In this paper, we look at a few
examples of biological networks to see how similar questions can come up in
very different contexts. We review some of our recent work that looks at how
network structure (e.g., its connection topology) can dictate the nature of its
dynamics, and conversely, how dynamical considerations constrain the network
structure. We also see how networks occurring in nature can evolve to modular
configurations as a result of simultaneously trying to satisfy multiple
structural and dynamical constraints. The resulting optimal networks possess
hubs and have heterogeneous degree distribution similar to those seen in
biological systems.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures, to appear in Proceedings of "Dynamics On and Of
Complex Networks", ECSS'07 Satellite Workshop, Dresden, Oct 1-5, 200
Deployment of genetic and genomic tools toward gaining a better understanding of Rice-Xanthomonasoryzae pv. oryzae interactions for development of durable bacterial blight resistant rice
Rice is the most important food crop worldwide and sustainable rice production is important for ensuring global food security. Biotic stresses limit rice production significantly and among them, bacterial blight (BB) disease caused by Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae (Xoo) is very important. BB reduces rice yields severely in the highly productive irrigated and rainfed lowland ecosystems and in recent years; the disease is spreading fast to other rice growing ecosystems as well. Being a vascular pathogen, Xoo interferes with a range of physiological and biochemical exchange processes in rice. The response of rice to Xoo involves specific interactions between resistance (R) genes of rice and avirulence (Avr) genes of Xoo, covering most of the resistance genes except the recessive ones. The genetic basis of resistance to BB in rice has been studied intensively, and at least 44 genes conferring resistance to BB have been identified, and many resistant rice cultivars and hybrids have been developed and released worldwide. However, the existence and emergence of new virulent isolates of Xoo in the realm of a rapidly changing climate necessitates identification of novel broad-spectrum resistance genes and intensification of gene-deployment strategies. This review discusses about the origin and occurrence of BB in rice, interactions between Xoo and rice, the important roles of resistance genes in plant’s defense response, the contribution of rice resistance genes toward development of disease resistance varieties, identification and characterization of novel, and broad-spectrum BB resistance genes from wild species of Oryza and also presents a perspective on potential strategies to achieve the goal of sustainable disease management
Fluctuations of an evaporating black hole from back reaction of its Hawking radiation: Questioning a premise in earlier work
This paper delineates the first steps in a systematic quantitative study of
the spacetime fluctuations induced by quantum fields in an evaporating black
hole. We explain how the stochastic gravity formalism can be a useful tool for
that purpose within a low-energy effective field theory approach to quantum
gravity. As an explicit example we apply it to the study of the
spherically-symmetric sector of metric perturbations around an evaporating
black hole background geometry. For macroscopic black holes we find that those
fluctuations grow and eventually become important when considering sufficiently
long periods of time (of the order of the evaporation time), but well before
the Planckian regime is reached. In addition, the assumption of a simple
correlation between the fluctuations of the energy flux crossing the horizon
and far from it, which was made in earlier work on spherically-symmetric
induced fluctuations, is carefully analyzed and found to be invalid. Our
analysis suggests the existence of an infinite amplitude for the fluctuations
of the horizon as a three-dimensional hypersurface. We emphasize the need for
understanding and designing operational ways of probing quantum metric
fluctuations near the horizon and extracting physically meaningful information.Comment: 10 pages, REVTeX; minor changes, a few references added and a brief
discussion of their relevance included. To appear in the proceedings of the
10th Peyresq meeting. Dedicated to Rafael Sorkin on the occasion of his 60th
birthda
A Model for the Stray Light Contamination of the UVCS Instrument on SOHO
We present a detailed model of stray-light suppression in the spectrometer
channels of the Ultraviolet Coronagraph Spectrometer (UVCS) on the SOHO
spacecraft. The control of diffracted and scattered stray light from the bright
solar disk is one of the most important tasks of a coronagraph. We compute the
fractions of light that diffract past the UVCS external occulter and
non-specularly pass into the spectrometer slit. The diffracted component of the
stray light depends on the finite aperture of the primary mirror and on its
figure. The amount of non-specular scattering depends mainly on the
micro-roughness of the mirror. For reasonable choices of these quantities, the
modeled stray-light fraction agrees well with measurements of stray light made
both in the laboratory and during the UVCS mission. The models were constructed
for the bright H I Lyman alpha emission line, but they are applicable to other
spectral lines as well.Comment: 19 pages, 5 figures, Solar Physics, in pres
Photon interferometry and size of the hot zone in relativistic heavy ion collisions
The parameters obtained from the theoretical analysis of the single photon
spectra observed by the WA98 collaboration at SPS energies have been used to
evaluate the two photon correlation functions. The single photon spectra and
the two photon correlations at RHIC energies have also been evaluated, taking
into account the effects of the possible spectral change of hadrons in a
thermal bath. We find that the ratio for SPS and
for RHIC energy.Comment: text changed, figures adde
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