Development of driving simulator for the experiment of tsunami evacuation using automobile

The 2011 off the Pacific coast of Tohoku Earthquake, which occurred on March 11, 2011, triggered an extremely large tsunami. More than 15,000 deaths and 3,400 people missing were confirmed and 92.4% of the fatalities in Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima prefectures resulted from drowning. In Japan, it is basically prohibited to evacuate by automobile in case of tsunami because there may occur traffic congestions and accidents. However, Central Disaster Management Council of Japan reported that about 57% of evacuees used their automobiles to reach the upland refuges. This resulted from the social situations in the coastal residential areas in Japan. Aging of population is rather fast especially in the affected areas by the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, and the number of people in need of nursing care is increasing. Based on these circumstances, many people drove to the elevated areas after the 2011 Tohoku earthquake although the use of automobile was prohibited. This study aims to reveal the permissible limits of tsunami evacuation using automobile based on a series of driving simulator experiments. The authors perform numerical simulation of tsunami propagation, and the results are visualized from driver???s point of view using 3D computer graphics (CG). The CG is installed to a driving simulator, which consists of three LCDs, steering wheel, and brake and accelerator pedals. Several tsunami scenarios are employed in the driving simulator experiments to reveal the effectiveness of evacuation using automobile quantitatively

Intersubband absorption linewidth in GaAs quantum wells due to scattering by interface roughness, phonons, alloy disorder, and impurities

We calculate the intersubband absorption linewidth in quantum wells (QWs) due to scattering by interface roughness, LO phonons, LA phonons, alloy disorder, and ionized impurities, and compare it with the transport energy broadening that corresponds to the transport relaxation time related to electron mobility. Numerical calculations for GaAs QWs clarify the different contributions of each individual scattering mechanism to absorption linewidth and transport broadening. Interface roughness scattering contributes about an order of magnitude more to linewidth than to transport broadening, because the contribution from the intrasubband scattering in the first excited subband is much larger than that in the ground subband. On the other hand, LO phonon scattering (at room temperature) and ionized impurity scattering contribute much less to linewidth than to transport broadening. LA phonon scattering makes comparable contributions to linewidth and transport broadening, and so does alloy disorder scattering. The combination of these contributions with significantly different characteristics makes the absolute values of linewidth and transport broadening very different, and leads to the apparent lack of correlation between them when a parameter, such as temperature or alloy composition, is changed. Our numerical calculations can quantitatively explain the previously reported experimental results.Comment: 17 pages, including 15 figure

Cooling of radiative quantum-dot excitons by terahertz radiation: A spin-resolved Monte Carlo carrier dynamics model

We have developed a theoretical model to analyze the anomalous cooling of radiative quantum dot (QD) excitons by THz radiation reported by Yusa et al [Proc. 24th ICPS, 1083 (1998)]. We have made three-dimensional (3D) modeling of the strain and the piezoelectric field and calculated the 3D density of states of strain induced quantum dots. On the basis of this analysis we have developed a spin dependent Monte Carlo model, which describes the carrier dynamics in QD's when the intraband relaxation is modulated by THz radiation. We show that THz radiation causes resonance transfer of holes from dark to radiative states in strain-induced QD's. The transition includes a spatial transfer of holes from the piezoelectric potential mimima to the deformation potential minimum. This phenomenon strongly enhances the QD ground state luminescence at the expense of the luminescence from higher states. Our model also reproduces the delayed flash of QD ground state luminescence, activated by THz radiation even $\sim1$ s after the carrier generation. Our simulations suggest a more general possibility to cool the radiative exciton subsystem in optoelectronic devices.Comment: 18 pages, 1 table, 8 figures, submitted to Physical Review B v2: major conceptual changes. The article was extended considerably to suit Physical Review B (instead of Physical Review Letters

Green's function approach to transport through a gate-all-around Si nanowire under impurity scattering

We investigate transport properties of gate-all-around Si nanowires using non-equilibrium Green's function technique. By taking into account of the ionized impurity scattering we calculate Green's functions self-consistently and examine the effects of ionized impurity scattering on electron densities and currents. For nano-scale Si wires, it is found that, due to the impurity scattering, the local density of state profiles loose it's interference oscillations as well as is broaden and shifted. In addition, the impurity scattering gives rise to a different transconductance as functions of temperature and impurity scattering strength when compared with the transconductance without impurity scattering.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure

Sensitivity of cosmic-ray experiments to ultra-high-energy photons: reconstruction of the spectrum and limits on the superheavy dark matter

We estimate the sensitivity of various experiments detecting ultra-high-energy cosmic rays to primary photons with energies above 10^19 eV. We demonstrate that the energy of a primary photon may be significantly (up to a factor of ~ 10) under- or overestimated for particular primary energies and arrival directions. We consider distortion of the reconstructed cosmic-ray spectrum for the photonic component. As an example, we use these results to constrain the parameter space of models of superheavy dark matter by means of both the observed spectra and available limits on the photon content. We find that a significant contribution of ultra-high-energy particles (photons and protons) from decays of superheavy dark matter is allowed by all these constraints.Comment: 18 pages, 7 figure

Quantum wires from coupled InAs/GaAs strained quantum dots

The electronic structure of an infinite 1D array of vertically coupled InAs/GaAs strained quantum dots is calculated using an eight-band strain-dependent k-dot-p Hamiltonian. The coupled dots form a unique quantum wire structure in which the miniband widths and effective masses are controlled by the distance between the islands, d. The miniband structure is calculated as a function of d, and it is shown that for d>4 nm the miniband is narrower than the optical phonon energy, while the gap between the first and second minibands is greater than the optical phonon energy. This leads to decreased optical phonon scattering, providing improved quantum wire behavior at high temperatures. These miniband properties are also ideal for Bloch oscillation.Comment: 5 pages revtex, epsf, 8 postscript figure

Energy partitioning on intermolecular interactions: ab initio Monte Carlo study of water dimer

Ab initio Monte Carlo computations were carried out on H₂O dimer system. By introducing the energy partitioning scheme that we have developed recently, ab initio calculated H₂O–H₂O interaction can be analyzed from the viewpoint of atom-atom interaction. The electronic polarization caused by the interaction and its temperature dependence are also discussed. To our best knowledge, this is the first report on the thermal distribution of electronic distortion energy assigned to a molecule.Виконанi ab initio Монте Карло розрахунки для H2O димерної системи. Вводячи розроблену ранiше схему роздiлення енергiї, ab initio розрахована взаємодiя H2O–H2O може бути проаналiзована з точки зору атом-атомної взаємодiї. Обговорюється електронна поляризацiя, обумовлена взаємодiєю, та її температурна залежнiсть. З точки зору наших вiдомостей, це є перше повiдомлення про термiчний розподiл електронної змiни енергiї, переданої молекулi