Solid superheating observed in two-dimensional strongly-coupled dusty plasma

It is demonstrated experimentally that strongly-coupled plasma exhibits solid superheating. A 2D suspension of microspheres in dusty plasma, initially self-organized in a solid lattice, was heated and then cooled rapidly by turning laser heating on and off. Particles were tracked using video microscopy, allowing atomistic-scale observation during melting and solidification. During rapid heating, the suspension remained in a solid structure at temperatures above the melting point, demonstrating solid superheating. Hysteresis diagrams did not indicate liquid supercooling in this 2D system.Comment: 9 pages text, 3 figures, in press Physical Review Letters 200

To mesh or not to mesh: flexible wireless indoor communication among mobile robots in industrial environments

Mobile robots such as automated guided vehicles become increasingly important in industry as they can greatly increase efficiency. For their operation such robots must rely on wireless communication, typically realized by connecting them to an existing enterprise network. In this paper we motivate that such an approach is not always economically viable or might result in performance issues. Therefore we propose a flexible and configurable mixed architecture that leverages on mesh capabilities whenever appropriate. Through experiments on a wireless testbed for a variety of scenarios, we analyse the impact of roaming, mobility and traffic separation and demonstrate the potential of our approach

Spin transfer torque enhancement in dual spin valve in the ballistic regime

The spin transfer torque in all-metal dual spin valve, in which two antiparallelly aligned pinned ferromagnetic layers are on the two sides of a free ferromagnetic layer with two thin nonmagnetic spacers in between, is studied in the ballistic regime. It is argued that, similar to the results in the diffusion regime, the spin transfer torque is dramatically enhanced in comparison to that in a conventional spin valve although no spin accumulation exists at the magnetic-nonmagnetic interfaces. Within the Slonczewski's approach, an analytical expression of the torque on the free magnetic layer is obtained, which may serve as a theoretical model for the micromagnetic simulation of the spin dynamics in dual spin valve. Depending on the orientation of free layer and the degree of electron polarization, the spin transfer torque enhancement could be tens times. The general cases when transmission and reflection probabilities of free layer are different from zero or one are also numerically calculated.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure

Anisotropic Flow and Viscous Hydrodynamics

We report part of our recent work on viscous hydrodynamics with consistent phase space distribution f(x,\p) for freeze out. We develop the gradient expansion formalism based on kinetic theory, and with the constraints from the comparison between hydrodynamics and kinetic theory, viscous corrections to f(x,\p) can be consistently determined order by order. Then with the obtained f(x,\p), second order viscous hydrodynamical calculations are carried out for elliptic flow $v_2$.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures. Proceedings for the 28th Winter Workshop on Nuclear Dynamics, Dorado Del Mar, Puerto Rico, United States Of America, 7 - 14 Apr 201

Phenotypic and Genotypic Characteristics of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) Related to Persistent Endovascular Infection.

Persistent methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteremia (PB) represents an important subset of S. aureus infection and correlates with poor clinical outcomes. MRSA isolates from patients with PB differ significantly from those of resolving bacteremia (RB) with regard to several in vitro phenotypic and genotypic profiles. For instance, PB strains exhibit less susceptibility to cationic host defense peptides and vancomycin (VAN) killing under in vivo-like conditions, greater damage to endothelial cells, thicker biofilm formation, altered growth rates, early activation of many global virulence regulons (e.g., sigB, sarA, sae and agr) and higher expression of purine biosynthesis genes (e.g., purF) than RB strains. Importantly, PB strains are significantly more resistant to VAN treatment in experimental infective endocarditis as compared to RB strains, despite similar VAN minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) in vitro. Here, we review relevant phenotypic and genotypic characteristics related to the PB outcome. These and future insights may improve our understanding of the specific mechanism(s) contributing to the PB outcome, and aid in the development of novel therapeutic and preventative measures against this life-threatening infection

Extracting high fidelity quantum computer hardware from random systems

An overview of current status and prospects of the development of quantum computer hardware based on inorganic crystals doped with rare-earth ions is presented. Major parts of the experimental work in this area has been done in two places, Canberra, Australia and Lund, Sweden, and the present description follows more closely the Lund work. Techniques will be described that include optimal filtering of the initially inhomogeneously broadened profile down to well separated and narrow ensembles, as well as the use of advanced pulse-shaping in order to achieve robust arbitrary single-qubit operations with fidelities above 90%, as characterized by quantum state tomography. It is expected that full scalability of these systems will require the ability to determine the state of single rare-earth ions. It has been proposed that this can be done using special readout ions doped into the crystal and an update is given on the work to find and characterize such ions. Finally, a few aspects on the possibilities for remote entanglement of ions in separate rare-earth-ion-doped crystals are considered.Comment: 19 pages, 9 figures. Written for The Proceedings of the Nobelsymposium on qubits for future quantum computers, Gothenburg, May-0

Two Component Model of Dark Energy

We consider the possibility that the dark energy is made up of two or more independent components, each having a different equation of state. We fit the model with supernova and gamma-ray burst (GRB) data from resent observations, and use the Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) technique to estimate the allowed parameter regions. We also use various model selection criteria to compare the two component model with the LCDM, one component dark energy model with static or variable w(XCDM), and with other multi-component models. We find that the two component models can give reasonably good fit to the current data. For some data sets, and depending somewhat on the model selection criteria, the two component model can give better fit to the data than XCDM with static w and XCDM with variable w parameterized by w = w_0 + w_az/(1+z).Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, 3 tables; Version accepted by PR