21 research outputs found
Affine Toda model coupled to matter and the string tension in QCD
The affine Toda model coupled to matter (ATM) is shown to describe
various features, such as the spectrum and string tension, of the low-energy
effective Lagrangian of QCD (one flavor and colors). The
corresponding string tension is computed when the dynamical quarks are in the
{\sl fundamental} representation of SU(N) and in the {\sl adjoint}
representation of SU(2).Comment: LaTex, 10 pages. Revised version to appear in Phys. Rev.
Moving lattice kinks and pulses: an inverse method
We develop a general mapping from given kink or pulse shaped travelling-wave
solutions including their velocity to the equations of motion on
one-dimensional lattices which support these solutions. We apply this mapping -
by definition an inverse method - to acoustic solitons in chains with nonlinear
intersite interactions, to nonlinear Klein-Gordon chains, to reaction-diffusion
equations and to discrete nonlinear Schr\"odinger systems. Potential functions
can be found in at least a unique way provided the pulse shape is reflection
symmetric and pulse and kink shapes are at least functions. For kinks we
discuss the relation of our results to the problem of a Peierls-Nabarro
potential and continuous symmetries. We then generalize our method to higher
dimensional lattices for reaction-diffusion systems. We find that increasing
also the number of components easily allows for moving solutions.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figure
Toward an Autonomous Lunar Landing Based on Low-Speed Optic Flow Sensors
International audienceFor the last few decades, growing interest has returned to the quite chal-lenging task of the autonomous lunar landing. Soft landing of payloads on the lu-nar surface requires the development of new means of ensuring safe descent with strong final conditions and aerospace-related constraints in terms of mass, cost and computational resources. In this paper, a two-phase approach is presented: first a biomimetic method inspired from the neuronal and sensory system of flying insects is presented as a solution to perform safe lunar landing. In order to design an au-topilot relying only on optic flow (OF) and inertial measurements, an estimation method based on a two-sensor setup is introduced: these sensors allow us to accu-rately estimate the orientation of the velocity vector which is mandatory to control the lander's pitch in a quasi-optimal way with respect to the fuel consumption. Sec-ondly a new low-speed Visual Motion Sensor (VMS) inspired by insects' visual systems performing local angular 1-D speed measurements ranging from 1.5 âą /s to 25 âą /s and weighing only 2.8 g is presented. It was tested under free-flying outdoor conditions over various fields onboard an 80 kg unmanned helicopter. These pre-liminary results show that the optic flow measured despite the complex disturbances encountered closely matched the ground-truth optic flow