Towards passive station holding of autonomous underwater vehicles inspired by fish behaviour in unsteady flows

Some species of fish are able to alter their mode of swimming to interact with naturally produced vortices; the use of these gaits reduces the energy expended by the fish. To analyse the feasibility of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV) replicating these gaits, a series of experiments are performed with unpowered rigid and flexible bodies positioned in the Kármán wake of a rigid cylinder. Simple motion capture techniques are used to capture the bodies’ lateral and upstream motion in the flow. The results demonstrate that manufactured bodies are capable of passively mimicking fish behaviours, to a limited extent. More importantly, it was concluded that while significant upstream movement was possible for a manufactured object, it was achievable irrespective of the stiffness of the material. For AUVs operating in unsteady flow regimes an ability to utilise energy saving gaits may improve the range or operational time

The role of density and relatedness in wild juvenile Atlantic salmon growth

Growth is a key life-history trait in fish that is influenced by both abiotic (such as temperature and water chemistry) and biotic factors (such as density and food availability). Investigating how growth performance is influenced by such factors in the wild is important for understanding how population processes influence animals in natural environments and for predicting the response to conservation and management strategies that manipulate these conditions. The theory of kin selection predicts that significant growth and survival benefits are conferred upon animals associating with close relatives. However, resource competition may be more intense among close relatives, and little is known about the trade-off between these two processes under different ecological conditions. Here, we examine the correlation between naturally occurring densities and kin-biased growth rate using a species where kin recognition has a strong impact on behaviour in laboratory studies, but where, paradoxically, field investigations have failed to document predicted kin-biased growth or survival. Intra- and inter-family differences in growth rate of juvenile Atlantic salmon Salmo salar were studied to examine how relatedness (groups of full-sibling fish and groups of mixed-sibling fish) and sibling group (family/genotype) affect salmon parr growth, and the correlation of growth rate under a range of naturally occurring densities. Parentage and relatedness of neighbouring fish were assigned using microsatellite and passive integrated transponder tags, which allowed the growth estimation of individual fish. The results show that growth rate was significantly influenced by both sibling group (family of origin) and also by an interaction between relatedness and density. The latter finding indicates that at higher densities, full-sibling groups achieved higher growth rates in comparison to mixed-sibling groups. Thus, the growth benefits of associating with relatives are not conferred under all ecological conditions, but it becomes most apparent at high density when resource competition is greatest

Effects of acceleration on the collision of particles in the rotating black hole spacetime

We study the collision of two geodesic particles in the accelerating and rotating black hole spacetime and probe the effects of the acceleration of black hole on the center-of-mass energy of the colliding particles and on the high-velocity collision belts. We find that the dependence of the center-of-mass energy on the acceleration in the near event-horizon collision is different from that in the near acceleration-horizon case. Moreover, the presence of the acceleration changes the shape and position of the high-velocity collision belts. Our results show that the acceleration of black holes brings richer physics for the collision of particles.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, The corrected version accepted for publication in EPJ

The black hole final state

We propose that in quantum gravity one needs to impose a final state boundary condition at black hole singularities. This resolves the apparent contradiction between string theory and semiclassical arguments over whether black hole evaporation is unitary.Comment: 17 pages, harvmac, 1 figure, v2: comment about interactions and references adde

Spacetime Information

In usual quantum theory, the information available about a quantum system is defined in terms of the density matrix describing it on a spacelike surface. This definition must be generalized for extensions of quantum theory which do not have a notion of state on a spacelike surface. It must be generalized for the generalized quantum theories appropriate when spacetime geometry fluctuates quantum mechanically or when geometry is fixed but not foliable by spacelike surfaces. This paper introduces a four-dimensional notion of the information available about a quantum system's boundary conditions in the various sets of decohering histories it may display. The idea of spacetime information is applied in several contexts: When spacetime geometry is fixed the information available through alternatives restricted to a spacetime region is defined. The information available through histories of alternatives of general operators is compared to that obtained from the more limited coarse- grainings of sum-over-histories quantum mechanics. The definition of information is considered in generalized quantum theories. We consider as specific examples time-neutral quantum mechanics with initial and final conditions, quantum theories with non-unitary evolution, and the generalized quantum frameworks appropriate for quantum spacetime. In such theories complete information about a quantum system is not necessarily available on any spacelike surface but must be searched for throughout spacetime. The information loss commonly associated with the ``evolution of pure states into mixed states'' in black hole evaporation is thus not in conflict with the principles of generalized quantum mechanics.Comment: 47pages, 2 figures, UCSBTH 94-0

The Quantum Mechanical Arrows of Time

The familiar textbook quantum mechanics of laboratory measurements incorporates a quantum mechanical arrow of time --- the direction in time in which state vector reduction operates. This arrow is usually assumed to coincide with the direction of the thermodynamic arrow of the quasiclassical realm of everyday experience. But in the more general context of cosmology we seek an explanation of all observed arrows, and the relations between them, in terms of the conditions that specify our particular universe. This paper investigates quantum mechanical and thermodynamic arrows in a time-neutral formulation of quantum mechanics for a number of model cosmologies in fixed background spacetimes. We find that a general universe may not have well defined arrows of either kind. When arrows are emergent they need not point in the same direction over the whole of spacetime. Rather they may be local, pointing in different directions in different spacetime regions. Local arrows can therefore be consistent with global time symmetry.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, revtex4, typos correcte

Arrow of time in a recollapsing quantum universe

We show that the Wheeler-DeWitt equation with a consistent boundary condition is only compatible with an arrow of time that formally reverses in a recollapsing universe. Consistency of these opposite arrows is facilitated by quantum effects in the region of the classical turning point. Since gravitational time dilation diverges at horizons, collapsing matter must then start re-expanding ``anticausally" (controlled by the reversed arrow) before horizons or singularities can form. We also discuss the meaning of the time-asymmetric expression used in the definition of ``consistent histories". We finally emphasize that there is no mass inflation nor any information loss paradox in this scenario.Comment: Many conceptual clarifications include

Impulsive waves in the Nariai universe

A new class of exact solutions is presented which describes impulsive waves propagating in the Nariai universe. It is constructed using a six-dimensional embedding formalism adapted to the background. Due to the topology of the latter, the wave front consists of two non-expanding spheres. Special sub-classes representing pure gravitational waves (generated by null particles with an arbitrary multipole structure) or shells of null dust are analyzed in detail. Smooth isometries of the metrics are briefly discussed. Furthermore, it is shown that the considered solutions are impulsive members of a more general family of radiative Kundt spacetimes of type-II. A straightforward generalization to impulsive waves in the anti-Nariai and Bertotti-Robinson backgrounds is described. For a vanishing cosmological constant and electromagnetic field, results for well known impulsive pp-waves are recovered.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, REVTeX 4. v3: added Appendix B, revised references, minor changes in the text. To appear in Phys. Rev.

Quantum Gravitational Corrections to the Real Klein-Gordon Field in the Presence of a Minimal Length

The (D+1)-dimensional $(\beta,\beta')$-two-parameter Lorentz-covariant deformed algebra introduced by Quesne and Tkachuk [C. Quesne and V. M. Tkachuk, J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. \textbf {39}, 10909 (2006).], leads to a nonzero minimal uncertainty in position (minimal length). The Klein-Gordon equation in a (3+1)-dimensional space-time described by Quesne-Tkachuk Lorentz-covariant deformed algebra is studied in the case where $\beta'=2\beta$ up to first order over deformation parameter $\beta$. It is shown that the modified Klein-Gordon equation which contains fourth-order derivative of the wave function describes two massive particles with different masses. We have shown that physically acceptable mass states can only exist for $\beta<\frac{1}{8m^{2}c^{2}}$ which leads to an isotropic minimal length in the interval $10^{-17}m<(\bigtriangleup X^{i})_{0}<10^{-15}m$. Finally, we have shown that the above estimation of minimal length is in good agreement with the results obtained in previous investigations.Comment: 10 pages, no figur

Unitarity and Causality in Generalized Quantum Mechanics for Non-Chronal Spacetimes

Spacetime must be foliable by spacelike surfaces for the quantum mechanics of matter fields to be formulated in terms of a unitarily evolving state vector defined on spacelike surfaces. When a spacetime cannot be foliated by spacelike surfaces, as in the case of spacetimes with closed timelike curves, a more general formulation of quantum mechanics is required. In such generalizations the transition matrix between alternatives in regions of spacetime where states {\it can} be defined may be non-unitary. This paper describes a generalized quantum mechanics whose probabilities consistently obey the rules of probability theory even in the presence of such non-unitarity. The usual notion of state on a spacelike surface is lost in this generalization and familiar notions of causality are modified. There is no signaling outside the light cone, no non-conservation of energy, no ``Everett phones'', and probabilities of present events do not depend on particular alternatives of the future. However, the generalization is acausal in the sense that the existence of non-chronal regions of spacetime in the future can affect the probabilities of alternatives today. The detectability of non-unitary evolution and violations of causality in measurement situations are briefly considered. The evolution of information in non-chronal spacetimes is described.Comment: 40pages, UCSBTH92-0