1,983 research outputs found
A 1.82 m^2 ring laser gyroscope for nano-rotational motion sensing
We present a fully active-controlled He-Ne ring laser gyroscope, operating in
square cavity 1.35 m in side. The apparatus is designed to provide a very low
mechanical and thermal drift of the ring cavity geometry and is conceived to be
operative in two different orientations of the laser plane, in order to detect
rotations around the vertical or the horizontal direction. Since June 2010 the
system is active inside the Virgo interferometer central area with the aim of
performing high sensitivity measurements of environmental rotational noise. So
far, continuous not attempted operation of the gyroscope has been longer than
30 days. The main characteristics of the laser, the active remote-controlled
stabilization systems and the data acquisition techniques are presented. An
off-line data processing, supported by a simple model of the sensor, is shown
to improve the effective long term stability. A rotational sensitivity at the
level of ten nanoradiants per squareroot of Hz below 1 Hz, very close to the
required specification for the improvement of the Virgo suspension control
system, is demonstrated for the configuration where the laser plane is
horizontal
Finite level geometry of fractional branes
In some CFT models of simple current type, which are used to describe string
theory on orbifolds and (adjoint) cosets of Lie groups, there arise fixed
points of the simple current group. In these cases, the standard procedure to
associate functions to Ishibashi states by averaging out the action of the
simple current group, gives functions with unsatisfactory properties. In some
cases the averaged Ishibashi function simply vanishes, which we see explicitly
in SO(3) at level k=4l+2. In this note, an alternative function assignment is
suggested, and it is shown that in some cases the resulting Ishibashi functions
are orthogonal.Comment: 12 pages, accepted for publication in PL
Variational Field Theoretic Approach to Relativistic Scattering
Nonperturbative polaron variational methods are applied, within the so-called
particle or worldline representation of relativistic field theory, to study
scattering in the context of the scalar Wick - Cutkosky model. Important
features of the variational calculation are that it is a controlled
approximation scheme valid for arbitrary coupling strengths, the Green
functions have all the cuts and poles expected for the exact result at any
order in perturbation theory and that the variational parameters are
simultaneously sensitive to the infrared as well as the ultraviolet behaviour
of the theory. We generalize the previously used quadratic trial action by
allowing more freedom for off-shell propagation without a change in the
on-shell variational equations and evaluate the scattering amplitude at first
order in the variational scheme. Particular attention is paid to the
-channel scattering near threshold because here non-perturbative effects can
be large. We check the unitarity of a our numerical calculation and find it
greatly improved compared to perturbation theory and to the zeroth order
variational results.Comment: 26 pages, Latex, 5 postscript figures embedded with epsf, submitted
to Nucl. Phys.
A laser gyroscope system to detect the Gravito-Magnetic effect on Earth
Large scale square ring laser gyros with a length of four meters on each side
are approaching a sensitivity of 1x10^-11 rad/s/sqrt(Hz). This is about the
regime required to measure the gravitomagnetic effect (Lense Thirring) of the
Earth. For an ensemble of linearly independent gyros each measurement signal
depends upon the orientation of each single axis gyro with respect to the
rotational axis of the Earth. Therefore at least 3 gyros are necessary to
reconstruct the complete angular orientation of the apparatus. In general, the
setup consists of several laser gyroscopes (we would prefer more than 3 for
sufficient redundancy), rigidly referenced to each other. Adding more gyros for
one plane of observation provides a cross-check against intra-system biases and
furthermore has the advantage of improving the signal to noise ratio by the
square root of the number of gyros. In this paper we analyze a system of two
pairs of identical gyros (twins) with a slightly different orientation with
respect to the Earth axis. The twin gyro configuration has several interesting
properties. The relative angle can be controlled and provides a useful null
measurement. A quadruple twin system could reach a 1% sensitivity after 3:2
years of data, provided each square ring has 6 m length on a side, the system
is shot noise limited and there is no source for 1/f- noise.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures. 2010 Honourable mention of the Gravity Research
Foundation; to be published on J. Mod. Phys.
First Order Variational Calculation of Form Factor in a Scalar Nucleon--Meson Theory
We investigate a relativistic quantum field theory in the particle
representation using a non-perturbative variational technique. The theory is
that of two massive scalar particles, `nucleons' and `mesons', interacting via
a Yukawa coupling. We calculate the general Euclidean Green function involving
two external nucleons and an arbitrary number of external mesons in the
quenched approximation for the nucleons. The non-perturbative renormalization
and truncation is done in a consistent manner and results in the same
variational functional independent of the number of external mesons. We check
that the calculation agrees with one-loop perturbation theory for small
couplings. As an illustration the special case of meson absorption on the
nucleon is considered in detail. We derive the radius of the dressed particle
and numerically investigate the vertex function after analytic continuation to
Minkowski space.Comment: 28 pages standard LaTeX, 13 uuencoded postscript figures embedded
with psfig.st
Horizontal rotation signals detected by "G-Pisa" ring laser for the Mw=9.0, March 2011, Japan earthquake
We report the observation of the ground rotation induced by the Mw=9.0, 11th
of March 2011, Japan earthquake. The rotation measurements have been conducted
with a ring laser gyroscope operating in a vertical plane, thus detecting
rotations around the horizontal axis. Comparison of ground rotations with
vertical accelerations from a co-located force-balance accelerometer shows
excellent ring laser coupling at periods longer than 100s. Under the plane wave
assumption, we derive a theoretical relationship between horizontal rotation
and vertical acceleration for Rayleigh waves. Due to the oblique mounting of
the gyroscope with respect to the wave direction-of-arrival, apparent
velocities derived from the acceleration / rotation rate ratio are expected to
be always larger than, or equal to the true wave propagation velocity. This
hypothesis is confirmed through comparison with fundamental-mode, Rayleigh wave
phase velocities predicted for a standard Earth model.Comment: Accepted for publication in Journal of Seismolog
Liver infarctions as the first manifestation of antiphospholipid antibody syndrome in pregnancy: a case report
Background: The differential diagnosis of abdominal pain in pregnant women is broad. Liver diseases as the origin of abdominal pain in pregnancy are rare, and severe forms occur in less than 0.1% of pregnancies. Some disorders, such as hemolysis, elevated liver enzymes, low platelets (HELLP) syndrome and preeclampsia, are unique to pregnancy, while others, such as antiphospholipid antibody syndrome, may manifest in pregnancy but have consequences beyond the current pregnancy. All of them require prompt identification and treatment.
Case presentation: A 27-year-old Caucasian woman who was 15+1 weeks pregnant reported to the emergency department twice due to stabbing right-upper-quadrant abdominal pain. Initial laboratory testing revealed mild leukocytosis and slightly elevated liver enzymes. On second presentation, the patient was febrile and had an increased C-reactive protein concentration. Over the course of the next days, nonhemolytic anemia and thrombocytopenia emerged with elevated liver enzymes. Coagulation studies also revealed a prolongation of activated partial thromboplastin time. Magnetic resonance imaging showed nonspecific alterations in the right liver lobe, possibly corresponding to infection or infarction. A hepatic viral infection was ruled out. At that time, the most likely diagnosis was cholangitis with liver abscess formation, and antibiotic therapy was started. Further worsening of the anemia and thrombocytopenia, development of proteinuria, together with a miscarriage on the fourth day of hospitalization resulted in the tentative diagnosis of (triple-positive) antiphospholipid antibody syndrome, which was confirmed 12 weeks after the initial investigation. Treatment consisted of prompt anticoagulation with heparin and later on with a vitamin K antagonist as well as high-dose glucocorticoid therapy. There was no need for intravenous immunoglobulin therapy or plasma exchange, although we suspected a catastrophic form of antiphospholipid antibody syndrome due to infarctions of the liver, placenta, and possibly kidneys (proteinuria). The outcome was favorable.
Conclusion: We report a 27-year-old pregnant woman whose abdominal pain was caused by liver infarctions as the first manifestation of catastrophic antiphospholipid antibody syndrome. The antiphospholipid antibody syndrome was possibly secondary to hitherto clinically silent systemic lupus erythematosus since the antinuclear antibodies were increased later on. Hydroxychloroquine therapy was initiated to prevent antiphospholipid antibody syndrome recurrence in a future pregnancy.
Keywords: Abortion; Antiphospholipid antibody syndrome; Case report; Hepatopathy; Liver lesions; Pregnancy; Systemic lupus erythematosu
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