84 research outputs found
Studying Atomic Physics Using the Nighttime Atmosphere as a Laboratory
A summary of our recent work using terrestrial nightglow spectra, obtained from astronomical instrumentation, to directly measure, or evaluate theoretical values for fundamental parameters of astrophysically important atomic lines
Neural Decision Boundaries for Maximal Information Transmission
We consider here how to separate multidimensional signals into two
categories, such that the binary decision transmits the maximum possible
information transmitted about those signals. Our motivation comes from the
nervous system, where neurons process multidimensional signals into a binary
sequence of responses (spikes). In a small noise limit, we derive a general
equation for the decision boundary that locally relates its curvature to the
probability distribution of inputs. We show that for Gaussian inputs the
optimal boundaries are planar, but for non-Gaussian inputs the curvature is
nonzero. As an example, we consider exponentially distributed inputs, which are
known to approximate a variety of signals from natural environment.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
Tunneling transverse to a magnetic field, and how it occurs in correlated 2D electron systems
We investigate tunneling decay in a magnetic field. Because of broken
time-reversal symmetry, the standard WKB technique does not apply. The decay
rate and the outcoming wave packet are found from the analysis of the set of
the particle Hamiltonian trajectories and its singularities in complex space.
The results are applied to tunneling from a strongly correlated 2D electron
system in a magnetic field parallel to the layer. We show in a simple model
that electron correlations exponentially strongly affect the tunneling rate.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Atomic Processes in Planetary Nebulae and H II Regions
Spectroscopic studies of Planetary Nebulae (PNe) and H {\sc ii} regions have
driven much development in atomic physics. In the last few years the
combination of a generation of powerful observatories, the development of ever
more sophisticated spectral modeling codes, and large efforts on mass
production of high quality atomic data have led to important progress in our
understanding of the atomic spectra of such astronomical objects. In this paper
I review such progress, including evaluations of atomic data by comparisons
with nebular spectra, detection of spectral lines from most iron-peak elements
and n-capture elements, observations of hyperfine emission lines and analysis
of isotopic abundances, fluorescent processes, and new techniques for
diagnosing physical conditions based on recombination spectra. The review is
directed toward atomic physicists and spectroscopists trying to establish the
current status of the atomic data and models and to know the main standing
issues.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figur
Comparative Absorption and Emission Abundance Analyses of Nebulae: Ion Emission Densities for IC 418
Recent analyses of nebular spectra have resulted in discrepant abundances
from CNO forbidden and recombination lines. We consider independent methods of
determining ion abundances for emission nebulae, comparing ion emission
measures with column densities derived from resonance absorption lines viewed
against the central star continuum. Separate analyses of the nebular emission
lines and the stellar UV absorption lines yield independent abundances for
ions, and their ratio can be expressed in terms of a parameter n_e_{em}, the
``emission density'' for each ion. Adequate data for this technique are still
scarce, but separate analyses of spectra of the planetary nebula and central
star of IC 418 do show discrepant abundances for several ions, especially Fe
II. The discrepancies are probably due to the presence of absorbing gas which
does not emit and/or to uncertain atomic data and excitation processes, and
they demonstrate the importance of applying the technique of combining
emission- and absorption-line data in deriving abundances for nebulae.Comment: 25 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in PAS
Magnetic Field Measurement with Ground State Alignment
Observational studies of magnetic fields are crucial. We introduce a process
"ground state alignment" as a new way to determine the magnetic field direction
in diffuse medium. The alignment is due to anisotropic radiation impinging on
the atom/ion. The consequence of the process is the polarization of spectral
lines resulting from scattering and absorption from aligned atomic/ionic
species with fine or hyperfine structure. The magnetic field induces precession
and realign the atom/ion and therefore the polarization of the emitted or
absorbed radiation reflects the direction of the magnetic field. The atoms get
aligned at their low levels and, as the life-time of the atoms/ions we deal
with is long, the alignment induced by anisotropic radiation is susceptible to
extremely weak magnetic fields (G). In fact,
the effects of atomic/ionic alignment were studied in the laboratory decades
ago, mostly in relation to the maser research. Recently, the atomic effect has
been already detected in observations from circumstellar medium and this is a
harbinger of future extensive magnetic field studies. A unique feature of the
atomic realignment is that they can reveal the 3D orientation of magnetic
field. In this article, we shall review the basic physical processes involved
in atomic realignment. We shall also discuss its applications to
interplanetary, circumstellar and interstellar magnetic fields. In addition,
our research reveals that the polarization of the radiation arising from the
transitions between fine and hyperfine states of the ground level can provide a
unique diagnostics of magnetic fields in the Epoch of Reionization.Comment: 30 pages, 12 figures, chapter in Lecture Notes in Physics "Magnetic
Fields in Diffuse Media". arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with
arXiv:1203.557
Estimating Receptive Fields from Responses to Natural Stimuli with Asymmetric Intensity Distributions
The reasons for using natural stimuli to study sensory function are quickly mounting, as recent studies have revealed important differences in neural responses to natural and artificial stimuli. However, natural stimuli typically contain strong correlations and are spherically asymmetric (i.e. stimulus intensities are not symmetrically distributed around the mean), and these statistical complexities can bias receptive field (RF) estimates when standard techniques such as spike-triggered averaging or reverse correlation are used. While a number of approaches have been developed to explicitly correct the bias due to stimulus correlations, there is no complementary technique to correct the bias due to stimulus asymmetries. Here, we develop a method for RF estimation that corrects reverse correlation RF estimates for the spherical asymmetries present in natural stimuli. Using simulated neural responses, we demonstrate how stimulus asymmetries can bias reverse-correlation RF estimates (even for uncorrelated stimuli) and illustrate how this bias can be removed by explicit correction. We demonstrate the utility of the asymmetry correction method under experimental conditions by estimating RFs from the responses of retinal ganglion cells to natural stimuli and using these RFs to predict responses to novel stimuli
Independent Emission and Absorption Abundances for Planetary Nebulae
Emission-line abundances have been uncertain for more than a decade due to
unexplained discrepancies in the relative intensities of the forbidden lines
and weak permitted recombination lines in planetary nebulae (PNe) and H II
regions. The observed intensities of forbidden and recombination lines
originating from the same parent ion differ from their theoretical values by
factors of more than an order of magnitude in some of these nebulae. In this
study we observe UV resonance line absorption in the central stars of PNe
produced by the nebular gas, and from the same ions that emit optical forbidden
lines. We then compare the derived absorption column densities with the
emission measures determined from ground-based observations of the nebular
forbidden lines. We find for our sample of PNe that the collisionally excited
forbidden lines yield column densities that are in basic agreement with the
column densities derived for the same ions from the UV absorption lines. A
similar comparison involving recombination line column densities produces
poorer agreement, although near the limits of the formal uncertainties of the
analyses. An additional sample of objects with larger abundance discrepancy
factors will need to be studied before a stronger statement can be made that
recombination line abundances are not correct.Comment: 19 pages, 13 figures, accepted by ApJ. Preprint utilizes
emulateapj.cls v. 12/01/06 (included
Functional Clustering Drives Encoding Improvement in a Developing Brain Network during Awake Visual Learning
Sensory experience drives dramatic structural and functional plasticity in developing neurons. However, for single-neuron plasticity to optimally improve whole-network encoding of sensory information, changes must be coordinated between neurons to ensure a full range of stimuli is efficiently represented. Using two-photon calcium imaging to monitor evoked activity in over 100 neurons simultaneously, we investigate network-level changes in the developing Xenopus laevis tectum during visual training with motion stimuli. Training causes stimulus-specific changes in neuronal responses and interactions, resulting in improved population encoding. This plasticity is spatially structured, increasing tuning curve similarity and interactions among nearby neurons, and decreasing interactions among distant neurons. Training does not improve encoding by single clusters of similarly responding neurons, but improves encoding across clusters, indicating coordinated plasticity across the network. NMDA receptor blockade prevents coordinated plasticity, reduces clustering, and abolishes whole-network encoding improvement. We conclude that NMDA receptors support experience-dependent network self-organization, allowing efficient population coding of a diverse range of stimuli.Canadian Institutes of Health Researc
Receptive Field Inference with Localized Priors
The linear receptive field describes a mapping from sensory stimuli to a one-dimensional variable governing a neuron's spike response. However, traditional receptive field estimators such as the spike-triggered average converge slowly and often require large amounts of data. Bayesian methods seek to overcome this problem by biasing estimates towards solutions that are more likely a priori, typically those with small, smooth, or sparse coefficients. Here we introduce a novel Bayesian receptive field estimator designed to incorporate locality, a powerful form of prior information about receptive field structure. The key to our approach is a hierarchical receptive field model that flexibly adapts to localized structure in both spacetime and spatiotemporal frequency, using an inference method known as empirical Bayes. We refer to our method as automatic locality determination (ALD), and show that it can accurately recover various types of smooth, sparse, and localized receptive fields. We apply ALD to neural data from retinal ganglion cells and V1 simple cells, and find it achieves error rates several times lower than standard estimators. Thus, estimates of comparable accuracy can be achieved with substantially less data. Finally, we introduce a computationally efficient Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm for fully Bayesian inference under the ALD prior, yielding accurate Bayesian confidence intervals for small or noisy datasets
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