10,701 research outputs found
Evaluation of ERTS-1 image sensor spatial resolution in photographic form
There are no author-identified significant results in this report
Study of an instrument for sensing errors in a telescope wavefront
Focal plane sensors for determining the error in a telescope wavefront were investigated. The construction of three candidate test instruments and their evaluation in terms of small wavefront error aberration measurements are described. A laboratory wavefront simulator was designed and fabricated to evaluate the test instruments. The laboratory wavefront error simulator was used to evaluate three tests; a Hartmann test, a polarization shearing interferometer test, and an interferometric Zernike test
The design, construction and testing of the optics for a 147-cm-aperture telescope
Geodetic optics research for the Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories (AFCRL) is described. The work consisted mainly of the fabrication of the optical components for a telescope with a 152-cm-diam (60-in.) primary mirror masked down to 147-cm-diam for use by the AFCRL for a lunar ranging experiment. Among the achievements of this contract were the following: completion of the primary and secondary mirrors for a high-quality 147-cm-diam telescope system in eight months from the start of edging the primary; manufacture and testing of a unique center mount for the primary according to an AFCRL design that allowed for a thin-edged and therefore less-massive mirror; and development of a quantitative analysis of the wire test for calculating the departure of the mirror figure from the design figure quickly and accurately after each polishing step. This analysis method in conjunction with a knowledge of polishing rates for given weights and diameters of tools, mirror, and polishing materials should considerably reduce the polishing time required for future large mirrors
Quantum and Fisher Information from the Husimi and Related Distributions
The two principal/immediate influences -- which we seek to interrelate here
-- upon the undertaking of this study are papers of Zyczkowski and
Slomczy\'nski (J. Phys. A 34, 6689 [2001]) and of Petz and Sudar (J. Math.
Phys. 37, 2262 [1996]). In the former work, a metric (the Monge one,
specifically) over generalized Husimi distributions was employed to define a
distance between two arbitrary density matrices. In the Petz-Sudar work
(completing a program of Chentsov), the quantum analogue of the (classically
unique) Fisher information (montone) metric of a probability simplex was
extended to define an uncountable infinitude of Riemannian (also monotone)
metrics on the set of positive definite density matrices. We pose here the
questions of what is the specific/unique Fisher information metric for the
(classically-defined) Husimi distributions and how does it relate to the
infinitude of (quantum) metrics over the density matrices of Petz and Sudar? We
find a highly proximate (small relative entropy) relationship between the
probability distribution (the quantum Jeffreys' prior) that yields quantum
universal data compression, and that which (following Clarke and Barron) gives
its classical counterpart. We also investigate the Fisher information metrics
corresponding to the escort Husimi, positive-P and certain Gaussian probability
distributions, as well as, in some sense, the discrete Wigner
pseudoprobability. The comparative noninformativity of prior probability
distributions -- recently studied by Srednicki (Phys. Rev. A 71, 052107 [2005])
-- formed by normalizing the volume elements of the various information
metrics, is also discussed in our context.Comment: 27 pages, 10 figures, slight revisions, to appear in J. Math. Phy
Factors that Encourage Student Engagement: Insights from a Case Study of ‘First Time’ Students in a New Zealand University.
This case study reports on the findings from one of nine tertiary institutions that took part in a project funded by the Teaching and Learning Research Initiative (TLRI) in New Zealand. The research question explored how institutional and non institutional learning environments influence student engagement with learning in a higher education, university setting. Data was collected initially by means of a questionnaire; subsequently more in-depth data was gathered through semi-structured interviews with students randomly selected from those who indicated, on the questionnaire, that they were willing to be interviewed. Respondents were enrolled for the first time in this institution, but not necessarily for the first time in a tertiary education programme. A conceptual model with four strands: motivation and agency; transactional engagement; institutional support and active citizenship was used to organise the data. Findings were analysed against a synthesis of current literature and suggest that factors identified in the first three strands of the conceptual model played a significant role in student engagement with learning; active citizenship, however, did not feature highly in student responses and is an aspect of engagement that could benefit from further research
Volume of the quantum mechanical state space
The volume of the quantum mechanical state space over -dimensional real,
complex and quaternionic Hilbert-spaces with respect to the canonical Euclidean
measure is computed, and explicit formulas are presented for the expected value
of the determinant in the general setting too. The case when the state space is
endowed with a monotone metric or a pull-back metric is considered too, we give
formulas to compute the volume of the state space with respect to the given
Riemannian metric. We present the volume of the space of qubits with respect to
various monotone metrics. It turns out that the volume of the space of qubits
can be infinite too. We characterize those monotone metrics which generates
infinite volume.Comment: 17 page
Bures distance between two displaced thermal states
The Bures distance between two displaced thermal states and the corresponding
geometric quantities (statistical metric, volume element, scalar curvature) are
computed. Under nonunitary (dissipative) dynamics, the statistical distance
shows the same general features previously reported in the literature by
Braunstein and Milburn for two--state systems. The scalar curvature turns out
to have new interesting properties when compared to the curvature associated
with squeezed thermal states.Comment: 3 pages, RevTeX, no figure
Ground state of two electrons on concentric spheres
We extend our analysis of two electrons on a sphere [Phys. Rev. A {\bf 79},
062517 (2009); Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 103}, 123008 (2009)] to electrons on
concentric spheres with different radii. The strengths and weaknesses of
several electronic structure models are analyzed, ranging from the mean-field
approximation (restricted and unrestricted Hartree-Fock solutions) to
configuration interaction expansion, leading to near-exact wave functions and
energies. The M{\o}ller-Plesset energy corrections (up to third-order) and the
asymptotic expansion for the large-spheres regime are also considered. We also
study the position intracules derived from approximate and exact wave
functions. We find evidence for the existence of a long-range Coulomb hole in
the large-spheres regime, and infer that unrestricted Hartree-Fock theory
over-localizes the electrons.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figure
Molecular orbital calculations of two-electron states for P donor solid-state spin qubits
We theoretically study the Hilbert space structure of two neighbouring P
donor electrons in silicon-based quantum computer architectures. To use
electron spins as qubits, a crucial condition is the isolation of the electron
spins from their environment, including the electronic orbital degrees of
freedom. We provide detailed electronic structure calculations of both the
single donor electron wave function and the two-electron pair wave function. We
adopted a molecular orbital method for the two-electron problem, forming a
basis with the calculated single donor electron orbitals. Our two-electron
basis contains many singlet and triplet orbital excited states, in addition to
the two simple ground state singlet and triplet orbitals usually used in the
Heitler-London approximation to describe the two-electron donor pair wave
function. We determined the excitation spectrum of the two-donor system, and
study its dependence on strain, lattice position and inter donor separation.
This allows us to determine how isolated the ground state singlet and triplet
orbitals are from the rest of the excited state Hilbert space. In addition to
calculating the energy spectrum, we are also able to evaluate the exchange
coupling between the two donor electrons, and the double occupancy probability
that both electrons will reside on the same P donor. These two quantities are
very important for logical operations in solid-state quantum computing devices,
as a large exchange coupling achieves faster gating times, whilst the magnitude
of the double occupancy probability can affect the error rate.Comment: 15 pages (2-column
Apatite germanates doped with tungsten: Synthesis, structure, and conductivity
et al.High oxygen content apatite germanates, La10Ge 6-xWxO27+x, have been prepared by doping on the Ge site with W. In addition to increasing the oxygen content, this doping strategy is shown to result in stabilisation of the hexagonal lattice, and yield high conductivities. Structural studies of La10Ge 5.5W0.5O27.5 show that the interstitial oxygen sites are associated to a different degree with the Ge/WO4 tetrahedra, leading to five coordinate Ge/W and significant disorder for the oxygen sites associated with these units. Raman spectroscopy studies suggest that in the case of the WO5 units, the interstitial oxygen is more tightly bonded and therefore not as mobile as in the case of the GeO5 units, thus not contributing significantly to the conduction process. © 2011 The Royal Society of Chemistry.Financial support from Spanish project MAT2007-64486-C07-02 is acknowledged.Peer Reviewe
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