15 research outputs found
Inflationary Cosmological Perturbations of Quantum-Mechanical Origin
This review article aims at presenting the theory of inflation. We first
describe the background spacetime behavior during the slow-roll phase and
analyze how inflation ends and the Universe reheats. Then, we present the
theory of cosmological perturbations with special emphasis on their behavior
during inflation. In particular, we discuss the quantum-mechanical nature of
the fluctuations and show how the uncertainty principle fixes the amplitude of
the perturbations. In a next step, we calculate the inflationary power spectra
in the slow-roll approximation and compare these theoretical predictions to the
recent high accuracy measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation
(CMBR) anisotropy. We show how these data already constrain the underlying
inflationary high energy physics. Finally, we conclude with some speculations
about the trans-Planckian problem, arguing that this issue could allow us to
open a window on physical phenomena which have never been probed so far.Comment: Review Article, 47 pages, 3 figures. Lectures given at the 40th
Karpacz Winter School on Theoretical Physics (Poland, Feb. 2004), submitted
to Lecture Notes in Physic
New Constraints on Neutralino Dark Matter in the Supersymmetric Standard Model
We investigate the prospects for neutralino dark matter within the
Supersymmetric Standard Model (SSM) including the constraints from universal
soft supersymmetry breaking and radiative breaking of the electroweak symmetry.
The latter is enforced by using the one-loop Higgs effective potential which
automatically gives the one-loop corrected Higgs boson masses. We perform an
exhaustive search of the allowed five-dimensional parameter space and find that
the neutralino relic abundance depends most strongly on the
ratio . For the relic abundance is almost
always much too large, whereas for the opposite occurs. For
there are wide ranges of the remaining parameters for which
. We also determine that m_{\tilde q}\gsim250\GeV and
m_{\tilde l}\gsim100\GeV are necessary in order to possibly achieve
. These lower bounds are much weaker than the corresponding
ones derived previously when radiative breaking was {\it not} enforced.Comment: 12 pages plus 6 figures (not included), CERN-TH.6584/92,
CTP-TAMU-56/92, UAHEP921
Multi-fingered haptic palpation utilizing granular jamming stiffness feedback actuators
This paper describes a multi-fingered haptic palpation method using stiffness feedback actuators for simulating tissue palpation procedures in traditional and in robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery. Soft tissue stiffness is simulated by changing the stiffness property of the actuator during palpation. For the first time, granular jamming and pneumatic air actuation are combined to realize stiffness modulation. The stiffness feedback actuator is validated by stiffness measurements in indentation tests and through stiffness discrimination based on a user study. According to the indentation test results, the introduction of a pneumatic chamber to granular jamming can amplify the stiffness variation range and reduce hysteresis of the actuator. The advantage of multi-fingered palpation using the proposed actuators is proven by the comparison of the results of the stiffness discrimination performance using two-fingered (sensitivity: 82.2%, specificity: 88.9%, positive predicative value: 80.0%, accuracy: 85.4%, time: 4.84 s) and single-fingered (sensitivity: 76.4%, specificity: 85.7%, positive predicative value: 75.3%, accuracy: 81.8%, time: 7.48 s) stiffness feedback