The performance of arm locking in LISA

For the laser interferometer space antenna (LISA) to reach it's design sensitivity, the coupling of the free running laser frequency noise to the signal readout must be reduced by more than 14 orders of magnitude. One technique employed to reduce the laser frequency noise will be arm locking, where the laser frequency is locked to the LISA arm length. This paper details an implementation of arm locking, studies orbital effects, the impact of errors in the Doppler knowledge, and noise limits. The noise performance of arm locking is calculated with the inclusion of the dominant expected noise sources: ultra stable oscillator (clock) noise, spacecraft motion, and shot noise. Studying these issues reveals that although dual arm locking [A. Sutton & D. A Shaddock, Phys. Rev. D 78, 082001 (2008).] has advantages over single (or common) arm locking in terms of allowing high gain, it has disadvantages in both laser frequency pulling and noise performance. We address this by proposing a hybrid sensor, retaining the benefits of common and dual arm locking sensors. We present a detailed design of an arm locking controller and perform an analysis of the expected performance when used with and without laser pre-stabilization. We observe that the sensor phase changes beneficially near unity-gain frequencies of the arm-locking controller, allowing a factor of 10 more gain than previously believed, without degrading stability. We show that the LISA frequency noise goal can be realized with arm locking and Time-Delay Interferometry only, without any form of pre-stabilization.Comment: 28 pages, 36 figure

The Trajectory of Coping with Trauma: Meaning Making as a Factor in Determining the Trauma Outcome for Combat Veterans

Specific ways in which an individual makes meaning following a stressful life event have been conceptualized as contributing to the emergence of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). However, little is known about how meaning making impacts the trauma trajectory and how that transition affects the outcomes of PTSD, Posttraumatic Growth (PTG), or resiliency. In this study, 166 combat veterans nationwide completed self-report surveys that were analyzed using a multivariate Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) method to create a model of how PTSD, PTG, and resiliency are impacted based upon meaning making. The results suggest that following a stressful life event, individuals who maintain intact world beliefs are more likely to be resilient. Individuals who experience a shattering of their world beliefs are hypothesized to report symptoms of PTSD. Likewise, individuals who experience a shattering of world beliefs and engage in avoidance coping are more likely to experience PTSD. However, individuals who experience a shattering of world beliefs but then make meaning from their experience are more likely to report an experience of PTG. Limitations and future directions of this research are also discussed in relation to the field\u27s movement toward outlining factors that positively impact PTG following deployment

Symmetry, singularities and integrability in complex dynamics III: approximate symmetries and invariants

The different natures of approximate symmetries and their corresponding first integrals/invariants are delineated in the contexts of both Lie symmetries of ordinary differential equations and Noether symmetries of the Action Integral. Particular note is taken of the effect of taking higher orders of the perturbation parameter. Approximate symmetries of approximate first integrals/invariants and the problems of calculating them using the Lie method are considered

Managing at the Speed of Light: Improving Mission-Support Performance

The House and Senate Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittees requested this study to help DOE's three major mission-support organizations improve their operations to better meet the current and future needs of the department. The passage of the Recovery Act only increased the importance of having DOE's mission-support offices working in the most effective, efficient, and timely manner as possible. While following rules and regulations is essential, the foremost task of the mission-support offices is to support the department's mission, i.e., the programs that DOE is implementing, whether in Washington D.C. or in the field. As a result, the Panel offered specific recommendations to strengthen the mission-focus and improve the management of each of the following support functions based on five "management mandates":- Strategic Vision- Leadership- Mission and Customer Service Orientation- Tactical Implementation- Agility/AdaptabilityKey FindingsThe Panel made several recommendations in each of the functional areas examined and some overarching recommendations for the corporate management of the mission-support offices that they believed would result in significant improvements to DOE's mission-support operations. The Panel believed that adopting these recommendations will not only make DOE a better functioning organization, but that most of them are essential if DOE is to put its very large allocation of Recovery Act funding to its intended uses as quickly as possible

Experimental Demonstration of Time-Delay Interferometry for the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna

We report on the first demonstration of time-delay interferometry (TDI) for LISA, the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna. TDI was implemented in a laboratory experiment designed to mimic the noise couplings that will occur in LISA. TDI suppressed laser frequency noise by approximately 10^9 and clock phase noise by 6x10^4, recovering the intrinsic displacement noise floor of our laboratory test bed. This removal of laser frequency noise and clock phase noise in post-processing marks the first experimental validation of the LISA measurement scheme.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, to appear in Physical Review Letters end of May 201

How well would modern-day oceanic property distributions be known with paleoceanographic-like observations?

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2016. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Paleoceanography 31 (2016): 472–490, doi:10.1002/2015PA002917.Compilations of paleoceanographic observations for the deep sea now contain a few hundred points along the oceanic margins, mid-ocean ridges, and bathymetric highs, where seawater conditions are indirectly recorded in the chemistry of buried benthic foraminiferal shells. Here we design an idealized experiment to test our predictive ability to reconstruct modern-day seawater properties by considering paleoceanographic-like data. We attempt to reconstruct the known, modern-day global distributions by using a state estimation method that combines a kinematic tracer transport model with observations that have paleoceanographic characteristics. When a modern-like suite of observations (Θ, practical salinity, seawater δ18O, inline image, PO4, NO3, and O2) is used from the sparse paleolocations, the state estimate is consistent with the withheld data at all depths below 1500 m, suggesting that the observational sparsity can be overcome. Physical features, such as the interbasin gradients in deep inline image and the vertical structure of Atlantic inline image, are accurately reconstructed. The state estimation method extracts useful information from the pointwise observations to infer distributions at the largest oceanic scales (at least 10,000 km horizontally and 1500 m vertically) and outperforms a standard optimal interpolation technique even though neither dynamical constraints nor constraints from surface boundary fluxes are used. When the sparse observations are more realistically restricted to the paleoceanographic proxy observations of δ13C, δ18O, and Cd/Ca, however, the large-scale property distributions are no longer recovered coherently. At least three more water mass tracers are likely needed at the core sites in order to accurately reconstruct the large-scale property distributions of the Last Glacial Maximum.NSF Grant Numbers: 1124880, 11254222016-10-0

Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), Internationalization of the Curriculum, and the Future of Higher Education Internationalization: Lessons from Japan

departmental bulletin pape

Phase measurement device using inphase and quadrature components for phase estimation

A phasemeter for estimating the phase of a signal. For multi-tone signals, multiple phase estimates may be provided. An embodiment includes components operating in the digital domain, where a sampled input signal is multiplied by cosine and sine terms to provide estimates of the inphase and quadrature components. The quadrature component provides an error signal that is provided to a feedback loop, the feedback loop providing a model phase that tends to track the phase of a tone in the input signal. The cosine and sine terms are generated from the model phase. The inphase and quadrature components are used to form a residual phase, which is added to the model phase to provide an estimate of the phase of the input signal. Other embodiments are described and claimed