14,439 research outputs found
Difference in response reliability predicted by STRFs in the cochlear nuclei of barn owls
The brainstem auditory pathway is obligatory for all aural information. Brainstem auditory neurons must encode the level and timing of sounds, as well as their time-dependent spectral properties, the fine structure and envelope, which are essential for sound discrimination. This study focused on envelope coding in the two cochlear nuclei of the barn owl, nucleus angularis (NA) and nucleus magnocellularis (NM). NA and NM receive input from bifurcating auditory nerve fibers and initiate processing pathways specialized in encoding interaural time (ITD) and level (ILD) differences, respectively. We found that NA neurons, though unable to accurately encode stimulus phase, lock more strongly to the stimulus envelope than NM units. The spectrotemporal receptive fields (STRFs) of NA neurons exhibit a pre-excitatory suppressive field. Using multilinear regression analysis and computational modeling, we show that this feature of STRFs can account for enhanced across-trial response reliability, by locking spikes to the stimulus envelope. Our findings indicate a dichotomy in envelope coding between the time and intensity processing pathways as early as the level of the cochlear nuclei. This allows the ILD processing pathway to encode envelope information with greater fidelity than the ITD processing pathway. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the properties of the neurons’ STRFs can be quantitatively related to spike timing reliability
The 3-D solar radioastronomy and the structure of the corona and the solar wind
The mechanism causing solar radio bursts (1 and 111) is examined. It is proposed that a nonthermal energy source is responsible for the bursts; nonthermal energy is converted into electromagnetic energy. The advantages are examined for an out-of-the-ecliptic solar probe mission, which is proposed as a means of stereoscopically viewing solar radio bursts, solar magnetic fields, coronal structure, and the solar wind
Extracting joint weak values with local, single-particle measurements
Weak measurement is a new technique which allows one to describe the
evolution of postselected quantum systems. It appears to be useful for
resolving a variety of thorny quantum paradoxes, particularly when used to
study properties of pairs of particles. Unfortunately, such nonlocal or joint
observables often prove difficult to measure weakly in practice (for instance,
in optics -- a common testing ground for this technique -- strong photon-photon
interactions would be needed). Here we derive a general, experimentally
feasible, method for extracting these values from correlations between
single-particle observables.Comment: 6 page
Measurement of macroscopic plasma parameters with a radio experiment: Interpretation of the quasi-thermal noise spectrum observed in the solar wind
The ISEE-3 SBH radio receiver has provided the first systematic observations of the quasi-thermal (plasma waves) noise in the solar wind plasma. The theoretical interpretation of that noise involves the particle distribution function so that electric noise measurements with long antennas provide a fast and independent method of measuring plasma parameters: densities and temperatures of a two component (core and halo) electron distribution function have been obtained in that way. The polarization of that noise is frequency dependent and sensitive to the drift velocity of the electron population. Below the plasma frequency, there is evidence of a weak noise spectrum with spectral index -1 which is not yet accounted for by the theory. The theoretical treatment of the noise associated with the low energy (thermal) proton population shows that the moving electrical antenna radiates in the surrounding plasma by Carenkov emission which becomes predominant at the low frequencies, below about 0.1 F sub P
A low-mass faraday cup experiment for the solar wind
Faraday cups have proven to be very reliable and accurate instruments capable of making 3-D velocity distribution measurements on spinning or 3-axis stabilized spacecraft. Faraday cup instrumentation continues to be appropriate for heliospheric missions. As an example, the reductions in mass possible relative to the solar wind detection system about to be flown on the WIND spacecraft were estimated. Through the use of technology developed or used at the MIT Center for Space Research but were not able to utilize for WIND: surface-mount packaging, field-programmable gate arrays, an optically-switched high voltage supply, and an integrated-circuit power converter, it was estimated that the mass of the Faraday Cup system could be reduced from 5 kg to 1.8 kg. Further redesign of the electronics incorporating hybrid integrated circuits as well as a decrease in the sensor size, with a corresponding increase in measurement cycle time, could lead to a significantly lower mass for other mission applications. Reduction in mass of the entire spacecraft-experiment system is critically dependent on early and continual collaborative efforts between the spacecraft engineers and the experimenters. Those efforts concern a range of issues from spacecraft structure to data systems to the spacecraft power voltage levels. Requirements for flight qualification affect use of newer, lighter electronics packaging and its implementation; the issue of quality assurance needs to be specifically addressed. Lower cost and reduced mass can best be achieved through the efforts of a relatively small group dedicated to the success of the mission. Such a group needs a fixed budget and greater control over quality assurance requirements, together with a reasonable oversight mechanism
Quasi-Particle Degrees of Freedom versus the Perfect Fluid as Descriptors of the Quark-Gluon Plasma
The hot nuclear matter created at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC)
has been characterized by near-perfect fluid behavior. We demonstrate that this
stands in contradiction to the identification of QCD quasi-particles with the
thermodynamic degrees of freedom in the early (fluid) stage of heavy ion
collisions. The empirical observation of constituent quark ``'' scaling of
elliptic flow is juxtaposed with the lack of such scaling behavior in
hydrodynamic fluid calculations followed by Cooper-Frye freeze-out to hadrons.
A ``quasi-particle transport'' time stage after viscous effects break down the
hydrodynamic fluid stage, but prior to hadronization, is proposed to reconcile
these apparent contradictions. However, without a detailed understanding of the
transitions between these stages, the ``'' scaling is not a necessary
consequence of this prescription. Also, if the duration of this stage is too
short, it may not support well defined quasi-particles. By comparing and
contrasting the coalescence of quarks into hadrons with the similar process of
producing light nuclei from nucleons, it is shown that the observation of
``'' scaling in the final state does not necessarily imply that the
constituent degrees of freedom were the relevant ones in the initial state.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, Updated text and figure
Clock synchronization with dispersion cancellation
The dispersion cancellation feature of pulses which are entangled in
frequency is employed to synchronize clocks of distant parties. The proposed
protocol is insensitive to the pulse distortion caused by transit through a
dispersive medium. Since there is cancellation to all orders, also the effects
of slowly fluctuating dispersive media are compensated. The experimental setup
can be realized with currently available technology, at least for a proof of
principle.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Type 2 solar radio events observed in the interplanetary medium. Part 1: General characteristics
Twelve type 2 solar radio events were observed in the 2 MHz to 30 kHz frequency range by the radio astronomy experiment on the ISEE-3 satellite over the period from September 1978 to December 1979. These data provide the most comprehensive sample of type 2 radio bursts observed at kilometer wavelengths. Dynamic spectra of a number of events are presented. Where possible, the 12 events were associated with an initiating flare, ground based radio data, the passage of a shock at the spacecraft, and the sudden commencement of a geomagnetic storm. The general characteristics of kilometric type 2 bursts are discussed
Synchronizing Automata on Quasi Eulerian Digraph
In 1964 \v{C}ern\'{y} conjectured that each -state synchronizing automaton
posesses a reset word of length at most . From the other side the best
known upper bound on the reset length (minimum length of reset words) is cubic
in . Thus the main problem here is to prove quadratic (in ) upper bounds.
Since 1964, this problem has been solved for few special classes of \sa. One of
this result is due to Kari \cite{Ka03} for automata with Eulerian digraphs. In
this paper we introduce a new approach to prove quadratic upper bounds and
explain it in terms of Markov chains and Perron-Frobenius theories. Using this
approach we obtain a quadratic upper bound for a generalization of Eulerian
automata.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figur
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