Hands-on Physical Science Course at Radford University

Most students in our introductory physical science course are elementary education majors. We are faced with several obstacles in teaching basic science to these students. For example, they lack interest in science, logical thinking, and necessary data gathering and analysis skills, among others. Many of those obstacles could be traced back to the science courses they had taken in the past. Those courses put more emphasis on memorizing scientific facts than understanding natural phenomena or experiencing scientific methods. As a result, the students tend to have a negative attitude toward science in general. In order to reverse this attitude, We have been developing a hands-on, experience based physical science course. In each class students are asked to perform several experiments which require observation, data gathering, and analysis. The instructor provides necessary scientific background and explanation on the experiments as they go. One of the experiments the students enjoyed a lot is the measurement of average speeds of cars. They actually go out on the street and take data. Through this course students can experience how science works and learn that science could be more exciting than just memorizing

N-fold Parasupersymmetry

We find a new type of non-linear supersymmetries, called N-fold parasupersymmetry, which is a generalization of both N-fold supersymmetry and parasupersymmetry. We provide a general formulation of this new symmetry and then construct a second-order N-fold parasupersymmetric quantum system where all the components of N-fold parasupercharges are given by type A N-fold supercharges. We show that this system exactly reduces to the Rubakov-Spiridonov model when N=1 and admits a generalized type C 2N-fold superalgebra. We conjecture the existence of other `N-fold generalizations' such as N-fold fractional supersymmetry, N-fold orthosupersymmetry, and so on.Comment: 10 pages, no figures; Intro. expande

DECIGO/BBO as a probe to constrain alternative theories of gravity

We calculate how strongly one can constrain the alternative theories of gravity with deci-Hz gravitational wave interferometers such as DECIGO and BBO. Here we discuss Brans-Dicke theory and massive graviton theories as typical examples. We consider the inspiral of compact binaries composed of a neutron star (NS) and an intermediate mass black hole (IMBH) for Brans-Dicke (BD) theory and those composed of a super massive black hole (SMBH) and a black hole (SMBH) for massive graviton theories. Using the restricted 2PN waveforms including spin effects and taking the spin precession into account, we perform the Monte Carlo simulations of $10^4$ binaries to estimate the determination accuracy of binary parameters including the Brans-Dicke parameter $\omega_{\mathrm{BD}}$ and the graviton Compton length $\lambda_g$. Assuming a $(1.4, 10)M_{\odot}$ NS/BH binary of SNR=$\sqrt{200}$, the constraint on $\omega_{\mathrm{BD}}$ is obtained as $\omega_{\mathrm{BD}}>2.32\times 10^6$, which is 300 times stronger than the estimated constraint from LISA observation. Furthermore, we find that, due to the expected large merger rate of NS/BH binaries of $O(10^4)$ yr$^{-1}$, a statistical analysis yields $\omega_{\mathrm{BD}}>3.77\times10^8$, which is 4 orders of magnitude stronger than the current strongest bound obtained from the solar system experiment. For massive graviton theories, assuming a $(10^6, 10^5)M_{\odot}$ BH/BH binary at 3Gpc, one can put a constraint $\lambda_g>3.35\times10^{20}$cm, on average. This is three orders of magnitude stronger than the one obtained from the solar system experiment. From these results, it is understood that DECIGO/BBO is a very powerful tool for constraining alternative theories of gravity, too.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures; Accepted to Prog. Theor. Phys. Letters; Many interpretations and some references have been added; Some Coding errors being corrected and the final constraints came out stronge

Surface density of states of s+-wave Cooper pairs in a two-band model

We calculate surface density of state (SDOS) of s+-wave Cooper pair in two-band superconductor model, where gap functions have different signs between two bands. We find that Andreev bound state appears at surface due to the sign change in the gap function in the interband quasiparticle scattering. However, we do not obtain the zero-energy peak of SDOS in contrast to the d-wave case. The tunneling spectroscopy of s+-wave is much more complex as compared to the d-wave case realized in high-Tc cuprates.Comment: 7 pages, 10 figure

A study of the effect of forcing function characteristics on human operator dynamics in manual control

The effect of the spectrum of the forcing function on the human pilot dynamics in manual control was investigated. A simple compensatory tracking experiment was conducted, where the controlled element was of a second-order dynamics and the forcing function was a random noise having a dominant frequency. The dominant frequency and the power of the forcing function were two variable parameters during the experiment. The results show that the human pilot describing functions are dependent not only on the dynamics of the controlled element, but also on the characteristics of the forcing function. This suggests that the human pilot behavior should be expressed by the transfer function taking into consideration his ability to sense and predict the forcing function

Computation accuracies of boundary element method and finite element method in transient eddy current analysis

The computation accuracies of the boundary-element method (BEM) and finite-element method (FEM) in transient eddy-current problems are compared by using a slot-embedded conductor model and a diffusion model that can be solved theoretically. For computing the vector potential or magnetic flux density it is shown that larger time-step width can be chosen in the BEM than in the FEM method for the same accuracy </p

Generalized Equivalence Principle in Extended New General Relativity

In extended new general relativity, which is formulated as a reduction of $\bar{Poincar\'e}$gauge theory of gravity whose gauge group is the covering group of the Poincar\'e group, we study the problem of whether the total energy-momentum, total angular momentum and total charge are equal to the corresponding quantities of the gravitational source. We examine this for charged axi-symmetric solutions of gravitational field equations. Our main concern is the restriction on the asymptotic form of the gravitational field variables imposed by the requirement that physical quantities of the total system are equivalent to the corresponding quantities of the charged rotating source body. This requirement can be regarded as an equivalence principle in a generalized sense.Comment: 35 page