8,838 research outputs found
The Two-Nucleon 1S0 Amplitude Zero in Chiral Effective Field Theory
We present a new rearrangement of short-range interactions in the
nucleon-nucleon channel within Chiral Effective Field Theory. This is intended
to reproduce the amplitude zero (scattering momentum 340 MeV) at
leading order, and it includes subleading corrections perturbatively in a way
that is consistent with renormalization-group invariance. Systematic
improvement is shown at next-to-leading order, and we obtain results that fit
empirical phase shifts remarkably well all the way up to the pion-production
threshold. An approach in which pions have been integrated out is included,
which allows us to derive analytic results that also fit phenomenology
surprisingly well.Comment: 34 pages, 7 figure
On the Key-Uncertainty of Quantum Ciphers and the Computational Security of One-way Quantum Transmission
We consider the scenario where Alice wants to send a secret (classical)
-bit message to Bob using a classical key, and where only one-way
transmission from Alice to Bob is possible. In this case, quantum communication
cannot help to obtain perfect secrecy with key length smaller then . We
study the question of whether there might still be fundamental differences
between the case where quantum as opposed to classical communication is used.
In this direction, we show that there exist ciphers with perfect security
producing quantum ciphertext where, even if an adversary knows the plaintext
and applies an optimal measurement on the ciphertext, his Shannon uncertainty
about the key used is almost maximal. This is in contrast to the classical case
where the adversary always learns bits of information on the key in a known
plaintext attack. We also show that there is a limit to how different the
classical and quantum cases can be: the most probable key, given matching
plain- and ciphertexts, has the same probability in both the quantum and the
classical cases. We suggest an application of our results in the case where
only a short secret key is available and the message is much longer.Comment: 19 pages, 2 figures. This is a revised version of an earlier version
that appeared in the proc. of Eucrocrypt'04:LNCS3027, 200
Detecting Repetitions and Periodicities in Proteins by Tiling the Structural Space
The notion of energy landscapes provides conceptual tools for understanding
the complexities of protein folding and function. Energy Landscape Theory
indicates that it is much easier to find sequences that satisfy the "Principle
of Minimal Frustration" when the folded structure is symmetric (Wolynes, P. G.
Symmetry and the Energy Landscapes of Biomolecules. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci.
U.S.A. 1996, 93, 14249-14255). Similarly, repeats and structural mosaics may be
fundamentally related to landscapes with multiple embedded funnels. Here we
present analytical tools to detect and compare structural repetitions in
protein molecules. By an exhaustive analysis of the distribution of structural
repeats using a robust metric we define those portions of a protein molecule
that best describe the overall structure as a tessellation of basic units. The
patterns produced by such tessellations provide intuitive representations of
the repeating regions and their association towards higher order arrangements.
We find that some protein architectures can be described as nearly periodic,
while in others clear separations between repetitions exist. Since the method
is independent of amino acid sequence information we can identify structural
units that can be encoded by a variety of distinct amino acid sequences
The fractal dimension of star-forming regions at different spatial scales in M33
We study the distribution of stars, HII regions, molecular gas, and
individual giant molecular clouds in M33 over a wide range of spatial scales.
The clustering strength of these components is systematically estimated through
the fractal dimension. We find scale-free behavior at small spatial scales and
a transition to a larger correlation dimension (consistent with a nearly
uniform distribution) at larger scales. The transition region lies in the range
500-1000 pc. This transition defines a characteristic size that separates the
regime of small-scale turbulent motion from that of large-scale galactic
dynamics. At small spatial scales, bright young stars and molecular gas are
distributed with nearly the same three-dimensional fractal dimension (Df <=
1.9), whereas fainter stars and HII regions exhibit higher values (Df =
2.2-2.5). Our results indicate that the interstellar medium in M33 is on
average more fragmented and irregular than in the Milky Way.Comment: 18 pages including 4 figures. Accepted for publication in Ap
Distribution of the S-matrix in chaotic microwave cavities with direct processes and absorption
We quantify the presence of direct processes in the S-matrix of chaotic
microwave cavities with absorption in the one-channel case. To this end the
full distribution P_S(S) of the S-matrix, i.e. S=\sqrt{R}e^{i\theta}, is
studied in cavities with time-reversal symmetry for different antenna coupling
strengths T_a or direct processes. The experimental results are compared with
random-matrix calculations and with numerical simulations based on the
Heidelberg approach including absorption. The theoretical result is a
generalization of the Poisson kernel. The experimental and the numerical
distributions are in excellent agreement with random-matrix predictions for all
cases.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Super-roughening as a disorder-dominated flat phase
We study the phenomenon of super-roughening found on surfaces growing on
disordered substrates. We consider a one-dimensional version of the problem for
which the pure, ordered model exhibits a roughening phase transition. Extensive
numerical simulations combined with analytical approximations indicate that
super-roughening is a regime of asymptotically flat surfaces with non-trivial,
rough short-scale features arising from the competition between surface tension
and disorder. Based on this evidence and on previous simulations of the
two-dimensional Random sine-Gordon model [Sanchez et al., Phys. Rev. E 62, 3219
(2000)], we argue that this scenario is general and explains equally well the
hitherto poorly understood two-dimensional case.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures. Accepted for publication in Europhysics Letter
Quantum reconstruction of an intense polarization squeezed optical state
We perform a reconstruction of the polarization sector of the density matrix
of an intense polarization squeezed beam starting from a complete set of Stokes
measurements. By using an appropriate quasidistribution, we map this onto the
Poincare space providing a full quantum mechanical characterization of the
measured polarization state.Comment: 4 pages, 4 eps color figure
The night-sky at the Calar Alto Observatory II: The sky at the near infrared
We present here the characterization of the night sky-brightness at the
near-infrared, the telescope seeing, and the fraction of useful time at the
Calar Alto observatory. For this study we have collected a large dataset
comprising 7311 near-infrared images taken regularly along the last four years
for the ALHAMBRA survey (J, H and Ks-bands), together with a more reduced
dataset of additional near-infrared images taken for the current study. In
addition we collected the information derived by the meteorological station at
the observatory during the last 10 years, together with the results from the
cloud sensor for the last ~2 years. We analyze the dependency of the
near-infrared night sky-brightness with the airmass and the seasons, studying
its origins and proposing a zenithal correction. A strong correlation is found
between the night sky-brightness in the Ks-band and the air temperature, with a
gradient of ~ -0.08 mag per 1 C degree. The typical (darkest) night
sky-brightness in the J, H and Ks-band are 15.95 mag (16.95 mag), 13.99 mag
(14.98 mag) and 12.39 mag (13.55 mag), respectively. These values show that
Calar Alto is as dark in the near-infrared as most of the other astronomical
astronomical sites in the world that we could compare with. Only Mauna Kea is
clearly darker in the Ks-band. The typical telescope seeing at the 3.5m is
~1.0" when converted to the V-band, being only slightly larger than the
atmospheric seeing measured at the same time by the seeing monitor, ~0.9".
Finally we estimate the fraction of useful time based on the relative humidity,
gust wind speed and presence of clouds. This fraction, ~72%, is very similar to
the one derived in Paper I, based on the fraction of time when the extinction
monitor is working.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures, accepted to be published in PAS
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