13,932 research outputs found
A new limit on the permanent electric dipole moment of ^{199}Hg
We present the first results of a new search for a permanent electric dipole
moment of the ^{199}Hg atom using a UV laser. Our measurements give d(Hg)= -
(1.06 +/- 0.49 +/- 0.40) 10^{-28} e cm. We interpret the result as an upper
limit |d(Hg)| < 2.1 10^{-28} e cm (95% C.L.), which sets new constraints on
theta_{QCD}, chromo-EDMs of the quarks, and CP violation in Supersymmetric
models.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. Let
The Network Analysis of Urban Streets: A Primal Approach
The network metaphor in the analysis of urban and territorial cases has a
long tradition especially in transportation/land-use planning and economic
geography. More recently, urban design has brought its contribution by means of
the "space syntax" methodology. All these approaches, though under different
terms like accessibility, proximity, integration,connectivity, cost or effort,
focus on the idea that some places (or streets) are more important than others
because they are more central. The study of centrality in complex
systems,however, originated in other scientific areas, namely in structural
sociology, well before its use in urban studies; moreover, as a structural
property of the system, centrality has never been extensively investigated
metrically in geographic networks as it has been topologically in a wide range
of other relational networks like social, biological or technological. After
two previous works on some structural properties of the dual and primal graph
representations of urban street networks (Porta et al. cond-mat/0411241;
Crucitti et al. physics/0504163), in this paper we provide an in-depth
investigation of centrality in the primal approach as compared to the dual one,
with a special focus on potentials for urban design.Comment: 19 page, 4 figures. Paper related to the paper "The Network Analysis
of Urban Streets: A Dual Approach" cond-mat/041124
Lower critical field H_c1 and barriers for vortex entry in Bi_2Sr_2CaCu_2O_{8+delta} crystals
The penetration field H_p of Bi_2Sr_2CaCu_2O_{8+delta} crystals is determined
from magnetization curves for different field sweep rates dH/dt and
temperatures. The obtained results are consistent with theoretical reports in
the literature about vortex creep over surface and geometrical barriers. The
frequently observed low-temperature upturn of H_p is shown to be related to
metastable configurations due to barriers for vortex entry. Data of the true
lower critical field H_c1 are presented. The low-temperature dependence of H_c1
is consistent with a superconducting state with nodes in the gap function.
[PACS numbers: 74.25.Bt, 74.60.Ec, 74.60.Ge, 74.72.Hs
Quantum noise in the position measurement of a cavity mirror undergoing Brownian motion
We perform a quantum theoretical calculation of the noise power spectrum for
a phase measurement of the light output from a coherently driven optical cavity
with a freely moving rear mirror. We examine how the noise resulting from the
quantum back action appears among the various contributions from other noise
sources. We do not assume an ideal (homodyne) phase measurement, but rather
consider phase modulation detection, which we show has a different shot noise
level. We also take into account the effects of thermal damping of the mirror,
losses within the cavity, and classical laser noise. We relate our theoretical
results to experimental parameters, so as to make direct comparisons with
current experiments simple. We also show that in this situation, the standard
Brownian motion master equation is inadequate for describing the thermal
damping of the mirror, as it produces a spurious term in the steady-state phase
fluctuation spectrum. The corrected Brownian motion master equation [L. Diosi,
Europhys. Lett. {\bf 22}, 1 (1993)] rectifies this inadequacy.Comment: 12 pages revtex, 2 figure
Heavy Quarkonium Potential Model and the State of Charmonium
A theoretical explanation of the observed splittings among the P~states of
charmonium is given with the use of a nonsingular potential model for heavy
quarkonia. We also show that the recently observed mass difference between the
center of gravity of the states and the state of
does not provide a direct test of the color hyperfine interaction in heavy
quarkonia. Our theoretical value for the mass of the state is in
agreement with the experimental result, and its E1 transition width is
341.8~keV. The mass of the state is predicted to be 3622.3~MeV.Comment: 15 page REVTEX documen
Critical properties of two-dimensional Josephson junction arrays with zero-point quantum fluctuations
We present results from an extensive analytic and numerical study of a
two-dimensional model of a square array of ultrasmall Josephson junctions. We
include the ultrasmall self and mutual capacitances of the junctions, for the
same parameter ranges as those produced in the experiments. The model
Hamiltonian studied includes the Josephson, , as well as the charging,
, energies between superconducting islands. The corresponding quantum
partition function is expressed in different calculationally convenient ways
within its path-integral representation. The phase diagram is analytically
studied using a WKB renormalization group (WKB-RG) plus a self-consistent
harmonic approximation (SCHA) analysis, together with non-perturbative quantum
Monte Carlo simulations. Most of the results presented here pertain to the
superconductor to normal (S-N) region, although some results for the insulating
to normal (I-N) region are also included. We find very good agreement between
the WKB-RG and QMC results when compared to the experimental data. To fit the
data, we only used the experimentally determined capacitances as fitting
parameters. The WKB-RG analysis in the S-N region predicts a low temperature
instability i.e. a Quantum Induced Transition (QUIT). We carefully simulations
and carry out a finite size analysis of as a function of the
magnitude of imaginary time axis . We find that for some relatively
large values of (, the
limit does appear to give a {\it non-zero} , while
for , . We use the SCHA to analytically understand
the dependence of the QMC results with good agreement between them.
Finally, we also carried out a WKB-RG analysis in the I-N region and found no
evidence of a low temperature QUIT, up to lowest order in Comment: 39 pages, 18 postscript figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.
Relic Gravitons, Dominant Energy Condition and Bulk Viscous Stresses
If the energy momentum tensor contains bulk viscous stresses violating the
dominant energy condition (DOC) the energy spectra of the relic gravitons
(produced at the time of the DOC's violation) increase in frequency in a
calculable way. In a general relativistic context we give examples where the
DOC is only violated for a limited amount of time after which the ordinary
(radiation dominated) evolution takes place. We connect our discussion to some
recent remarks of Grishchuk concerning the detectability of the stochastic
gravitational wave background by the forthcoming interferometric detectors.Comment: 7 pages in LaTex style. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. D
(Rapid Comm.
Proper ferroelastic phase transitions in thin epitaxial films with symmetry-conserving and symmetry-breaking misfit strains
We study how the ferroelastic domain structure sets in in an epitaxial film
of a material with second order proper ferroelastic transition. The domain
structures considered are similar to either or
structures in perovskite ferroelectrics. If the "extrinsic" misfit
strain, not associated with the transition, does not break the symmetry of the
high-temperature phase, the phase transition in the film occurs at somewhat
lower temperature compared to the bulk. The loss of stability then occurs with
respect to a sinusoidal strain wave, which evolves into the domain structure
with practically the same geometry and approximately the same period. In the
presence of the symmetry-breaking component of the misfit strain ("extrinsic"
misfit) the character of the phase transition is qualitatively different. In
this case it is a {\em topological} transition between single-domain and
multi-domain states, which starts from a low density of the domain walls.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, REVTeX 3.
Human Islet Amyloid Polypeptide Transgenic Mice: In Vivo and Ex Vivo Models for the Role of hIAPP in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus
Human islet amyloid polypeptide (hIAPP), a pancreatic islet protein of 37 amino acids, is the main component of islet amyloid, seen at autopsy in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM2). To investigate the roles of hIAPP and islet amyloid in DM2, we generated transgenic mice expressing hIAPP in their islet beta cells. In this study, we found that after a long-term, high-fat diet challenge islet amyloid was observed in only 4 of 19 hIAPP transgenic mice. hIAPP transgenic females exhibited severe glucose intolerance, which was associated with a downregulation of GLUT-2 mRNA expression. In isolated islets from hIAPP males cultured for 3 weeks on high-glucose medium, the percentage of amyloid containing islets increased from 5.5% to 70%. This ex vivo system will allow a more rapid, convenient, and specific study of factors influencing islet amyloidosis as well as of therapeutic strategies to interfere with this pathological process
Predicate Abstraction for Linked Data Structures
We present Alias Refinement Types (ART), a new approach to the verification
of correctness properties of linked data structures. While there are many
techniques for checking that a heap-manipulating program adheres to its
specification, they often require that the programmer annotate the behavior of
each procedure, for example, in the form of loop invariants and pre- and
post-conditions. Predicate abstraction would be an attractive abstract domain
for performing invariant inference, existing techniques are not able to reason
about the heap with enough precision to verify functional properties of data
structure manipulating programs. In this paper, we propose a technique that
lifts predicate abstraction to the heap by factoring the analysis of data
structures into two orthogonal components: (1) Alias Types, which reason about
the physical shape of heap structures, and (2) Refinement Types, which use
simple predicates from an SMT decidable theory to capture the logical or
semantic properties of the structures. We prove ART sound by translating types
into separation logic assertions, thus translating typing derivations in ART
into separation logic proofs. We evaluate ART by implementing a tool that
performs type inference for an imperative language, and empirically show, using
a suite of data-structure benchmarks, that ART requires only 21% of the
annotations needed by other state-of-the-art verification techniques
- …