99,992 research outputs found
The Influence of Nuclear Composition on the Electron Fraction in the Post-Core-Bounce Supernova Environment
We study the early evolution of the electron fraction (or, alternatively, the
neutron-to-proton ratio) in the region above the hot proto-neutron star formed
after a supernova explosion. We study the way in which the electron fraction in
this environment is set by a competition between lepton (electron, positron,
neutrino, and antineutrino) capture processes on free neutrons and protons and
nuclei. Our calculations take explicit account of the effect of nuclear
composition changes, such as formation of alpha particles (the alpha effect)
and the shifting of nuclear abundances in nuclear statistical equilibrium
associated with cooling in near-adiabatic outflow. We take detailed account of
the process of weak interaction freeze-out in conjunction with these nuclear
composition changes. Our detailed treatment shows that the alpha effect can
cause significant increases in the electron fraction, while neutrino and
antineutrino capture on heavy nuclei tends to have a buffering effect on this
quantity. We also examine the effect on weak rates and the electron fraction of
fluctuations in time in the neutrino and antineutrino energy spectra arising
from hydrodynamic waves. Our analysis is guided by the Mayle & Wilson supernova
code numerical results for the neutrino energy spectra and density and velocity
profiles.Comment: 38 pages, AAS LaTeX, 8 figure
Organic slug control using Phasmarhabditis hermaphrodita
Phasmarhabditis hermaphrodita is a lethal slug parasitic nematode that has been formulated into an effective biological control agent called Nemaslug®. We investigated the possibility of using different application methods of P. hermaphrodita to reduce cost and the number of nematodes applied. We also compared P. hermaphrodita with a new slug pellet called Ferramol®, which is available for use on organic farms
Systematic Renormalization in Hamiltonian Light-Front Field Theory
We develop a systematic method for computing a renormalized light-front field
theory Hamiltonian that can lead to bound states that rapidly converge in an
expansion in free-particle Fock-space sectors. To accomplish this without
dropping any Fock sectors from the theory, and to regulate the Hamiltonian, we
suppress the matrix elements of the Hamiltonian between free-particle
Fock-space states that differ in free mass by more than a cutoff. The cutoff
violates a number of physical principles of the theory, and thus the
Hamiltonian is not just the canonical Hamiltonian with masses and couplings
redefined by renormalization. Instead, the Hamiltonian must be allowed to
contain all operators that are consistent with the unviolated physical
principles of the theory. We show that if we require the Hamiltonian to produce
cutoff-independent physical quantities and we require it to respect the
unviolated physical principles of the theory, then its matrix elements are
uniquely determined in terms of the fundamental parameters of the theory. This
method is designed to be applied to QCD, but for simplicity, we illustrate our
method by computing and analyzing second- and third-order matrix elements of
the Hamiltonian in massless phi-cubed theory in six dimensions.Comment: 47 pages, 6 figures; improved referencing, minor presentation change
A simple extended-cavity diode laser
Operating a laser diode in an extended cavity which provides frequency-selective feedback is a very effective method of reducing the laser's linewidth and improving its tunability. We have developed an extremely simple laser of this type, built from inexpensive commercial components with only a few minor modifications, A 780 nm laser built to this design has an output power of 80 mW, a Linewidth of 350 kHz, and it has been continuously locked to a Doppler-free rubidium transition for several days
Exact renormalization group equations and the field theoretical approach to critical phenomena
After a brief presentation of the exact renormalization group equation, we
illustrate how the field theoretical (perturbative) approach to critical
phenomena takes place in the more general Wilson (nonperturbative) approach.
Notions such as the continuum limit and the renormalizability and the presence
of singularities in the perturbative series are discussed.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figures, to appear in the Proceedings of the 2nd
Conference on the Exact Renormalization Group, Rome 200
The dynamical Casimir effect in superconducting microwave circuits
We theoretically investigate the dynamical Casimir effect in electrical
circuits based on superconducting microfabricated waveguides with tunable
boundary conditions. We propose to implement a rapid modulation of the boundary
conditions by tuning the applied magnetic flux through superconducting quantum
interference devices (SQUIDs) that are embedded in the waveguide circuits. We
consider two circuits: (i) An open waveguide circuit that corresponds to a
single mirror in free space, and (ii) a resonator coupled to a microfabricated
waveguide, which corresponds to a single-sided cavity in free space. We analyze
the properties of the dynamical Casimir effect in these two setups by
calculating the generated photon-flux density, output-field correlation
functions, and the quadrature squeezing spectra. We show that these properties
of the output field exhibit signatures unique to the radiation due to the
dynamical Casimir effect, and could therefore be used for distinguishing the
dynamical Casimir effect from other types of radiation in these circuits. We
also discuss the similarities and differences between the dynamical Casimir
effect, in the resonator setup, and downconversion of pump photons in
parametric oscillators.Comment: 18 pages, 14 figure
Quarkonia in Hamiltonian Light-Front QCD
A constituent parton picture of hadrons with logarithmic confinement
naturally arises in weak coupling light-front QCD. Confinement provides a mass
gap that allows the constituent picture to emerge. The effective renormalized
Hamiltonian is computed to , and used to study charmonium and
bottomonium. Radial and angular excitations can be used to fix the coupling
, the quark mass , and the cutoff . The resultant hyperfine
structure is very close to experiment.Comment: 9 pages, 1 latex figure included in the text. Published version (much
more reader-friendly); corrected error in self-energ
Cool for Cats
The iconic Schr\"odinger's cat state describes a system that may be in a
superposition of two macroscopically distinct states, for example two clearly
separated oscillator coherent states. Quite apart from their role in
understanding the quantum classical boundary, such states have been suggested
as offering a quantum advantage for quantum metrology, quantum communication
and quantum computation. As is well known these applications have to face the
difficulty that the irreversible interaction with an environment causes the
superposition to rapidly evolve to a mixture of the component states in the
case that the environment is not monitored. Here we show that by engineering
the interaction with the environment there exists a large class of systems that
can evolve irreversibly to a cat state. To be precise we show that it is
possible to engineer an irreversible process so that the steady state is close
to a pure Schr\"odinger's cat state by using double well systems and an
environment comprising two-photon (or phonon) absorbers. We also show that it
should be possible to prolong the lifetime of a Schr\"odinger's cat state
exposed to the destructive effects of a conventional single-photon decohering
environment. Our protocol should make it easier to prepare and maintain
Schr\"odinger cat states which would be useful in applications of quantum
metrology and information processing as well as being of interest to those
probing the quantum to classical transition.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures. Significantly updated version with supplementary
informatio
Non-Gaussian numerical errors versus mass hierarchy
We probe the numerical errors made in renormalization group calculations by
varying slightly the rescaling factor of the fields and rescaling back in order
to get the same (if there were no round-off errors) zero momentum 2-point
function (magnetic susceptibility). The actual calculations were performed with
Dyson's hierarchical model and a simplified version of it. We compare the
distributions of numerical values obtained from a large sample of rescaling
factors with the (Gaussian by design) distribution of a random number generator
and find significant departures from the Gaussian behavior. In addition, the
average value differ (robustly) from the exact answer by a quantity which is of
the same order as the standard deviation. We provide a simple model in which
the errors made at shorter distance have a larger weight than those made at
larger distance. This model explains in part the non-Gaussian features and why
the central-limit theorem does not apply.Comment: 26 pages, 7 figures, uses Revte
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