The Causal Boundary of spacetimes revisited

We present a new development of the causal boundary of spacetimes, originally introduced by Geroch, Kronheimer and Penrose. Given a strongly causal spacetime (or, more generally, a chronological set), we reconsider the GKP ideas to construct a family of completions with a chronology and topology extending the original ones. Many of these completions present undesirable features, like those appeared in previous approaches by other authors. However, we show that all these deficiencies are due to the attachment of an ``excessively big'' boundary. In fact, a notion of ``completion with minimal boundary'' is then introduced in our family such that, when we restrict to these minimal completions, which always exist, all previous objections disappear. The optimal character of our construction is illustrated by a number of satisfactory properties and examples.Comment: 37 pages, 10 figures; Definition 6.1 slightly modified; multiple minor changes; one figure added and another replace

Two Populations of Young Massive Star Clusters in Arp 220

We present new optical observations of young massive star clusters in Arp 220, the nearest ultraluminous infrared galaxy, taken in UBVI with the Hubble Space Telescope ACS/HRC camera. We find a total of 206 probable clusters whose spatial distribution is centrally concentrated toward the nucleus of Arp 220. We use model star cluster tracks to determine ages, luminosities, and masses for 14 clusters with complete UBVI indices or previously published near-infrared data. We estimate rough masses for 24 additional clusters with I < 24 mag from BVI indices alone. The clusters with useful ages fall into two distinct groups: a ``young'' population (< 10 Myr) and an intermediate-age population (~300 Myr). There are many clusters with masses clearly above 10^6 Msun and possibly even above 10^7 Msun in the most extreme instances. These masses are high enough that the clusters being formed in the Arp 220 starburst can be considered as genuine young globular clusters. In addition, this study allows us to extend the observed correlation between global star formation rate and maximum cluster luminosity by more than an order of magnitude in star formation rate.Comment: 30 pages, 8 figures; figs 1-3 in color; accepted to Ap

Intersectionality, Race-Gender Subordination, and Education

In this chapter, we unpack intersectionality as an analytical framework. First, we cite Black Lives Matter as an impetus for discussing intersectionality’s current traction. Second, we review the genealogy of “intersectionality” beginning with Kimberlé Crenshaw’s formulation, which brought a Black Studies provocation into legal discourse in order to challenge existing antidiscrimination doctrine and single-axis theorizing. The third, and most central, task of the chapter is our account of intersectionality’s utility for social analysis. We examine some of the issues raised by the metaphor of the intersection and some of the debates surrounding the concept, such as the tension between fragmenting and universalizing perspectives mediated by the notion of “strategic essentialism.” Fourth, we review how education researchers have explained race and gender subordination in education since Ladson-Billings and Tate’s Teachers College Record article. We conclude with some remarks concerning future research on intersectionality

The Core-like Nature of HST-1 in the M87 Jet

We investigate the total flux density, spectral, polarization, and Faraday rotation variability of HST-1 in the M87 jet during the outburst from 2003 to 2007 through multi-epoch VLA observations at 8, 15, and 22 GHz. Contrary to the general case for blazars, the flux densities of HST-1 rise earlier at lower frequencies from radio to X-ray, and the spectra are softening with the growth of outburst, indicating that the newly emerging subcomponents within HST-1 have relatively steep spectra. In particular, the intrinsic EVPA varies monotonically by $\sim90^\circ$ at the 3 wavebands during the period, and all but the stationary subcomponent in the eastern end of HST-1 move downstream superluminally deviating divergently from the overall jet direction, with the motion of the outmost subcomponent bending from one side of the jet axis to another. These strongly argue for the presence of helical magnetic fields around HST-1, which is also supported by the fact that the subcomponents might be accelerated in this region. The fractional polarization is relatively low in the rising stage, and in the decaying stage the polarization levels are almost comparable at the 3 wavebands. In view of the quite large RM values, Faraday rotation is expected to occur dominantly external to HST-1 in the decaying stage, which is well supported by the presence of diffuse emission around HST-1, and consistent with the scenario that RM decrease gets slower with time.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, Accepted for publication in MNRAS Lette

Sagnac interferometry based on ultra-slow polaritons in cold atomic vapors

The advantages of light and matter-wave Sagnac interferometers -- large area on one hand and high rotational sensitivity per unit area on the other -- can be combined utilizing ultra-slow light in cold atomic gases. While a group-velocity reduction alone does not affect the Sagnac phase shift, the associated momentum transfer from light to atoms generates a coherent matter-wave component which gives rise to a substantially enhanced rotational signal. It is shown that matter-wave sensitivity in a large-area interferometer can be achieved if an optically dense vapor at sub-recoil temperatures is used. Already a noticeable enhancement of the Sagnac phase shift is possible however with much less cooling requirements.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Space-time OFDM with adaptive beamforming: Performance in spatially correlated channels

Space-time block coding (STBC) has proved to be an effective means of exploring diversity branches and improving system performance. In a previous work we proposed an extension to that where the STBC was combined with adaptive eigenbeamforming, an approach that takes an advantage of spatial channel correlation and can provide further improvement for the overall system performance. In this paper, we investigate this new transmission structure for broadband orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems in frequency-selective channels. Numerical analysis showed that systems employing this scheme would not undergo any diversity losses as it maintains the maximum achievable diversity advantage of space-time (ST) codes in realistic channel conditions. Simulation results showed that the proposed structure has a significant improvement in bit/symbol error rate performance in a spatially correlated channel over systems that utilize only space-time coding

Adaptive transmit eigenbeamforming with orthogonal space-time block coding in correlated space-time channels

Conventional space-time codes can provide a significant improvement in system performance only if the signal paths are spatially uncorrelated, a condition that is hardly met in practice. In this paper, we mitigate this condition by combining a technique of eigenbeamforming, based on the channel correlation matrix, with orthogonal space-time block codes (O-STBC) at the transmitter side of the link. No feedback information from the receiver (the mobile station) is utilized in the proposed structure. Simulation results using 4-ary PSK signaling showed that this idea outperforms existing techniques in both uncorrelated and correlated channels in terms of bit-error rate and symbol-error rate

An efficient mobile Rayleigh fading channel simulator: A comparison with Clarke&#039;s Model

This paper presents a computer model for Rayleigh fading channels. The simulated Rayleigh fading channel model is based on Smith&#039;s method and shows ease of implementation and greater mathematical tractability. We then investigate the level-crossing rate (LCR), the average duration of fades (ADF), the probability density function (PDF), the cumulative distribution function (CDF) and the autocorrelation functions (ACF) of this proposed model. The simulated results are verified against the analytical Clarke&#039;s channel model

Performance of variable step-size dithered signed error CMA for blind equalization

Recently a dithered signed-error constant modulus algorithm (DSE-CMA) has been proposed, associated with fractionally spaced equalization, for the purpose of low complexity implementation of constant modulus algorithm (CMA). DSE-CMA has robustness properties closely resembling those of CMA under certain restrictions. As the CMA is slow in achieving its minimum mean squared error, so is the DSE-CMA. In this work, we apply an adaptive step-size instead of a fixed one and then examine the performance of few variable step-size algorithms that result in faster convergence while preserve the low computational complexity and robustness properties of the DSE-CMA algorithm. We also derive the excess mean-squared error in the case of noisy channel to examine the robustness of the algorithms