18,329 research outputs found
Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay with SNO+
SNO+ will search for neutrinoless double beta decay by loading 780 tonnes of
linear alkylbenzene liquid scintillator with O(tonne) of neodymium. Using
natural Nd at 0.1% loading will provide 43.7 kg of 150Nd given its 5.6%
abundance and allow the experiment to reach a sensitivity to the effective
neutrino mass of 100-200 meV at 90% C.L in a 3 year run. The SNO+ detector has
ultra low backgrounds with 7000 tonnes of water shielding and self-shielding of
the scintillator. Distillation and several other purification techniques will
be used with the aim of achieving Borexino levels of backgrounds. The
experiment is fully funded and data taking with light-water will commence in
2012 with scintillator data following in 2013.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, prepared for TAUP 201
Development of shape memory metal as the actuator of a fail safe mechanism
A small, compact, lightweight device was developed using shape memory alloy (SMA) in wire form to actuate a pin-puller that decouples the flanges of two shafts. When the SMA is heated it contracts producing a useful force and stroke. As it cools, it can be reset (elongated in this case) by applying a relatively small force. Resistive heating is accomplished by running a current through the SMA wire for a controlled length of time. The electronics to drive the device are not elaborate or complicated, consisting of a timed current source. The total available contraction is 3 percent of the length of the wire. This device, the engineering properties of the SMA, and the tests performed to verify the design concept are described
Gravitons and Lightcone Fluctuations II: Correlation Functions
A model of a fluctuating lightcone due to a bath of gravitons is further
investigated. The flight times of photons between a source and a detector may
be either longer or shorter than the light propagation time in the background
classical spacetime, and will form a Gaussian distribution centered around the
classical flight time. However, a pair of photons emitted in rapid succession
will tend to have correlated flight times. We derive and discuss a correlation
function which describes this effect. This enables us to understand more fully
the operational significance of a fluctuating lightcone. Our results may be
combined with observational data on pulsar timing to place some constraints on
the quantum state of cosmological gravitons.Comment: 16 pages and two figures, uses eps
Hyperfast Interstellar Travel in General Relativity
The problem is discussed of whether a traveller can reach a remote object and
return back sooner than a photon would when taken into account that the
traveller can partly control the geometry of his world. It is argued that under
some reasonable assumptions in globally hyperbolic spacetimes the traveller
cannot hasten reaching the destination. Nevertheless, it is perhaps possible
for him to make an arbitrarily long round-trip within an arbitrarily short
(from the point of view of a terrestrial observer) time.Comment: The final version, close to (but better than) what will be published
in Phys. Rev. D. The explanatory part is made more detaile
Quantum measurement and decoherence
Distribution functions defined in accord with the quantum theory of
measurement are combined with results obtained from the quantum Langevin
equation to discuss decoherence in quantum Brownian motion. Closed form
expressions for wave packet spreading and the attenuation of coherence of a
pair of wave packets are obtained. The results are exact within the context of
linear passive dissipation. It is shown that, contrary to widely accepted
current belief, decoherence can occur at high temperature in the absence of
dissipation. Expressions for the decoherence time with and without dissipation
are obtained that differ from those appearing in earlier discussions
A quantum weak energy inequality for the Dirac field in two-dimensional flat spacetime
Fewster and Mistry have given an explicit, non-optimal quantum weak energy
inequality that constrains the smeared energy density of Dirac fields in
Minkowski spacetime. Here, their argument is adapted to the case of flat,
two-dimensional spacetime. The non-optimal bound thereby obtained has the same
order of magnitude, in the limit of zero mass, as the optimal bound of Vollick.
In contrast with Vollick's bound, the bound presented here holds for all
(non-negative) values of the field mass.Comment: Version published in Classical and Quantum Gravity. 7 pages, 1 figur
Quantum Inequalities and Singular Energy Densities
There has been much recent work on quantum inequalities to constrain negative
energy. These are uncertainty principle-type restrictions on the magnitude and
duration of negative energy densities or fluxes. We consider several examples
of apparent failures of the quantum inequalities, which involve passage of an
observer through regions where the negative energy density becomes singular. We
argue that this type of situation requires one to formulate quantum
inequalities using sampling functions with compact support. We discuss such
inequalities, and argue that they remain valid even in the presence of singular
energy densities.Comment: 18 pages, LaTex, 2 figures, uses eps
Quantum field theory and time machines
We analyze the "F-locality condition" (proposed by Kay to be a mathematical
implementation of a philosophical bias related to the equivalence principle, we
call it the "GH-equivalence principle"), which is often used to build a
generalization of quantum field theory to non-globally hyperbolic spacetimes.
In particular we argue that the theorem proved by Kay, Radzikowski, and Wald to
the effect that time machines with compactly generated Cauchy horizons are
incompatible with the F-locality condition actually does not support the
"chronology protection conjecture", but rather testifies that the F-locality
condition must be modified or abandoned. We also show that this condition
imposes a severe restriction on the geometry of the world (it is just this
restriction that comes into conflict with the existence of a time machine),
which does not follow from the above mentioned philosophical bias. So, one need
not sacrifice the GH-equivalence principle to "emend" the F-locality condition.
As an example we consider a particular modification, the "MF-locality
condition". The theory obtained by replacing the F-locality condition with the
MF-locality condition possesses a few attractive features. One of them is that
it is consistent with both locality and the existence of time machines.Comment: Revtex, 14 pages, 1 .ps figure. To appear in Phys. Rev. D More
detailed discussion is given on the MF-locality condition. Minor corrections
in terminolog
Exponential Divergence and Long Time Relaxation in Chaotic Quantum Dynamics
Phase space representations of the dynamics of the quantal and classical cat
map are used to explore quantum--classical correspondence in a K-system: as
, the classical chaotic behavior is shown to emerge smoothly and
exactly. The quantum dynamics near the classical limit displays both
exponential separation of adjacent distributions and long time relaxation, two
characteristic features of classical chaotic motion.Comment: 10 pages, ReVTeX, to appear in Phys. Rev. Lett. 13 figures NOT
included. Available either as LARGE (uuencoded gzipped) postscript files or
hard-copies from [email protected]
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