Predictive protocol of flocks with small-world connection pattern

By introducing a predictive mechanism with small-world connections, we propose a new motion protocol for self-driven flocks. The small-world connections are implemented by randomly adding long-range interactions from the leader to a few distant agents, namely pseudo-leaders. The leader can directly affect the pseudo-leaders, thereby influencing all the other agents through them efficiently. Moreover, these pseudo-leaders are able to predict the leader's motion several steps ahead and use this information in decision making towards coherent flocking with more stable formation. It is shown that drastic improvement can be achieved in terms of both the consensus performance and the communication cost. From the industrial engineering point of view, the current protocol allows for a significant improvement in the cohesion and rigidity of the formation at a fairly low cost of adding a few long-range links embedded with predictive capabilities. Significantly, this work uncovers an important feature of flocks that predictive capability and long-range links can compensate for the insufficiency of each other. These conclusions are valid for both the attractive/repulsive swarm model and the Vicsek model.Comment: 10 pages, 12 figure

On the thermal conduction in tangled magnetic fields in clusters of galaxies

Thermal conduction in tangled magnetic fields is reduced because heat conducting electrons must travel along the field lines longer distances between hot and cold regions of space than if there were no fields. We consider the case when the tangled magnetic field has a weak homogeneous component. We examine two simple models for temperature in clusters of galaxies: a time-independent model and a time-dependent one. We find that the actual value of the effective thermal conductivity in tangled magnetic fields depends on how it is defined for a particular astrophysical problem. Our final conclusion is that the heat conduction never totally suppressed but is usually important in the central regions of galaxy clusters, and therefore, it should not be neglected.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figure

Note about a second "evidence" for a WIMP annual modulation

This note, with its five questions, is intended to contribute to a clarification about a claimed "evidence" by the DAMA group of an annual modulation of the counting rate of a Dark Matter NaI(Tl) detector as due to a neutralino (SUSY-LSP) Dark Matter candidate.Comment: LaTex, 3 pages, 2 figure

Maximum likelihood based estimation of frequency and phase offset in DCT OFDM systems under non-circular transmissions: algorithms, analysis and comparisons

Recently, the advantages of the discrete cosine transform (DCT) based orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) have come to the light. We thus consider DCT- OFDM with non-circular transmission (our results cover circular transmission as well) and present two blind joint maximum- likelihood frequency offset and phase offset estimators. Both our theoretical analysis and numerical comparisons reveal new advantages of DCT-OFDM over the traditional discrete Fourier transform (DFT) based OFDM. These advantages, as well as those already uncovered in the early works on DCT-OFDM, support the belief that DCT-OFDM is a promising multi-carrier modulation scheme

Ultrasensitive mechanical detection of magnetic moment using a commercial disk drive write head

Sensitive detection of weak magnetic moments is an essential capability in many areas of nanoscale science and technology, including nanomagnetism, quantum readout of spins, and nanoscale magnetic resonance imaging. Here, we show that the write head of a commercial hard drive may enable significant advances in nanoscale spin detection. By approaching a sharp diamond tip to within 5 nm from the pole and measuring the induced diamagnetic moment with a nanomechanical force transducer, we demonstrate a spin sensitivity of 0.032 Bohr magnetons per root Hz, equivalent to 21 proton magnetic moments. The high sensitivity is enabled in part by the pole's strong magnetic gradient of up to 28 million Tesla per meter and in part by the absence of non-contact friction due to the extremely flat writer surface. In addition, we demonstrate quantitative imaging of the pole field with about 10 nm spatial resolution. We foresee diverse applications for write heads in experimental condensed matter physics, especially in spintronics, ultrafast spin manipulation, and mesoscopic physics.Comment: 21 pages, 6 figure