14,584 research outputs found
Quantitative assessment of Earthās radiation belt modeling
The āQuantitative Assessment of Radiation Belt Modelingā focus group was in place at Geospace Environment Modeling from 2014 to 2018. The overarching goals of this focus group were to bring together the current stateāofātheāart models for the acceleration, transport, and loss processes in Earth's radiation belts; develop eventāspecific and global inputs of wave, plasma, and magnetic field to drive these models; and combine all these components to achieve a quantitative assessment of radiation belt modeling by validating against contemporary radiation belt measurements. This article briefly reviews the current understanding of radiation belt dynamics and related modeling efforts, summarizes the activities and accomplishments of the focus group, and discusses future directions.Accepted manuscrip
Quantitative assessment of radiation belt modeling
The āQuantitative Assessment of Radiation Belt Modelingā focus group was in place at Geospace Environment Modeling from 2014 to 2018. The overarching goals of this focus group were to bring together the current stateāofātheāart models for the acceleration, transport, and loss processes in Earth's radiation belts; develop eventāspecific and global inputs of wave, plasma, and magnetic field to drive these models; and combine all these components to achieve a quantitative assessment of radiation belt modeling by validating against contemporary radiation belt measurements. This article briefly reviews the current understanding of radiation belt dynamics and related modeling efforts, summarizes the activities and accomplishments of the focus group, and discusses future directions.Accepted manuscrip
Chorus acceleration of radiation belt relativistic electrons during March 2013 geomagnetic storm
Abstract The recent launching of Van Allen probes provides an unprecedent opportunity to investigate variations of the radiation belt relativistic electrons. During the 17-19 March 2013 storm, the Van Allen probes simultaneously detected strong chorus waves and substantial increases in fluxes of relativistic (2 - 4.5 MeV) electrons around L = 4.5. Chorus waves occurred within the lower band 0.1-0.5fce (theelectron equatorial gyrofrequency), with a peak spectral density ā¼10-4 nT 2/Hz. Correspondingly, relativistic electron fluxes increased by a factor of 102-103 during the recovery phase compared to the main phase levels. By means of a Gaussian fit to the observed chorus spectra, the drift and bounce-averaged diffusion coefficients are calculated and then used to solve a 2-D Fokker-Planck diffusion equation. Numerical simulations demonstrate that the lower-band chorus waves indeed produce such huge enhancements in relativistic electron fluxes within 15 h, fitting well with the observation. Key Points Initial RBSP correlated data of chorus waves and relativistic electron fluxes A realistic simulation to examine effect of chorus on relativistic electron flux Chorus yields huge increases inelectron flux rapidly, consistent with data
Improved red-response in thin film a-Si:H solar cells with soft-imprinted plasmonic back reflectors
The impact of controlled nanopatterning on the Ag back contact of an n-i-p a-Si:H solar cell was investigated experimentally and through electromagnetic simulation. Compared to a similar reference cell with a flat back contact, we demonstrate an efficiency increase from 4.5% to 6.2%, with a 26% increase in short circuit current density. Spectral response measurements show the majority of the improvement between 600 and 800 nm, with no reduction in photocurrent at wavelengths shorter than 600 nm. Optimization of the pattern aspect ratio using electromagnetic simulation predicts absorption enhancements over 50% at 660 nm
Discovery of an optical counterpart to the hyperluminous X-ray source in ESO 243-49
The existence of black holes of masses ~ 10^2-10^5 Msun has important
implications for the formation and evolution of star clusters and supermassive
black holes. One of the strongest candidates to date is the hyperluminous X-ray
source HLX1, possibly located in the S0-a galaxy ESO243-49, but the lack of an
identifiable optical counterpart had hampered its interpretation. Using the
Magellan telescope, we have discovered an unresolved optical source with R =
(23.80 +/- 0.25) mag and V = (24.5 +/- 0.3) mag within HLX1's positional error
circle. This implies an average X-ray/optical flux ratio ~ 500. Taking the same
distance as ESO243-49, we obtain an intrinsic brightness M_R = (-11.0 +/- 0.3)
mag, comparable to that of a massive globular cluster. Alternatively, the
optical source is consistent with a main-sequence M star in the Galactic halo
(for example an M4.4 star at ~ 2.5 kpc). We also examined the properties of
ESO243-49 by combining Swift/UVOT observations with stellar population
modelling. We found that the overall emission is dominated by a ~5 Gyr old
stellar population, but the UV emission at ~2000 Ang is mostly due to ongoing
star-formation at a rate of ~ 0.03 Msun/yr. The UV emission is more intense (at
least a 9-sigma enhancement above the mean) North East of the nucleus, in the
same quadrant as HLX1. With the combined optical and X-ray measurements, we put
constraints on the nature of HLX1. We rule out a foreground star and a
background AGN. Two alternative scenarios are still viable. HLX1 could be an
accreting intermediate-mass black hole in a star cluster, which may itself be
the stripped nucleus of a dwarf galaxy that passed through ESO243-49, an event
which might have caused the current episode of star formation. Or, it could be
a neutron star in the Galactic halo, accreting from an M4-M5 donor star.Comment: 7 pages, accepted by MNRAS. Several improvements from Oct 7 version:
stronger evidence of the optical counterpart; more accurate estimate of its
brightness (a factor of 2 brighter than previously estimated); use of a
larger set of Swift/UVOT data to measure the recent star formation rate in
ESO243-49; improved discussion and comparison of the competing scenario
Performance and structure of single-mode bosonic codes
The early Gottesman, Kitaev, and Preskill (GKP) proposal for encoding a qubit
in an oscillator has recently been followed by cat- and binomial-code
proposals. Numerically optimized codes have also been proposed, and we
introduce new codes of this type here. These codes have yet to be compared
using the same error model; we provide such a comparison by determining the
entanglement fidelity of all codes with respect to the bosonic pure-loss
channel (i.e., photon loss) after the optimal recovery operation. We then
compare achievable communication rates of the combined encoding-error-recovery
channel by calculating the channel's hashing bound for each code. Cat and
binomial codes perform similarly, with binomial codes outperforming cat codes
at small loss rates. Despite not being designed to protect against the
pure-loss channel, GKP codes significantly outperform all other codes for most
values of the loss rate. We show that the performance of GKP and some binomial
codes increases monotonically with increasing average photon number of the
codes. In order to corroborate our numerical evidence of the cat/binomial/GKP
order of performance occurring at small loss rates, we analytically evaluate
the quantum error-correction conditions of those codes. For GKP codes, we find
an essential singularity in the entanglement fidelity in the limit of vanishing
loss rate. In addition to comparing the codes, we draw parallels between
binomial codes and discrete-variable systems. First, we characterize one- and
two-mode binomial as well as multi-qubit permutation-invariant codes in terms
of spin-coherent states. Such a characterization allows us to introduce check
operators and error-correction procedures for binomial codes. Second, we
introduce a generalization of spin-coherent states, extending our
characterization to qudit binomial codes and yielding a new multi-qudit code.Comment: 34 pages, 11 figures, 4 tables. v3: published version. See related
talk at https://absuploads.aps.org/presentation.cfm?pid=1351
Coarse-graining of cellular automata, emergence, and the predictability of complex systems
We study the predictability of emergent phenomena in complex systems. Using
nearest neighbor, one-dimensional Cellular Automata (CA) as an example, we show
how to construct local coarse-grained descriptions of CA in all classes of
Wolfram's classification. The resulting coarse-grained CA that we construct are
capable of emulating the large-scale behavior of the original systems without
accounting for small-scale details. Several CA that can be coarse-grained by
this construction are known to be universal Turing machines; they can emulate
any CA or other computing devices and are therefore undecidable. We thus show
that because in practice one only seeks coarse-grained information, complex
physical systems can be predictable and even decidable at some level of
description. The renormalization group flows that we construct induce a
hierarchy of CA rules. This hierarchy agrees well with apparent rule complexity
and is therefore a good candidate for a complexity measure and a classification
method. Finally we argue that the large scale dynamics of CA can be very
simple, at least when measured by the Kolmogorov complexity of the large scale
update rule, and moreover exhibits a novel scaling law. We show that because of
this large-scale simplicity, the probability of finding a coarse-grained
description of CA approaches unity as one goes to increasingly coarser scales.
We interpret this large scale simplicity as a pattern formation mechanism in
which large scale patterns are forced upon the system by the simplicity of the
rules that govern the large scale dynamics.Comment: 18 pages, 9 figure
GALEX, Optical and IR Light Curves of MQ Dra: UV Excesses at Low Accretion Rates
Ultraviolet light curves constructed from NUV and FUV detectors on GALEX
reveal large amplitude variations during the orbital period of the Low
Accretion Rate Polar MQ Dra (SDSSJ1553+55). This unexpected variation from a UV
source is similar to that seen and discussed in the Polar EF Eri during its low
state of accretion, even though the accretion rate in MQ Dra is an order of
magnitude lower than even the low state of EF Eri. The similarity in phasing of
the UV and optical light curves in MQ Dra imply a similar location for the
source of light. We explore the possibilities of hot spots and cyclotron
emission with simple models fit to the UV, optical and IR light curves of MQ
Dra. To match the GALEX light curves with a single temperature circular hot
spot requires different sizes of spots for the NUV and FUV, while a cyclotron
model that can produce the optical harmonics with a magnetic field near 60 MG
requires multipoles with fields > 200 MG to match the UV fluxes.Comment: accepted for ApJ; 15 pages, 7 tables, 8 fig
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