Transport properties of a two-dimensional electron liquid at high magnetic field

The chiral Luttinger liquid model for the edge dynamics of a two-dimensional electron gas in a strong magnetic field is derived from coarse-graining and a lowest Landau level projection procedure at arbitrary filling factors $\nu<1$ -- without reference to the quantum Hall effect. Based on this model, we develop a formalism to calculate the Landauer-B\"uttiker conductances in generic experimental set-ups including multiple leads and voltage probes. In the absence of tunneling between the edges the "ideal" Hall conductances ($G_{ij}= \frac{e^2 \nu}{h}$ if lead $j$ is immediately upstream of lead $i$, and $G_{ij}=0$ otherwise) are recovered. Tunneling of quasiparticles of fractional charge $e^*$ between different edges is then included as an additional term in the Hamiltonian. In the limit of weak tunneling we obtain explicit expressions for the corrections to the ideal conductances. As an illustration of the formalism we compute the current- and temperature-dependent resistance $R_{xx}(I,T)$ of a quantum point contact localized at the center of a gate-induced constriction in a quantum Hall bar. The exponent $\alpha$ in the low-current relation $R_{xx}(I,0) \sim I^{\alpha -2}$ shows a nontrivial dependence on the strength of the inter-edge interaction, and its value changes as $e^*V_H$, where $V_H = \frac{h I}{\nu e^2}$ is the Hall voltage, falls below a characteristic crossover energy $\frac{\hbar c}{d}$, where $c$ is the edge wave velocity and $d$ is the length of the constriction. The consequences of this crossover are discussed vis-a-vis recent experiments in the weak tunneling regime.Comment: 20 pages, 8 figures, Revtex4, adjourned with referee's comments, added references and typos correcte

Improved spectral descriptions of planetary nebulae central stars

Context. At least 492 central stars of Galactic planetary nebulae (CSPNs) have been assigned spectral types. Since many CSPNs are faint, these classification efforts are frequently made at low spectral resolution. However, the stellar Balmer absorption lines are contaminated with nebular emission; therefore in many cases a low-resolution spectrum does not enable the determination of the H abundance in the CSPN photosphere. Whether or not the photosphere is H deficient is arguably the most important fact we should expect to extract from the CSPN spectrum, and should be the basis for an adequate spectral classification system. Aims. Our purpose is to provide accurate spectral classifications and contribute to the knowledge of central stars of planetary nebulae and stellar evolution. Methods. We have obtained and studied higher quality spectra of CSPNs described in the literature as weak emission-line star (WELS). We provide descriptions of 19 CSPN spectra. These stars had been previously classified at low spectral resolution. We used medium-resolution spectra taken with the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS). We provide spectral types in the Morgan-Keenan (MK) system whenever possible. Results. Twelve stars in our sample appear to have normal H rich photospheric abundances, and five stars remain unclassified. The rest (two) are most probably H deficient. Of all central stars described by other authors as WELS, we find that at least 26% of them are, in fact, H rich O stars, and at least 3% are H deficient. This supports the suggestion that the denomination WELS should not be taken as a spectral type, because, as a WELS based on low-resolution spectra, it cannot provide enough information about the photospheric H abundance.Comment: Accepted to be published in the A&

"May I borrow Your Filter?" Exchanging Filters to Combat Spam in a Community

Leveraging social networks in computer systems can be effective in dealing with a number of trust and security issues. Spam is one such issue where the "wisdom of crowds" can be harnessed by mining the collective knowledge of ordinary individuals. In this paper, we present a mechanism through which members of a virtual community can exchange information to combat spam. Previous attempts at collaborative spam filtering have concentrated on digest-based indexing techniques to share digests or fingerprints of emails that are known to be spam. We take a different approach and allow users to share their spam filters instead, thus dramatically reducing the amount of traffic generated in the network. The resultant diversity in the filters and cooperation in a community allows it to respond to spam in an autonomic fashion. As a test case for exchanging filters we use the popular SpamAssassin spam filtering software and show that exchanging spam filters provides an alternative method to improve spam filtering performance

Covariant Sectors with Infinite Dimension and Positivity of the Energy

We consider a Moebius covariant sector, possibly with infinite dimension, of a local conformal net of von Neumann algebras on the circle. If the sector has finite index, it has automatically positive energy. In the infinite index case, we show the spectrum of the energy always to contain the positive real line, but, as seen by an example, it may contain negative values. We then consider nets with Haag duality on the real line, or equivalently sectors with non-solitonic extension to the dual net; we give a criterion for irreducible sectors to have positive energy, namely this is the case iff there exists an unbounded Moebius covariant left inverse. As a consequence the class of sectors with positive energy is stable under composition, conjugation and direct integral decomposition.Comment: 25 pages, Latex2

A physically-based approach for evaluating the hydraulic invariance in urban transformations

Transformation of urban areas satisfies hydraulic invariance (HI) if the maximum flow rate outgoing the area stays unchanged. The HI can be respected by dimensioning appropriate water storage volumes or low impact developments (LID) to balance the soil sealing and ground levelling effects. In order to comply with HI, some Italian regional legislation and river basin authority provide for the creation of storage tanks whose volume must be estimated through simple conceptual rainfallrunoff models. In this work a physically based approach for evaluating HI is proposed. It is based on interpolating the results from a large number of hydraulic simulations conducted using FullSWOF, which is an open source code developed by the University of Orléans. In this software the shallow water equations are solved using a finite volume scheme and friction laws and infiltration models are included. Simulations have been carried out considering the effect of three properties of the area, that is: the saturated hydraulic conductivity of soil, the slope of ground surface and the standard deviation of ground elevation around the mean level. Using the results, interpolating laws for the peak discharge and the critical rainfall duration as function of the three basin parameters have been derived. A parametric hydrograph as a function of the basin parameters and rainfall duration is defined and a HI evaluation method based on routing the parametric hydrograph is proposed. The results from this approach have been compared with those from non-physically based methods currently used, such as the direct rainfall approach and the linear reservoir approach. The comparison shows that the difference between these conceptual methods with that one proposed here is strongly dependent on the runoff coefficient value. It is also not possible to predict whether they are conservative or not