Oblique Shock Breakout in Supernovae and Gamma-Ray Bursts: II. Numerical Solutions For Non-Relativistic Pattern Speeds

Non-spherical explosions develop non-radial flows as the pattern of shock emergence progresses across the stellar surface. In supernovae these flows can limit ejecta speeds, stifle shock breakout emission, and cause collisions outside the star. Similar phenomena occur in stellar and planetary collisions, tidal disruption events, accretion-induced collapses, and propagating detonations. We present two-dimensional, nested-grid Athena simulations of non-radial shock emergence in a frame comoving with the breakout pattern, focusing on the adiabatic, non-relativistic limit in a plane stratified envelope. We set boundary conditions using a known self-similar solution and explore the role of box size and resolution on the result. The shock front curves toward the stellar surface, and exhibits a kink from which weak discontinuities originate. Flow around the point of shock emergence is neither perfectly steady nor self-similar. Waves and vortices, which are not predominantly due to grid effects, emanate from this region. The post-shock flow is deflected along the stellar surface, and its pressure disturbs the stellar atmosphere upstream of the emerging shock. We use the numerical results and their analytical limits to predict the effects of radiation transfer and gravity, which are not included in our simulations.Comment: 15 pages, 12 figures, submitted to Ap

Recombination Algorithms and Jet Substructure: Pruning as a Tool for Heavy Particle Searches

We discuss jet substructure in recombination algorithms for QCD jets and single jets from heavy particle decays. We demonstrate that the jet algorithm can introduce significant systematic effects into the substructure. By characterizing these systematic effects and the substructure from QCD, splash-in, and heavy particle decays, we identify a technique, pruning, to better identify heavy particle decays into single jets and distinguish them from QCD jets. Pruning removes protojets typical of soft, wide angle radiation, improves the mass resolution of jets reconstructing a heavy particle decay, and decreases the QCD background. We show that pruning provides significant improvements over unpruned jets in identifying top quarks and W bosons and separating them from a QCD background, and may be useful in a search for heavy particles.Comment: 33 pages, 42 figure

Tailored codes for small quantum memories

We demonstrate that small quantum memories, realized via quantum error correction in multi-qubit devices, can benefit substantially by choosing a quantum code that is tailored to the relevant error model of the system. For a biased noise model, with independent bit and phase flips occurring at different rates, we show that a single code greatly outperforms the well-studied Steane code across the full range of parameters of the noise model, including for unbiased noise. In fact, this tailored code performs almost optimally when compared with 10,000 randomly selected stabilizer codes of comparable experimental complexity. Tailored codes can even outperform the Steane code with realistic experimental noise, and without any increase in the experimental complexity, as we demonstrate by comparison in the observed error model in a recent 7-qubit trapped ion experiment.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, supplementary material; v2 published versio

Integrated support structure

This Major Qualifying Project is part of the Advanced Space Design Program at WPI. The goal is to design a support structure for a NASA GetAway Special experimental canister. The payload integration, weight, volume, and structural integrity of the canister as specified by NASA guidelines were studied. The end result is a complete set of design drawings with interface drawings and data to specify the design and leave a base on which the next group can concentrate

Windows into Non-Euclidean Spaces

Two microlens arrays that are separated by the sum of their focal lengths form arrays of micro-telescopes. Parallel light rays that pass through corresponding lenses remain parallel, but the direction of the transmitted light rays is different. This remains true if corresponding lenses do not share an optical axis (i.e. if the two microlens arrays are shifted with respect to each other). The arrays described above are examples of generalized confocal lenslet arrays, and the light-ray-direction change in these devices is well understood [Oxburgh et al., Opt. Commun. 313, 119 (2014)]. Here we show that such micro-telescope arrays change light-ray direction like the interface between spaces with different metrics. To physicists, the concept of metrics is perhaps most familiar from General Relativity (where it is applied to spacetime, not only space, like it is here) and Transformation Optics [Pendry et al., Science 312, 1780 (2006)], where different materials are treated like spaces with different optical metrics. We illustrate the similarities between micro-telescope arrays and metric interfaces with raytracing simulations. Our results suggest the possibility of realising transformation-optics devices with micro-telescope arrays, which we investigate elsewhere

Toward a Viable Strategy for Estimating Vibrothermographic Probability of Detection

Vibrothermography is a technique for finding cracks and delaminations through infrared imaging of vibration‐induced heating. While vibrothermography has shown remarkable promise, it has been plagued by persistent questions about its reproducibility and reliability. Fundamentally, the crack heating is caused by the vibration, and therefore to understand the heating process we must first understand the vibration process. We lay out the problem and begin the first steps toward relating detectability to the local motion around a crack as well as the crack size. A particular mode, the third‐order free‐free flexural resonance, turns out to be particularly insensitive to the presence of clamping and transducer contact. When this mode is excited in a simple bar geometry the motions of the part follow theoretical calculations quite closely, and a single point laser vibrometer measurement is sufficient to evaluate the motion everywhere. Simple calculations estimate stress and strain anywhere in the bar, and these can then be related to observed crack heating

Tailoring surface codes for highly biased noise

The surface code, with a simple modification, exhibits ultra-high error correction thresholds when the noise is biased towards dephasing. Here, we identify features of the surface code responsible for these ultra-high thresholds. We provide strong evidence that the threshold error rate of the surface code tracks the hashing bound exactly for all biases, and show how to exploit these features to achieve significant improvement in logical failure rate. First, we consider the infinite bias limit, meaning pure dephasing. We prove that the error threshold of the modified surface code for pure dephasing noise is $50\%$, i.e., that all qubits are fully dephased, and this threshold can be achieved by a polynomial time decoding algorithm. We demonstrate that the sub-threshold behavior of the code depends critically on the precise shape and boundary conditions of the code. That is, for rectangular surface codes with standard rough/smooth open boundaries, it is controlled by the parameter $g=\gcd(j,k)$, where $j$ and $k$ are dimensions of the surface code lattice. We demonstrate a significant improvement in logical failure rate with pure dephasing for co-prime codes that have $g=1$, and closely-related rotated codes, which have a modified boundary. The effect is dramatic: the same logical failure rate achievable with a square surface code and $n$ physical qubits can be obtained with a co-prime or rotated surface code using only $O(\sqrt{n})$ physical qubits. Finally, we use approximate maximum likelihood decoding to demonstrate that this improvement persists for a general Pauli noise biased towards dephasing. In particular, comparing with a square surface code, we observe a significant improvement in logical failure rate against biased noise using a rotated surface code with approximately half the number of physical qubits.Comment: 18+4 pages, 24 figures; v2 includes additional coauthor (ASD) and new results on the performance of surface codes in the finite-bias regime, obtained with beveled surface codes and an improved tensor network decoder; v3 published versio

Sher 25: pulsating but apparently alone

The blue supergiant Sher25 is surrounded by an asymmetric, hourglass-shaped circumstellar nebula, which shows similarities to the triple-ring structure seen around SN1987A. From optical spectroscopy over six consecutive nights, we detect periodic radial velocity variations in the stellar spectrum of Sher25 with a peak-to-peak amplitude of ~12 km/s on a timescale of about 6 days, confirming the tentative detec-tion of similar variations by Hendry et al. From consideration of the amplitude and timescale of the signal, coupled with observed line profile variations, we propose that the physical origin of these variations is related to pulsations in the stellar atmosphere, rejecting the previous hypothesis of a massive, short-period binary companion. The radial velocities of two other blue supergiants with similar bipolar nebulae, SBW1 and HD 168625, were also monitored over the course of six nights, but these did not display any significant radial velocity variations.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRA