Investigating controls on salt movement in extensional settings using finite-element modelling

Salt structures present numerous challenges for targeting reservoirs. Salt movement within the subsurface can follow complex pathways, producing deformation patterns in surrounding strata which are often difficult to decipher. Consequently, the relative role of key salt-flow drivers and geological sensitivities on salt-structure evolution are often poorly understood. To address this, we have developed 2D geomechanical models using the finite-element method to simulate salt diapir and pillow development in two extensional tectonic settings. We conducted model sensitivity analyses to examine the influence of geological parameters on field-scale salt structures and their corresponding deformation pattern. Modelled diapirs developing in thin-skinned extensional settings closely resemble published analogue experiments; however, active and passive stages of diapir growth are seldom or never reached, respectively, thus challenging existing ideas that diapir evolution is dominated by passive growth. In all modelled cases, highly strained domains bound the diapir flanks where extensive small-scale faulting and fracturing can be expected. Asymmetrical diapirs are prone to flank collapse and are observed in models with fast extension or sedimentation rates, thin roof sections or salt layers, or initially short or triangular-shaped diapirs. In modelled thick-skinned extensional settings, salt pillows and suprasalt overburden faults can be laterally offset (decoupled) from a reactivating basement fault. This decoupling increases with increased salt-layer thickness, overburden thickness, sedimentation rate and fault angle, and decreased fault slip rates. Contrary to existing consensus, overburden grounding onto the basement fault scarp does not appear to halt development of salt structures above the footwall basement block

A Deontic Logic Analysis of Autonomous Systems' Safety

We consider the pressing question of how to model, verify, and ensure that autonomous systems meet certain \textit{obligations} (like the obligation to respect traffic laws), and refrain from impermissible behavior (like recklessly changing lanes). Temporal logics are heavily used in autonomous system design; however, as we illustrate here, temporal (alethic) logics alone are inappropriate for reasoning about obligations of autonomous systems. This paper proposes the use of Dominance Act Utilitarianism (DAU), a deontic logic of agency, to encode and reason about obligations of autonomous systems. We use DAU to analyze Intel's Responsibility-Sensitive Safety (RSS) proposal as a real-world case study. We demonstrate that DAU can express well-posed RSS rules, formally derive undesirable consequences of these rules, illustrate how DAU could help design systems that have specific obligations, and how to model-check DAU obligations.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures, In 23rd ACM International Conference on Hybrid Systems: Computation and Contro

On the nature of continuous physical quantities in classical and quantum mechanics

Within the traditional Hilbert space formalism of quantum mechanics, it is not possible to describe a particle as possessing, simultaneously, a sharp position value and a sharp momentum value. Is it possible, though, to describe a particle as possessing just a sharp position value (or just a sharp momentum value)? Some, such as Teller (Journal of Philosophy, 1979), have thought that the answer to this question is No -- that the status of individual continuous quantities is very different in quantum mechanics than in classical mechanics. On the contrary, I shall show that the same subtle issues arise with respect to continuous quantities in classical and quantum mechanics; and that it is, after all, possible to describe a particle as possessing a sharp position value without altering the standard formalism of quantum mechanics.Comment: 26 pages, LaTe

Where would we be without counterfactuals?

Huw Price gives his inaugural lecture as Bertrand Russell Professor of Philosophy. Bertrand Russell’s celebrated essay “On the Notion of Cause” was first delivered to the Aristotelian Society on 4 November 1912, as Russell’s Presidential Address. The piece is best known for a passage in which its author deftly positions himself between the traditional metaphysics of causation and the British crown, firing broadsides in both directions: “The law of causality”, Russell declares, “Like much that passes muster in philosophy, is a relic of a bygone age, surviving, like the monarchy, only because it is erroneously supposed to do no harm.” To mark the lecture’s centenary, we offer a contemporary view of the issues Russell here puts on the table, and of the health or otherwise, at the end of the essay’s first century, of his notorious conclusion

Reconfigurable Nanophotonic Cavities with Nonvolatile Response

 This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from American Chemical Society via the DOI in this recordThe use of phase-change materials on waveguide photonics is presently being purported for a range of applications from on-chip photonic data storage to new computing paradigms. Photonic integrated circuits in combination with phase-change materials provide on-chip control handles, featuring nonvolatility and operation speeds down to the nano- and picosecond regime. Besides ultrafast control, efficient operation of nonvolatile elements is crucial and requires compact photonic designs. Here we embed phase-change materials in photonic crystal cavities to realize tunable nanophotonic devices which can be reconfigured on demand. The devices exploit strong light matter interactions between the resonant modes of the cavity and the evanescently coupled phase-change material cell. This results in an increased transmission contrast and a power reduction of 520% over conventional phase-change nanophotonic devices when reversibly switched with optical pulses. Such designs can thus open up new areas of reconfigurable nanophotonics without sacrificing the speeds or functionality for applications in optical memory cells, optical switches, and tunable wavelength filters.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)European Research CouncilEuropean Union Horizon 202

A Decidable Multi-agent Logic for Reasoning About Actions, Instruments, and Norms

We formally introduce a novel, yet ubiquitous, category of norms: norms of instrumentality. Norms of this category describe which actions are obligatory, or prohibited, as instruments for certain purposes. We propose the Logic of Agency and Norms (LAN) that enables reasoning about actions, instrumentality, and normative principles in a multi-agent setting. Leveraging LAN , we formalize norms of instrumentality and compare them to two prevalent norm categories: norms to be and norms to do. Last, we pose principles relating the three categories and evaluate their validity vis-à-vis notions of deliberative acting. On a technical note, the logic will be shown decidable via the finite model property

KiDS-1000: Constraints on the intrinsic alignment of luminous red galaxies

We constrain the luminosity and redshift dependence of the intrinsic alignment (IA) of a nearly volume-limited sample of luminous red galaxies selected from the fourth public data release of the Kilo-Degree Survey (KiDS-1000). To measure the shapes of the galaxies, we used two complementary algorithms, finding consistent IA measurements for the overlapping galaxy sample. The global significance of IA detection across our two independent luminous red galaxy samples, with our favoured method of shape estimation, is ∼10.7σ. We find no significant dependence with redshift of the IA signal in the range 0.2 < z < 0.8, nor a dependence with luminosity below Lr ≲ 2.9 × 1010 h−2Lr, ⊙. Above this luminosity, however, we find that the IA signal increases as a power law, although our results are also compatible with linear growth within the current uncertainties. This behaviour motivates the use of a broken power law model when accounting for the luminosity dependence of IA contamination in cosmic shear studies