Results of expert judgments on the faults and risks with Autosub3 and an analysis of its campaign to Pine Island Bay, Antarctica, 2009

Probabilistic risk assessment is a methodology that can be systematically applied to estimate the risk associated with the design and operation of complex systems. The National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, UK has developed a risk management process tailored to the operation of autonomous underwater vehicles. Central to the application of the risk management process is a probabilistic risk assessment. The risk management process was applied to estimate the risk associated with an Autosub3 science campaign in the Pine Island Glacier, Antarctica, and to support decision making. The campaign was successful. In this paper we present the Autosub3 risk model and we show how this model was used to assess the campaign risk

Orbit based procedure for doublets of scalar fields and the emergence of triple kinks and other defects

In this work we offer an approach to enlarge the number of exactly solvable models with two real scalar fields in (1+1)D. We build some new two-field models, and obtain their exact orbits and exact or numerical field configurations. It is noteworthy that a model presenting triple-kinks and double-flat-top lumps is among those new models

Efficient evaluation of decoherence rates in complex Josephson circuits

A complete analysis of the decoherence properties of a Josephson junction qubit is presented. The qubit is of the flux type and consists of two large loops forming a gradiometer and one small loop, and three Josephson junctions. The contributions to relaxation (T_1) and dephasing (T_\phi) arising from two different control circuits, one coupled to the small loop and one coupled to a large loop, is computed. We use a complete, quantitative description of the inductances and capacitances of the circuit. Including two stray capacitances makes the quantum mechanical modeling of the system five dimensional. We develop a general Born-Oppenheimer approximation to reduce the effective dimensionality in the calculation to one. We explore T_1 and T_\phi along an optimal line in the space of applied fluxes; along this "S line" we see significant and rapidly varying contributions to the decoherence parameters, primarily from the circuit coupling to the large loop.Comment: 16 pages, 20 figures; v2: minor revisio

The entropy of the noncommutative acoustic black hole based on generalized uncertainty principle

In this paper we investigate statistical entropy of a 3-dimensional rotating acoustic black hole based on generalized uncertainty principle. In our results we obtain an area entropy and a correction term associated with the noncommutative acoustic black hole when $\lambda$ introduced in the generalized uncertainty principle takes a specific value. However, in this method, it is not needed to introduce the ultraviolet cut-off and divergences are eliminated. Moreover, the small mass approximation is not necessary in the original brick-wall model.Comment: 9 pages, no figures; version to appear in PLB. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1210.773