4,398 research outputs found
Potential impacts of advanced technologies on the ATC capacity of high-density terminal areas
Advanced technologies for airborne systems (automatic flight control, flight displays, navigation) and for ground ATC systems (digital communications, improved surveillance and tracking, automated decision-making) create the possibility of advanced ATC operations and procedures which can bring increased capacity for runway systems. A systematic analysis is carried out to identify certain such advanced ATC operations, and then to evaluate the potential benefits occurring over time at typical US high-density airports (Denver and Boston). The study is divided into three parts: (1) A Critical Examination of Factors Which Determine Operational Capacity of Runway Systems at Major Airports, is an intensive review of current US separation criteria and terminal area ATC operations. It identifies 11 new methods to increase the capacity of landings and takeoffs for runway systems; (2) Development of Risk Based Separation Criteria is the development of a rational structure for establishing reduced ATC separation criteria which meet a consistent Target Level of Safety using advanced technology and operational procedures; and (3) Estimation of Capacity Benefits from Advanced Terminal Area Operations - Denver and Boston, provides an estimate of the overall annual improvement in runway capacity which might be expected at Denver and Boston from using some of the advanced ATC procedures developed in Part 1. Whereas Boston achieved a substantial 37% increase, Denver only achieved a 4.7% increase in its overall annual capacity
Tropical Pacific spatial trend patterns in observed sea level: internal variability and/or anthropogenic signature?
In this study we focus on the sea level trend pattern observed by satellite altimetry in the tropical Pacific over the 1993–2009 time span (i.e. 17 yr). Our objective is to investigate whether this 17-yr-long trend pattern was different before the altimetry era, what was its spatio-temporal variability and what have been its main drivers. We try to discriminate the respective roles of the internal variability of the climate system and of external forcing factors, in particular anthropogenic emissions (greenhouse gases and aerosols). On the basis of a 2-D past sea level reconstruction over 1950–2009 (based on a combination of observations and ocean modelling) and multi-century control runs (i.e. with constant, preindustrial external forcing) from eight coupled climate models, we have investigated how the observed 17-yr sea level trend pattern evolved during the last decades and centuries, and try to estimate the characteristic time scales of its variability. For that purpose, we have computed sea level trend patterns over successive 17-yr windows (i.e. the length of the altimetry record), both for the 60-yr long reconstructed sea level and the model runs. We find that the 2-D sea level reconstruction shows spatial trend patterns similar to the one observed during the altimetry era. The pattern appears to have fluctuated with time with a characteristic time scale of the order of 25–30 yr. The same behaviour is found in multi-centennial control runs of the coupled climate models. A similar analysis is performed with 20th century coupled climate model runs with complete external forcing (i.e. solar plus volcanic variability and changes in anthropogenic forcing). Results suggest that in the tropical Pacific, sea level trend fluctuations are dominated by the internal variability of the ocean–atmosphere coupled system. While our analysis cannot rule out any influence of anthropogenic forcing, it concludes that the latter effect in that particular region is stillhardly detectable
Particles and energy fluxes from a CFT perspective
We analyze the creation of particles in two dimensions under the action of
conformal transformations. We focus our attention on Mobius transformations and
compare the usual approach, based on the Bogolubov coefficients, with an
alternative but equivalent viewpoint based on correlation functions. In the
latter approach the absence of particle production under full Mobius
transformations is manifest. Moreover, we give examples, using the
moving-mirror analogy, to illustrate the close relation between the production
of quanta and energy.Comment: Revised version. To appear in Phys.Rev.
Status of neutrino oscillations 2018: first hint for normal mass ordering and improved CP sensitivity
We present a new global fit of neutrino oscillation parameters within the
simplest three-neutrino picture, including new data which appeared since our
previous analysis~\cite{Forero:2014bxa}. In this update we include new
long-baseline neutrino data involving the antineutrino channel in T2K, as well
as new data in the neutrino channel, data from NOA, as well as new reactor
data, such as the Daya Bay 1230 days electron antineutrino disappearance
spectrum data and the 1500 live days prompt spectrum from RENO, as well as new
Double Chooz data. We also include atmospheric neutrino data from the IceCube
DeepCore and ANTARES neutrino telescopes and from Super-Kamiokande. Finally, we
also update our solar oscillation analysis by including the 2055-day day/night
spectrum from the fourth phase of the Super-Kamiokande experiment. With the new
data we find a preference for the atmospheric angle in the upper octant for
both neutrino mass orderings, with maximal mixing allowed at for normal (inverted) ordering. We also obtain a strong
preference for values of the CP phase in the range ,
excluding values close to at more than 4. More remarkably, our
global analysis shows for the first time hints in favour of the normal mass
ordering over the inverted one at more than 3. We discuss in detail the
origin of the mass ordering, CP violation and octant sensitivities, analyzing
the interplay among the different neutrino data samples.Comment: Updated neutrino oscillation analysis using the most recent results
from T2K, NOA, RENO and Super-Kamiokande. 17 pages, 8 figures, 1 tabl
A Planck-like problem for quantum charged black holes
Motivated by the parallelism existing between the puzzles of classical
physics at the beginning of the XXth century and the current paradoxes in the
search of a quantum theory of gravity, we give, in analogy with Planck's black
body radiation problem, a solution for the exact Hawking flux of evaporating
Reissner-Nordstrom black holes. Our results show that when back-reaction
effects are fully taken into account the standard picture of black hole
evaporation is significantly altered, thus implying a possible resolution of
the information loss problem.Comment: 6 pages, LaTeX file, Awarded Fifth Prize in the Gravity Research
Foundation Essay Competition for 200
Exact Finite-Size-Scaling Corrections to the Critical Two-Dimensional Ising Model on a Torus
We analyze the finite-size corrections to the energy and specific heat of the
critical two-dimensional spin-1/2 Ising model on a torus. We extend the
analysis of Ferdinand and Fisher to compute the correction of order L^{-3} to
the energy and the corrections of order L^{-2} and L^{-3} to the specific heat.
We also obtain general results on the form of the finite-size corrections to
these quantities: only integer powers of L^{-1} occur, unmodified by logarithms
(except of course for the leading term in the specific heat); and the
energy expansion contains only odd powers of L^{-1}. In the specific-heat
expansion any power of L^{-1} can appear, but the coefficients of the odd
powers are proportional to the corresponding coefficients of the energy
expansion.Comment: 26 pages (LaTeX). Self-unpacking file containing the tex file and
three macros (indent.sty, eqsection.sty, subeqnarray.sty). Added discussions
on the results and new references. Version to be published in J. Phys.
Stage-specific histone modification profiles reveal global transitions in the Xenopus embryonic epigenome.
Vertebrate embryos are derived from a transitory pool of pluripotent cells. By the process of embryonic induction, these precursor cells are assigned to specific fates and differentiation programs. Histone post-translational modifications are thought to play a key role in the establishment and maintenance of stable gene expression patterns underlying these processes. While on gene level histone modifications are known to change during differentiation, very little is known about the quantitative fluctuations in bulk histone modifications during development. To investigate this issue we analysed histones isolated from four different developmental stages of Xenopus laevis by mass spectrometry. In toto, we quantified 59 modification states on core histones H3 and H4 from blastula to tadpole stages. During this developmental period, we observed in general an increase in the unmodified states, and a shift from histone modifications associated with transcriptional activity to transcriptionally repressive histone marks. We also compared these naturally occurring patterns with the histone modifications of murine ES cells, detecting large differences in the methylation patterns of histone H3 lysines 27 and 36 between pluripotent ES cells and pluripotent cells from Xenopus blastulae. By combining all detected modification transitions we could cluster their patterns according to their embryonic origin, defining specific histone modification profiles (HMPs) for each developmental stage. To our knowledge, this data set represents the first compendium of covalent histone modifications and their quantitative flux during normogenesis in a vertebrate model organism. The HMPs indicate a stepwise maturation of the embryonic epigenome, which may be causal to the progressing restriction of cellular potency during development
Numerical simulation of information recovery in quantum computers
Decoherence is the main problem to be solved before quantum computers can be
built. To control decoherence, it is possible to use error correction methods,
but these methods are themselves noisy quantum computation processes. In this
work we study the ability of Steane's and Shor's fault-tolerant recovering
methods, as well a modification of Steane's ancilla network, to correct errors
in qubits. We test a way to measure correctly ancilla's fidelity for these
methods, and state the possibility of carrying out an effective error
correction through a noisy quantum channel, even using noisy error correction
methods.Comment: 38 pages, Figures included. Accepted in Phys. Rev. A, 200
From circular paths to elliptic orbits: A geometric approach to Kepler's motion
The hodograph, i.e. the path traced by a body in velocity space, was
introduced by Hamilton in 1846 as an alternative for studying certain dynamical
problems. The hodograph of the Kepler problem was then investigated and shown
to be a circle, it was next used to investigate some other properties of the
motion. We here propose a new method for tracing the hodograph and the
corresponding configuration space orbit in Kepler's problem starting from the
initial conditions given and trying to use no more than the methods of
synthetic geometry in a sort of Newtonian approach. All of our geometric
constructions require straight edge and compass only.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure
Spitzer Space Telescope spectral observations of AGB stars in the Fornax dwarf spheroidal galaxy
We have observed five carbon-rich AGB stars in the Fornax dwarf spheroidal
(dSph) galaxy, using the Infrared Spectrometer on board the Spitzer Space
Telescope. The stars were selected from a near-infrared survey of Fornax and
include the three reddest stars, with presumably the highest mass-loss rates,
in that galaxy. Such carbon stars probably belong to the intermediate-age
population (2-8 Gyr old and metallicity of [Fe/H] -1) of Fornax. The primary
aim of this paper is to investigate mass-loss rate, as a function of luminosity
and metallicity, by comparing AGB stars in several galaxies with different
metallicities. The spectra of three stars are fitted with a radiative transfer
model. We find that mass-loss rates of these three stars are 4-7x10^-6 Msun
yr-1. The other two stars have mass-loss rates below 1.3x10^-6 Msun yr-1. We
find no evidence that these rates depend on metallicity, although we do suggest
that the gas-to-dust ratio could be higher than at solar metallicity, in the
range 240 to 800. The C2H2 bands are stronger at lower metallicity because of
the higher C/O ratio. In contrast, the SiC fraction is reduced at low
metallicity, due to low silicon abundance. The total mass-loss rate from all
known carbon-rich AGB stars into the interstellar medium of this galaxy is of
the order of 2x10^-5 Msun yr-1. This is much lower than that of the dwarf
irregular galaxy WLM, which has a similar visual luminosity and metallicity.
The difference is attributed to the younger stellar population of WLM. The
suppressed gas-return rate to the ISM accentuates the difference between the
relatively gas-rich dwarf irregular and the gas-poor dwarf spheroidal galaxies.
Our study will be useful to constrain gas and dust recycling processes in low
metallicity galaxies.Comment: MNRAS accepte
- …