37,384 research outputs found
One-dimensional description of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a rotating closed-loop waveguide
We propose a general procedure for reducing the three-dimensional Schrodinger
equation for atoms moving along a strongly confining atomic waveguide to an
effective one-dimensional equation. This procedure is applied to the case of a
rotating closed-loop waveguide. The possibility of including mean-field atomic
interactions is presented. Application of the general theory to characterize a
new concept of atomic waveguide based on optical tweezers is finally discussed
Attentional load and sensory competition in human vision: Modulation of fMRI responses by load fixation during task-irrelevant stimulation in the peripheral visual field.
Perceptual suppression of distractors may depend on both endogenous and exogenous factors, such as attentional load of the current task and sensory competition among simultaneous stimuli, respectively. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to compare these two types of attentional effects and examine how they may interact in the human brain. We varied the attentional load of a visual monitoring task performed on a rapid stream at central fixation without altering the central stimuli themselves, while measuring the impact on fMRI responses to task-irrelevant peripheral checkerboards presented either unilaterally or bilaterally. Activations in visual cortex for irrelevant peripheral stimulation decreased with increasing attentional load at fixation. This relative decrease was present even in V1, but became larger for successive visual areas through to V4. Decreases in activation for contralateral peripheral checkerboards due to higher central load were more pronounced within retinotopic cortex corresponding to 'inner' peripheral locations relatively near the central targets than for more eccentric 'outer' locations, demonstrating a predominant suppression of nearby surround rather than strict 'tunnel vision' during higher task load at central fixation. Contralateral activations for peripheral stimulation in one hemifield were reduced by competition with concurrent stimulation in the other hemifield only in inferior parietal cortex, not in retinotopic areas of occipital visual cortex. In addition, central attentional load interacted with competition due to bilateral versus unilateral peripheral stimuli specifically in posterior parietal and fusiform regions. These results reveal that task-dependent attentional load, and interhemifield stimulus-competition, can produce distinct influences on the neural responses to peripheral visual stimuli within the human visual system. These distinct mechanisms in selective visual processing may be integrated within posterior parietal areas, rather than earlier occipital cortex
Colorful Strips
Given a planar point set and an integer , we wish to color the points with
colors so that any axis-aligned strip containing enough points contains all
colors. The goal is to bound the necessary size of such a strip, as a function
of . We show that if the strip size is at least , such a coloring
can always be found. We prove that the size of the strip is also bounded in any
fixed number of dimensions. In contrast to the planar case, we show that
deciding whether a 3D point set can be 2-colored so that any strip containing
at least three points contains both colors is NP-complete.
We also consider the problem of coloring a given set of axis-aligned strips,
so that any sufficiently covered point in the plane is covered by colors.
We show that in dimensions the required coverage is at most .
Lower bounds are given for the two problems. This complements recent
impossibility results on decomposition of strip coverings with arbitrary
orientations. Finally, we study a variant where strips are replaced by wedges
Critical Behavior of the 3d Random Field Ising Model: Two-Exponent Scaling or First Order Phase Transition?
In extensive Monte Carlo simulations the phase transition of the random field
Ising model in three dimensions is investigated. The values of the critical
exponents are determined via finite size scaling. For a Gaussian distribution
of the random fields it is found that the correlation length diverges
with an exponent at the critical temperature and that
with for the connected susceptibility
and with for
the disconnected susceptibility. Together with the amplitude ratio
being close to one this gives
further support for a two exponent scaling scenario implying
. The magnetization behaves discontinuously at the
transition, i.e. , indicating a first order transition. However, no
divergence for the specific heat and in particular no latent heat is found.
Also the probability distribution of the magnetization does not show a
multi-peak structure that is characteristic for the phase-coexistence at first
order phase transition points.Comment: 14 pages, RevTeX, 11 postscript figures (fig9.ps and fig11.ps should
be printed separately
RHESSI and SOHO/CDS Observations of Explosive Chromospheric Evaporation
Simultaneous observations of explosive chromospheric evaporation are
presented using data from the Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic
Imager (RHESSI) and the Coronal Diagnostic Spectrometer (CDS) onboard SOHO. For
the first time, co-spatial imaging and spectroscopy have been used to observe
explosive evaporation within a hard X-ray emitting region. RHESSI X-ray images
and spectra were used to determine the flux of non-thermal electrons
accelerated during the impulsive phase of an M2.2 flare. Assuming a
thick-target model, the injected electron spectrum was found to have a spectral
index of ~7.3, a low energy cut-off of ~20 keV, and a resulting flux of
>4x10^10 ergs cm^-2 s^-1. The dynamic response of the atmosphere was determined
using CDS spectra, finding a mean upflow velocity of 230+/-38 km s^-1 in Fe XIX
(592.23A), and associated downflows of 36+/-16 km s^-1 and 43+/-22 km s^-1 at
chromospheric and transition region temperatures, respectively, relative to an
averaged quiet-Sun spectra. The errors represent a 1 sigma dispersion. The
properties of the accelerated electron spectrum and the corresponding
evaporative velocities were found to be consistent with the predictions of
theory.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, ApJL (In Press
The Interrelation between Audit Quality and Managerial Reporting Choices and Its Effects on Financial Reporting Quality
Two distinct lines of research have been dedicated to empirically testing how financial reporting quality (measured as the earnings response coefficient or ERC) is associated with management's choice of reporting bias and with audit quality. However, researchers have yet to consider how ERCs are affected by either the auditor's reaction to changes in the manager's reporting bias or the manager's reaction to changes in audit quality. Our study provides theoretical guidance on these interrelations and how changes in the manager's or the auditor's incentives affect both reporting bias and audit quality. Specifically, when the manager's cost (benefit) of reporting bias increases (decreases), we find that expected bias decreases, inducing the auditor to react by reducing audit quality. Because we also find that the association between expected audit quality and ERCs is always positive, changes in managerial incentives for biased reporting lead to a positive association between ERCs and expected reporting bias. When the cost of auditing decreases or the cost of auditor liability increases, we find that expected audit quality increases, inducing the manager to react by decreasing reporting bias. In this case, changes in the costs of audit quality lead to a negative association between ERCs and expected reporting bias. Finally, we demonstrate the impact of our theoretical findings by focusing on the empirical observations documented in the extant literature on managerial ownership and accounting expertise on the audit committee. In light of our framework, we provide new interpretations of these empirical observations and new predictions for future research
k-Color Multi-Robot Motion Planning
We present a simple and natural extension of the multi-robot motion planning
problem where the robots are partitioned into groups (colors), such that in
each group the robots are interchangeable. Every robot is no longer required to
move to a specific target, but rather to some target placement that is assigned
to its group. We call this problem k-color multi-robot motion planning and
provide a sampling-based algorithm specifically designed for solving it. At the
heart of the algorithm is a novel technique where the k-color problem is
reduced to several discrete multi-robot motion planning problems. These
reductions amplify basic samples into massive collections of free placements
and paths for the robots. We demonstrate the performance of the algorithm by an
implementation for the case of disc robots and polygonal robots translating in
the plane. We show that the algorithm successfully and efficiently copes with a
variety of challenging scenarios, involving many robots, while a simplified
version of this algorithm, that can be viewed as an extension of a prevalent
sampling-based algorithm for the k-color case, fails even on simple scenarios.
Interestingly, our algorithm outperforms a well established implementation of
PRM for the standard multi-robot problem, in which each robot has a distinct
color.Comment: 2
Sneutrino as Lightest Supersymmetric Particle in B3 mSUGRA Models and Signals at the LHC
We consider B3 mSUGRA models where we have one lepton number violating LQD
operator at the GUT scale. This can alter the supersymmetric mass spectrum
leading to a sneutrino as the lightest supersymmetric particle in a large
region of parameter space. We take into account the restrictions from neutrino
masses, the muon anomalous magnetic moment, b -> s gamma and other precision
measurements. We furthermore investigate existing restrictions from direct
searches at LEP, the Tevatron and the CERN p\bar p collider. We then give
examples for characteristic signatures at the LHC.Comment: 22 pages, 11 figure
Modeling urban street patterns
Urban streets patterns form planar networks whose empirical properties cannot
be accounted for by simple models such as regular grids or Voronoi
tesselations. Striking statistical regularities across different cities have
been recently empirically found, suggesting that a general and
details-independent mechanism may be in action. We propose a simple model based
on a local optimization process combined with ideas previously proposed in
studies of leaf pattern formation. The statistical properties of this model are
in good agreement with the observed empirical patterns. Our results thus
suggests that in the absence of a global design strategy, the evolution of many
different transportation networks indeed follow a simple universal mechanism.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, final version published in PR
Complete chaotic synchronization in mutually coupled time-delay systems
Complete chaotic synchronization of end lasers has been observed in a line of
mutually coupled, time-delayed system of three lasers, with no direct
communication between the end lasers. The present paper uses ideas from
generalized synchronization to explain the complete synchronization in the
presence of long coupling delays, applied to a model of mutually coupled
semiconductor lasers in a line. These ideas significantly simplify the analysis
by casting the stability in terms of the local dynamics of each laser. The
variational equations near the synchronization manifold are analyzed, and used
to derive the synchronization condition that is a function of the parameters.
The results explain and predict the dependence of synchronization on various
parameters, such as time-delays, strength of coupling and dissipation. The
ideas can be applied to understand complete synchronization in other chaotic
systems with coupling delays and no direct communication between synchronized
sub-systems.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figure
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