Discrete Surface Modeling Based on Google Earth: A Case Study

Google Earth (GE) has become a powerful tool for geological, geophysical and geographical modeling; yet GE can be accepted to acquire elevation data of terrain. In this paper, we present a real study case of building the discrete surface model (DSM) at Haut-Barr Castle in France based on the elevation data of terrain points extracted from GE using the COM API. We first locate the position of Haut-Barr Castle and determine the region of the study area, then extract elevation data of terrain at Haut-Barr, and thirdly create a planar triangular mesh that covers the study area and finally generate the desired DSM by calculating the elevation of vertices in the planar mesh via interpolating with Universal Kriging (UK) and Inverse Distance Weighting (IDW). The generated DSM can reflect the features of the ground surface at Haut-Barr well, and can be used for constructingthe Sealed Engineering Geological Model (SEGM) in further step.Comment: Proceedings of IEEE Conference, ICCSNT 2012, in Pres

How a Non-hierarchical Neutrino Mass Matrix Can Arise

One puzzle of neutrino masses and mixings is that they do not exhibit the kind of strong "hierarchy" that is found for the quarks and charged leptons. Neutrino mass ratios and mixing angles are not small. A possible reason for this is proposed here. It is based on the fact that typical realistic grand unified models contain particles with unification-scale masses which, when integrated out, can yield a neutrino mass matrix that is not of the standard seesaw form.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures, LaTe

Challenges for the Nelson-Barr Mechanism

Solutions to strong CP based on chiral structure have been subject to the most careful scrutiny and critique. Basic theoretical issues include hierarchy and fine-tuning problems, quality and genericity of symmetries, and compatibility with solutions to the electroweak hierarchy problem. We study the similar set of challenges for solutions to strong CP based on spontaneous CP violation and the Nelson-Barr mechanism. Some of our observations have appeared in the literature previously, and others are new; our purpose is to collect and analyze the issues as a whole and provide an assessment of the most plausible settings for the Nelson-Barr solution.Comment: 19 pp, 2 figures. v2: expanded discussion of strong dynamics, added references. Version published in JHE

Finding Higgs bosons heavier than 2 m_W in dileptonic W-boson decays

We reconsider observables for discovering a heavy Higgs boson (with m_h > 2m_W) via its di-leptonic decays h -> WW -> l nu l nu. We show that observables generalizing the transverse mass that take into account the fact that both of the intermediate W bosons are likely to be on-shell give a significant improvement over the variables used in existing searches. We also comment on the application of these observables to other decays which proceed via narrow-width intermediates.Comment: v1:4 pages, 1 figure; v2: 6 pages, 2 figures, substantially revise

Covers of the arithmetic site

We give an explicit description of the Barr- and Diaconescu covers of the arithmetic site, which are relevant to cohomology. Further, we construct the arithmetic site as the commutative shadow of a non-commutative topological space