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Several sources of phase noise, including spontaneous emission noise and the loss of coherence due to which-path information, are examined in the classical limit of high field intensities. Although the origin of these effects may appear to be quantum-mechanical in nature, it is found that classical analogies for these effects exist in the form of chaos.
The presence of an unstable periodic classical orbit allows one to introduce the decay time as a purely classical magnitude: inverse of the Lyapunov index which characterizes the orbit instability. The Uncertainty Relation gives the corresponding resonance width which is proportional to the Planck constant. The more elaborate analysis is based on the parabolic equation method where the problem is effectively reduced to the multidimensional harmonic oscillator with the time-dependent frequency. The resonances form series in the complex energy plane which is equidistant in the direction perpendicular to the real axis. The applications of the general approach to various problems in atomic physics are briefly exposed.
In the first in a series of papers I present a detailed examination of the basic physical properties of a sample of classical H II regions in the Magellanic Clouds. Narrow band H alpha imaging is used to show that such objects are representative of the most common H II regions in the Clouds and that they display a wide range of morphological characteristics. Spectroscopic data show that, as a result of the low metal content, classical H II regions in the Clouds are systematically hotter than their Galactic counterparts. The data also suggest the existence of a correlation between the excitation of an H II region and its emission measure. The spectra of one object, DEM 243, indicates the presence of a low velocity shock passing through this H II region. I also discuss the characteristics of the extinction towards these objects and speculate that it arises from dust local to the H II regions themselves.
It has been suggested that the Burst and Transient Source Experiment (BATSE) gamma-ray burst catalog contains several groups of bursts clustered in space or in space and time, which provide evidence that a substantial fraction of the classical gamma-ray burst sources repeat. Because many of the bursts in these groups are weak, they are not directly detected by the Ulysses GRB experiment. We apply the network synthesis method to these events to test the repeating burst hypothesis. Although we find no evidence for repeating sources, the method must be applied under more general conditions before reaching any definite conclusions about the existence of classical gamma-ray burst repeating sources.
Concern is increasing about how quantum effects will impact electronic device operation as down-scaling continues along the SIA Roadmap through 2010. This document describes part of a new semiconductor device modeling (SDM) program at NAS to investigate these concerns by utilizing advanced NAS and third-party numerical computation software to rapidly implement and investigate electronic device models including quantum effects. This SDM project will investigate quantum effects in devices in the classical-quantum transition region, especially sub-0.1 mm MOSFETs. Specific tasks planned for this project include the use of quantum corrections to the classical drift-diffusion and hydrodynamic models of electron transport, arid the use of nominally quantum models including significant scattering.
We show the equivalence of semi-classical solutions to optical model coupled-channel equations derived from Watson's form of the nucleus-nucleus multiple-scattering series to the Glauber multiple-scattering series. A second-order solution to the semi-classical coupled-channel elastic amplitude is shown to be nearly equivalent to a second-order optical-phase-shift approximation to the Glauber amplitude if the densities of all nuclear excited states are approximated by the ground-state density. Using the Jastrow method to model the two-body density we find an average excited-state density to be of negligible importance in the double-scattering region of alpha-alpha scattering.
We present the preliminary results of near contemporaneous optical and infrared spectroscopic observations of select classical Be stars. We find strong evidence of oppositely oriented V/R hydrogen line profiles in the optical versus infrared spectra of zeta Tau, and briefly discuss how sustained contemporaneous optical and infrared spectroscopic observations might enable us to trace the detailed density structure of classical Be circumstellar disks.
Classical nucleation theory has been used in models of dust nucleation in circumstellar outflows around oxygen-rich asymptotic giant branch stars. One objection to the application of classical nucleation theory (CNT) to astrophysical systems of this sort is that an equilibrium distribution of clusters (assumed by CNT) is unlikely to exist in such conditions due to a low collision rate of condensable species. A model of silicate grain nucleation and growth was modified to evaluate the effect of a nucleation flux orders of magnitUde below the equilibrium value. The results show that a lack of chemical equilibrium has only a small effect on the ultimate grain distribution.
We present radio light curves and spectra of the classical nova VI723 Aql obtained with the Expanded Very Large Array (EVLA). This is the first paper to showcase results from the EVLA Nova Project, which comprises a team of observers and theorists utilizing the greatly enhanced sensitivity and frequency coverage of EVLA radio observations, along with observations at other wavelengths, to reach a deeper understanding of the energetics, morphology, and temporal characteristics of nova explosions. Our observations of VI723 Aql span 1-37 GHz in frequency, and we report on data from 14 to 175 days following the time of the nova explosion. The broad frequency coverage and frequent monitoring show that the radio behavior of VI723 Aql does not follow the classic Hubble-flow model of homologous spherically expanding thermal ejecta. The spectra are always at least partially optically thin, and the flux rises on faster timescales than can be reproduced with linear expansion. Therefore, any description of the underlying physical processes must go beyond this simple picture. The unusual spectral properties and light curve evolution might be explained by multiple emitting regions or shocked material. Indeed, X-ray observations from Swift reveal that shocks are likely present.
Previous studies of the classical T Tauri star AA Tau have interpreted the UX-Orionis-like photo-polarimetric variability as being due to a warp in the inner disk caused by an inclined stellar magnetic dipole field. We test that these effects are macroscopically observable in the inclination and alignment of the disk. We use Hubble Space Telescope (HST)/STIS coronagraphic imagery to measure the V magnitude of the star for both STIS coronagraphic observations, compare these data with optical photometry in the literature, and find that, unlike other classical T Tauri stars observed in the same HST program, the disk is most robustly detected in scattered light at stellar optical minimum light.We measure the outer disk radius, 1 inch.15 plus-minus 0 inch.10, major-axis position angle, and disk inclination and find that the inner disk, as reported in the literature, is both misinclined and misaligned with respect to the outer disk. AA Tau drives a faint jet, detected in both STIS observations and in follow-on Goddard Fabry-Perot imagery, which is also misaligned with respect to the projection of the outer disk minor axis and is poorly collimated near the star, but which can be traced 21 inches from the star in data from 2005. The measured outer disk inclination, 71deg plus-minus 1deg, is out of the range of inclinations suggested for stars with UX-Orionis-like variability when no grain growth has occurred in the disk. The faintness of the disk, small disk size, and detection of the star despite the high inclination all indicate that the dust disk must have experienced grain growth and settling toward the disk midplane, which we verify by comparing the observed disk with model imagery from the literature.
Recently, a robust and practical adaptive control scheme for launch vehicles [ [1] has been introduced. It augments a classical controller with a real-time loop-gain adaptation, and it is therefore called Adaptive Augmentation Control (AAC). The loop-gain will be increased from the nominal design when the tracking error between the (filtered) output and the (filtered) command trajectory is large; whereas it will be decreased when excitation of flex or sloshing modes are detected. There is a need to determine the range and rate of the loop-gain adaptation in order to retain (exponential) stability, which is critical in vehicle operation, and to develop some theoretically based heuristic tuning methods for the adaptive law gain parameters. The classical launch vehicle flight controller design technics are based on gain-scheduling, whereby the launch vehicle dynamics model is linearized at selected operating points along the nominal tracking command trajectory, and Linear Time-Invariant (LTI) controller design techniques are employed to ensure asymptotic stability of the tracking error dynamics, typically by meeting some prescribed Gain Margin (GM) and Phase Margin (PM) specifications. The controller gains at the design points are then scheduled, tuned and sometimes interpolated to achieve good performance and stability robustness under external disturbances (e.g. winds) and structural perturbations (e.g. vehicle modeling errors). While the GM does give a bound for loop-gain variation without losing stability, it is for constant dispersions of the loop-gain because the GM is based on frequency-domain analysis, which is applicable only for LTI systems. The real-time adaptive loop-gain variation of the AAC effectively renders the closed-loop system a time-varying system, for which it is well-known that the LTI system stability criterion is neither necessary nor sufficient when applying to a Linear Time-Varying (LTV) system in a frozen-time fashion. Therefore, a generalized stability metric for time-varying loop=gain perturbations is needed for the AAC.
Classical novae are the most common astrophysical thermonuclear explosions, occurring on the surfaces of white dwarf stars accreting gas from companions in binary star systems. Novae typically expel about 10 (sup -4) solar masses of material at velocities exceeding 1,000 kilometers per second.However, the mechanism of mass ejection in novae is poorly understood, and could be dominated by the impulsive flash of thermonuclear energy, prolonged optically thick winds or binary interaction with the nova envelope. Classical novae are now routinely detected at giga-electronvolt gamma-ray wavelengths, suggesting that relativistic particles are accelerated by strong shocks in the ejecta. Here we report high-resolution radio imaging of the gamma-ray-emitting nova V959 Mon. We find that its ejecta were shaped by the motion of the binary system: some gas was expelled rapidly along the poles as a wind from the white dwarf, while denser material drifted out along the equatorial plane, propelled by orbital motion..At the interface between the equatorial and polar regions, we observe synchrotron emission indicative of shocks and relativistic particle acceleration, thereby pinpointing the location of gamma-ray production. Binary shaping of the nova ejecta and associated internal shocks are expected to be widespread among novae, explaining why many novae are gamma-ray emitters.
Non-classical stress concentration behavior in a stretched circular hyperelastic sheet (outer radius b = 10 in., thickness t = 0.0625 in.) containing a central hole (radius a = 0.5 in.) was analyzed. The hyperelastic sheet was subjected to different levels of remote radial stretchings. Nastran large-strain large-deformation analysis and the Blatz-Ko large deformation theory were used to calculate the equal-biaxial stress concentration factors K. The results show that the values of K calculated from the Blatz-Ko theory and Nastran are extremely close. Unlike the classical linear elasticity theory, which gives the constant K = 2 for the equal-biaxial stress field, the hyperelastic K values were found to increase with increased stretching and can exceed the value K = 6 at a remote radial extension ratio of 2.35. The present K-values compare fairly well with the K-values obtained by previous works. The effect of the hole-size on K-values was investigated. The values of K start to decrease from a hole radius a = 0.125 in. down to K = 1 (no stress concentration) as a shrinks to a = 0 in. (no hole). Also, the newly introduced stretch and strain magnification factors {K(sub λ),K(sub ε) } are also material- and deformation-dependent, and can increase from linear levels of {1.0, 4.0} and reaching {3.07, 4.61}, respectively at a remote radial extension ratio of 2.35.
We present a collection of optimizers tuned for usage on Noisy Inter-mediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) devices. Optimizers have a range of applications in quantum computing, including the Variational Quantum Eigensolver (VQE) and Quantum Approximate Optimization (QAOA) algorithms. They have further uses in calibration, hyperparameter tuning, machine learning, etc. We employ the VQE algorithm as a case study. VQE is a hybrid algorithm, with a classical minimizer step driving the next evaluation on the quantum processor. While most results to date concentrated on tuning the quantum VQE circuit, our study indicates that in the presence of quantum noise the classical minimizer step is a weak link and a careful choice combined with tuning is required for correct results. We explore state-of-the-art gradient-free optimizers capable of handling noisy, black-box, cost functions and stress-test them using a quantum circuit simulation environment with noise injection capabilities on individual gates. Our results indicate that specifically tuned optimizers are crucial to obtaining valid science results on NISQ hardware, as well as projecting forward on fault tolerant circuits.
Decoherence has been the basis for understanding the emergence of the classical world from its quantum underpinnings. Unfortunately the calculations establishing decoherence overshoot and, based on assumptions that break down, predict that with the passage of time the off-diagonal elements of the density matrix become arbitrarily small. It has been recognized by some authors that the thermal state, assumed to hold for systems in equilibrium, places a bound on off diagonal terms. In this article we establish—preserving the conservation of energy, as is not the case for previous work—that indeed the thermal state is an attractor under scattering. Moreover, the bound on the off-diagonal terms present in the thermal state does not contradict everyday experience.
The quantum–classical transition in the Caldeira–Leggett model is investigated in the framework of the functional renormalization group method. It is shown that a divergent quadratic term arises in the action due to the heat bath in the model. By removing the divergence with a frequency cutoff we considered the critical behavior of the model. The critical exponents belonging to the susceptibility and the correlation length are determined and their independence of the frequency cutoff and the renormalization scheme is shown.
Ladder functions in classical mechanics are defined in a similar way as ladder operators in the context of quantum mechanics. In the present paper, we develop a new method for obtaining ladder functions of one dimensional systems by means of a product of two ‘factor functions’. We apply this method to the curved Kepler–Coulomb and Rosen–Morse II systems whose ladder functions were not found yet. The ladder functions here obtained are applied to get the motion of the systems.
We show that the leading nonanalytic terms in the small-𝑡 expansion of the energy-momentum tensor form factors of an electrically charged particle in QED can be correctly derived in a classical model of the electron by Białynicki-Birula. Based on the lucidity of the employed exactly solvable model, we comment also on the recently proposed concept of a regularized proton 𝐷-term.