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At least 1,027 records · Page 57

Design methodology and performance analysis of a wideband 90° phase switch for radiometer applications

This paper presents the analysis, design, and characterization of a wideband 90° phase switch in Ka-band. The phase switch is based on two microstrip bandpass filters in which the commutation is performed by a novel single-pole double-throw (SPDT) switch. The analysis of π-network bandpass filters is provided, obtaining the phase difference and amplitude imbalance between filters and their scattering parameters; tested results show an average phase difference of 88.9° ± 5° and an amplitude imbalance of 0.15 dB from 24 to 37 GHz. The new broadband SPDT switch is based on a coplanar waveguide-to-slotline-to-microstrip structure, which enables a full planar integration with shifting branches. PIN diodes are used to perform the switching between outputs. The SPDT shows isolation better than 19 dB, insertion loss of around 1.8 dB, and return loss better than 15 dB. The full integration of the phase switch achieves a return loss better than 11 dB and insertion loss of around 4 dB over the band 26–36 GHz, with an average phase difference of 87.1° ± 4° and an average amplitude imbalance of 0.3 dB. It provides an excellent performance for this frequency range, suitable for radio-astronomy receivers.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

A dynamical formulation of one-dimensional scattering theory and its applications in optics

We develop a dynamical formulation of one-dimensional scattering theory where the reflection and transmission amplitudes for a general, possibly complex and energy-dependent, scattering potential are given as solutions of a set of dynamical equations. By decoupling and partially integrating these equations, we reduce the scattering problem to a second order linear differential equation with universal initial conditions that is equivalent to an initial-value time-independent Schrödinger equation. We give explicit formulas for the reflection and transmission amplitudes in terms of the solution of either of these equations and employ them to outline an inverse-scattering method for constructing finite-range potentials with desirable scattering properties at any prescribed wavelength. In particular, we construct optical potentials displaying threshold lasing, antilasing, and unidirectional invisibility. -- Highlights: • Proposes a dynamical theory of scattering in one dimension. • Derives and solves dynamical equations for scattering data. • Gives a new inverse scattering prescription. • Constructs optical potentials with desired scattering properties.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Effect of cross-redistribution on the resonance scattering polarization of O I line at 1302 Å

Oxygen is the most abundant element on the Sun after hydrogen and helium. The intensity spectrum of resonance lines of neutral oxygen, namely, O I (1302, 1305, and 1306 Å), has been studied in the literature for chromospheric diagnostics. In this paper, we study the resonance scattering polarization in the O I line at 1302 Å using two-dimensional (2D) radiative transfer in a composite atmosphere constructed using a 2D magneto-hydrodynamical snapshot in the photosphere and columns of the one-dimensional FALC atmosphere in the chromosphere. The methods developed by us recently in a series of papers to solve multi-dimensional polarized radiative transfer have been incorporated in our new code POLY2D, which we use for our analysis. We find that multi-dimensional radiative transfer including XRD effects is important in reproducing the amplitude and shape of scattering polarization signals of the O I line at 1302 Å.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Glauber exchange amplitudes

The extrapolation method of Ochkur, valid for intermediate energies (about 50 eV), is applied to the exchange form of the Glauber amplitudes. In the case of elastic scattering of electrons from hydrogen atoms at 54.4 Ev the 'post' and 'prior' forms of the exchange amplitude are equivalent, whereas for the case of inelastic scattering there is a minute discrepancy between the two forms of the amplitude. The results are compared with the close-coupling calculation. The investigation is expected to be useful for optically forbidden exchange-allowed transitions due to electron impact at intermediate energies.

Madan, R. N.↗

Explicit formulae for Yang-Mills-Einstein amplitudes from the double copy

Using the double-copy construction of Yang-Mills-Einstein theories formulated in our earlier work, we obtain compact presentations for single-trace Yang-Mills-Einstein tree amplitudes with up to five external gravitons and an arbitrary number of gluons. These are written as linear combinations of color-ordered Yang-Mills trees, where the coefficients are given by color/kinematics-satisfying numerators in a Yang-Mills + φ 3 theory. The construction outlined in this paper holds in general dimension and extends straightforwardly to supergravity theories. For one, two, and three external gravitons, our expressions give identical or simpler presentations of amplitudes already constructed through string-theory considerations or the scattering equations formalism. Our results are based on color/kinematics duality and gauge invariance, and strongly hint at a recursive structure underlying the single-trace amplitudes with an arbitrary number of gravitons. We also present explicit expressions for all-loop single-graviton Einstein-Yang-Mills amplitudes in terms of Yang-Mills amplitudes and, through gauge invariance, derive new all-loop amplitude relations for Yang-Mills theory.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Gravitational effective field theory islands, low-spin dominance, and the four-graviton amplitude

Abstract We analyze constraints from perturbative unitarity and crossing on the leading contributions of higher-dimension operators to the four-graviton amplitude in four spacetime dimensions, including constraints that follow from distinct helicity configurations. We focus on the leading-order effect due to exchange by massive degrees of freedom which makes the amplitudes of interest infrared finite. In particular, we place a bound on the coefficient of the R 3 operator that corrects the graviton three-point amplitude in terms of the R 4 coefficient. To test the constraints we obtain nontrivial effective field-theory data by computing and taking the large-mass expansion of the one-loop minimally-coupled four-graviton amplitude with massive particles up to spin 2 circulating in the loop. Remarkably, we observe that the leading EFT coefficients obtained from both string and one-loop field-theory amplitudes lie in small islands. The shape and location of the islands can be derived from the dispersive representation for the Wilson coefficients using crossing and assuming that the lowest-spin spectral densities are the largest. Our analysis suggests that the Wilson coefficients of weakly-coupled gravitational physical theories are much more constrained than indicated by bounds arising from dispersive considerations of 2 → 2 scattering. The one-loop four-graviton amplitudes used to obtain the EFT data are computed using modern amplitude methods, including generalized unitarity, supersymmetric decompositions and the double copy.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Transient spirals as superposed instabilities

We present evidence that recurrent spiral activity, long manifested in simulations of disk galaxies, results from the superposition of a few transient spiral modes. Each mode lasts between 5 and 10 rotations at its corotation radius where its amplitude is greatest. The scattering of stars as each wave decays takes place over narrow ranges of angular momentum, causing abrupt changes to the impedance of the disk to subsequent traveling waves. Partial reflections of waves at these newly created features allows new standing-wave instabilities to appear that saturate and decay in their turn, scattering particles at new locations, creating a recurring cycle. The spiral activity causes the general level of random motion to rise, gradually decreasing the ability of the disk to support further activity unless the disk contains a dissipative gas component from which stars form on near-circular orbits. We also show that this interpretation is consistent with the behavior reported in other recent simulations with low-mass disks.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

The asymptotic behaviour of the scattering matrix in a neighbourhood of the endpoints of a spectral gap

The behaviour of the scattering matrix is investigated as the spectral parameter approaches an endpoint of a spectral gap of a quantum waveguide from the inside or the outside. The waveguide has two sleeves, one is cylindrical and the other periodic. When the spectral parameter traverses the spectral gap, the scattering matrix is reshaped because the number of waves inside and outside the gap is different. Notwithstanding, the smaller scattering matrix (in size) is transformed continuously into an identical block in the bigger scattering matrix and, in addition, the latter takes block diagonal form in the limit at the endpoint of the gap, that is, at the spectral threshold. The unexpected phenomena are related to the other block. It is shown that in the limit this block can only take certain values at the threshold, and taking one or other of these values depends on the structure of the continuous spectrum and also on the structure of the subspace of 'almost standing' waves at the threshold, which are solutions of the homogeneous problem that transfer no energy to infinity. A criterion for the existence of such solutions links the dimension of this subspace to the multiplicity of the eigenvalue −1 of the threshold scattering matrix. Asymptotic formulae are obtained, which show, in particular, that the phenomenon of anomalous scattering of high-amplitude waves at near-threshold frequencies, discovered by Weinstein in a special acoustic problem, also occurs in periodic waveguides. Bibliography: 38 titles. (paper)

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Generation and Radiation of Acoustic Waves from a 2-D Shear Layer

A parallel numerical simulation of the radiation of sound from an acoustic source inside a 2-D jet is presented in this paper. This basic benchmark problem is used as a test case for scattering problems that are presently being solved by using the Impedance Mismatch Method (IMM). In this technique, a solid body in the domain is represented by setting the acoustic impedance of each medium, encountered by a wave, to a different value. This impedance discrepancy results in reflected and scattered waves with appropriate amplitudes. The great advantage of the use of this method is that no modifications to a simple Cartesian grid need to be made for complicated geometry bodies. Thus, high order finite difference schemes may be applied simply to all parts of the domain. In the IMM, the total perturbation field is split into incident and scattered fields. The incident pressure is assumed to be known and the equivalent sources for the scattered field are associated with the presence of the scattering body (through the impedance mismatch) and the propagation of the incident field through a non-uniform flow. An earlier version of the technique could only handle uniform flow in the vicinity of the source and at the outflow boundary. Scattering problems in non-uniform mean flow are of great practical importance (for example, scattering from a high lift device in a non-uniform mean flow or the effects of a fuselage boundary layer). The solution to this benchmark problem, which has an acoustic wave propagating through a non-uniform mean flow, serves as a test case for the extensions of the IMM technique.

Agarwal, Anurag↗

An effective field theory for forward scattering and factorization violation

Starting with QCD, we derive an effective field theory description for forward scattering and factorization violation as part of the soft-collinear effective field theory (SCET) for high energy scattering. These phenomena are mediated by long distance Glauber gluon exchanges, which are static in time, localized in the longitudinal distance, and act as a kernel for forward scattering where |t| << s. In hard scattering, Glauber gluons can induce corrections which invalidate factorization. With SCET, Glauber exchange graphs can be calculated explicitly, and are distinct from graphs involving soft, collinear, or ultrasoft gluons. We derive a complete basis of operators which describe the leading power effects of Glauber exchange. Key ingredients include regulating light-cone rapidity singularities and subtractions which prevent double counting. Our results include a novel all orders gauge invariant pure glue soft operator which appears between two collinear rapidity sectors. The 1-gluon Feynman rule for the soft operator coincides with the Lipatov vertex, but it also contributes to emissions with ≥ 2 soft gluons. Our Glauber operator basis is derived using tree level and one-loop matching calculations from full QCD to both SCET II and SCET I . The one-loop amplitude’s rapidity renormalization involves mixing of color octet operators and yields gluon Reggeization at the amplitude level. The rapidity renormalization group equation for the leading soft and collinear functions in the forward scattering cross section are each given by the BFKL equation. Various properties of Glauber gluon exchange in the context of both forward scattering and hard scattering factorization are described. For example, we derive an explicit rule for when eikonalization is valid, and provide a direct connection to the picture of multiple Wilson lines crossing a shockwave. In hard scattering operators Glauber subtractions for soft and collinear loop diagrams ensure that we are not sensitive to the directions for soft and collinear Wilson lines. Conversely, certain Glauber interactions can be absorbed into these soft and collinear Wilson lines by taking them to be in specific directions. Finally, we also discuss criteria for factorization violation.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Amplitude Scintillation due to Atmospheric Turbulence for the Deep Space Network Ka-Band Downlink

Fast amplitude variations due to atmospheric scintillation are the main concerns for the Deep Space Network (DSN) Ka-band downlink under clear weather conditions. A theoretical study of the amplitude scintillation variances for a finite aperture antenna is presented. Amplitude variances for weak scattering scenarios are examined using turbulence theory to describe atmospheric irregularities. We first apply the Kolmogorov turbulent spectrum to a point receiver for three different turbulent profile models, especially for an exponential model varying with altitude. These analytic solutions then are extended to a receiver with a finite aperture antenna for the three profile models. Smoothing effects of antenna aperture are expressed by gain factors. A group of scaling factor relations is derived to show the dependences of amplitude variances on signal wavelength, antenna size, and elevation angle. Finally, we use these analytic solutions to estimate the scintillation intensity for a DSN Goldstone 34-m receiving station. We find that the (rms) amplitude fluctuation is 0.13 dB at 20-deg elevation angle for an exponential model, while the fluctuation is 0.05 dB at 90 deg. These results will aid us in telecommunication system design and signal-fading prediction. They also provide a theoretical basis for further comparison with other measurements at Ka-band.

Ho, C.↗

Leading-color two-loop amplitudes for four partons and a $\textit{W}$ boson in QCD

We present the leading-color two-loop QCD corrections for the scattering of four partons and a W boson, including its leptonic decay. The amplitudes are assembled from the planar two-loop helicity amplitudes for four partons and a vector boson decaying to a lepton pair, which are also used to determine the planar two-loop amplitudes for four partons and a $Z/γ^\ast$ boson with a leptonic decay. The analytic expressions are obtained by setting up a dedicated Ansatz and constraining the free parameters from numerical samples obtained within the framework of numerical unitarity. The large linear systems that must be solved to determine the analytic expressions are constructed to be in Vandermonde form. Such systems can be very efficiently solved, bypassing the bottleneck of Gaussian elimination. Our results are expressed in a basis of one-mass pentagon functions, which opens the possibility of their efficient numerical evaluation.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Scattering anomalies in a resonator above the thresholds of the continuous spectrum

We consider the Dirichlet spectral problem for the Laplace operator in a multi-dimensional domain with a cylindrical outlet to infinity, a Helmholtz resonator. Using asymptotic analysis of the scattering matrix we demonstrate different types of reflection of high-amplitude near-threshold waves. One scattering type or another, unstable or stable with respect to variations of the resonator shapes, is determined by the presence or absence of stabilizing solutions at the threshold frequency, respectively. In a waveguide with two cylindrical outlets to infinity, we discover the effect of almost complete passage of the wave under 'fine tuning' of the resonator. Bibliography: 26 titles.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

3D numerical simulation of the long range propagation of acoustical shock waves through a heterogeneous and moving medium

Many situations involve the propagation of acoustical shock waves through flows. Natural sources such as lightning, volcano explosions, or meteoroid atmospheric entries, emit loud, low frequency, and impulsive sound that is influenced by atmospheric wind and turbulence. The sonic boom produced by a supersonic aircraft and explosion noises are examples of intense anthropogenic sources in the atmosphere. The Buzz-Saw-Noise produced by turbo-engine fan blades rotating at supersonic speed also propagates in a fast flow within the engine nacelle. Simulating these situations is challenging, given the 3D nature of the problem, the long range propagation distances relative to the central wavelength, the strongly nonlinear behavior of shocks associated to a wide-band spectrum, and finally the key role of the flow motion. With this in view, the so-called FLHOWARD (acronym for FLow and Heterogeneous One-Way Approximation for Resolution of Diffraction) method is presented with three-dimensional applications. A scalar nonlinear wave equation is established in the framework of atmospheric applications, assuming weak heterogeneities and a slow wind. It takes into account diffraction, absorption and relaxation properties of the atmosphere, quadratic nonlinearities including weak shock waves, heterogeneities of the medium in sound speed and density, and presence of a flow (assuming a mean stratified wind and 3D turbulent ? flow fluctuations of smaller amplitude). This equation is solved in the framework of the one-way method. A split-step technique allows the splitting of the non-linear wave equation into simpler equations, each corresponding to a physical effect. Each sub-equation is solved using an analytical method if possible, and finite-differences otherwise. Nonlinear effects are solved in the time domain, and others in the frequency domain. Homogeneous diffraction is handled by means of the angular spectrum method. Ground is assumed perfectly flat and rigid. Due to the 3D aspect, the code was massively parallelized using the single program, multiple data paradigm with the Message Passing Interfaces (MPI) for distributed memory architectures. This allows us to handle problems in the order of a thousand billion mesh points in the four dimensions (3 dimensions of space plus time). The validity of the method has been thoroughly evaluated on many cases with known solutions: linear piston, scattering of plane wave by a heterogeneous sphere, propagation in a waveguide with a shear flow, scattering by a finite amplitude vortex and nonlinear propagation in a thermoviscous medium. This validation process allows for a detailed assessment of the advantages and limitations of the method. Finally, applications to atmospheric propagation of shock waves will be presented.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Explicit inclusion of nonlocality in ( d , p ) transfer reactions

Traditionally, nucleon-nucleus optical potentials are made local for convenience. In recent work we studied the effects of including nonlocal interactions explicitly in the final state for (d,p) reactions, within the distorted wave Born approximation. Our goal in this work is to develop an improved formalism for nonlocal interactions that includes deuteron breakup and to use it to study the effects of including nonlocal interactions in transfer (d,p) reactions, in both the deuteron and the proton channel. We extend the finite-range adiabatic distorted wave approximation to include nonlocal nucleon optical potentials. We apply our method to (d,p) reactions on 16 O, 40 Ca, 48 Ca, 126 Sn, 132 Sn, and 208 Pb at 10, 20 and 50 MeV. Here, we find that nonlocality in the deuteron scattering state reduces the amplitude of the wave function in the nuclear interior, and shifts the wave function outward. In many cases, this has the effect of increasing the transfer cross section at the first peak of the angular distributions. This increase was most significant for heavy targets and for reactions at high energies. Lastly, our systematic study shows that, if only local optical potentials are used in the analysis of experimental (d, p) transfer cross sections, the extracted spectroscopic factors may be incorrect by up to 40% due to the local approximation.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

POLARIZED LINE FORMATION IN MOVING ATMOSPHERES WITH PARTIAL FREQUENCY REDISTRIBUTION AND A WEAK MAGNETIC FIELD

The dynamical state of the solar and stellar atmospheres depends on the macroscopic velocity fields prevailing within them. The presence of such velocity fields in the line formation regions strongly affects the polarized radiation field emerging from these atmospheres. Thus it becomes necessary to solve the radiative transfer equation for polarized lines in moving atmospheres. Solutions based on the “observer’s frame method” are computationally expensive to obtain, especially when partial frequency redistribution (PRD) in line scattering and large-amplitude velocity fields are taken into account. In this paper we present an efficient alternative method of solution, namely, the comoving frame technique, to solve the polarized PRD line formation problems in the presence of velocity fields. We consider one-dimensional planar isothermal atmospheres with vertical velocity fields. We present a study of the effect of velocity fields on the emergent linear polarization profiles formed in optically thick moving atmospheres. We show that the comoving frame method is far superior when compared to the observer’s frame method in terms of the computational speed and memory requirements.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Active galactic nucleus black hole mass estimates in the era of time domain astronomy

We investigate the dependence of the normalization of the high-frequency part of the X-ray and optical power spectral densities (PSDs) on black hole mass for a sample of 39 active galactic nuclei (AGNs) with black hole masses estimated from reverberation mapping or dynamical modeling. We obtained new Swift observations of PG 1426+015, which has the largest estimated black hole mass of the AGNs in our sample. We develop a novel statistical method to estimate the PSD from a light curve of photon counts with arbitrary sampling, eliminating the need to bin a light curve to achieve Gaussian statistics, and we use this technique to estimate the X-ray variability parameters for the faint AGNs in our sample. We find that the normalization of the high-frequency X-ray PSD is inversely proportional to black hole mass. We discuss how to use this scaling relationship to obtain black hole mass estimates from the short timescale X-ray variability amplitude with precision ∼0.38 dex. The amplitude of optical variability on timescales of days is also anticorrelated with black hole mass, but with larger scatter. Instead, the optical variability amplitude exhibits the strongest anticorrelation with luminosity. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our results for estimating black hole mass from the amplitude of AGN variability.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗