Time interval distributions of atoms in atomic beams

We report an experimental investigation of two-particle correlations between neutral atoms in a Hanbury Brown and Twiss experiment. Both an atom laser beam and a pseudo-thermal atomic beam are extracted from a Bose–Einstein condensate and the atom flux is measured with a single atom counter. We determine the conditional and the unconditional detection probabilities for the atoms in the beam and find good agreement with the theoretical predictions. PACS 03.75.Pp; 05.30.Jp; 07.77.Gx; 42.50.Pq     

A side-coupled photonic crystal filter with sidelobe suppression

This paper presents the theoretical model and the optimization method to suppress the sidelobes of side-coupled photonic crystal filters. Numerical verification shows a good agreement between the theoretical method and the finite-difference time-domain simulation, but the theoretic method does not involve the time-consuming computation. The theoretical method also presents a better physical image for choosing the critical parameters, such as the quality factor, phase shift and the number of resonators. Based on the theoretical model, two optimization methods (chirp and cascading) are proposed to deeply suppress the sidelobes. They also show more flexibility in controlling the bandwidth and steepness of the roll-off in the filter. PACS 42.70.Qs     

An algebraic index theorem for orbifolds

Using the concept of a twisted trace density on a cyclic groupoid, a trace is constructed on a formal deformation quantization of a symplectic orbifold. An algebraic index theorem for orbifolds follows as a consequence of a local Riemann-Roch theorem for such densities. In the case of a reduced orbifold, this proves a conjecture by Fedosov, Schulze, and Tarkhanov. Finally, it is shown how the Kawasaki index theorem for elliptic operators on orbifolds follows from this algebraic index theorem.     

Linear matrix inequality representation of sets

This article concerns the question, Which subsets of ?^m can be represented with linear matrix inequalities (LMIs)? This gives some perspective on the scope and limitations of one of the most powerful techniques commonly used in control theory. Also, before having much hope of representing engineering problems as LMIs by automatic methods, one needs a good idea of which problems can and cannot be represented by LMIs. Little is currently known about such problems. In this article we give a necessary condition that we call “rigid convexity,” which must hold for a set ?? ? ?^m in order for ?? to have an LMI representation. Rigid convexity is proved to be necessary and sufficient when m = 2. This settles a question formally stated by Pablo Parrilo and Berndt Sturmfels in [15]. As shown by Lewis, Parillo, and Ramana [11], our main result also establishes (in the case of three variables) a 1958 conjecture by Peter Lax on hyperbolic polynomials. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Signed degree sets in signed graphs

The set D of distinct signed degrees of the vertices in a signed graph G is called its signed degree set. In this paper, we prove that every non-empty set of positive (negative) integers is the signed degree set of some connected signed graph and determine the smallest possible order for such a signed graph. We also prove that every non-empty set of integers is the signed degree set of some connected signed graph.     

Concentration inequalities for random fields via coupling

We present a new and simple approach to concentration inequalities in the context of dependent random processes and random fields. Our method is based on coupling and does not use information inequalities. In case one has a uniform control on the coupling, one obtains exponential concentration inequalities. If such a uniform control is no more possible, then one obtains polynomial or stretched-exponential concentration inequalities. Our abstract results apply to Gibbs random fields, both at high and low temperatures and in particular to the low-temperature Ising model which is a concrete example of non-uniformity of the coupling.      

On almost-sure versions of classical limit theorems for dynamical systems

The purpose of this article is to support the idea that “whenever we can prove a limit theorem in the classical sense for a dynamical system, we can prove a suitable almost-sure version based on an empirical measure with log-average”. We follow three different approaches: martingale methods, spectral methods and induction arguments. Our results apply, among others, to Axiom A maps or flows, to systems inducing a Gibbs–Markov map, and to the stadium billiard.     

Voltage ‐ Current Study of an Atmospheric Dielectric Barrier Discharge

The discharge behaviour of an atmospheric dielectric barrier parallel plate discharge, used for surface treatment, is studied. Since an uniform plasma is preferable for surface treatment, filaments must be avoided in the discharge. The occurrence of filaments can be detected by measuring the current flowing through the discharge. Current and voltage measurements give an indication of the power consumption by the plasma. The power consumption of the plasma as function of the applied frequency is examined. (© 2007 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Parallelization of population-based multi-objective meta-heuristics: An empirical study

In single-objective optimization it is possible to find a global optimum, while in the multi-objective case no optimal solution is clearly defined, but several that simultaneously optimize all the objectives. However, the majority of this kind of problems cannot be solved exactly as they have very large and highly complex search spaces. Recently, meta-heuristic approaches have become important tools for solving multi-objective problems encountered in industry as well as in the theoretical field. Most of these meta-heuristics use a population of solutions, and hence the runtime increases when the population size grows. An interesting way to overcome this problem is to apply parallel processing. This paper analyzes the performance of several parallel paradigms in the context of population-based multi-objective meta-heuristics. In particular, we evaluate four alternative parallelizations of the Pareto simulated annealing algorithm, in terms of quality of the solutions, and speedup.     

Numerical solution of the linear inverse problem for the Euler-Darboux equation

An inverse problem of the reconstruction of the right-hand side of the Euler-Darboux equation is studied. This problem is equivalent to the Volterra integral equation of the third kind with the operator of multiplication by a smooth nonincreasing function. Numerical solution of this problem is constructed using an integral representation of the solution of the inverse problem, the regularization method, and the method of quadratures. The convergence and stability of the numerical method is proved.