Astrophysics and Astronomy Commons^™

Quantum Algorithms With Applications To Simulating Physical Systems, Anirban Ch Narayan Chowdhury

Physics & Astronomy ETDs

The simulation of quantum physical systems is expected to be an important application for quantum computers. The work presented in this dissertation aims to improve the resource requirements of quantum computers for solving simulation problems, by providing both novel quantum algorithms and improved implementations of existing ones. I present three main results that cover diverse aspects of simulation including equilibrium physics, the preparation of useful quantum states, and simulations based on classical stochastic processes. The results rely on established quantum algorithms and other recent techniques which I review. My first original contribution is a new quantum algorithm to sample from …

Searching For Supermassive Binary Black Holes And Their Gravitational Waves, Karishma Bansal

Physics & Astronomy ETDs

The recent discovery of gravitational waves (GWs) by the LIGO collaboration has opened a new observing window on the universe, but it is limited to the GWs in the frequency range of 10-1000 Hz. The main motivation of this thesis is to consider the possibility of detecting low frequency (nHz) GWs. In the pursuit of these waves, we need to understand their source of origin and build a detector with the required sensitivity. Low-frequency waves are expected as a result of coalescing binary supermassive black holes (SMBBHs). We hope to detect these waves in the near future using pulsar timing …

Studying The Properties Of Sf6 Gas Mixtures For Directional Dark Matter Detection, Randy J. Lafler

Physics & Astronomy ETDs

Although dark matter comprises approximately 85\% of the matter content of the universe, direct detection of dark matter remains elusive. As the available parameter space for dark matter candidates is pushed to lower and lower limits, the demand for larger, more sensitive detectors continues to grow. Although upscaling the detector improves the sensitivity, it greatly increases the cost and complexity of the experiment. Even after a dark matter signal is detected, there remains the possibility that an unknown background mimics the dark matter signal. Consequently, verifying the dark matter origin of a detection signal is an issue for any dark …

Circumstellar Sio Masers In The Bulge Asymmetries And Dynamical Evolution Survey, Michael Cullen Stroh

Physics & Astronomy ETDs

The Bulge Asymmetries and Dynamical Evolution (BAaDE) project aims to explore the complex structure of the inner Galaxy and Galactic Bulge, by using the 43 GHz receivers at the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) and the 86 GHz receivers at the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to observe SiO maser lines in red giant stars. The SiO maser transitions occur at radio frequencies, where extinction is negligible, thus allowing a dense sampling of line-of-sight velocities in the most crowded regions of the Milky Way.

The overall goal of this thesis is to characterize the SiO masers in the …

Studies On The Generation And Detection Of Orbital Angular Momentum Based On Beam-Shaping Techniques, Xijie Luo

Physics & Astronomy ETDs

Light carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM) has many applications ranging from optical manipulation, imaging and remote sensing, and optical communications, and can be used to perform fundamental studies in quantum mechanics and quantum information. Moreover, single photons with high-order OAM allow for increasing the amount of information carried per photon in quantum communication. This thesis describes the study of methods for the preparation and detection of OAM of light in high mode order by utilizing beam shaping techniques using spatial light modulators (SLMs). The quality of the generated high-order OAM mode is limited by optical aberrations which are induced by …

Compact Optical Frequency Standards For Future Applications Beyond The Laboratory, Kyle Martin

Physics & Astronomy ETDs

Atomic clocks provide one of the fundamental building blocks upon which modern telecommunications systems are constructed. Since the invention of the frequency comb in the early 2000s, laboratory frequency standards have quickly outpaced their compact counterparts. Compact clocks, however, have continued to leverage microwave transitions not yet exploring the advantages of an optical atomic clock. With the recent development of robust frequency combs compact optical clocks can now be realized. In this dissertation two atomic species are investigated for a compact atomic frequency standards. Both of these clocks are in different development stages but offer unique advantages. The optical rubidium …

From Big Science To “Deep Science”, Florentin Smarandache, Victor Christianto

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

The Standard Model of particle physics has accomplished a great deal including the discovery of Higgs boson in 2012. However, since the supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model has not been successful so far, some physicists are asking what alternative deeper theory could be beyond the Standard Model? This article discusses the relationship between mathematics and physical reality and explores the ways to go from Big Science to “Deep Science”.

Electron Model Based On Helmholtz’S Electron Vortex Theory & Kolmogorov’S Theory Of Turbulence, Florentin Smarandache, Victor Christianto, Robert Neil Boyd

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

In this paper, we explore a new electron model based on Helmholtz’s electron vortex and Kolmogorov theory of turbulence. We also discuss a new model of origination of charge and matter.

A Few Calculations Of Receding Moon From Spherical Kinetic Dynamics, Receding Planetary Orbits, And The Quantization Of Celestial Motions, Florentin Smarandache, Victor Christianto, Robert Neil Boyd

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

The present article discusses some interesting phenomena including the Lense-Thirring type anomalous precession, using a known spherical kinetic dynamics approach. Other implications include a plausible revised version of the celestial quantization equation described by Nottale and Rubcic & Rubcic. If the proposition described herein corresponds to the facts, then this kinetic dynamics interpretation of ‘frame-dragging’ effect could be viewed as a step to unification between GTR-type phenomena and QM. Further observation to verify or refute this conjecture is recommended, plausibly using LAGEOS type satellites.

How To Celebrate 24 New Year's Eves In A Single Year!, Florentin Smarandache

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

New Year's Eve 2018 reaches me on Jeju Island, South Korea, in the East China Sea. While I had spent New Year's Eve 2017 in Galapagos Islands, in the Pacific. We can celebrate 24 New Year's Eves in a single year, moving to the West – for example in an orbital spacecraft - (in the reverse sense of Earth's rotation around its axis) at a faster angular speed than Earth's rotation, jumping from one time-zone to another, and starting from the International Date Line. { In this paper we are referring to the solar day, hence to the angular speed …

The Encyclopedia Of Neutrosophic Researchers - Vol. 3, Florentin Smarandache

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

This is the third volume of the Encyclopedia of Neutrosophic Researchers, edited from materials offered by the authors who responded to the editor’s invitation. The authors are listed alphabetically. The introduction contains a short history of neutrosophics, together with links to the main papers and books. Neutrosophic set, neutrosophic logic, neutrosophic probability, neutrosophic statistics, neutrosophic measure, neutrosophic precalculus, neutrosophic calculus and so on are gaining significant attention in solving many real life problems that involve uncertainty, impreciseness, vagueness, incompleteness, inconsistent, and indeterminacy. In the past years the fields of neutrosophics have been extended and applied in various fields, such as: …

Neutrosophic Triplet Structures - Vol. 1, Florentin Smarandache, Memet Sahin

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

Neutrosophic set has been derived from a new branch of philosophy, namely Neutrosophy. Neutrosophic set is capable of dealing with uncertainty, indeterminacy and inconsistent information. Neutrosophic set approaches are suitable to modeling problems with uncertainty, indeterminacy and inconsistent information in which human knowledge is necessary, and human evaluation is needed. Neutrosophic set theory was firstly proposed in 1998 by Florentin Smarandache, who also developed the concept of single valued neutrosophic set, oriented towards real world scientific and engineering applications. Since then, the single valued neutrosophic set theory has been extensively studied in books and monographs, the properties of neutrosophic sets …

On The New Concept Creatio Ex-Rotatione, Florentin Smarandache, Victor Christianto

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

It is known that the Big Bang theory was based on the concept of creation ex nihilo, after ancient Greek philosophers. In this paper, we discuss the concept of creatio ex nihilo, as well as two other approaches - Intelligent Design and Emergence Theory. We argue that beside the above three approaches, a new concept called creatio ex-rotatione offers a resolution to the long standing disputes between beginning and eternity of the Universe. We agree with Vaas: [h]ow a conceptual and perhaps physical solution of the temporal aspect of Immanuel Kant’s “first antinomy of pure reason” is possible, i.e., how …

Improve The Low Energy Sensitivity Of The Hawc Observatory, Zhixiang Ren

Optical Science and Engineering ETDs

The high altitude water cherenkov gamma-ray observatory (HAWC) has been fully operational since March of 2015 in Mexico at 4,100 meters above sea level on the hillside of the Sierra Negra Volcano. It consists of an array of 300 water cherenkov detectors, each equipped with four photo-multiplier tubes. HAWC operates 24-hours per day with a wide field-of-view (FOV, ∼ 2 sr) and a high duty cycle (∼ 95%). These make it a powerful survey and monitoring experiment for mapping the gamma ray sky at very high energies (VHE, 100 GeV to 100 TeV) and to study sources with varying intensities. …

A Plausible Resolution To Hilbert’S Failed Attempt To Unify Gravitation & Electromagnetism, Florentin Smarandache, Victor Christianto, Robert Neil Boyd

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

In this paper, we explore the reasons why Hilbert’s axiomatic program to unify gravitation theory and electromagnetism failed and outline a plausible resolution of this problem. The latter is based on Gödel’s incompleteness theorem and Newton’s aether stream model.

Quantum Algorithms, Architecture, And Error Correction, Ciarán Ryan-Anderson

Physics & Astronomy ETDs

Quantum algorithms have the potential to provide exponential speedups over some of the best known classical algorithms. These speedups may enable quantum devices to solve currently intractable problems such as those in the fields of optimization, material science, chemistry, and biology. Thus, the realization of large-scale, reliable quantum-computers will likely have a significant impact on the world. For this reason, the focus of this dissertation is on the development of quantum-computing applications and robust, scalable quantum-architectures. I begin by presenting an overview of the language of quantum computation. I then, in joint work with Ojas Parekh, analyze the performance of …

Dance Of Two Supermassive Binary Black Holes, Karishma Bansal

Shared Knowledge Conference

Black holes exist in a various range of masses ranging from stellar mass (~ 10 Solar Mass) to Supermassive black holes (SMBHs, million to billion Solar Mass). It is expected that as the separation between the black holes decreases, emission of gravitational waves will grow stronger, which makes binary black holes one of the most promising sources for gravitational radiation detection. Gravitational waves from merging stellar-mass black holes have recently been discovered by LIGO; however, we are yet to detect them from binary SMBHs. These massive black holes reside at the heart of most of the galaxies and when two …

Nonthermal Dark Matter From Early Matter Domination, Jacek Ksawery Osinski

Shared Knowledge Conference

Dark matter (DM) production in the early universe traditionally assumes a standard thermal history where the universe is in a radiation-dominated phase after the end of inflation until matter-radiation equality. However, the presence of additional scalar fields (which is a generic prediction of explicit string constructions) can lead to an epoch of early matter domination (EMD) that ends before the onset of big bang nucleosynthesis. Such an EMD phase has important cosmological consequences and renders thermal production of DM irrelevant. We present three scenarios for DM production involving an era of EMD: evaporation of primordial black holes into DM, DM …

Non-Locality, Precognition & Spirit From The Physics Point Of View, Florentin Smarandache, Victor Christianto

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

There are various supernatural phenomena which can hardly be explained by the existing mainstream science, for instance non-local interactions (e.g. ESP) and also precognitive interdictions. And there are other problems such as how to include the Spirit in the framework of physics. For example, it has been known for long time that intuition plays significant role in many professions and human life, including entrepreneurship, government, and also in detective or law enforcement activities. Despite these examples, such a precognitive interdiction is hardly accepted in mainstream science. In this paper, we discuss non-local interactions and advanced solutions of Maxwell equations, and …

How Many Points Are There In A Line Segment? A New Answer From Discrete Cellular Space Viewpoint, Florentin Smarandache, Victor Christianto

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

While it is known that Euclid’s five axioms include a proposition that a line consists at least of two points, modern geometry avoid consistently any discussion on the precise definition of point, line, etc. It is our aim to clarify one of notorious question in Euclidean geometry: how many points are there in a line segment? – from discrete-cellular space (DCS) viewpoint. In retrospect, it may offer an alternative of quantum gravity, i.e. by exploring discrete gravitational theories. To elucidate our propositions, in the last section we will discuss some implications of discrete cellular-space model in several areas of interest: …

A Derivation Of Fluidic Maxwell-Proca Equations For Electrodynamics Of Superconductors & Its Implication To Chiral Cosmology Model, Florentin Smarandache, Victor Christianto, Yunita Umniyati

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

Mario Liu described a hydrodynamic Maxwell equations [3] and, also discussed potential implications of these new approaches to superconductors which were made after Tajmar’s paper [4]. In this paper, we present for the first time a derivation of fluidic Maxwell-Proca equations. The name of fluidic Maxwell-Proca is proposed because the equations were based on modifying Maxwell-Proca and Hirsch’s theory of electrodynamics of superconductor. It is hoped that this paper may stimulate further investigations and experiments in superconductor. It may be expected to have some impact to cosmology modeling too, for instance we consider a hypothetical argument that photon mass can …

On Some Metaphysical Problems Of Many Worlds Interpretation Of Quantum Mechanics, Florentin Smarandache, Victor Christianto, Yunita Umniyati

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

Despite its enormous practical success, many physicists and philosophers alike agree that the quantum theory is full of contradictions and paradoxes which are difficult to solve consistently. Even after 90 years, the experts themselves still do not all agree what to make of it. The area of disagreement centers primarily around the problem of describing observations. Formally, the socalled quantum measurement problem can be defined as follows: the result of a measurement is a superposition of vectors, each representing the quantity being observed as having one of its possible values. The question that has to be answered is : how …

Radon Measurement For Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay, Xavier Carlos Quintana

Physics & Astronomy ETDs

This thesis details the design and operation of a high-sensitivity radon detector for use in background radiation characterization and mitigation for the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay Experiment and Large Enriched Germanium Experiment for Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay (LEGEND) Collaboration. Understanding and mitigating background radiation is especially important in searches for very rare nuclear processes, which utilize sensitive detectors. One such rare process is the yet-to-be-observed neutrinoless double beta decay. Observation of this process would imply that the neutrino is its own antiparticle, called a Majorana particle, violate lepton number, and provide experimental constraints on the masses and mixing …

Neutrino Flavor Conversions In Dense Media, Lei Ma

Physics & Astronomy ETDs

Neutrinos are abundantly produced in astrophysical environments such as core-collapse supernovae and binary neutron star mergers. Neutrino flavor conversions in the dense media play important roles in the physical and chemical evolutions of the environments. In this dissertation, I study two mechanisms through which neutrinos may change their flavors.

In the first mechanism, neutrinos can experience flavor conversions through interactions with oscillatory perturbations in matter distributions. I show that this mechanism can be understood intuitively as Rabi oscillations. I also derive criteria which can be used to determine whether such parametric resonances exist in a given environment.

In the second …

High-Throughput Automated Multi-Target Super-Resolution Imaging, Farzin Farzam

Physics & Astronomy ETDs

Super-resolution microscopy techniques developed through the past few decades enable us to surpass the classical diffraction limit of light, and thus open new doors to investigate the formerly inaccessible world of nanometer-sized objects. Most importantly, by using super-resolution microscopy, one can visualize sub-cellular structures in the range of 10 to 200 nm. At this range, we can investigate exciting problems in biology and medicine by visualizing protein-protein interactions and spatiotemporal analysis of structures of interest on the surface or inside cells. These techniques (collectively known as nanoscopy) have a high impact on understanding and solving biological questions. This dissertation starts …

Dispersive Quantum Interface With Atoms And Nanophotonic Waveguides, Xiaodong Qi

Physics & Astronomy ETDs

Strong coupling between atoms and light is critical for quantum information processing and precise sensing. A nanophotonic waveguide is a promising platform for realizing an atom-light interface that reaches the strong coupling regime. In this dissertation, we study the dispersive response theory of the nanowaveguide system as the means to create an entangling atom-light interface, with applications to quantum non-demolition (QND) measurement and spin squeezing.

We calculate the dyadic Green's function, which determines the scattering of light by atoms in the presence of a nanowaveguide, and thus the phase shift and polarization rotation induced on the guided light. The Green's …

Novel Nonlinear And Quantum Devices Based On Multimode Optical Fibers, Hamed Pourbeyram

Physics & Astronomy ETDs

In this dissertation, multimode optical fibers (MMFs) have been studied as a robust and practical platform for nonlinear optics and quantum optics applications, where by experimental investigations and theoretical calculations we present the quantum and nonlinear virtue of MMFs as a versatile tool for future applications. Our investigations can be summarized in three parts: At first, we have investigated stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) in a long MMF, where more than 20 orders of cascaded Raman peaks have been generated. Observation of beam clean-up despite the highly multimode nature of the fiber and such strong nonlinear interaction despite the large fiber …

Infrared Properties Of Stars In The Bulge Asymmetries And Dynamical Evolution Survey, Eddie Hilburn

Physics & Astronomy ETDs

The Bulge Asymmetries and Dynamical Evolution (BAaDE) survey is an SiO maser survey of 28,062 infrared-selected evolved stars primarily in the Galactic plane. By cross-matching the BAaDE target sources with nine different infrared catalogs, we have constructed a catalog with wavelength coverage from 0.71 to 80 m. Using this catalog, we fit the data for each source to a model spectral energy distribution (SED) generated with the radiation transport program DUSTY in order to obtain characteristics such as bolometric flux, source effective temperature, and the optical depth of the circumstellar envelope.

The overall goal of the BAaDE survey is to …

Quantum Phase Space Representations And Their Negativities, Ninnat Dangniam

Physics & Astronomy ETDs

A classical simulation scheme of quantum computation given a restricted set of states and measurements may be---occasionally, but only occasionally---interpreted naturally as a statistical simulation of positive quasi-probability distributions on a phase space. In this dissertation, we explore phase space representations for finite-dimensional quantum systems and their negativities beyond the usual analogues of the Wigner function.

The first line of study focuses on a characterization tool for valid quasi-probability distributions of (possibly mixed) quantum states. A quantum generalization of Bochner's theorem from classical probability theory simultaneously characterizes both the set of valid Wigner functions and the subset of positive ones. …

"Water Fountain" Masers In Proto-Planetary Nebulae, Patrick R. Latimer

2018 Award Winners

No abstract provided.