California Institute of Technology

About: California Institute of Technology is a education organization based out in Pasadena, California, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Galaxy & Redshift. The organization has 57649 authors who have published 146691 publications receiving 8620287 citations. The organization is also known as: Caltech & Cal Tech.

The Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) Mission

Abstract: The Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission is one of the first Earth observation satellites being developed by NASA in response to the National Research Council's Decadal Survey SMAP will make global measurements of the soil moisture present at the Earth's land surface and will distinguish frozen from thawed land surfaces Direct observations of soil moisture and freeze/thaw state from space will allow significantly improved estimates of water, energy, and carbon transfers between the land and the atmosphere The accuracy of numerical models of the atmosphere used in weather prediction and climate projections are critically dependent on the correct characterization of these transfers Soil moisture measurements are also directly applicable to flood assessment and drought monitoring SMAP observations can help monitor these natural hazards, resulting in potentially great economic and social benefits SMAP observations of soil moisture and freeze/thaw timing will also reduce a major uncertainty in quantifying the global carbon balance by helping to resolve an apparent missing carbon sink on land over the boreal latitudes The SMAP mission concept will utilize L-band radar and radiometer instruments sharing a rotating 6-m mesh reflector antenna to provide high-resolution and high-accuracy global maps of soil moisture and freeze/thaw state every two to three days In addition, the SMAP project will use these observations with advanced modeling and data assimilation to provide deeper root-zone soil moisture and net ecosystem exchange of carbon SMAP is scheduled for launch in the 2014-2015 time frame

Boson localization and the superfluid-insulator transition.

Abstract: The phase diagrams and phase transitions of bosons with short-ranged repulsive interactions moving in periodic and/or random external potentials at zero temperature are investigated with emphasis on the superfluid-insulator transition induced by varying a parameter such as the density. Bosons in periodic potentials (e.g., on a lattice) at T=0 exhibit two types of phases: a superfluid phase and Mott insulating phases characterized by integer (or commensurate) boson densities, by the existence of a gap for particle-hole excitations, and by zero compressibility. Generically, the superfluid onset transition in d dimensions from a Mott insulator to superfluidity is ‘‘ideal,’’ or mean field in character, but at special multicritical points with particle-hole symmetry it is in the universality class of the (d+1)-dimensional XY model. In the presence of disorder, a third, ‘‘Bose glass’’ phase exists. This phase is insulating because of the localization effects of the randomness and analogous to the Fermi glass phase of interacting fermions in a strongly disordered potential. The Bose glass phase is characterized by a finite compressibility, no gap, but an infinite superfluid susceptibility. In the presence of disorder the transition to superfluidity is argued to occur only from the Bose glass phase, and never directly from the Mott insulator. This zero-temperature superfluid-insulator transition is studied via generalizations of the Josephson scaling relation for the superfluid density at the ordinary λ transition, highlighting the crucial role of quantum fluctuations. The transition is found to have a dynamic critical exponent z exactly equal to d and correlation length and order-parameter correlation exponents ν and η which satisfy the bounds ν≥2/d and η≤2-d, respectively. It is argued that the superfluid-insulator transition in the presence of disorder may have an upper critical dimension dc which is infinite, but a perturbative renormalization-group calculation wherein the critical exponents have mean-field values for weak disorder above d=4 is also discussed. Many of these conclusions are verified by explicit calculations on a model of one-dimensional bosons in the presence of both random and periodic potentials. The general results are applied to experiments on 4He absorbed in porous media such as Vycor. Some measurable properties of the superfluid onset are predicted exactly [e.g., the exponent x relating the λ transition temperature to the zero-temperature superfluid density is found to be d/2(d-1)], while stringent bounds are placed on others. Analysis of preliminary data is consistent with these predictions.

The eleventh and twelfth data releases of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: final data from SDSS-III

Abstract: The third generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-III) took data from 2008 to 2014 using the original SDSS wide-field imager, the original and an upgraded multi-object fiber-fed optical spectrograph, a new near-infrared high-resolution spectrograph, and a novel optical interferometer. All the data from SDSS-III are now made public. In particular, this paper describes Data Release 11 (DR11) including all data acquired through 2013 July, and Data Release 12 (DR12) adding data acquired through 2014 July (including all data included in previous data releases), marking the end of SDSS-III observing. Relative to our previous public release (DR10), DR12 adds one million new spectra of galaxies and quasars from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) over an additional 3000 sq. deg of sky, more than triples the number of H-band spectra of stars as part of the Apache Point Observatory (APO) Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE), and includes repeated accurate radial velocity measurements of 5500 stars from the Multi-Object APO Radial Velocity Exoplanet Large-area Survey (MARVELS). The APOGEE outputs now include measured abundances of 15 different elements for each star. In total, SDSS-III added 2350 sq. deg of ugriz imaging; 155,520 spectra of 138,099 stars as part of the Sloan Exploration of Galactic Understanding and Evolution 2 (SEGUE-2) survey; 2,497,484 BOSS spectra of 1,372,737 galaxies, 294,512 quasars, and 247,216 stars over 9376 sq. deg; 618,080 APOGEE spectra of 156,593 stars; and 197,040 MARVELS spectra of 5,513 stars. Since its first light in 1998, SDSS has imaged over 1/3 of the Celestial sphere in five bands and obtained over five million astronomical spectra.

Helical Liquids and Majorana Bound States in Quantum Wires

Abstract: We show that the combination of spin-orbit coupling with a Zeeman field or strong interactions may lead to the formation of a helical electron liquid in single-channel quantum wires, with spin and velocity perfectly correlated. We argue that zero-energy Majorana bound states are formed in various situations when such wires are situated in proximity to a conventional s-wave superconductor. This occurs when the external magnetic field, the superconducting gap, or, most simply, the chemical potential vary along the wire. These Majorana states do not require the presence of a vortex in the system. Experimental consequences of the helical liquid and the Majorana states are also discussed.