The Microwave Thermal Thruster Concept

The microwave thermal thruster heats propellant via a heat-exchanger then expands it through a rocket nozzle to produce thrust. The heat-exchanger is simply a microwave-absorbent structure through which propellant flows in small channels. Nuclear thermal thrusters are based on an analogous principle, using neutrons rather than microwaves, and have experimentally demonstrated specific impulses exceeding 850 seconds. A microwave equivalent will likely have a similar specific impulse, since both nuclear and microwave thermal thrusters are ultimately constrained by material thermal limits, rather than the energy-density limits of chemical propellants. We present the microwave thermal thruster concept by characterizing a novel variation for beamed-energy launch. In reducing the thruster concept to practice, the enabling physical process is microwave absorption by refractory materials, and we examine semiconductor and susceptor-based approaches to achieving this absorption within the heat-exchanger structure

High-Power Fiber Lasers Using Photonic Band Gap Materials

High-power fiber lasers (HPFLs) would be made from photonic band gap (PBG) materials, according to the proposal. Such lasers would be scalable in the sense that a large number of fiber lasers could be arranged in an array or bundle and then operated in phase-locked condition to generate a superposition and highly directed high-power laser beam. It has been estimated that an average power level as high as 1,000 W per fiber could be achieved in such an array. Examples of potential applications for the proposed single-fiber lasers include welding and laser surgery. Additionally, the bundled fibers have applications in beaming power through free space for autonomous vehicles, laser weapons, free-space communications, and inducing photochemical reactions in large-scale industrial processes. The proposal has been inspired in part by recent improvements in the capabilities of single-mode fiber amplifiers and lasers to produce continuous high-power radiation. In particular, it has been found that the average output power of a single strand of a fiber laser can be increased by suitably changing the doping profile of active ions in its gain medium to optimize the spatial overlap of the electromagnetic field with the distribution of active ions. Such optimization minimizes pump power losses and increases the gain in the fiber laser system. The proposal would expand the basic concept of this type of optimization to incorporate exploitation of the properties (including, in some cases, nonlinearities) of PBG materials to obtain power levels and efficiencies higher than are now possible. Another element of the proposal is to enable pumping by concentrated sunlight. Somewhat more specifically, the proposal calls for exploitation of the properties of PBG materials to overcome a number of stubborn adverse phenomena that have impeded prior efforts to perfect HPFLs. The most relevant of those phenomena is amplified spontaneous emission (ASE), which causes saturation of gain and power at undesirably low levels, and scattering of light from dopants. In designing a given fiber laser for reduced ASE, care must be taken to maintain a correct fiber structure for eventual scaling to an array of many such lasers such that the interactions among all the members of the array would cause them to operate in phase lock. Hence, the problems associated with improving a single-fiber laser are not entirely separate from the bundling problem, and some designs for individual fiber lasers may be better than others if the fibers are to be incorporated into bundles. Extensive calculations, expected to take about a year, must be performed in order to determine design parameters before construction of prototype individual and fiber lasers can begin. The design effort can be expected to include calculations to optimize overlaps between the electromagnetic modes and the gain media and calculations of responses of PBG materials to electromagnetic fields. Design alternatives and physical responses that may be considered include simple PBG fibers with no intensity-dependent responses, PBG fibers with intensity- dependent band-gap shifting (see figure), and broad-band pumping made possible by use of candidate broad-band pumping media in place of the air or vacuum gaps used in prior PBG fibers

Location Independent Working In Academia: Enabling employees or supporting managerial control?

In this article, we consider the extent to which the practice of location independent working (LIW) enables academic employees to make choices and have agency in their life-work balance, and the extent to which it may support (or potentially be used as a form of resistance to) increased managerial control. Set within the context of an increasingly performance-led, managerialist public sector landscape, the impact and implications of these working practices are examined through the lens of labour process theory. Drawing on findings from an ongoing in-depth ethnographic study set in a post-1992 university business school in central England, we suggest that the practice of LIW is being used both to enable employees and to support managerial control

Fidelity of Quantum Interferometers

For a generic interferometer, the conditional probability density distribution, $p(\phi|m)$, for the phase $\phi$ given measurement outcome $m$, will generally have multiple peaks. Therefore, the phase sensitivity of an interferometer cannot be adequately characterized by the standard deviation, such as $\Delta\phi\sim 1/\sqrt{N}$ (the standard limit), or $\Delta\phi\sim 1/N$ (the Heisenberg limit). We propose an alternative measure of phase sensitivity--the fidelity of an interferometer--defined as the Shannon mutual information between the phase shift $\phi$\ and the measurement outcomes $m$. As an example application of interferometer fidelity, we consider a generic optical Mach-Zehnder interferometer, used as a sensor of a classical field. We find the surprising result that an entangled {\it N00N} state input leads to a lower fidelity than a Fock state input, for the same photon number.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

An open quantum system approach to EPR correlations in K0-K0 system

We find the time evolution of the system of two non-interacting unstable particles, distinguishable as well as identical ones, in arbitrary reference frame having only the Kraus operators governing the evolution of its components in the rest frame. We than calculate in the rigorous way Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen quantum correlation functions for K0-K0 system in the singlet state taking into account CP-violation and decoherence and show that the results are exactly the same despite the fact we treat kaons as distinguishable or identical particles which means that the statistics of the particles plays no role, at least in considered cases.Comment: 14 pp. no fig