Against the new Cartesian Circle

In two recent papers, Michael Della Rocca accuses Descartes of reasoning circularly in the Fourth Meditation. This alleged new circle is distinct from, and more vicious than, the traditional Cartesian Circle arising in the Third Meditation. We explain Della Rocca’s reasons for this accusation, showing that his argument is invalid

Development of a prototype plastic space erectable satellite Quarterly report, Sep. - Nov. 1965

Test program for cap section mesh fabrication in prototype space erectable satellite developmen

Blowing-Up the Four-Dimensional Z_3 Orientifold

We study the blowing-up of the four-dimensional Z_3 orientifold of Angelantonj, Bianchi, Pradisi, Sagnotti and Stanev (ABPSS) by giving nonzero vacuum expectation values (VEV's) to the twisted sector moduli blowing-up modes. The blowing-up procedure induces a Fayet-Iliopoulos (FI) term for the ``anomalous'' U(1), whose magnitude depends linearly on the VEV's of the blowing-up modes. To preserve the N=1 supersymmetry, non-Abelian matter fields are forced to acquire nonzero VEV's, thus breaking (some of) the non-Abelian gauge structure and decoupling some of the matter fields. We determine the form of the FI term, construct explicit examples of (non-Abelian) D and F flat directions, and determine the surviving gauge groups of the restabilized vacua. We also determine the mass spectra, for which the restabilization reduces the number of families.Comment: 19 pages, Late

Constraints on Kaluza-Klein gravity from Gravity Probe B

Using measurements of geodetic precession from Gravity Probe B, we constrain possible departures from Einstein's General Relativity for a spinning test body in Kaluza-Klein gravity with one additional space dimension. We consider the two known static and spherically symmetric solutions of the 5D field equations (the soliton and canonical metrics) and obtain new limits on the free parameters associated with each. The theory is consistent with observation but must be "close to 4D" in both cases.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figure; General Relativity and Gravitation, in pres

Socially Aware Motion Planning with Deep Reinforcement Learning

For robotic vehicles to navigate safely and efficiently in pedestrian-rich environments, it is important to model subtle human behaviors and navigation rules (e.g., passing on the right). However, while instinctive to humans, socially compliant navigation is still difficult to quantify due to the stochasticity in people's behaviors. Existing works are mostly focused on using feature-matching techniques to describe and imitate human paths, but often do not generalize well since the feature values can vary from person to person, and even run to run. This work notes that while it is challenging to directly specify the details of what to do (precise mechanisms of human navigation), it is straightforward to specify what not to do (violations of social norms). Specifically, using deep reinforcement learning, this work develops a time-efficient navigation policy that respects common social norms. The proposed method is shown to enable fully autonomous navigation of a robotic vehicle moving at human walking speed in an environment with many pedestrians.Comment: 8 page

Electroweak Breaking and the mu problem in Supergravity Models with an Additional U(1)

We consider electroweak symmetry breaking in supersymmetric models with an extra non-anomalous U(1)' gauge symmetry and an extra standard-model singlet scalar S. For appropriate charges the U(1)' forbids an elementary mu term, but an effective mu is generated by the VEV of S, leading to a natural solution to the mu problem. There are a variety of scenarios leading to acceptably small Z-Z' mixing and other phenomenological consequences, all of which involve some but not excessive fine tuning. One class, driven by a large trilinear soft supersymmetry breaking term, implies small mixing, a light Z' (e.g., 200 GeV), and an electroweak phase transition that may be first order at tree level. In another class, with m_S^2 < 0 (radiative breaking), the typical scale of dimensional parameters, including M_{Z'} and the effective mu, is O(1 TeV), but the electroweak scale is smaller due to cancellations. We relate the soft supersymmetry breaking parameters at the electroweak scale to those at the string scale, choosing Yukawa couplings as determined within a class of string models. We find that one does not obtain either scenario for universal soft supersymmetry breaking mass parameters at the string scale and no exotic multiplets contributing to the renormalization group equations. However, either scenario is possible when the assumption of universal soft breaking is relaxed. Radiative breaking can also be generated by exotics, which are expected in most string models.Comment: 45 pages, revtex, 20 eps figures, psfig.sty; Minor numerical renormalization group results corrected. Erratum to appear in Phys. Rev.

Most Sub-Arcsecond Companions of Kepler Exoplanet Candidate Host Stars are Gravitationally Bound

Using the known detection limits for high-resolution imaging observations and the statistical properties of true binary and line-of-sight companions, we estimate the binary fraction of {\it Kepler} exoplanet host stars. Our speckle imaging programs at the WIYN 3.5-m and Gemini North 8.1-m telescopes have observed over 600 {\it Kepler} objects of interest (KOIs) and detected 49 stellar companions within $\sim$1 arcsecond. Assuming binary stars follow a log-normal period distribution for an effective temperature range of 3,000 to 10,000 K, then the model predicts that the vast majority of detected sub-arcsecond companions are long period ($P>50$ years), gravitationally bound companions. In comparing the model predictions to the number of real detections in both observational programs, we conclude that the overall binary fraction of host stars is similar to the 40-50\% rate observed for field stars