How serious can the stealth bias be in gravitational wave parameter estimation?

The upcoming direct detection of gravitational waves will open a window to probing the strong-field regime of general relativity (GR). As a consequence, waveforms that include the presence of deviations from GR have been developed (e.g. in the parametrized post-Einsteinian approach). TIGER, a data analysis pipeline which builds Bayesian evidence to support or question the validity of GR, has been written and tested. In particular, it was shown recently that data from the LIGO and Virgo detectors will allow to detect deviations from GR smaller than can be probed with Solar System tests and pulsar timing measurements or not accessible with conventional tests of GR. However, evidence from several detections is required before a deviation from GR can be confidently claimed. An interesting consequence is that, should GR not be the correct theory of gravity in its strong field regime, using standard GR templates for the matched filter analysis of interferometer data will introduce biases in the gravitational wave measured parameters with potentially disastrous consequences on the astrophysical inferences, such as the coalescence rate or the mass distribution. We consider three heuristic possible deviations from GR and show that the biases introduced by assuming GR's validity manifest in various ways. The mass parameters are usually the most affected, with biases that can be as large as $30$ standard deviations for the symmetric mass ratio, and nearly one percent for the chirp mass, which is usually estimated with sub-percent accuracy. We conclude that statements about the nature of the observed sources, e.g. if both objects are neutron stars, depend critically on the explicit assumption that GR it the right theory of gravity in the strong field regime.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures, 5 table

Quantum Portrait of a Black Hole with P\"oschl-Teller Potential

We improve upon the simple model studied by Casadio and Orlandi [JHEP 1308 (2013) 025] for a black hole as a condensate of gravitons. Instead of the harmonic oscillator potential, the P\"oschl-Teller potential is used, which allows for a continuum of scattering states. The quantum mechanical model is embedded into a relativistic wave equation for a complex Klein-Gordon field, and the charge of the field is interpreted as the gravitational charge (mass) carried by the graviton condensate.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figure, v2: typos correcte

Hydrogen Dissociation and Diffusion on Transition Metal(=Ti,Zr,V,Fe,Ru,Co,Rh,Ni,Pd,Cu,Ag)-doped Mg(0001) Surfaces

The kinetics of hydrogen absorption by magnesium bulk is affected by two main activated processes: the dissociation of the H$_2$ molecule and the diffusion of atomic H into the bulk. In order to have fast absorption kinetics both activated processed need to have a low barrier. Here we report a systematic ab-initio density functional theory investigation of H$_2$ dissociation and subsequent atomic H diffusion on TM(=Ti,V,Zr,Fe,Ru,Co,Rh,Ni,Pd,Cu,Ag)-doped Mg(0001) surfaces. The calculations show that doping the surface with TM's on the left of the periodic table eliminates the barrier for the dissociation of the molecule, but the H atoms bind very strongly to the TM, therefore hindering diffusion. Conversely, TM's on the right of the periodic table don't bind H, however, they do not reduce the barrier to dissociate H$_2$ significantly. Our results show that Fe, Ni and Rh, and to some extent Co and Pd, are all exceptions, combining low activation barriers for both processes, with Ni being the best possible choice.Comment: accepted in the International Journal of Hydrogen Energ

Tight Mobile Byzantine Tolerant Atomic Storage

This paper proposes the first implementation of an atomic storage tolerant to mobile Byzantine agents. Our implementation is designed for the round-based synchronous model where the set of Byzantine nodes changes from round to round. In this model we explore the feasibility of multi-writer multi-reader atomic register prone to various mobile Byzantine behaviors. We prove upper and lower bounds for solving the atomic storage in all the explored models. Our results, significantly different from the static case, advocate for a deeper study of the main building blocks of distributed computing while the system is prone to mobile Byzantine failures

Influences of Al doping on the electronic structure of Mg(0001) and dissociation property of H2

By using the density functional theory method, we systematically study the influences of the doping of an Al atom on the electronic structures of the Mg(0001) surface and dissociation behaviors of H2 molecules. We find that for the Al-doped surfaces, the surface relaxation around the doping layer changes from expansion of a clean Mg(0001) surface to contraction, due to the redistribution of electrons. After doping, the work function is enlarged, and the electronic states around the Fermi energy have a major distribution around the doping layer. For the dissociation of H2 molecules, we find that the energy barrier is enlarged for the doped surfaces. Especially, when the Al atom is doped at the first layer, the energy barrier is enlarged by 0.30 eV. For different doping lengths, however, the dissociation energy barrier decreases slowly to the value on a clean Mg(0001) surface when the doping layer is far away from the top surface. Our results well describe the electronic changes after Al-doping for the Mg(0001) surface, and reveal some possible mechanisms for improving the resistance to corrosion of the Mg(0001) surface by doping of Al atoms

Transport properties for liquid silicon-oxygen-iron mixtures at Earth's core conditions

We report on the thermal and electrical conductivities of two liquid silicon-oxygen-iron mixtures (Fe$_{0.82}$Si$_{0.10}$O$_{0.08}$ and Fe$_{0.79}$Si$_{0.08}$O$_{0.13}$), representative of the composition of the Earth's outer core at the relevant pressure-temperature conditions, obtained from density functional theory calculations with the Kubo-Greenwood formulation. We find thermal conductivities $k$ =100 (160) W m$^{-1}$ K$^{-1}$, and electrical conductivities $\sigma = 1.1 (1.3) \times 10^6 \Omega^{-1}$ m$^{-1}$ at the top (bottom) of the outer core. These new values are between 2 and 3 times higher than previous estimates, and have profound implications for our understanding of the Earth's thermal history and the functioning of the Earth's magnetic field, including rapid cooling rate for the whole core or high level of radiogenic elements in the core. We also show results for a number of structural and dynamic properties of the mixtures, including the partial radial distribution functions, mean square displacements, viscosities and speeds of sound.Comment: 16 pages, 12 figure

Building Regular Registers with Rational Malicious Servers and Anonymous Clients

The paper addresses the problem of emulating a regular register in a synchronous distributed system where clients invoking $$\mathsf{read}()$$ and $$\mathsf{write}()$$ operations are anonymous while server processes maintaining the state of the register may be compromised by rational adversaries (i.e., a server might behave as rational malicious Byzantine process). We first model our problem as a Bayesian game between a client and a rational malicious server where the equilibrium depends on the decisions of the malicious server (behave correctly and not be detected by clients vs returning a wrong register value to clients with the risk of being detected and then excluded by the computation). We prove such equilibrium exists and finally we design a protocol implementing the regular register that forces the rational malicious server to behave correctly

Testing general relativity with compact coalescing binaries: comparing exact and predictive methods to compute the Bayes factor

The second generation of gravitational-wave detectors is scheduled to start operations in 2015. Gravitational-wave signatures of compact binary coalescences could be used to accurately test the strong-field dynamical predictions of general relativity. Computationally expensive data analysis pipelines, including TIGER, have been developed to carry out such tests. As a means to cheaply assess whether a particular deviation from general relativity can be detected, Cornish et al. and Vallisneri recently proposed an approximate scheme to compute the Bayes factor between a general-relativity gravitational-wave model and a model representing a class of alternative theories of gravity parametrised by one additional parameter. This approximate scheme is based on only two easy-to-compute quantities: the signal-to-noise ratio of the signal and the fitting factor between the signal and the manifold of possible waveforms within general relativity. In this work, we compare the prediction from the approximate formula against an exact numerical calculation of the Bayes factor using the lalinference library. We find that, using frequency-domain waveforms, the approximate scheme predicts exact results with good accuracy, providing the correct scaling with the signal-to-noise ratio at a fitting factor value of 0.992 and the correct scaling with the fitting factor at a signal-to-noise ratio of 20, down to a fitting factor of $\sim$ 0.9. We extend the framework for the approximate calculation of the Bayes factor which significantly increases its range of validity, at least to fitting factors of $\sim$ 0.7 or higher.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Classical and Quantum Gravit