Results for the LISA Phase Measurement System Project

This article presents some of the more topical results of a study into the LISA phase measurement system. This system is responsible for measuring the phase of the heterodyne signal caused by the interference of the laser beams between the local and far spacecraft. Interactions with the LISA systems that surround the phase measurement system imply additional non-trivial requirements on the phase measurement system.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, in LaTeX2e using iopart. Expanded and clarified text from 1st versio

The Costs of Conflict Resolution and Financial Distress: Evidence from the Texaco-Pennzoil Litigation

This paper uses data on the abnormal returns earned by the shareholders of Texaco and Pennzoil to examine whether resources were "lost" in the course of the litigation. We find that the leakage involved in the forced transfer is enormous: each dollar of value lost by Texaco's shareholders has been matched by only about 30 cents gain to the owners of Pennzoil. Our estimates suggest that the Texaco-Pennzoil conflict has reduced the combined equity value of the two companies by about $2 billion. Further losses have been suffered by Texaco's bondholders, though these may be offset by the tax collections that would result if Texaco made a large payment to Pennzoil.

Exploration of a High Luminosity 100 TeV Proton Antiproton Collider

New physics is being explored with the Large Hadron Collider at CERN and with Intensity Frontier programs at Fermilab and KEK. The energy scale for new physics is known to be in the multi-TeV range, signaling the need for a future collider which well surpasses this energy scale. We explore a 10$^{\,34}$ cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$ luminosity, 100 TeV $p\bar{p}$ collider with 7$\times$ the energy of the LHC but only 2$\times$ as much NbTi superconductor, motivating the choice of 4.5 T single bore dipoles. The cross section for many high mass states is 10 times higher in $p\bar{p}$ than $pp$ collisions. Antiquarks for production can come directly from an antiproton rather than indirectly from gluon splitting. The higher cross sections reduce the synchrotron radiation in superconducting magnets and the number of events per beam crossing, because lower beam currents can produce the same rare event rates. Events are more centrally produced, allowing a more compact detector with less space between quadrupole triplets and a smaller $\beta^{*}$ for higher luminosity. A Fermilab-like $\bar p$ source would disperse the beam into 12 momentum channels to capture more antiprotons. Because stochastic cooling time scales as the number of particles, 12 cooling ring sets would be used. Each set would include phase rotation to lower momentum spreads, equalize all momentum channels, and stochastically cool. One electron cooling ring would follow the stochastic cooling rings. Finally antiprotons would be recycled during runs without leaving the collider ring by joining them to new bunches with synchrotron damping.Comment: 11 pages, 20 figures, SESAPS 2015 Conference. Reference correcte

Speculative Dynamics

This paper presents evidence on the characteristic speculative dynamics of a wide range of asset returns. It highlights three stylized facts. First, returns tend to be positively serially correlated at high frequency. Second, returns tend to be negatively serially correlated over long horizons. Third, deviations of asset values from proxies for fundamental value have predictive power for returns. These patterns emerge repeatedly in our analyses of stocks, bonds, foreign exchange, real estate, collectibles, and precious metals, and they appear too strong to be attributed only to small sample biases. The pervasive nature of these patterns suggests that they may be lie to inherent features of the speculative process, rather than to variation in risk factors which affect particular markets.