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Browse the failure-mode index

280 real negative results, null findings, and replication failures in Physics. Search the index →

WASTE indexes published research — it does not host or republish full papers. Each entry is a metadata record compiled from open scholarly databases; the abstract is shown in full only where the paper is openly licensed, otherwise a short excerpt under fair use. Classifications are automated and approximate.

Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Resonant amplitude distribution of the Hilda asteroids and the free-floating planet flyby scenario

Jian Li, Zhihong Jeff Xia, Hanlun Lei et al. · 2024 · arXiv

In some recent work, we provided a quantitative explanation for the number asymmetry of Jupiter Trojans by hypothesizing a free-floating planet (FFP) flyby into the Solar System. In support of that explanation, this paper examines the influence of the same FFP flyby on the Hilda asteroids, which orbit stably in the 3:2 mean motion resonance with Jupiter. The observed Hilda population exhibits two distinct resonant patterns: (1) a lack of Hildas with resonant amplitudes < 40 deg. at eccentricities < 0.1; (2) a nearly complete absence of Hildas with amplitudes < 20 deg., regardless of eccentrici

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

3D Simulations of Plasma Filaments in the Scrape Off Layer: A Comparison with Models of Reduced Dimensionality

Luke Easy, Fulvio Militello, John Omotani et al. · 2014 · arXiv

This paper presents simulations of isolated 3D filaments in a slab geometry obtained using a 3D reduced fluid code. First, systematic scans were performed to investigate how the dynamics of a filament are affected by its amplitude, perpendicular size and parallel extent. The perpendicular size of the filament was found to have a strong influence on its motions, as it determined the relative importance of parallel currents to polarisation and viscous currents, whilst drift-wave instabilities were observed if the initial amplitude of the blob was increased sufficiently. Next, the 3D simulations

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Herd Behaviour in Public Goods Games

María Pereda · 2024 · arXiv

The problem of free-riding arises when individuals benefit from a shared resource, service, or public good without contributing proportionately to its provision. This conduct often leads to a collective action problem, as individuals pursue personal gains while relying on the contributions of others. In this study, we present a Bayesian inference model to elucidate the behaviour of participants in a Public Goods Game, a conceptual framework that captures the essence of the free-riding problem. Here, individuals possess information on the distribution of group donations to the public good. Our

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Accurate coarse-graining of small organic molecules in melts and thin films using density-dependent potentials

Sayan Dutta, Maria C. Lesniewski, Muhammad Nawaz Qaisrani et al. · 2025 · arXiv

Conjugated organic molecules play a central role in a wide range of optoelectronic devices, including organic light-emitting diodes, organic field-effect transistors, and organic solar cells. A major bottleneck in the computational design of these materials is the discrepancy between simulation and experimental time and length scales. Coarse-graining (CG) offers a promising solution to bridge this gap by reducing redundant degrees of freedom and smoothing the potential energy landscape, thereby significantly accelerating molecular dynamics simulations. However, standard CG models are typically

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Semi-Analytical Models for Lensing by Dark Halos: I. Splitting Angles

Li-Xin Li, Jeremiah P. Ostriker · 2000 · arXiv

We use the semi-analytical approach to analyze gravitational lensing of quasars by dark halos in various cold dark matter (CDM) cosmologies, in order to determine the sensitivity of the prediction probabilities of images separations to the input assumptions regarding halos and cosmologies. The mass function of dark halos is assumed to be given by the Press-Schechter function. The mass density profile of dark halos is alternatively taken to be the singular isothermal sphere (SIS), the Navarro-Frenk-White (NFW) profile, or the generalized NFW profile. The cosmologies include: the Einstein-de Sit

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Breakdown of Boltzmann-type Models for the Alignment of Self-propelled Rods

Patrick Murphy, Misha Perepelitsa, Ilya Timofeyev et al. · 2023 · arXiv

Studies in the collective motility of organisms use a range of analytical approaches to formulate continuous kinetic models of collective dynamics from rules or equations describing agent interactions. However, the derivation of these kinetic models often relies on Boltzmann's hypothesis of "molecular chaos", that correlations between individuals are short-lived. While this assumption is often the simplest way to derive tractable models, it is often not valid in practice due to the high levels of cooperation and self-organization present in biological systems. In this work, we illustrated this

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Understanding Balmer Decrements in T Tauri stars in terms of Multiflow Magnetospheric Accretion

Naiara Patiño, Nuria Calvet, Gladis Magris et al. · 2026 · arXiv

Magnetospheric accretion is the paradigm for accretion in Classical T-Tauri Stars (CTTS). However, the standard, one-flow magnetospheric accretion model fails to replicate important characteristics such as the observed Balmer decrements. We address this limitation by adopting a model with two axisymmetric magnetospheric accretion flows of different accretion rates and geometries. We calculate the fluxes of the hydrogen $H_α$, $H_β$, and $H_γ$ lines of each flow with the magnetospheric accretion model and use Bayesian statistics to fit the Balmer line fluxes of 139 CTTS in the Orion OB1b subass

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Dynamical Constraints on Mercury's Collisional Origin

Matthew S. Clement, Nathan A. Kaib, John E. Chambers · 2019 · arXiv

Of the solar system's four terrestrial planets, the origin of Mercury is perhaps the most mysterious. Modern numerical simulations designed to model the dynamics of terrestrial planet formation systematically fail to replicate Mercury; which possesses just 5% the mass of Earth and the highest orbital eccentricity and inclination among the planets. However, Mercury's large iron-rich core and low volatile inventory stand out among the inner planets, and seem to imply a violent collisional origin. Because most algorithms used for simulating terrestrial accretion do not consider the effects of col

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Comparison of magnetic diffusion and reconnection in ideal and resistive relativistic magnetohydrodynamics, ideal magnetodynamics, and resistive force-free electrodynamics

Michael P. Grehan, Tanisha Ghosal, James R. Beattie et al. · 2025 · arXiv

High-energy astrophysical systems and compact objects are frequently modeled using ideal relativistic magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) or force-free electrodynamic (FFE) simulations, with the underlying assumption that the discretisation from the numerical scheme introduces an effective (numerical) magnetic resistivity that adequately resembles an explicit resistivity. However, it is crucial to note that numerical resistivity can fail to replicate essential features of explicit resistivity. In this study, we compare the 1D resistive decay and 2D reconnection properties of four commonly used physical

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Use of Time Dependent Data in Bayesian Global 21cm Foreground and Signal Modelling

Dominic Anstey, Eloy de Lera Acedo, Will Handley · 2022 · arXiv

Global 21cm cosmology aims to investigate the cosmic dawn and epoch of reionisation by measuring the sky averaged HI absorption signal, which requires, accurate modelling of, or correction for, the bright radio foregrounds and distortions arising from chromaticity of the antenna beam. We investigate the effect of improving foreground modelling by fitting data sets from many observation times simultaneously in a single Bayesian analysis, fitting for the same parameter set by performing these fits on simulated data. We find that for a hexagonal dipole antenna, this simultaneous fitting produces

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Does the random nature of cell-virus interactions during in vitro infections affect TCID$_{50}$ measurements and parameter estimation by mathematical models?

Christian Quirouette, Risavarshni Thevakumaran, Kyosuke Adachi et al. · 2024 · arXiv

Endpoint dilution (TCID50) assays cannot count the number of infectious virions (IVs), and instead are limited to counting the number of Specific INfections caused by the sample (SIN). The latter depends not only on whether virions are infectious, but also on the cells and the experimental conditions under which they interact. These interactions are random and controlled by parameters such as the rates at which IVs lose infectivity, enter cells, or fail to replicate following cell entry. Here, stochastic TCID50 assays are simulated to determine how the random number of infected wells relates t

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Significant improvement in planetary system simulations from statistical averaging

David M. Hernandez, Eric Agol, Matthew J. Holman et al. · 2021 · arXiv

Symplectic integrators are widely used for the study of planetary dynamics and other $N$-body problems. In a study of the outer Solar system, we demonstrate that individual symplectic integrations can yield biased errors in the semi-major axes and possibly other orbital elements. The bias is resolved by studying an ensemble of initial conditions of the outer Solar system. Such statistical sampling could significantly improve measurement of planetary system properties like their secular frequencies. We also compared the distributions of action-like variables between high and low accuracy integr

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

YARARA: Significant improvement of RV precision through post-processing of spectral time-series

M. Cretignier, X. Dumusque, N. C. Hara et al. · 2021 · arXiv

Aims: Even the most-precise radial-velocity instruments gather high-resolution spectra that present systematic errors that a data reduction pipeline cannot identify and correct for efficiently. In this paper, we aim at improving the radial-velocity precision of HARPS measurements by cleaning individual extracted spectra using the wealth of information contained in spectra time-series. Methods: We developed YARARA, a post-processing pipeline designed to clean high-resolution spectra from instrumental systematics and atmospheric contamination. Spectra are corrected for: tellurics, interference p

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Modified Bethe-Peierls boundary condition for ultracold atoms with Spin-Orbit coupling

Peng Zhang, Long Zhang, Youjin Deng · 2012 · arXiv

We show that the Bethe-Peierls (BP) boundary condition should be modified for ultracold atoms with spin-orbit (SO) coupling. Moreover, we derive a general form of the modified BP boundary condition, which is applicable to a system with arbitrary kind of SO coupling. In the modified BP condition, an anisotropic term appears and the inter-atomic scattering length is normally SO-coupling dependent. For the special system in the current experiments, however, it can be proved that the scattering length is SO-coupling independent, and takes the same value as in the case without SO coupling. Our resu

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Measurement of total phase fluctuation in cold-atomic quantum simulators

Taufiq Murtadho, Federica Cataldini, Sebastian Erne et al. · 2024 · arXiv

Studying the dynamics of quantum many-body systems is often constrained by the limitations in probing relevant observables, especially in continuous systems. A powerful method to gain information about such systems is the reconstruction of local currents from the continuity equation. We show that this approach can be used to extract the total phase fluctuation of adjacent Bose gases. We validate our technique numerically and demonstrate its effectiveness by analyzing data from selected experiments simulating 1D quantum field theories through the phase difference of two parallel 1D Bose gases.

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

A Determination of H_0 with the CLASS Gravitational Lens B1608+656: III. A Significant Improvement in the Precision of the Time Delay Measurements

C. D. Fassnacht, E. Xanthopoulos, L. V. E. Koopmans et al. · 2002 · arXiv

The gravitational lens CLASS B1608+656 is the only four-image lens system for which all three independent time delays have been measured. This makes the system an excellent candidate for a high-quality determination of H_0 at cosmological distances. However, the original measurements of the time delays had large (12-20%) uncertainties, due to the low level of variability of the background source during the monitoring campaign. In this paper, we present results from two additional VLA monitoring campaigns. In contrast to the ~5% variations seen during the first season of monitoring, the source

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

C,T1,T2: A complementary method to detect Multiple Populations with the Washington filter system

Heinz Frelijj, Douglas geisler, Sandro Villanova et al. · 2022 · arXiv

In this research we test the ability of a three Washington filter combination, (C-T1)-(T1-T2), compared with that of the traditional C-T1 color to find multiple populations on two globular clusters: NGC 7099 and NGC 1851, types I and II Globular clusters, respectively. Our improved photometry and membership selection, now using Gaia proper motions, finds that the second population stars are more centrally concentrated than first population stars, as expected and contrary to our previous findings for NGC 7099. We find that multiple populations are more easily detected in both clusters using the

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Abandoned HypothesisOpen accessPhysics

Modelling the Astronomical Silicate Features: I. On the Spectrum Subtraction Method

Aigen Li, J. Mayo Greenberg, Gang Zhao · 2002 · arXiv

The {\it assumption of additive absorptivity} by different components in compound particles is a widely used method applied in the literature to the analysis of the chemical and structural properties of astronomical (circumstellar, interstellar, protostellar, and cometary) silicates as well as other materials. The errors intrinsic in this additivity assumption, which, in application to astronomical spectra, amounts in some case to {\it spectrum subtraction} have not always been adequately considered in previous works on silicate mineralogy. The failings in the ``{\it spectrum subtraction metho

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Doping and Defect-Induced Germanene: A Superior Media for Sensing H2S, SO2, and CO2 gas molecules

Md Monirojjaman Monshi, Sadegh Mehdi Aghaei, Irene Calizo · 2017 · arXiv

First-principles calculations based on density functional theory (DFT) have been employed to investigate the structural, electronic, and gas-sensing properties of pure, defected, and doped germanene nanosheets. Our calculations have revealed that while a pristine germanene nanosheet adsorbs CO2 weakly, H2S moderately, and SO2 strongly, the introduction of vacancy defects increases the sensitivity significantly which is promising for future gas-sensing applications.Mulliken population analysis imparts that an appreciable amount of charge transfer occurs between gas molecules and a germanene nan

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Oligopeptides' frequencies in the classification of proteins' primary structures

P. Sirabella, A. Giuliani, A. Colosimo · 1998 · arXiv

This paper reports about an approach to the classification of proteins' primary structures taking advantage of the Self Organizing Maps algorithm and of a numerical coding of the aminoacids based upon their physico-chemical properties. Hydrophobicity, volume, surface area, hydrophilicity, bulkiness, refractivity and polarity were subjected to a Principal Component Analysis and the first two principal components, explaining 84.8 % of the total observed variability, were used to cluster the aminoacids into 4 or 5 classes through a k-means algorithm. This leads to an economical representation of

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Reconstructing the cosmic Horseshoe gravitational lens using the singular perturbative approach

C. Alard · 2016 · arXiv

The cosmic horseshoe gravitational lens is analyzed using the perturbative approach. The two first order perturbative fields are expanded in Fourier series. The source is reconstructed using a fine adaptive grid. The expansion of the fields at order 2 produces a higher value of the chi-square. Expanding at order 3 provides a very significant improvement, while order 4 does not bring a significant improvement over order 3. The presence of the order 3 terms is not a consequence of limiting the perturbative expansion to the first order. The amplitude and signs of the third order terms are recover

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Refraction efficiency of Huygens' and bianisotropic terahertz metasurfaces

Michael A. Cole, Aristeidis Lamprianidis, Ilya V. Shadrivov et al. · 2018 · arXiv

Metasurfaces are an enabling technology for complex wave manipulation functions, including in the terahertz frequency range, where they are expected to advance security, imaging, sensing, and communications technology. For operation in transmission, Huygens' metasurfaces are commonly used, since their good impedance match to the surrounding media minimizes reflections and maximizes transmission. Recent theoretical work has shown that Huygens' metasurfaces are non-optimal, particularly for large angles of refraction, and that to eliminate reflections and spurious diffracted beams it is necessar

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Does The Addition of a Duration Improve the L_iso - E_peak Relation For Gamma-Ray Bursts?

Andrew C. Collazzi, Bradley E. Schaefer · 2008 · arXiv

Firmani et al. proposed a new Gamma Ray Burst (GRB) luminosity relation that showed a significant improvement over the L_iso-E_peak relation. The new proposed relation simply modifies the E_peak value by multiplying it by a power of T_0.45, where T_0.45 is a particular measure of the GRB duration. We begin by reproducing the results of Firmani for his 19 bursts. We then test the Firmani relation for the same 19 bursts except that we use independently measured values for L_iso, T_0.45, and E_peak, and we find that the relation deteriorates substantially. We further test the relation by using 60

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Assessing Vibrational Frequencies of CO Adsorbed on Cerium Oxide Surfaces Using SCAN and r2SCAN Functionals

Alexander Contreras-Payares, Pablo G. Lustemberg, M. Verónica Ganduglia-Pirovano · 2025 · arXiv

The vibrational frequency of carbon monoxide (CO) adsorbed on ceria-based catalysts serves as a sensitive probe for identifying exposed surface facets, provided that experimental reference data on well-defined single-crystal surfaces and reliable theoretical assignments are available. Previous studies have shown that the hybrid DFT approach using the HSE06 functional yields good agreement with experimental observations, whereas the generalized gradient approximation (GGA) with PBE+U does not. In this work, we assess the performance of different exchange-correlation functionals by comparing the

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Spin-statistics relation for quantum Hall states

Alberto Nardin, Eddy Ardonne, Leonardo Mazza · 2022 · arXiv

We prove a generic spin-statistics relation for the fractional quasiparticles that appear in abelian quantum Hall states on the disk. The proof is based on an efficient way for computing the Berry phase acquired by a generic quasiparticle translated in the plane along a circular path, and on the crucial fact that once the gauge-invariant generator of rotations is projected onto a Landau level, it fractionalizes among the quasiparticles and the edge. Using these results we define a measurable quasiparticle fractional spin that satisfies the spin-statistics relation. As an application, we predic

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Compensator-based small animal IMRT enables conformal preclinical dose painting: application to tumor hypoxia

Jordan M. Slagowski, Erik Pearson, Rajit Tummala et al. · 2025 · arXiv

Techniques for preclinical intensity modulated radiation therapy are being developed to improve translation by replicating the clinical paradigm. This study presents the first treatment planning comparison between small animal IMRT (SA-IMRT) and three-dimensional conformal radiotherapy (CRT) in a model application, oxygen-guided dose painting of tumor hypoxia, using actual mouse data. A novel compensator-based platform was employed to generate SA-IMRT and CRT plans with 2-15 beam angles for seventeen mice with fibrosarcoma tumors. The whole tumor received a dose of 22.5 Gy, with a simultaneous

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Predicting dust extinction from the stellar mass of a galaxy

Timothy Garn, Philip Best · 2010 · arXiv

We investigate how the typical dust extinction of H-alpha luminosity from a star-forming galaxy depends upon star formation rate (SFR), metallicity and stellar mass independently, using a sample of ~90,000 galaxies from Data Release 7 of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). We measure extinctions directly from the Balmer decrement of each source, and while higher values of extinction are associated with an increase in any of the three parameters, we demonstrate that the fundamental property that governs extinction is stellar mass. After this mass-dependent relationship is removed, there is ver

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Failed Experiment ReportOpen accessPhysics

Optimization of STIRAP-based state transfer under dissipation

Ying-Dan Wang, Xiao-Bo Yan, Stefano Chesi · 2016 · arXiv

Using a perturbative treatment, we quantify the influence of non-adiabatic leakage and system dissipation on the transfer fidelity of a stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) process. We find that, optimizing transfer time rather than coupling profiles, leads to a significant improvement of the transfer fidelity. The upper bound of the fidelity has been found as a simple analytical function of system cooperativities. We also provide a systematic approach to reach this upper bound efficiently.

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

HI Intensity Mapping with the MIGHTEE Survey: First Results of the HI Power Spectrum

Aishrila Mazumder, Laura Wolz, Zhaoting Chen et al. · 2025 · arXiv

We present the first results of the HI intensity mapping power spectrum analysis with the MeerKAT International GigaHertz Tiered Extragalactic Exploration (MIGHTEE) survey. We use data covering $\sim$4 square degrees in the COSMOS field using a frequency range 962.5 MHz to 1008.42 MHz, equivalent to HI emission in $0.4<z<0.48$. The data consists of 15 pointings with a total of 94.2 hours on-source. We verify the suitability of the MIGHTEE data for HI intensity mapping by testing for residual systematics across frequency, baselines and pointings. We also vary the window used for HI signal measu

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Simulated Annealing with Tsallis Weights - A Numerical Comparison

Ulrich H. E. Hansmann · 1997 · arXiv

We discuss the use of Tsallis generalized mechanics in simulated annealing algorithms. For a small peptide it is shown that older implementations are not more effective than regular simulated annealing in finding ground state configurations. We propose a new implementation which leads to an improvement over regular simulated annealing.

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