Search

We present a comprehensive Bayesian approach to paleodemography, emphasizing the proper handling of uncertainties. We then apply that framework to survey data from Cyprus, and quantify the uncertainties in the paleodemographic estimates to demonstrate the applicability of the Bayesian approach and to show the large uncertainties present in current paleodemographic models and data. We also discuss methods to reduce the uncertainties and improve the efficacy of paleodemographic models., Comment: 17 pages, 2 figures; expanded discussion, additional references, improved figures

Comparison of appropriate models to describe observational data is a fundamental task of science. The Bayesian model evidence, or marginal likelihood, is a computationally challenging, yet crucial, quantity to estimate to perform Bayesian model comparison. We introduce a methodology to compute the Bayesian model evidence in simulation-based inference (SBI) scenarios (also often called likelihood-free inference). In particular, we leverage the recently proposed learnt harmonic mean estimator and exploit the fact that it is decoupled from the method used to generate posterior samples, i.e. it requires posterior samples only, which may be generated by any approach. This flexibility, which is lacking in many alternative methods for computing the model evidence, allows us to develop SBI model comparison techniques for the three main neural density estimation approaches, including neural posterior estimation (NPE), neural likelihood estimation (NLE), and neural ratio estimation (NRE). We demonstrate and validate our SBI evidence calculation techniques on a range of inference problems, including a gravitational wave example. Moreover, we further validate the accuracy of the learnt harmonic mean estimator, implemented in the HARMONIC software, in likelihood-based settings. These results highlight the potential of HARMONIC as a sampler-agnostic method to estimate the model evidence in both likelihood-based and simulation-based scenarios., Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures. 2 min. Matches version published in RASTI. Summary video available at https://youtu.be/xbTS_5pGjaA. HARMONIC available at https://github.com/astro-informatics/harmonic

New results from MAST are presented that focus on validating models in order to extrapolate to future devices. Measurements during start-up experiments have shown how the bulk ion temperature rise scales with the square of the reconnecting field. During the current ramp up models are not able to correctly predict the current diffusion. Experiments have been performed looking at edge and core turbulence. At the edge detailed studies have revealed how filament characteristic are responsible for determining the near and far SOL density profiles. In the core the intrinsic rotation and electron scale turbulence have been measured. The role that the fast ion gradient has on redistributing fast ions through fishbone modes has led to a redesign of the neutral beam injector on MAST Upgrade. In H-mode the turbulence at the pedestal top has been shown to be consistent with being due to electron temperature gradient modes. A reconnection process appears to occur during ELMs and the number of filaments released determines the power profile at the divertor. Resonant magnetic perturbations can mitigate ELMs provided the edge peeling response is maximised and the core kink response minimised. The mitigation of intrinsic error fields with toroidal mode number n>1 has been shown to be important for plasma performance., Comment: 34 pages, 10 figures. This is an author-created, un-copyedited version of an article submitted for publication in Nuclear Fusion. IoP Publishing Ltd is not responsible for any errors or omissions in this version of the manuscript or any version derived from it

Recent observations of asteroidal surfaces indicate the presence of materials that do not match the bulk lithology of the body. A possible explanation for the presence of these exogenous materials is that they are products of inter-asteroid impacts in the Main Belt, and thus interest has increased in understanding the fate of the projectile during hypervelocity impacts. In order to gain insight into the fate of impactor we have carried out a laboratory programme, covering the velocity range of 0.38 - 3.50 km/s, devoted to measuring the survivability, fragmentation and final state of the impactor. Forsterite olivine and synthetic basalt projectiles were fired onto low porosity (<10%) pure water-ice targets using the University of Kent's Light Gas Gun (LGG). We developed a novel method to identify impactor fragments which were found in ejecta and implanted into the target. We applied astronomical photometry techniques, using the SOURCE EXTRACTOR software, to automatically measure the dimensions of thousands of fragments. This procedure enabled us to estimate the implanted mass on the target body, which was found to be a few percent of the initial mass of the impactor. We calculated an order of magnitude difference in the energy density of catastrophic disruption, Q*, between peridot and basalt projectiles. However, we found very similar behaviour of the size frequency distributions for the hypervelocity shots (>1 km/s). After each shot, we examined the largest peridot fragments with Raman spectroscopy and no melt or alteration in the final state of the projectile was observed., Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures