Instrument Response Removal and the 2020 MLg 3.1 Marlboro, New Jersey, Earthquake

To better understand earthquakes as a hazard and to better understand the interior structure of the Earth, we often want to measure the physical displacement, velocity, or acceleration at locations on the Earth’s surface. To this end, a routine step in an observational seismology workflow is the removal of the instrument response, required to convert the digital counts recorded by a seismometer to physical displacement, velocity, or acceleration. The conceptual framework, which we briefly review for students and researchers of seismology, is that of the seismometer as a linear time-invariant system, which records a convolution of ground motion via a transfer function that gain scales and phase shifts the incoming signal. In practice, numerous software packages are widely used to undo this convolution via deconvolution of the instrument’s transfer function. Here, to allow the reader to understand this process, we start by taking a step back to fully explore the choices made during this routine step and the reasons for making them. In addition, we introduce open-source routines in Python and MATLAB as part of our rflexa package, which identically reproduce the results of the Seismic Analysis Code, a ubiquitous and trusted reference. The entire workflow is illustrated on data recorded by several instruments on Princeton University campus in Princeton, New Jersey, of the 9 September 2020 magnitude 3.1 earthquake in Marlboro, New Jersey.

On σ-entropy Analysis of Linear Stochastic Systems in State Space

In this paper the problem of random disturbance attenuation capabilities in linear continuous systems is studied. It is supposed that the system operates under random disturbances with bounded σ-entropy level. σ-entropy norm indicates a performance index of the continuous system on the set of the random signals with bounded σ-entropy. This paper presents a time-domain solution to the calculation of σ-entropy norm of the continuous linear time-invariant system. σ-entropy norm is defined after solving coupled matrix equations: one algebraic Riccati equation, one nonlinear equation over log determinant function, and two Lyapunov equations.

Novel Gaussian State Estimator based on H2 Norm and Steady-State Variance

This paper proposes a novel state estimator for discrete-time linear systems with Gaussian noise. The proposed algorithm is a fixed-gain filter, whose observer structure is more general than Kalman one for linear time-invariant systems. Therefore, the steady-state variance of the estimation error is minimized. For white noise stochastic processes, this performance criterion is reduced to the square H2 norm of a given linear time-invariant system. Then, the proposed algorithm is called observer H2 filter (OH2F). This is the standard Wiener-Hopf or Kalman-Bucy filtering problem. As the Kalman predictor and Kalman filter are well-known solutions for such a problem, they are revisited.

Influence of Hot Carrier and Thermal Components on Photovoltage Formation across the p–n Junction

In the present work we reveal the existence of the hot carrier photovoltage induced across a p–n junction in addition to the classical carrier generation-induced and thermalization-caused photovoltages. On the basis of the solution of the differential equation of the first-order linear time-invariant system, we propose a model enabling to disclose the pure value of each photovoltage component. The hot carrier photovoltage is fast since it is determined by the free carrier energy relaxation time (which is of the order of 10−12 s), while the thermal one, being conditioned by the junction temperature change, is relatively slow; and both of them have a sign opposite to that of the electron-hole pair generation-induced component. Simultaneous coexistence of the components is evidenced experimentally in GaAs p–n junction exposed to pulsed 1.06 μm laser light. The work is remarkable in two ways: first, it shows that creation of conditions unfavorable for the rise of hot carrier photovoltage might improve the efficiency of a single junction solar cell, and second, it should inspire the photovoltaic society to revise the Shockley–Queisser limit by taking into account the damaging impact of the hot carrier photovoltage.