arXiv subjects

Vitaly Pronskikh

Publications and source records attributed to Vitaly Pronskikh.

9 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Theoretical--operational modelling of complex experiments: parameter robustness and degeneracy in muon--electron conversion

Complex experiments infer theory parameters through a coupled chain of physical models and data reduction. We formulate the theoretical--operational model (TOM) as a typed factorization of this forward prediction and study how changes of preparation, phenomenon modelling, readout, backgrounds, and analysis project onto the local manifold generated by the physics parameters. For a smooth prediction and a locally identifiable weighted least-squares estimate, the resulting response map separates each model deformation into a parameter-equivalent component and a residual component that cannot be absorbed by a change of the fitted physics parameters. This gives local criteria for robustness, exact degeneracy, and partial degeneracy of parameter inference. The construction is applied to charged-lepton-flavour-violating muon--electron conversion in aluminium. A one-bin conversion-rate model exhibits an exact normalization degeneracy. In a two-template model of the elastic--inelastic spectrum, a common signal normalization is absorbed by the fitted conversion rate without changing an operator-sensitive nuclear-response ratio, whereas a relative elastic--inelastic efficiency change is exactly parameter-equivalent to a change of that ratio at first order. A numerical Run-I example based on published Mu2e spectra shows that a $100\,\mathrm{keV}/c$ momentum-scale mismatch is only partially parameter-equivalent: its projection ratio onto the local tangent space generated by the elastic normalization $R_0$ and the logarithmic inelastic-to-elastic response ratio $ρ$ is $η=0.331$, while most of the weighted spectral deformation remains as a residual shape. TOM thereby provides a local theoretical description of parameter robustness and degeneracy at the interface of particle/nuclear phenomenology and experimental realization.

physics.data-an↗

arXiv2026

Selling the Stock, Not the Cream: The Soviet Émigré Career Premium of the 1990s

In the early-mid 1990s, scientists emigrating from the former Soviet Union to the United States -- especially physicists, engineers, chemists, and biologists -- frequently secured prestigious and visible positions, including professorships, named chairs, and laboratory leadership; comparable scientists arriving after about 2000 built more modest, less visible, and often non-academic careers. Against the common view that this reflects the people -- the elite having left first -- this article sets aside the thin apex of Nobel- and Fields-level émigrés and examines the larger cohort of capable but non-stellar scientists, showing that similar scientists fared differently by year of arrival. The explanation therefore lies in the structure of the receiving market, not primarily in individual ability. Reading premium appointments backward from later Nobel-level recognition risks survivorship bias: celebrated successes obscure the broader demand for Soviet scientific capital. I weigh four conditions that favoured the 1990s cohort and had largely closed by the mid-2000s: technology transfer and the export of a finite, distinctive stock of Soviet expertise that commanded a career premium; the favourable immigration regime created by the Soviet Scientists Immigration Act of 1992; the surge of U.S.-trained Chinese and Indian competitors; and the securitizing aftermath of 11~September 2001. All four mattered, but technology transfer and knowledge export were primary: their premium opened the window, and their depletion -- as exported knowledge was published and absorbed into global science -- removed the demand on which the other factors depended. A further cross-cutting mechanism, the cultural ``ghettoization'' of émigrés into co-national laboratory enclaves, capped their visibility and independent advancement. The imbalance between émigré generations was structural, not personal.

physics.hist-ph↗

arXiv2026

Operationally induced preferred basis in unitary quantum mechanics

The preferred-basis problem and the definite-outcome aspect of the measurement problem persist even when the detector is modeled unitarily. Experimental data are represented in a Boolean event algebra of mutually exclusive records, while the theoretical description employs a noncommutative operator algebra with continuous unitary symmetry. This change of mathematical structure constitutes the core of the ``cut'': a necessary interface from group-based kinematics to set-based counting. In the Operationally Induced Preferred Basis (OIPB) framework, the basis relevant for recorded outcomes is not fixed by the system Hamiltonian but induced by the measurement interface -- the detector channel together with its coarse-grained readout. The Born rule follows from Gleason-type uniqueness (Gleason for projections in $d>2$ and Busch's extension for POVMs including $d=2$), as the unique probability measure consistent with additivity over exclusive events and basis-independence of the unitary sector. A compact qubit-pointer model yields an induced unsharp POVM $E_{\pm}=\frac12(\mathbb{1}\pmησ_z)$ with sharpness $η$ fixed by pointer resolution, explicitly demonstrating detector-induced basis selection. OIPB aligns with decoherence and operational theories while diverging from collapse models (no spontaneous reductions) and the Many-Worlds Interpretation (no ontological branching). Empirical distinctions arise through POVM tomography, Wigner-friend incompatibility tests, and superposition stability bounds. Nested-observer paradoxes are resolved by a non-composability lemma: joint assignment of outcome propositions is possible only if a joint instrument exists. This relocates the origin of randomness to the stochasticity of the interface rules.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Two Shades of Quark Color: Parallel Canons across the Cold War Divide

The introduction of the color quantum number is conventionally narrated as a linear progression from the quark-model statistics paradox to quantum chromodynamics (QCD). This paper challenges that teleology by arguing that "color" emerged as two conceptually distinct constructs during the Cold War. The first, originating with Han and Nambu and culminating in QCD, conceived of color as a local gauge charge, the source of a fundamental force mediated by gluons. The second, developed at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) in Dubna, treated color as a hidden, three-valued label--a statistical and structural property within a composite, S-matrix-inflected hadron model. We trace these parallel narratives, linking the Dubna approach to a holist epistemology that prioritizes observable amplitudes and global constraints, and the QCD approach to a reductionist program grounded in micro-dynamics. A case study of Fermilab's E-36 experimental chain (1970--78) shows how an observables-first design-tuned to S-matrix and Regge constraints on forward elastic scattering--performed robustly within its natural domain but was ultimately discontinued amid declining theoretical interest and involvement. The subsequent hegemony of QCD retroactively projected its gauge-theoretic conception of color onto history, erasing this epistemic diversity. We conclude that the marginalization of Dubna's structural color was not merely a political outcome of the Cold War but a result of deep ontological and philosophical divergences, advocating for a domain-sensitive pluralism in the historiography of particle physics.

physics.hist-ph↗

arXiv2024

The Ethical Aspects of Choosing a Nuclear Fuel Cycle

In this paper, we addressed the problem of choosing a nuclear fuel cycle. Ethical problems related to the choice of a nuclear fuel cycle, such as the depletion of natural uranium reserves, the accumulation of nuclear waste, and the connection with the problems of nonidentity and distributive justice are considered. We examined cultural differences in attitudes toward nuclear safety and the associated ambiguities in the choice of a nuclear fuel cycle. We suggested that the reduction in consumption of natural uranium does not seem to be a feasible way of reducing nuclear waste because of the nonidentity problem.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2022

Climate of the Field: Snowmass 2021

How are formal policies put in place to create an inclusive, equitable, safe environment? How do these differ between different communities of practice (institutions, labs, collaborations, working groups)? What policies towards a more equitable community are working? For those that aren't working, what external support is needed in order to make them more effective? We present a discussion of the current climate of the field in high energy particle physics and astrophysics (HEPA), as well as current efforts toward making the community a more diverse, inclusive, and equitable environment. We also present issues facing both institutions and HEPA collaborations, with a set of interviews with a selection of HEPA collaboration DEI leaders. We encourage the HEPA community and the institutions & agencies that support it to think critically about the prioritization of people in HEPA over the coming decade, and what resources and policies need to be in place in order to protect and elevate minoritized populations within the HEPA community.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2022

Novel Materials and Concepts for Next-Generation High Power Target Applications

Novel beam-intercepting materials and targetry concepts are essential to improve the performance, reliability and operation lifetimes of next generation multi-megawatt (multi-MW) accelerator target facilities. The beam-intercepting materials and components must sustain an order-of-magnitude increase in particle beam intensities and are beyond the current state-of-the-art. With conventional materials already limiting the scope of experiments, it is crucial to investigate novel target materials, technologies and concepts that will satisfy the requirements and maximize the physics benefits of future energy and intensity frontier experiments. This paper provides an overview of the related targetry R&D required over the next 10 years to support and enable future high-power accelerator target facilities.

physics.acc-ph↗

arXiv2020

Model uncertainty in accelerator application simulations

Monte-Carlo nuclear reaction and transport codes are widely used to devise accelerator-based nuclear physics experiments; at the same time, many experiments are performed to validate the Monte-Carlo codes, which can be used for the design of full-scale nuclear power applications or the design of new benchmark experiments. Dedicated model benchmark studies investigate a broad range of nuclear reactions and quantities. Examples of these include isotope formation or secondary particle fluxes that result from the interactions of GeV-range hadrons with monoisotopic targets, which can be used to assess the respective systematic uncertainty of models. Such benchmark studies, as well as many nuclear application experiments and simulations carried out by various groups over the last few decades, enable us to draw methodological lessons. In this work, model uncertainty determined based on available experimental data allow us to identify the effects of practitioner expertise as well as the design of codes (user access to micro-scale parameters) on the range of uncertainties. We found that in cases when simulations are performed by code developers or users that are very experienced in performing simulations, the model to experiment quantity ratios generally agree with the limits determined by dedicated benchmark studies. In other cases, the ratios generally tend to be either smaller (underestimation of model error) or larger (overestimation of model error). A plausible explanation of the aforementioned effects is suggested.

physics.acc-ph↗

arXiv2020

Simulation as a sustainable trading zone: Aiming at intergenerational justice

The paper, drawing on the example of simulation codes used in nuclear physics and high-energy physics, seeks to highlight the ethical implications of discontinuing support for simulation codes and the loss of knowledge embodied in them. Predicated on the concept of trading zones and actor network models, the paper addresses the problem of extinction of simulation codes and attempts to understand their evolution and development within those frameworks. We show that simulation codes of closed type develop to the level of creoles, becoming local languages and standards of scientific centers and disappearing as their few main developers leave, whereas codes of open types become universal languages, imposing problem-solving patterns on the entire community and crowding out other codes. The paper suggests that because of simulations' reliance on tacit knowledge, practices entrenched in codes cannot be exhaustively explicated or transmitted through writing alone; on the contrary, the life cycle of a simulation code is determined by the life cycle of its trading zone. We examine the extent to which both of these phenomena pose a risk to the preservation of knowledge. Bearing upon intergenerational ethics, we draw analogies between the pure intergenerational problem (PIP) and the problem of preserving the knowledge implemented in simulation codes and transmitting it to future generations. We argue that for the complete transfer of knowledge, it is necessary to develop and maintain inhabitability and sustainability of simulation trading zones in a controllable way, at least until the demand for these codes is warranted to cease in the future.

physics.hist-ph↗