Futuristic Experiments Research Articles

Enrico Prampolini’s Scenography in Theoretical-Practical Discourse of Italian Futurism

The purpose of the article is to reveal the peculiarities of the concept of stage design of E. Prampolini, one of the Italian futurism theoreticians and practitioners, and to find out the influence of the master on the further development of scenography. Research methodology. The analytical and historical method have been applied to study the treatises of Italian futurists and the historical period of the futuristic scenography formation. The method of comparative analysis enabled comparing E. Prampolini’s concept with the theoretical and practical achievements of other representatives of Italian futurism and the trends of stage design of post-dramatic theatre. The theoretical method has been used to highlight the main trends of futuristic scenography according to E. Prampolini. Scientific novelty. The concept of E. Prampolini’s stage design has been studied in the context of the specifics of Italian futurism. The originality of the artist's creative method has been revealed. The main principles of the interrelationship of dramaturgy, directing, and stage design of the futurists, the relationship between stage design and the actor, dramaturgy, and audience perception have been considered. E. Prampolini’s theoretical works, in particular «Chromaphony» (1913), «Futuristic scenography and choreography» (1915), the manifesto «Futuristic stage atmosphere» (1924), little known in the domestic scientific dimension, have been analysed. Finally, common features of futuristic and modern stage design have been revealed. Conclusions. The history of stage design proves that innovative and intriguing artistic achievements usually arise due to the reaction of artists and dynamic changes in the surrounding reality. Revolutionary artists being inspired by the stormy atmosphere, bring changes to traditional approaches and methods of scenographic solution of the performance. At the beginning of the 20th century, thanks to the work of futurists, the artistic design of a theatrical performance not only underwent huge changes, but also changed its definition in stage art. E. Prampolini, as one of the founders of Italian futurism of the «second wave», approved his own specific approaches, based on the artistic concept and understanding of form, light, colour, and movement as the most important tools in the ensemble art of stage design. The concept of stage design proposed by E. Prampolini, according to which only the scenographer with his perceptive means and understanding can create an equivalent world, is as important as the play itself. It led to the appearance of numerous followers and epigones among the futurists of the «second wave», and thanks to the support of the master's close contacts with various European art and theatre schools, was integrated into the pan-European avant-garde context. According to the main revolutionary idea of the master, the stage design of the futurists, the so-called «subjective stage design», is distinguished from the traditional («objective») stage design of the time. According to E. Prampolini, «subjective stage design» is created by synthesising all means of expression, which together turn a futuristic scene into an abstract whole, and it subconsciously affects the viewer, creates a unique «state of mind» for each production, using shapes, colours, movement, and light. The research has revealed that E. Prampolini's futuristic experiments in the field of stage design directly echo the current trends of postmodern theatre. Key words: Ernico Prampolini, futurism, scenography, stage design, light, colour.

Novel cosmological tests from combining galaxy lensing and the polarized Sunyaev-Zel’dovich effect

The polarized Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (pSZ) effect is sourced by the Thomson scattering of CMB photons from distant free electrons and yields a novel view of the CMB quadrupole throughout the observable Universe. Galaxy shear measures the shape distortions of galaxies, probing both their local environment and the intervening matter distribution. Both observables give interesting constraints on the cosmological model; here we ask: what can be learnt from their combination? The pSZ-shear cross-spectrum measures the shear-galaxy-polarization bispectrum and contains contributions from (1) the Sachs-Wolfe (SW) effect, (2) the integrated Sachs-Wolfe (ISW) effect, and (3) inflationary gravitational waves. Since the modes contributing to the pSZ signal are not restricted to the Earth's past lightcone, the low-redshift cross-spectra could provide a novel constraint on dark energy via the ISW effect, whilst the SW signal couples scalar modes at very different times but at similar positions; this provides a unique probe of the Universe's homogeneous time evolution. We give expressions for all major contributions to the shear, galaxy, and pSZ auto- and cross-spectra, and evaluate their detectability via Fisher forecasts. Despite significant theoretical utility, the cross-spectra will be challenging to detect: combining CMB-S4 with Rubin yields a $1.6\sigma$ detection of the ISW contribution, which increases to $5.2\sigma$ for a futuristic experiment involving CMB-HD and a higher galaxy sample density. For parity-even (parity-odd) tensors, we predict a $1\sigma$ limit of $\sigma(r) = 0.9$ ($0.2$) for CMB-S4 and Rubin, or $0.3$ ($0.06$) for the more futuristic setup. Whilst this is significantly better than the constraints from galaxy shear alone (and less sensitive to systematics), it is unlikely to be competitive, but may serve as a useful cross-check.

Futurist Theatre in the Artand Political Space of Ukraine

The paper examines the origins and artistic practice of futuristic theatre in Ukraine during the 1910s and 1920s. Aesthetic postulates of the Italian futuristic theatre as compared to theatrical manifestos of Ukrainian futurists were analyzed. The study allows to draw a circle of artistic personalities involved in futuristic experiments in Ukraine and abroad, whose creative activity was interconnected and who considerably influenced each other. Also discussed are eloquent examples of Ukrainian futuristic performances ofsuch various genres as performative action, dramatic, opera and ballet performances. Particular attention is paid to the futurists’ engagement in politics and the negative consequences of their opportunistic approach to artistic processes.

The scalar chemical potential in cosmological collider physics

Non-analyticity in co-moving momenta within the non-Gaussian bispectrum is a distinctive sign of on-shell particle production during inflation, presenting a unique opportunity for the “direct detection” of particles with masses as large as the inflationary Hubble scale (H). However, the strength of such non-analyticity ordinarily drops exponentially by a Boltzmann-like factor as masses exceed H. In this paper, we study an exception provided by a dimension-5 derivative coupling of the inflaton to heavy-particle currents, applying it specifically to the case of two real scalars. The operator has a “chemical potential” form, which harnesses the large kinetic energy scale of the inflaton, {overset{cdot }{phi}}_0^{1/2}approx 60H , to act as an efficient source of scalar particle production. Derivative couplings of inflaton ensure radiative stability of the slow-roll potential, which in turn maintains (approximate) scale-invariance of the inflationary correlations. We show that a signal not suffering Boltzmann suppression can be obtained in the bispectrum with strength fNL ∼ mathcal{O} (0.01–10) for an extended range of scalar masses lesssim {overset{cdot }{phi}}_0^{1/2} , potentially as high as 1015 GeV, within the sensitivity of upcoming LSS and more futuristic 21-cm experiments. The mechanism does not invoke any particular fine-tuning of parameters or breakdown of perturbation-theoretic control. The leading contribution appears at tree-level, which makes the calculation analytically tractable and removes the loop-suppression as compared to earlier chemical potential studies of non-zero spins. The steady particle production allows us to infer the effective mass of the heavy particles and the chemical potential from the variation in bispectrum oscillations as a function of co-moving momenta. Our analysis sets the stage for generalization to heavy bosons with non-zero spin.

The Russian Futuristic Experiment: the Language of the Poetic Resistance

The main Avant-garde trend in the first third of the 20th century, Futurism, through its various groups and creative personalities, upholds its own conception of art and creator, strives to give a contemporary image of the world, to reveal the hidden essence of things, the inner relation of the elements. According to Futurism, art is meant to change lives, but not as it seems in the writings of nineteenth-century realists: by influencing the rational and changing the mind of the reader. The development of a new artistic expression, in a new poetic language, the use of contemporary forms of artistic conditionality have become major tasks for the generation of poets and artists from the 1910s. Poet futurists reduce the language of literature to its traditional understandings, neglect its inherent rules and laws, because they accept it as something external to the subject, which impedes the expression of its essence. From the depiction of the object to its expression - this is how the break in the creative mind of the futuristic author can be characterized. The linguistic revolution, effected with poetic means by the futurists, is a desperate and utopian attempt to acquire the organic integrity of the world, thirsting for its transformation. Thanks to futurism, the register of poetic techniques was expanded in the 20th century and directions were created for the creation of new expressive means of writing poetic text.

Detecting primordial gravitational waves with circular polarization of the redshifted 21 cm line. II. Forecasts

In the first paper of this series, we showed that the CMB quadrupole at high redshifts results in a small circular polarization of the emitted 21 cm radiation. In this paper we forecast the sensitivity of future radio experiments to measure the CMB quadrupole during the era of first cosmic light ($z\sim 20$). The tomographic measurement of 21 cm circular polarization allows us to construct a 3D remote quadrupole field. Measuring the $B$-mode component of this remote quadrupole field can be used to put bounds on the tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$. We make Fisher forecasts for a future Fast Fourier Transform Telescope (FFTT), consisting of an array of dipole antennas in a compact grid configuration, as a function of array size and observation time. We find that a FFTT with a side length of 100 km can achieve $\sigma(r)\sim 4\times 10^{-3}$ after ten years of observation and with a sky coverage $f_{\mathrm{sky}}\sim 0.7$. The forecasts are dependent on the evolution of the Lyman-$\alpha$ flux in the pre-reionization era, that remains observationally unconstrained. Finally, we calculate the typical order of magnitudes for circular polarization foregrounds and comment on their mitigation strategies. We conclude that detection of primordial gravitational waves with 21 cm observations is in principle possible, so long as the primordial magnetic field amplitude is small, but would require a very futuristic experiment with corresponding advances in calibration and foreground suppression techniques.

Real space lensing reconstruction using cosmic microwave background polarization

We develop a method of reconstructing the lensing field from lensed CMB temperature and polarization maps in real space as an alternative to the harmonic space estimators currently in use by extending an existing real space lensing estimator for temperature to polarization. Real space estimators have the advantage of being local in nature and they are thus equipped to deal with the nonuniform sky coverage, especially galactic cuts and point source excisions, found in experimental data. We characterize some of the properties and limitations of these estimators and test them on simulated maps with Planck, AdvACT and CMB-S4 noise. We show that the reconstructions for large-scale lensing fields are accurate, and that the polarization reconstructions improve on those from CMB temperature maps for future experiments as expected. High-fidelity lensing maps can be reconstructed with futuristic experiments like CMB-S4.

Detecting the integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect with high-redshift 21-cm surveys

We investigate the possibility to detect the integrated Sachs-Wolfe (ISW) effect by cross-correlating 21-cm surveys at high redshifts with galaxies, in a way similar to the usual CMB-galaxy cross-correlation. The high-redshift 21-cm signal is dominated by CMB photons that travel freely without interacting with the intervening matter, and hence its late-time ISW signature should correlate extremely well with that of the CMB at its peak frequencies. Using the 21-cm temperature brightness instead of the CMB would thus be a further check of the detection of the ISW effect, measured by different instruments at different frequencies and suffering from different systematics. We also study the ISW effect on the photons that are scattered by HI clouds. We show that a detection of the unscattered photons is achievable with planned radio arrays, while one using scattered photons will require advanced radio interferometers, either an extended version of the planned Square Kilometre Array or futuristic experiments such as a lunar radio array.

Understanding WIMP-baryon interactions with direct detection: a roadmap

We study prospects of dark-matter direct-detection searches for probing non-relativistic effective theory for WIMP-baryon scattering. We simulate a large set of noisy recoil-energy spectra for different scattering scenarios (beyond the standard momentum-independent contact interaction), for Generation 2 and futuristic experiments. We analyze these simulations and quantify the probability of successfully identifying the operator governing the scattering, if a WIMP signal is observed. We find that the success rate depends on a combination of factors: the WIMP mass, the mediator mass, the type of interaction, and the experimental energy window. For example, for a 20 GeV WIMP, Generation 2 is only likely to identify the right operator if the interaction is Coulomb-like, and is unlikely to do so in any other case. For a WIMP with a mass of 200 GeV or higher, success is almost guaranteed. We also find that, regardless of the scattering model and the WIMP parameters, a single Generation 2 experiment is unlikely to successfully discern the momentum dependence of the underlying operator on its own, but prospects improve drastically when experiments with different target materials and energy windows are analyzed jointly. Furthermore, we examine the quality of parameter estimation and degeneracies in the multi-dimensional parameter space of the effective theory. We find in particular that the resulting WIMP mass estimates can be severely biased if data are analyzed assuming the standard (momentum-independent) operator while the actual operator has momentum-dependence. Finally, we evaluate the ultimate reach of direct detection, finding that the prospects for successful operator selection prior to reaching the irreducible backgrounds are excellent, if the signal is just below the current limits, but slim if Generation 2 does not report WIMP detection.

Distinguishing different scenarios of early energy release with spectral distortions of the cosmic microwave background

Deviations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) frequency spectrum from a pure blackbody tell an exciting story about the thermal history of our Universe. In this paper we illustrate how well future CMB measurements might decipher this tale, envisioning a PIXIE-like spectrometer, which could improve the distortion constraints obtained with COBE/FIRAS some 20 years ago by at least three orders of magnitude. This opens a large discovery space, offering deep insights to particle and early-universe physics, opportunities that no longer should be left unexplored. Specifically, we consider scenarios with annihilating and decaying relic particles, as well as signatures from the dissipation of primordial small-scale power. PIXIE can potentially rule out different early-universe scenarios, and moreover will allow unambiguous detections in many of the considered cases, as we demonstrate here. We also discuss slightly more futuristic experiments, with several times improved sensitivities, to highlight the large potential of this new window to the pre-recombination universe.

Galaxy-cluster masses via 21st-century measurements of lensing of 21-cm fluctuations

We discuss the prospects to measure galaxy-cluster properties via weak lensing of 21-cm fluctuations from the dark ages and the epoch of reionization (EOR). We choose as a figure of merit the smallest cluster mass detectable through such measurements. We construct the minimum-variance quadratic estimator for the cluster mass based on lensing of 21-cm fluctuations at multiple redshifts. We discuss the tradeoff among frequency bandwidth, angular resolution, and the number of redshift shells available for a fixed noise level for the radio detectors. Observations of lensing of the 21-cm background from the dark ages will be capable of detecting $M\ensuremath{\gtrsim}{10}^{12}{h}^{\ensuremath{-}1}{M}_{\ensuremath{\bigodot}}$ mass halos, but will require futuristic experiments to overcome the contaminating sources. Next-generation radio measurements of 21-cm fluctuations from the EOR will, however, have the sensitivity to detect galaxy clusters with halo masses $M\ensuremath{\gtrsim}{10}^{13}{h}^{\ensuremath{-}1}{M}_{\ensuremath{\bigodot}}$, given enough observation time (for the relevant sky patch) and collecting area to maximize their resolution capabilities.

Primordial Gravity Wave Fossils and Their Use in Testing Inflation

A new effect is described by which primordial gravity waves leave a permanent signature in the large scale structure of the Universe. The effect occurs at second order in perturbation theory and is sensitive to the order in which perturbations on different scales are generated. We derive general forecasts for the detectability of the effect with future experiments and consider observations of the prereionization gas through the 21 cm line. It is found that the Square Kilometer Array will not be competitive with current cosmic microwave background constraints on primordial gravity waves from inflation. However, a more futuristic experiment could, through this effect, provide the highest ultimate sensitivity to tensor modes and possibly even measure the tensor spectral index. It is thus a potentially quantitative probe of the inflationary paradigm.

Constraining a spatially dependent rotation of the cosmic microwave background polarization

Following Kamionkowski (2008), a quadratic estimator of the rotation of the plane of polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) is constructed. This statistic can estimate a spatially varying rotation angle $\ensuremath{\alpha}(n)$. We use this estimator to quantify the prospects of detecting such a rotation field with forthcoming experiments. For PLANCK and CMBPol experiments, we find that the estimator containing the product of the $E$ and $B$ components of the polarization field is the most sensitive. The variance of this $EB$ estimator $N(L)$ is roughly independent of the multipole $L$ and is only weakly dependent on the instrumental beam. For FWHM of the beam size ${\ensuremath{\Theta}}_{\mathrm{fwhm}}\ensuremath{\sim}{5}^{\ensuremath{'}}--{50}^{\ensuremath{'}}$ and instrument noise ${\ensuremath{\Delta}}_{p}\ensuremath{\sim}5--50\text{ }\text{ }\ensuremath{\mu}\mathrm{K}\mathrm{\text{\ensuremath{-}}}\mathrm{arcmin}$, the scaling of variance $N(L)$ can be fitted by a power law $N(L)=3.3\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}7}{\ensuremath{\Delta}}_{p}^{2}{\ensuremath{\Theta}}_{\mathrm{fwhm}}^{1.3}\text{ }\text{ }{deg}^{2}$. For small instrumental noise ${\ensuremath{\Delta}}_{p}\ensuremath{\le}5\text{ }\text{ }\ensuremath{\mu}\mathrm{K}\mathrm{\text{\ensuremath{-}}}\mathrm{arcmin}$, the lensing $B$ modes become important, saturating the variance to $\ensuremath{\sim}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}6}\text{ }\text{ }{deg}^{2}$ even for an ideal experiment. Upcoming experiments like PLANCK will be able to detect a power spectrum of the rotation angle, ${C}^{\ensuremath{\alpha}\ensuremath{\alpha}}(L)$, as small as $0.01\text{ }\text{ }{deg}^{2}$, while futuristic experiments like CMBPol will be able to detect rotation angle power spectrum as small as $2.5\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}5}\text{ }\text{ }{deg}^{2}$. We discuss the implications of such constraints, both for the various physical effects that can rotate the polarization as photons travel from the last scattering surface as well as for constraints on instrumental systematics that can also lead to a spurious rotation signal. Rotation of the CMB polarization generates $B$ modes which will act as contamination for the primordial $B$-mode detection. We discuss an application of our estimator to derotate the CMB to increase the sensitivity for the primordial $B$ modes.

‘The end of history’ as a self-denying prophecy

The End of History by Fukuyama is of particular interest for futurists, because it can be seen as a futuristic experiment with a no-future world as the ultimate outcome. 1 There are many ways to look at The End of History; as an expression of modern (as distinct from post-modern) political philosophy, as an interesting mixture of Hegelianism and liberalism, as a description of the good society, but with unhappy human beings, as a new form of holistic thinking, as an attempt to legitimize the USA's role as the economic, political and moral world leader. All these items are discussed here, but the emphasis is on Fukuyama's vision on the future of man and society. In that context we come up with our own ‘futuristic experiment’ by exploring the possibility of ‘the end of history’ as a self-fulfilling and a self-denying prophecy.