VacuumA vacuum (: vacuums or vacua) is a space devoid of matter. The word is derived from the Latin adjective vacuus for "vacant" or "void". An approximation to such vacuum is a region with a gaseous pressure much less than atmospheric pressure. Physicists often discuss ideal test results that would occur in a perfect vacuum, which they sometimes simply call "vacuum" or free space, and use the term partial vacuum to refer to an actual imperfect vacuum as one might have in a laboratory or in space.
RadiationIn physics, radiation is the emission or transmission of energy in the form of waves or particles through space or through a material medium. This includes: electromagnetic radiation, such as radio waves, microwaves, infrared, visible light, ultraviolet, x-rays, and gamma radiation (γ) particle radiation, such as alpha radiation (α), beta radiation (β), proton radiation and neutron radiation (particles of non-zero rest energy) acoustic radiation, such as ultrasound, sound, and seismic waves (dependent on a physical transmission medium) gravitational radiation, that takes the form of gravitational waves, or ripples in the curvature of spacetime Radiation is often categorized as either ionizing or non-ionizing depending on the energy of the radiated particles.
Slot antennaA slot antenna consists of a metal surface, usually a flat plate, with one or more holes or slots cut out. When the plate is driven as an antenna by an applied radio frequency current, the slot radiates electromagnetic waves in a way similar to a dipole antenna. The shape and size of the slot, as well as the driving frequency, determine the radiation pattern. Slot antennas are usually used at UHF and microwave frequencies at which wavelengths are small enough that the plate and slot are conveniently small.
Impedance of free spaceIn electromagnetism, the impedance of free space, Z0, is a physical constant relating the magnitudes of the electric and magnetic fields of electromagnetic radiation travelling through free space. That is, where is the electric field strength and is the magnetic field strength. Its presently accepted value is Where Ω is the ohm, the SI unit of electrical resistance. The impedance of free space (that is the wave impedance of a plane wave in free space) is equal to the product of the vacuum permeability μ0 and the speed of light in vacuum c0.
Loop spaceIn topology, a branch of mathematics, the loop space ΩX of a pointed topological space X is the space of (based) loops in X, i.e. continuous pointed maps from the pointed circle S1 to X, equipped with the compact-open topology. Two loops can be multiplied by concatenation. With this operation, the loop space is an A∞-space. That is, the multiplication is homotopy-coherently associative. The set of path components of ΩX, i.e. the set of based-homotopy equivalence classes of based loops in X, is a group, the fundamental group π1(X).
Path space fibrationIn algebraic topology, the path space fibration over a based space is a fibration of the form where is the path space of X; i.e., equipped with the compact-open topology. is the fiber of over the base point of X; thus it is the loop space of X. The space consists of all maps from I to X that may not preserve the base points; it is called the free path space of X and the fibration given by, say, , is called the free path space fibration. The path space fibration can be understood to be dual to the mapping cone.
