Critical Casimir torques and forces acting on needles in two spatial dimensions

We investigate the universal orientation-dependent interactions between non-spherical colloidal particles immersed in a critical solvent by studying the instructive paradigm of a needle embedded in bounded two-dimensional Ising models at bulk criticality. For a needle in an Ising strip the interaction on mesoscopic scales depends on the width of the strip and the length, position, and orientation of the needle. By lattice Monte Carlo simulations we evaluate the free energy difference between needle configurations being parallel and perpendicular to the strip. We concentrate on small but nonetheless mesoscopic needle lengths for which analytic predictions are available for comparison. All combinations of boundary conditions for the needles and boundaries are considered which belong to either the "normal" or the "ordinary" surface universality class, i.e., which induce local order or disorder, respectively. We also derive exact results for needles of arbitrary mesoscopic length, in particular for needles embedded in a half plane and oriented perpendicular to the corresponding boundary as well as for needles embedded at the center line of a symmetric strip with parallel orientation.Comment: 33 pages, 15 figure

Suppression of stimulated Brillouin scattering in optical fibers using a linearly chirped diode laser

The output of high power fiber amplifiers is typically limited by stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS). An analysis of SBS with a chirped pump laser indicates that a chirp of 2.5 × 10^(15) Hz/s could raise, by an order of magnitude, the SBS threshold of a 20-m fiber. A diode laser with a constant output power and a linear chirp of 5 × 10^(15) Hz/s has been previously demonstrated. In a low-power proof-of-concept experiment, the threshold for SBS in a 6-km fiber is increased by a factor of 100 with a chirp of 5 × 10^(14) Hz/s. A linear chirp will enable straightforward coherent combination of multiple fiber amplifiers, with electronic compensation of path length differences on the order of 0.2 m

Longest increasing subsequence as expectation of a simple nonlinear stochastic PDE with a low noise intensity

We report some new observation concerning the statistics of Longest Increasing Subsequences (LIS). We show that the expectation of LIS, its variance, and apparently the full distribution function appears in statistical analysis of some simple nonlinear stochastic partial differential equation (SPDE) in the limit of very low noise intensity.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, reference adde

Group Theoretical Quantum Tomography

The paper is devoted to the mathematical foundation of the quantum tomography using the theory of square-integrable representations of unimodular Lie groups.Comment: 13 pages, no figure, Latex2e. Submitted to J.Math.Phy

A possible origin of dayside Pc1 magnetic pulsations observed at high latitudes

Induction magnetometer observations of dayside Pc1 activity at Barentsburg (BAB, Spitsbergen archipelago, 78.05°N, 14.12°E) are combined with data from two magnetometers located in Scandinavia and the Kola peninsula. Seven events with very large negative IMF <i>B<sub>z</sub></i> components were considered. For all of the events, the cusp location was expected to be significantly shifted equatorward from the statistical position such that the BAB magnetometer was located well inside the polar cap. The DMSP particle data indicated that the BAB magnetometer was indeed inside the polar cap, whereas other magnetometers were collocated with the ionospheric projections of the cusp, the low-latitude boundary layer or the boundary plasma sheet. Pc1 magnetic pulsations were observed only at BAB. In three cases, for which SuperDARN convection data were available, the Pc1 activity correlated with intervals of large-scale convection reconfiguration, such that the plasma flow crossing the BAB location was associated with newly-reconnected magnetic flux tubes drifting tailward. The convection reconfigurations were in response to a decrease in the IMF <i>B<sub>y</sub></i> component. We argue that the source of the observed Pc1 pulsations is anisotropic plasma of the depletion layer within the magnetosheath. The plasma anisotropy supports the excitation of electromagnetic ion cyclotron waves that are detectable with a ground-based magnetometer when the flux tubes containing the unstable plasma become connected to the Earth's ionosphere in the course of the dayside reconnection processes

Experimental studies of thorium ions implantation from pulse laser plasma into thin silicon oxide layers

We report the results of experimental studies related to implantation of thorium ions into thin silicon dioxide by pulsed plasma fluxes expansion. Thorium ions were generated by laser ablation from a metal target, and the ionic component of the laser plasma was accelerated in an electric field created by the potential difference (5, 10 and 15 kV) between the ablated target and SiO2/Si(001) sample. Laser ablation system installed inside the vacuum chamber of the electron spectrometer was equipped with YAG:Nd3+ laser having the pulse energy of 100 mJ and time duration of 15 ns in the Q-switched regime. Depth profile of thorium atoms implanted into the 10 nm thick subsurface areas together with their chemical state as well as the band gap of the modified silicon oxide at different conditions of implantation processes were studied by means of X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and Reflected Electron Energy Loss Spectroscopy (REELS) methods. Analysis of chemical composition showed that the modified silicon oxide film contains complex thorium silicates. Depending on local concentration of thorium atoms, the experimentally established band gaps were located in the range of 6.0 - 9.0 eV. Theoretical studies of optical properties of the SiO2 and ThO2 crystalline systems have been performed by ab initio calculations within hybrid functional. Optical properties of the SiO2/ThO2 composite were interpreted on the basis of Bruggeman effective medium approximation. A quantitative assessment of the yield of isomeric nuclei in "hot" laser plasma at the early stages of expansion has been performed. The estimates made with experimental results demonstrated that the laser implantation of thorium ions into the SiO2 matrix can be useful for further research of low-lying isomeric transitions in 229Th isotope with energy of 7.8(0.5) eV