112 research outputs found
Proposal for manipulating and detecting spin and orbital states of trapped electrons on helium using cavity quantum electrodynamics
We propose to couple an on-chip high finesse superconducting cavity to the
lateral-motion and spin state of a single electron trapped on the surface of
superfluid helium. We estimate the motional coherence times to exceed 15
microseconds, while energy will be coherently exchanged with the cavity photons
in less than 10 nanoseconds for charge states and faster than 1 microsecond for
spin states, making the system attractive for quantum information processing
and cavity quantum electrodynamics experiments. Strong interaction with cavity
photons will provide the means for both nondestructive readout and coupling of
distant electrons.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, supplemental material
Recommended from our members
Spuler, Bertold
Spuler, Bertold (b. Karlsruhe, Germany, 5 December 1911; d. Hamburg, 6 March 1990), scholar of East European history and Oriental studies. Among his many publications are important works on the history of the Iranian lands from the 7th century CE onwards
Large-scale electrophysiology and deep learning reveal distorted neural signal dynamics after hearing loss
Listeners with hearing loss often struggle to understand speech in noise, even with a hearing aid. To better understand the auditory processing deficits that underlie this problem, we made large-scale brain recordings from gerbils, a common animal model for human hearing, while presenting a large database of speech and noise sounds. We first used manifold learning to identify the neural subspace in which speech is encoded and found that it is low-dimensional and that the dynamics within it are profoundly distorted by hearing loss. We then trained a deep neural network (DNN) to replicate the neural coding of speech with and without hearing loss and analyzed the underlying network dynamics. We found that hearing loss primarily impacts spectral processing, creating nonlinear distortions in cross-frequency interactions that result in a hypersensitivity to background noise that persists even after amplification with a hearing aid. Our results identify a new focus for efforts to design improved hearing aids and demonstrate the power of DNNs as a tool for the study of central brain structures
Resonance Fluorescence of a Single Artificial Atom
An atom in open space can be detected by means of resonant absorption and
reemission of electromagnetic waves, known as resonance fluorescence, which is
a fundamental phenomenon of quantum optics. We report on the observation of
scattering of propagating waves by a single artificial atom. The behavior of
the artificial atom, a superconducting macroscopic two-level system, is in a
quantitative agreement with the predictions of quantum optics for a pointlike
scatterer interacting with the electromagnetic field in one-dimensional open
space. The strong atom-field interaction as revealed in a high degree of
extinction of propagating waves will allow applications of controllable
artificial atoms in quantum optics and photonics.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
Secular dynamics of planetesimals in tight binary systems: Application to Gamma-Cephei
The secular dynamics of small planetesimals in tight binary systems play a
fundamental role in establishing the possibility of accretional collisions in
such extreme cases. The most important secular parameters are the forced
eccentricity and secular frequency, which depend on the initial conditions of
the particles, as well as on the mass and orbital parameters of the secondary
star. We construct a second-order theory (with respect to the masses) for the
planar secular motion of small planetasimals and deduce new expressions for the
forced eccentricity and secular frequency. We also reanalyze the radial
velocity data available for Gamma-Cephei and present a series of orbital
solutions leading to residuals compatible with the best fits. Finally, we
discuss how different orbital configurations for Gamma-Cephei may affect the
dynamics of small bodies in circunmstellar motion. For Gamma-Cephei, we find
that the classical first-order expressions for the secular frequency and forced
eccentricity lead to large inaccuracies around 50 % for semimajor axes larger
than one tenth the orbital separation between the stellar components. Low
eccentricities and/or masses reduce the importance of the second-order terms.
The dynamics of small planetesimals only show a weak dependence with the
orbital fits of the stellar components, and the same result is found including
the effects of a nonlinear gas drag. Thus, the possibility of planetary
formation in this binary system largely appears insensitive to the orbital fits
adopted for the stellar components, and any future alterations in the system
parameters (due to new observations) should not change this picture. Finally,
we show that planetesimals migrating because of gas drag may be trapped in
mean-motion resonances with the binary, even though the migration is divergent.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figure
Circumstellar disks in binary star systems
In this paper we study the evolution of viscous and radiative circumstellar
disks under the influence of a companion star. We focus on the eccentric
{\gamma} Cephei and {\alpha} Centauri system as examples and compare the disk
quantities such as disk eccentricity and precession rate to previous isothermal
simulations. We perform two-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations of the
binary star systems under the assumption of coplanarity of the disk, host star
and binary companion. We use the grid-based, staggered mesh code FARGO with an
additional energy equation to which we added radiative cooling based on opacity
tables. The eccentric binary companion perturbs the disk around the primary
star periodically. Upon passing periastron spirals arms are induced that wind
from the outer disk towards the star. In isothermal simulations this results in
disk eccentricities up to {\epsilon}_disk ~ 0.2, but in more realistic
radiative models we obtain much smaller eccentricities of about {\epsilon}_disk
~ 0.04 - 0.06 with no real precession. Models with varying viscosity and disk
mass indicate show that disks with less mass have lower temperatures and higher
disk eccentricity. The rather large high disk eccentricities, as indicated in
previous isothermal disk simulations, implied a more difficult planet formation
in the {\gamma} Cephei system due to the enhanced collision velocities of
planetesimals. We have shown that under more realistic conditions with
radiative cooling the disk become less eccentric and thus planet formation may
be made easier. However, we estimate that the viscosity in the disk has to very
small, with {\alpha} \lesssim 0.001, because otherwise the disk's lifetime will
be too short to allow planet formation to occur along the core instability
scenario. We estimate that the periodic heating of the disk in eccentric
binaries will be observable in the mid-IR regime.Comment: 12 pages, 15 figures, accepted for publication in A&
Observation of Non-Exponential Orbital Electron Capture Decays of Hydrogen-Like Pr and Pm Ions
We report on time-modulated two-body weak decays observed in the orbital
electron capture of hydrogen-like Pr and Pm
ions coasting in an ion storage ring. Using non-destructive single ion,
time-resolved Schottky mass spectrometry we found that the expected exponential
decay is modulated in time with a modulation period of about 7 seconds for both
systems. Tentatively this observation is attributed to the coherent
superposition of finite mass eigenstates of the electron neutrinos from the
weak decay into a two-body final state.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figure
Coplanar Waveguide Resonators for Circuit Quantum Electrodynamics
We have designed and fabricated superconducting coplanar waveguide resonators
with fundamental frequencies from 2 to and loaded quality factors
ranging from a few hundreds to a several hundred thousands reached at
temperatures of . The loaded quality factors are controlled by
appropriately designed input and output coupling capacitors. The measured
transmission spectra are analyzed using both a lumped element model and a
distributed element transmission matrix method. The experimentally determined
resonance frequencies, quality factors and insertion losses are fully and
consistently characterized by the two models for all measured devices. Such
resonators find prominent applications in quantum optics and quantum
information processing with superconducting electronic circuits and in single
photon detectors and parametric amplifiers.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures, version with high resolution figures available at
http://qudev.ethz.ch/content/science/PubsPapers.htm
Against all odds? Forming the planet of the HD196885 binary
HD196885Ab is the most "extreme" planet-in-a-binary discovered to date, whose
orbit places it at the limit for orbital stability. The presence of a planet in
such a highly perturbed region poses a clear challenge to planet-formation
scenarios. We investigate this issue by focusing on the planet-formation stage
that is arguably the most sensitive to binary perturbations: the mutual
accretion of kilometre-sized planetesimals. To this effect we numerically
estimate the impact velocities amongst a population of circumprimary
planetesimals. We find that most of the circumprimary disc is strongly hostile
to planetesimal accretion, especially the region around 2.6AU (the planet's
location) where binary perturbations induce planetesimal-shattering of
more than 1km/s. Possible solutions to the paradox of having a planet in such
accretion-hostile regions are 1) that initial planetesimals were very big, at
least 250km, 2) that the binary had an initial orbit at least twice the present
one, and was later compacted due to early stellar encounters, 3) that
planetesimals did not grow by mutual impacts but by sweeping of dust (the
"snowball" growth mode identified by Xie et al., 2010b), or 4) that HD196885Ab
was formed not by core-accretion but by the concurent disc instability
mechanism. All of these 4 scenarios remain however highly conjectural.Comment: accepted for publication by Celestial Mechanics and Dynamical
Astronomy (Special issue on EXOPLANETS
Planet formation in Binaries
Spurred by the discovery of numerous exoplanets in multiple systems, binaries
have become in recent years one of the main topics in planet formation
research. Numerous studies have investigated to what extent the presence of a
stellar companion can affect the planet formation process. Such studies have
implications that can reach beyond the sole context of binaries, as they allow
to test certain aspects of the planet formation scenario by submitting them to
extreme environments. We review here the current understanding on this complex
problem. We show in particular how each of the different stages of the
planet-formation process is affected differently by binary perturbations. We
focus especially on the intermediate stage of kilometre-sized planetesimal
accretion, which has proven to be the most sensitive to binarity and for which
the presence of some exoplanets observed in tight binaries is difficult to
explain by in-situ formation following the "standard" planet-formation
scenario. Some tentative solutions to this apparent paradox are presented. The
last part of our review presents a thorough description of the problem of
planet habitability, for which the binary environment creates a complex
situation because of the presence of two irradation sources of varying
distance.Comment: Review chapter to appear in "Planetary Exploration and Science:
Recent Advances and Applications", eds. S. Jin, N. Haghighipour, W.-H. Ip,
Springer (v2, numerous typos corrected
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