Nonadiabatic charge pumping across two superconductors connected through a normal metal region by periodically driven potentials

Periodically driven systems exhibit resonance when the difference between an excited state energy and the ground state energy is an integer multiple of $\hbar$ times the driving frequency. On the other hand, when a superconducting phase difference is maintained between two superconductors, subgap states appear which carry a Josephson current. A driven Josephson junction therefore opens up an interesting avenue where the excitations due to applied driving affect the current flowing from one superconductor to the other. Motivated by this, we study charge transport in a superconductor-normal metal-superconductor (SNS) junction where oscillating potentials are applied to the normal metal region. We find that for small amplitudes of the oscillating potential, driving at one site reverses the direction of current at the superconducting phase differences when difference between the subgap eigenenergies of the undriven Hamiltonian is integer multiple of $\hbar$ times the driving frequency. For larger amplitudes of oscillating potential, driving at one site exhibits richer features. We show that even when the two superconductors are maintained at same superconducting phase, a current can be driven by applying oscillating potentials to two sites in the normal metal differing by a phase. We find that when there is a nonzero Josephson current in the undriven system, the local peaks and valleys in current of the system driven with an amplitude of oscillating potential smaller than the superconducting gap indicates sharp excitations in the system. In the adiabatic limit, we find that charge transferred in one time period diverges as a powerlaw with pumping frequency when a Josephson current flows in the undriven system. Our calculations are exact and can be applied to finite systems. We discuss possible experimental setups where our predictions can be tested.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figures. Published versio

Single Spin Asymmetry in Charmonium Production

We present estimates of Single Spin Asymmetry (SSA) in the electroproduction of $J/\psi$ taking into account the transverse momentum dependent (TMD) evolution of the gluon Sivers function and using Color Evaporation Model of charmonium production. We estimate SSA for JLab, HERMES, COMPASS and eRHIC energies using recent parameters for the quark Sivers functions which are fitted using an evolution kernel in which the perturbative part is resummed up to next-to-leading logarithms (NLL) accuracy. We find that these SSAs are much smaller as compared to our first estimates obtained using DGLAP evolution but are comparable to our estimates obtained using TMD evolution where we had used approximate analytical solution of the TMD evolution equation for the purpose.Comment: Conference proceedings of Light Cone 2014 at Raleigh, NC, USA. Talk presented by Prof. Anuradha Misra. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1411.083

Heavy Flavour production as probe of Gluon Sivers Function

Heavy flavour production like $J/\psi$ and $D$- meson production in scattering of electrons/unpolarized protons off polarized proton target offer promising probes to investigate gluon Sivers function. In this talk, I will summarize our recent work on trasverse single spin asymmetry in $J/\psi$ -production and $D$ - meson production in $p p^\uparrow$ scattering using a generalized parton model approach. We compare predictions obtained using different models of gluon Sivers function within this approach and then, taking into account the transverse momentum dependent evolution of the unpolarized parton distribution functions and gluon Sivers function, we study the effect of evolution on asymmetry.Comment: Proceedings of Light Cone 2016, September 5-8, 2016, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portuga

Stable Frank-Kasper phases of self-assembled, soft matter spheres

Single molecular species can self-assemble into Frank Kasper (FK) phases, finite approximants of dodecagonal quasicrystals, defying intuitive notions that thermodynamic ground states are maximally symmetric. FK phases are speculated to emerge as the minimal-distortional packings of space-filling spherical domains, but a precise quantitation of this distortion and how it affects assembly thermodynamics remains ambiguous. We use two complementary approaches to demonstrate that the principles driving FK lattice formation in diblock copolymers emerge directly from the strong-stretching theory of spherical domains, in which minimal inter-block area competes with minimal stretching of space-filling chains. The relative stability of FK lattices is studied first using a diblock foam model with unconstrained particle volumes and shapes, which correctly predicts not only the equilibrium {\sigma} lattice, but also the unequal volumes of the equilibrium domains. We then provide a molecular interpretation for these results via self-consistent field theory, illuminating how molecular stiffness regulates the coupling between intra-domain chain configurations and the asymmetry of local packing. These findings shed new light on the role of volume exchange on the formation of distinct FK phases in copolymers, and suggest a paradigm for formation of FK phases in soft matter systems in which unequal domain volumes are selected by the thermodynamic competition between distinct measures of shape asymmetry.Comment: 40 pages, 22 figure

Medial packing and elastic asymmetry stabilize the double-gyroid in block copolymers

Triply-periodic networks are among the most complex and functionally valuable self-assembled morphologies, yet they form in nearly every class of biological and synthetic soft matter building blocks. In contrast to simpler assembly motifs – spheres, cylinders, layers – networks require molecules to occupy variable local environments, confounding attempts to understand their formation. Here, we examine the double-gyroid network phase by using a geometric formulation of the strong stretching theory of block copolymer melts, a prototypical soft self-assembly system. The theory establishes the direct link between molecular packing, assembly thermodynamics and the medial map, a generic measure of the geometric center of complex shapes. We show that “medial packing” is essential for stability of double-gyroid in strongly-segregated melts, reconciling a long-standing contradiction between infinite- and finite-segregation theories. Additionally, we find a previously unrecognized non-monotonic dependence of network stability on the relative entropic elastic stiffness of matrix-forming to tubular-network forming blocks. The composition window of stable double-gyroid widens for both large and small elastic asymmetry, contradicting intuitive notions that packing frustration is localized to the tubular domains. This study demonstrates the utility of optimized medial tessellations for understanding soft-molecular assembly and packing frustration via an approach that is readily generalizable far beyond gyroids in neat block copolymers

Convertible staircase lift

The present work investigates the design and analysis of a staircase lift, which can be used as a Material Handling System. A staircase lift is a mechanical device for lifting people and wheelchairs up and down the stairs, who may find difficulty in doing so themselves. For sufficiently wide stairs, a rail is mounted to the treads of the stairs. A chair or lifting platform is attached to the rail. A person on the chair or platform is lifted as the chair or platform moves along the rail, old age and goods are to be carried across the staircase. A staircase lift is a type of lift that can be mounted on the staircase without altering civil structure. Not only altering, but the person need not change the seat from the wheelchair to the staircase lift, there is a foldable supporting rod for the staircase lift which directly attaches to the wheelchair. This lift runs on electric power and consists of a motor, reduction gearbox, rope drive, two rails and a sliding chair. In this system, we use a DC motor for changing the polarity of the power supply which will make the motor run in reverse direction. Advantages over the conventional hydraulic lift are no civil structure and alteration is required, low cost, less bulkiness, less power, less maintenance required. Easy design, easy installations can be of industrial use too. Moreover, considering some drawbacks due to weight carrying capacity completely depends upon the capacity of the motor. There is a lot of scope for further modification in the project as using a monorail instead of two, using a belt drive or chain drive instead of a rope drive. Incorporation and automation/timer unit will ease the use of the device. Rack and carrier arrangement for using the device for a curved staircase and use of work & roller reduction gear assembly

Conductance of Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid wires and junctions with resistances

We study the effect that resistive regions have on the conductance of a quantum wire with interacting electrons which is connected to Fermi liquid leads. Using the bosonization formalism and a Rayleigh dissipation function to model the power dissipation, we use both scattering theory and Green's function techniques to derive the DC conductance. The resistive regions are generally found to lead to incoherent transport. For a single wire, we find that the resistance adds in series to the contact resistance of h/e^2 for spinless electrons, and the total resistance is independent of the Luttinger parameter K_W of the wire. We numerically solve the bosonic equations to illustrate what happens when a charge density pulse is incident on the wire; the results depend on the parameters of the resistive and interacting regions in interesting ways. For a junction of Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid wires, we use a dissipationless current splitting matrix to model the junction. For a junction of three wires connected to Fermi liquid leads, there are two families of such matrices; we find that the conductance matrix generally depends on K_W for one family but is independent of K_W for the other family, regardless of the resistances present in the system.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures; added a discussion of time reversal invariance; this is the published versio