Reduction of Effective Terahertz Focal Spot Size By Means Of Nested Concentric Parabolic Reflectors

An ongoing limitation of terahertz spectroscopy is that the technique is generally limited to the study of relatively large samples of order 4 mm across due to the generally large size of the focal beam spot. We present a nested concentric parabolic reflector design which can reduce the terahertz focal spot size. This parabolic reflector design takes advantage of the feature that reflected rays experience a relative time delay which is the same for all paths. The increase in effective optical path for reflected light is equivalent to the aperture diameter itself. We have shown that the light throughput of an aperture of 2 mm can be increased by a factor 15 as compared to a regular aperture of the same size at low frequencies. This technique can potentially be used to reduce the focal spot size in terahertz spectroscopy and enable the study of smaller samples

Diverse Diversions:Youth Justice Reform, Localized Practices, and a ‘New Interventionist Diversion’?

The recent resurgence of practices aimed at ‘diverting’ young people from prosecution appears to suggest a sea change from the interventionism which characterized New Labour’s approach to young law-breakers. Drawing on interviews with youth justice practitioners at two sites in England, we argue this is overly simplistic, since the ‘interventionist diversion’ they describe reflects the continued influence of New Labour reforms, as well as older approaches. We conclude that more empirical research is needed to establish where such interventions sit within the broader – and increasingly localized – landscape of support provision, as well as the consequences of providing ‘welfare’ in this way. </jats:p

Diverse Diversions: Youth Justice Reform, Localized Practices, and a ‘New Interventionist Diversion’?

The recent resurgence of practices aimed at ‘diverting’ young people from prosecution appears to suggest a sea change from the interventionism which characterized New Labour’s approach to young law-breakers. Drawing on interviews with youth justice practitioners at two sites in England, we argue this is overly simplistic, since the ‘interventionist diversion’ they describe reflects the continued influence of New Labour reforms, as well as older approaches. We conclude that more empirical research is needed to establish where such interventions sit within the broader – and increasingly localized – landscape of support provision, as well as the consequences of providing ‘welfare’ in this way

Gauss Sums and Quantum Mechanics

By adapting Feynman's sum over paths method to a quantum mechanical system whose phase space is a torus, a new proof of the Landsberg-Schaar identity for quadratic Gauss sums is given. In contrast to existing non-elementary proofs, which use infinite sums and a limiting process or contour integration, only finite sums are involved. The toroidal nature of the classical phase space leads to discrete position and momentum, and hence discrete time. The corresponding `path integrals' are finite sums whose normalisations are derived and which are shown to intertwine cyclicity and discreteness to give a finite version of Kelvin's method of images.Comment: 14 pages, LaTe

Ultrafast (but Many-Body) Relaxation in a Low-Density Electron Glass

We present a study of the relaxation dynamics of the photoexcited conductivity of the impurity states in the low-density electronic glass, phosphorous-doped silicon Si:P. Using optical pump-terahertz probe spectroscopy we find strongly temperature and fluence dependent glassy power-law relaxation occurring over sub-ns time scales. Such behavior is in contrast to the much longer time scales found in higher electron density glassy systems. We also find evidence for both multi-particle relaxation mechanisms and/or coupling to electronic collective modes and a low temperature quantum relaxational regime.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, Appeared in Phys. Rev. Let

Optical spectra of the heavy fermion uniaxial ferromagnet UGe2_2

We report a detailed study of UGe$_{2}$ single crystals using infrared reflectivity and spectroscopic ellipsometry. The optical conductivity suggests the presence of a low frequency interband transition and a narrow free-carrier response with strong frequency dependence of the scattering rate and effective mass. We observe sharp changes in the low frequency mass and scattering rate below the upper ferromagnetic transition $T_C = 53 K$. The characteristic changes are exhibited most strongly at an energy scale of around 12 meV (100 cm$^{-1}$). They recover their unrenormalized value above $T_C$ and for $\omega >$ 40 meV. In contrast no sign of an anomaly is seen at the lower transition temperature of unknown nature $T_x \sim$ 30 K, observed in transport and thermodynamic experiments. In the ferromagnetic state we find signatures of a strong coupling to the longitudinal magnetic excitations that have been proposed to mediate unconventional superconductivity in this compound

Time-reversal symmetry breaking versus superstructure

One of the mysteries of modern condenced-matter physics is the nature of the pseudogap state of the superconducting cuprates. Kaminski et al.1 claimed to have observed signatures of time-reversal symmetry breaking in the pseudogap regime in underdoped Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+d (Bi2212). Here we argue that the observed dichroism is due to the 5x1 superstructure replica of the electronic bands and therefore cannot be considered as evidence for the spontaneous time-reversal symmetry breaking in cuprates.Comment: 5 pages, pd