6,619 research outputs found
Vibrational excitation of diatomic molecular ions in strong-field ionization of diatomic molecules
A model based on the strong-field and Born-Oppenheimer approximations
qualitatively describes the distribution over vibrational states formed in a
diatomic molecular ion following ionization of the neutral molecule by intense
laser pulses. Good agreement is found with a recent experiment [X. Urbain et
al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 163004 (2004)]. In particular, the observed deviation
from a Franck-Condon-like distribution is reproduced. Additionally, we
demonstrate control of the vibrational distribution by a variation of the peak
intensity or a change of frequency of the laser pulse.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Acid rain monitoring in East-Central Florida from 1977 to present
Rainfall has been collected on the University of Central Florida campus and at the Kennedy Space Center over a 12 year period. The chemical composition has been determined and summarized by monthly, annual periods, and for the entire 12 year period at both locations. The weighted average pH at each site is 4.58; however, annual weighted average pH has been equal to or above the 12 year average during six of the past eight years. Nitrate concentrations have increased slightly during recent years while excess sulfate concentrations have remained below the 12 year weighted average during six of the past seven years. Stepwise regression suggests that sulfate, nitrate, ammonium ion and calcium play major roles in the description of rainwater acidity. Annual acid deposition and annual rainfall have varied from 20 to 50 meg/(m(exp 2) year) and 100 to 180 cm/year, respectively. Sea salt comprises at least 25 percent of the total ionic composition
Strong Orientation Effects in Ionization of H by Short, Intense, High-Frequency Light Sources
We present three dimensional time-dependent calculations of ionization of
arbitrarily spatially oriented H by attosecond, intense, high-frequency
laser fields. The ionization probability shows a strong dependence on both the
internuclear distance and the relative orientation between the laser field and
the internuclear axis.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
NuSTAR Observations of G11.2â0.3
We present in this paper the hard X-ray view of the pulsar wind nebula in G11.2â0.3 and its central pulsar powered pulsar J1811â1925 as seen by NuSTAR. We complement the data with Chandra for a more complete picture and confirm the existence of a hard, power-law component in the shell with photon index Î = 2.1 ± 0.1, which we attribute to synchrotron emission. Our imaging observations of the shell show a slightly smaller radius at higher energies, consistent with Chandra results, and we find shrinkage as a function of increased energy along the jet direction, indicating that the electron outflow in the PWN may be simpler than that seen in other young PWNe. Combining NuSTAR with INTEGRAL, we find that the pulsar spectrum can be fit by a power law with Î = 1.32 ± 0.07 up to 300 keV without evidence of curvature
Antihydrogen studies in ALPHA
he ALPHA experiment studies antihydrogen as a means to investigate the symmetry of matter and antimatter. Spectroscopic studies of the anti-atom hold the promise of the most precise direct comparisons of matter and antimatter possible. ALPHA was the first to trap antihydrogen in a magnetic trap, allowing the first ever detection of atomic transitions in an anti-atom. More recently, through stochastic heating, we have also been able to put a new limit on the charge neutrality of antihydrogen. ALPHA is currently preparing to perform the first laser-spectroscopy of antihydrogen, hoping to excite the 2s state using a two-photon transition from the 1s state. We discuss the recent results as well as the key developments that led to these successes and discuss how we are preparing to perform the first laser-spectroscopy. We will also discuss plans to use our novel technique for gravitational tests on antihydrogen for a direct measurement of the sign of the gravitational force on antihydrogen
A Cosmological Three Level Neutrino Laser
We present a calculation of a neutrino decay scenario in the early Universe.
The specific decay is \nu_{2} \to \nu_{1} + \phi, where \phi is a boson. If
there is a neutrino mass hierarchy, m_{\nu_{e}} < m_{\nu_{\mu}} <
m_{\nu_{\tau}}, we show that it is possible to generate stimulated decay and
effects similar to atomic lasing without invoking new neutrinos, even starting
from identical neutrino distributions. Under the right circumstances the decay
can be to very low momentum boson states thereby producing something similar to
a Bose condensate, with possible consequences for structure formation. Finally,
we argue that this type of decay may also be important other places in early
Universe physics.Comment: 7 pages, RevTex, due for publication in Phys. Rev. D, April 15 issu
Differential atom interferometry beyond the standard quantum limit
We analyze methods to go beyond the standard quantum limit for a class of
atomic interferometers, where the quantity of interest is the difference of
phase shifts obtained by two independent atomic ensembles. An example is given
by an atomic Sagnac interferometer, where for two ensembles propagating in
opposite directions in the interferometer this phase difference encodes the
angular velocity of the experimental setup. We discuss methods of squeezing
separately or jointly observables of the two atomic ensembles, and compare in
detail advantages and drawbacks of such schemes. In particular we show that the
method of joint squeezing may improve the variance by up to a factor of 2. We
take into account fluctuations of the number of atoms in both the preparation
and the measurement stage, and obtain bounds on the difference of the numbers
of atoms in the two ensembles, as well as on the detection efficiency, which
have to be fulfilled in order to surpass the standard quantum limit. Under
realistic conditions, the performance of both schemes can be improved
significantly by reading out the phase difference via a quantum non-demolition
(QND) measurement. Finally, we discuss a scheme using macroscopically entangled
ensembles.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures; eq. (3) corrected and other minor change
Compact Einstein-Weyl four-dimensional manifolds
We look for four dimensional Einstein-Weyl spaces equipped with a regular
Bianchi metric. Using the explicit 4-parameters expression of the distance
obtained in a previous work for non-conformally-Einstein Einstein-Weyl
structures, we show that only four 1-parameter families of regular metrics
exist on orientable manifolds : they are all of Bianchi type and
conformally K\"ahler ; moreover, in agreement with general results, they have a
positive definite conformal scalar curvature. In a Gauduchon's gauge, they are
compact and we obtain their topological invariants. Finally, we compare our
results to the general analyses of Madsen, Pedersen, Poon and Swann : our
simpler parametrisation allows us to correct some of their assertions.Comment: Latex file, 13 pages, an important reference added and a critical
discussion of its claims offered, others minor modification
Strangelets: Who is Looking, and How?
It has been over 30 years since the first suggestion that the true ground
state of cold hadronic matter might be not nuclear matter but rather strange
quark matter (SQM). Ever since, searches for stable SQM have been proceeding in
various forms and have observed a handful of interesting events but have
neither been able to find compelling evidence for stable strangelets nor to
rule out their existence. I will survey the current status and near future of
such searches with particular emphasis on the idea of SQM from strange star
collisions as part of the cosmic ray flux.Comment: Talk given at International Conference on Strangeness in Quark
Matter, 2006. 8 pages. 1 figur
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