Laser cooling and control of excitations in superfluid helium

Superfluidity is an emergent quantum phenomenon which arises due to strong interactions between elementary excitations in liquid helium. These excitations have been probed with great success using techniques such as neutron and light scattering. However measurements to-date have been limited, quite generally, to average properties of bulk superfluid or the driven response far out of thermal equilibrium. Here, we use cavity optomechanics to probe the thermodynamics of superfluid excitations in real-time. Furthermore, strong light-matter interactions allow both laser cooling and amplification of the thermal motion. This provides a new tool to understand and control the microscopic behaviour of superfluids, including phonon-phonon interactions, quantised vortices and two-dimensional quantum phenomena such as the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition. The third sound modes studied here also offer a pathway towards quantum optomechanics with thin superfluid films, including femtogram effective masses, high mechanical quality factors, strong phonon-phonon and phonon-vortex interactions, and self-assembly into complex geometries with sub-nanometre feature size.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures. Supplementary information attache

Coulomb Drag between One-Dimensional Wigner Crystal Rings

We consider the Coulomb drag between two metal rings in which the long range Coulomb interaction leads to the formation of a Wigner crystal. The first ring is threaded by an Ahranov Bohm flux creating a persistent current J_0. The second ring is brought in close proximity to the second and due to the Coulomb interaction between the two rings a drag current J_D is produced in the second. We investigate this system at zero temperature for perfect rings as well as the effects of impurities. We show that the Wigner crystal state can in principle lead to a higher ratio of drag current to drive current J_D/J_0 than in weakly interacting electron systems.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figure

Microphotonic Forces From Superfluid Flow

In cavity optomechanics, radiation pressure and photothermal forces are widely utilized to cool and control micromechanical motion, with applications ranging from precision sensing and quantum information to fundamental science. Here, we realize an alternative approach to optical forcing based on superfluid flow and evaporation in response to optical heating. We demonstrate optical forcing of the motion of a cryogenic microtoroidal resonator at a level of 1.46 nN, roughly one order of magnitude larger than the radiation pressure force. We use this force to feedback cool the motion of a microtoroid mechanical mode to 137 mK. The photoconvective forces demonstrated here provide a new tool for high bandwidth control of mechanical motion in cryogenic conditions, and have the potential to allow efficient transfer of electromagnetic energy to motional kinetic energy.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figure

Prompt energization of relativistic and highly relativistic electrons during a substorm interval: Van Allen Probes observations

Abstract On 17 March 2013, a large magnetic storm significantly depleted the multi-MeV radiation belt. We present multi-instrument observations from the Van Allen Probes spacecraft Radiation Belt Storm Probe A and Radiation Belt Storm Probe B at ~6 Re in the midnight sector magnetosphere and from ground-based ionospheric sensors during a substorm dipolarization followed by rapid reenergization of multi-MeV electrons. A 50% increase in magnetic field magnitude occurred simultaneously with dramatic increases in 100 keV electron fluxes and a 100 times increase in VLF wave intensity. The 100 keV electrons and intense VLF waves provide a seed population and energy source for subsequent radiation belt enhancements. Highly relativistic (\u3e2 MeV) electron fluxes increased immediately at L* ~ 4.5 and 4.5 MeV flux increased \u3e90 times at L* = 4 over 5 h. Although plasmasphere expansion brings the enhanced radiation belt multi-MeV fluxes inside the plasmasphere several hours postsubstorm, we localize their prompt reenergization during the event to regions outside the plasmasphere. Key Points Substorm dynamics are important for highly relativistic electron energization Cold plasma preconditioning is significant for rapid relativistic energization Relativistic / highly relativistic electron energization can occur in \u3c 5 hrs

Variable-free exploration of stochastic models: a gene regulatory network example

Finding coarse-grained, low-dimensional descriptions is an important task in the analysis of complex, stochastic models of gene regulatory networks. This task involves (a) identifying observables that best describe the state of these complex systems and (b) characterizing the dynamics of the observables. In a previous paper [13], we assumed that good observables were known a priori, and presented an equation-free approach to approximate coarse-grained quantities (i.e, effective drift and diffusion coefficients) that characterize the long-time behavior of the observables. Here we use diffusion maps [9] to extract appropriate observables ("reduction coordinates") in an automated fashion; these involve the leading eigenvectors of a weighted Laplacian on a graph constructed from network simulation data. We present lifting and restriction procedures for translating between physical variables and these data-based observables. These procedures allow us to perform equation-free coarse-grained, computations characterizing the long-term dynamics through the design and processing of short bursts of stochastic simulation initialized at appropriate values of the data-based observables.Comment: 26 pages, 9 figure

Imaginary Phases in Two-Level Model with Spontaneous Decay

We study a two-level model coupled to the electromagnetic vacuum and to an external classic electric field with fixed frequency. The amplitude of the external electric field is supposed to vary very slow in time. Garrison and Wright [{\it Phys. Lett.} {\bf A128} (1988) 177] used the non-hermitian Hamiltonian approach to study the adiabatic limit of this model and obtained that the probability of this two-level system to be in its upper level has an imaginary geometric phase. Using the master equation for describing the time evolution of the two-level system we obtain that the imaginary phase due to dissipative effects is time dependent, in opposition to Garrison and Wright result. The present results show that the non-hermitian hamiltonian method should not be used to discuss the nature of the imaginary phases in open systems.Comment: 11 pages, new version, to appear in J. Phys.

Improved Quantum Hard-Sphere Ground-State Equations of State

The London ground-state energy formula as a function of number density for a system of identical boson hard spheres, corrected for the reduced mass of a pair of particles in a sphere-of-influence picture, and generalized to fermion hard-sphere systems with two and four intrinsic degrees of freedom, has a double-pole at the ultimate \textit{regular} (or periodic, e.g., face-centered-cubic) close-packing density usually associated with a crystalline branch. Improved fluid branches are contructed based upon exact, field-theoretic perturbation-theory low-density expansions for many-boson and many-fermion systems, appropriately extrapolated to intermediate densities, but whose ultimate density is irregular or \textit{random} closest close-packing as suggested in studies of a classical system of hard spheres. Results show substantially improved agreement with the best available Green-function Monte Carlo and diffusion Monte Carlo simulations for bosons, as well as with ladder, variational Fermi hypernetted chain, and so-called L-expansion data for two-component fermions.Comment: 15 pages and 7 figure

The redshift of the gravitationally lensed radio source PKS1830-211

We report on the spectroscopic identification and the long awaited redshift measurement of the heavily obscured, gravitationally lensed radio source PKS 1830-211, which was first observed as a radio Einstein ring. The NE component of the doubly imaged core is identified, in our infrared spectrum covering the wavelength range 1.5-2.5 microns, as an impressively reddened quasar at z=2.507. Our redshift measurement, together with the recently measured time delay (Lovell et al.), means that we are a step closer to determining the Hubble constant from this lens. Converting the time delay into the Hubble constant by using existing models leads to high values for the Hubble constant. Since the lensing galaxy lies very close to the center of the lensed ring, improving the error bars on the Hubble constant will require not only a more precise time delay measurement, but also very precise astrometry of the whole system.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures, Accepted ApJ

Four-nucleon scattering: Ab initio calculations in momentum space

The four-body equations of Alt, Grassberger and Sandhas are solved for \nH scattering at energies below three-body breakup threshold using various realistic interactions including one derived from chiral perturbation theory. After partial wave decomposition the equations are three-variable integral equations that are solved numerically without any approximations beyond the usual discretization of continuum variables on a finite momentum mesh. Large number of two-, three- and four-nucleon partial waves are considered until the convergence of the observables is obtained. The total \nH cross section data in the resonance region is not described by the calculations which confirms previous findings by other groups. Nevertheless the numbers we get are slightly higher and closer to the data than previously found and depend on the choice of the two-nucleon potential. Correlations between the $A_y$ deficiency in \nd elastic scattering and the total \nH cross section are studied.Comment: Corrected Eq. (10