Hadron-quark continuity induced by the axial anomaly in dense QCD

We investigate the interplay between the chiral and diquark condensates on the basis of the Ginzburg-Landau potential with QCD symmetry. We demonstrate that the axial anomaly drives a new critical point at low temperature in the QCD phase diagram and leads to a smooth crossover between the hadronic and color superconducting phases.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, to appear in the Proceedings of Quark Matter 2006 held in Shangha

Velocity of vortices in inhomogeneous Bose-Einstein condensates

We derive, from the Gross-Pitaevskii equation, an exact expression for the velocity of any vortex in a Bose-Einstein condensate, in equilibrium or not, in terms of the condensate wave function at the center of the vortex. In general, the vortex velocity is a sum of the local superfluid velocity, plus a correction related to the density gradient near the vortex. A consequence is that in rapidly rotating harmonically trapped Bose-Einstein condensates, unlike in the usual situation in slowly rotating condensates and in hydrodynamics, vortices do not move with the local fluid velocity. We indicate how Kelvin's conservation of circulation theorem is compatible with the velocity of the vortex center being different from the local fluid velocity. Finally we derive an exact wave function for a single vortex near the rotation axis in a weakly interacting system, from which we derive the vortex precession rate.Comment: 5 pages, one .eps figure. Published versio

Stability of trapped fermionic gases with attractive interactions

We present a unified overview, from the mean-field to the unitarity regime, of the stability of a trapped Fermi gas with short range attractive interactions. Unlike in a system of bosons, a Fermi gas is always stable in these regimes, no matter how large the particle number. However, when the interparticle spacing becomes comparable to the range of the interatomic interactions, instability is not precluded.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Color, Spin and Flavor Diffusion in Quark-Gluon Plasmas

In weakly interacting quark-gluon plasmas diffusion of color is found to be much slower than the diffusion of spin and flavor because color is easily exchanged by the gluons in the very singular forward scattering processes. If the infrared divergence is cut off by a magnetic mass, $m_{mag}\sim \alpha_sT$, the color diffusion is $D_{color}\sim (\alpha_s\ln(1/\alpha_s)T)^{-1}$, a factor $\alpha_s$ smaller than spin and flavor diffusion. A similar effect is expected in electroweak plasmas above $M_W$ due to $W^\pm$ exchanges. The color conductivity in quark-gluon plasmas and the electrical conductivity in electroweak plasmas are correspondingly small in relativistic heavy ion collisions and the very early universe.Comment: 5 pages, no figure

Viscosities of Quark-Gluon Plasmas

The quark and gluon viscosities are calculated in quark-gluon plasmas to leading orders in the coupling constant by including screening. For weakly interaction QCD and QED plasmas dynamical screening of transverse interactions and Debye screening of longitudinal interactions controls the infrared divergences. For strongly interacting plasmas other screening mechanisms taken from lattice calculations are employed. By solving the Boltzmann equation for quarks and gluons including screening the viscosity is calculated to leading orders in the coupling constant. The leading logarithmic order is calculated exactly by a full variational treatment. The next to leading orders are found to be very important for sizable coupling constants as those relevant for the transport properties relevant for quark-gluon plasmas created in relativistic heavy ion collisions and the early universe.Comment: 12 pages + 6 figures, report LBL-3492

Aspect ratio analysis for ground states of bosons in anisotropic traps

Characteristics of the initial condensate in the recent experiment on Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) of ${}^{87}$Rb atoms in an anisotropic magnetic trap is discussed. Given the aspect ratio $R$, the quality of BEC is estimated. A simple analytical Ansatz for the initial condensate wave function is proposed as a function of the aspect ratio which, in contrast to the Baym-Pethick trial wave function, reproduces both the weak and the strong intaraction limits and which is in better agreement with numerical results than the latter.Comment: 12 pages, latex, 3 figures added, minor corrections; to appear in J. Res. Nat. Inst. of Standards and Technolog

The transition temperature of the dilute interacting Bose gas for NN internal degrees of freedom

We calculate explicitly the variation $\delta T_c$ of the Bose-Einstein condensation temperature $T_c$ induced by weak repulsive two-body interactions to leading order in the interaction strength. As shown earlier by general arguments, $\delta T_c/T_c$ is linear in the dimensionless product $an^{1/3}$ to leading order, where $n$ is the density and $a$ the scattering length. This result is non-perturbative, and a direct perturbative calculation of the amplitude is impossible due to infrared divergences familiar from the study of the superfluid helium lambda transition. Therefore we introduce here another standard expansion scheme, generalizing the initial model which depends on one complex field to one depending on $N$ real fields, and calculating the temperature shift at leading order for large $N$. The result is explicit and finite. The reliability of the result depends on the relevance of the large $N$ expansion to the situation N=2, which can in principle be checked by systematic higher order calculations. The large $N$ result agrees remarkably well with recent numerical simulations.Comment: 10 pages, Revtex, submitted to Europhysics Letter

How do sound waves in a Bose-Einstein condensate move so fast?

Low-momentum excitations of a dilute Bose-Einstein condensate behave as phonons and move at a finite velocity v_s. Yet the atoms making up the phonon excitation each move very slowly; v_a = p/m --> 0. A simple "cartoon picture" is suggested to understand this phenomenon intuitively. It implies a relation v_s/v_a = N_ex, where N_ex is the number of excited atoms making up the phonon. This relation does indeed follow from the standard Bogoliubov theory.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures (.eps), LaTeX2e. More introductory discussion adde

Bragg Spectroscopy of Cold Atomic Fermi Gases

We propose a Bragg spectroscopy experiment to measure the onset of superfluid pairing in ultracold trapped Fermi gases. In particular, we study two component Fermi gases in the weak coupling BCS and BEC limits as well as in the strong coupling unitarity limit. The low temperature Bragg spectrum exhibits a gap directly related to the pair-breaking energy. Furthermore, the Bragg spectrum has a large maximum just below the critical temperature when the gas is superfluid in the BCS limit. In the unitarity regime, we show how the pseudogap in the normal phase leads to a significant suppression of the low frequency Bragg spectrum.Comment: 8 pages, 9 figures. Typos corrected. Reference update

Searching atomic spin contrast on nickel oxide (001) by force microscopy

The (001) surface of NiO, an antiferromagnet at room temperature, was investigated under ultra-high vacuum conditions with frequency modulation atomic force microscopy (FM-AFM). The antiferromagnetic coupling between ions leads to a spin superstructure on (001) surfaces. Exchange interaction between the probe of a force microscope and the NiO (001) surface should allow to image spin superstructures in real space. The surface was imaged with three different probing tips: nonmagnetic W tips, ferromagnetic Co tips and antiferromagnetic NiO tips - and atomic resolution was achieved with all three of them in various distance regimes and in several channels. Evidence for spin contrast was obtained in experiments that utilize NiO tips and oscillation amplitudes in the \AA-regime, where optimal signal-to-noise ratio is expected. The spin contrast is weaker than expected and only visible in Fourier space images.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, submitted to Physical Review