Feasibility of a 30-meter space based laser transmitter

A study was made of the application of large expandable mirror structures in future space missions to establish the feasibility and define the potential of high power laser systems for such applications as propulsion and power transmission. Application of these concepts requires a 30-meter diameter, diffraction limited mirror for transmission of the laser energy. Three concepts for the transmitter are presented. These concepts include consideration of continuous as well as segmented mirror surfaces and the major stow-deployment categories of inflatable, variable geometry and assembled-in-space structures. The mirror surface for each concept would be actively monitored and controlled to maintain diffraction limited performance at 10.6 microns during operation. The proposed mirror configurations are based on existing aerospace state-of-the-art technology. The assembled-in-space concept appears to be the most feasible, at this time

Kinetic-inductance-limited reset time of superconducting nanowire photon counters

We investigate the recovery of superconducting NbN-nanowire photon counters after detection of an optical pulse at a wavelength of 1550 nm, and present a model that quantitatively accounts for our observations. The reset time is found to be limited by the large kinetic inductance of these nanowires, which forces a tradeoff between counting rate and either detection efficiency or active area. Devices of usable size and high detection efficiency are found to have reset times orders of magnitude longer than their intrinsic photoresponse time.Comment: Submitted to Applied Physics Letter

Temperature dependent BCS equations with continuum coupling

The temperature dependent BCS equations are modified in order to include the contribution of the continuum single particle states. The influence of the continuum upon the critical temperature corresponding to the phase transition from a superfluid to a normal state and upon the behaviour of the excitation energy and of the entropy is discussed.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.

An efficient Fredholm method for calculation of highly excited states of billiards

A numerically efficient Fredholm formulation of the billiard problem is presented. The standard solution in the framework of the boundary integral method in terms of a search for roots of a secular determinant is reviewed first. We next reformulate the singularity condition in terms of a flow in the space of an auxiliary one-parameter family of eigenproblems and argue that the eigenvalues and eigenfunctions are analytic functions within a certain domain. Based on this analytic behavior we present a numerical algorithm to compute a range of billiard eigenvalues and associated eigenvectors by only two diagonalizations.Comment: 15 pages, 10 figures; included systematic study of accuracy with 2 new figures, movie to Fig. 4, http://www.quantumchaos.de/Media/0703030media.av

Electron focusing, mode spectroscopy and mass enhancement in small GaAs/AlGaAs rings

A new electron focusing effect has been discovered in small single and coupled GaAs/AlGaAs rings. The focusing in the single ring is attributed solely to internal orbits. The focusing effect allows the ring to be used as a small mass spectrometer. The focusing causes peaks in the magnetoresistance at low fields, and the peak positions were used to study the dispersion relation of the one-dimensional magnetoelectric subbands. The electron effective mass increases with the applied magnetic field by a factor of $50$, at a magnetic field of $0.5T$. This is the first time this increase has been measured directly. General agreement obtains between the experiment and the subband calculations for straight channels.Comment: 13 pages figures are available by reques

Accidental Degeneracy and Berry Phase of Resonant States

We study the complex geometric phase acquired by the resonant states of an open quantum system which evolves irreversibly in a slowly time dependent environment. In analogy with the case of bound states, the Berry phase factors of resonant states are holonomy group elements of a complex line bundle with structure group C*. In sharp contrast with bound states, accidental degeneracies of resonances produce a continuous closed line of singularities formally equivalent to a continuous distribution of "magnetic" charge on a "diabolical" circle, in consequence, we find different classes of topologically inequivalent non-trivial closed paths in parameter space.Comment: 23 pages, 2 Postscript figures, LaTex, to be published in: Group 21: Symposium on Semigroups and Quantum Irreversibility (Proc. of the XXI Int. Colloquium on Group Theoretical Methods in Physics

A simple and efficient numerical scheme to integrate non-local potentials

As nuclear wave functions have to obey the Pauli principle, potentials issued from reaction theory or Hartree-Fock formalism using finite-range interactions contain a non-local part. Written in coordinate space representation, the Schrodinger equation becomes integro-differential, which is difficult to solve, contrary to the case of local potentials, where it is an ordinary differential equation. A simple and powerful method has been proposed several years ago, with the trivially equivalent potential method, where non-local potential is replaced by an equivalent local potential, which is state-dependent and has to be determined iteratively. Its main disadvantage, however, is the appearance of divergences in potentials if the wave functions have nodes, which is generally the case. We will show that divergences can be removed by a slight modification of the trivially equivalent potential method, leading to a very simple, stable and precise numerical technique to deal with non-local potentials. Examples will be provided with the calculation of the Hartree-Fock potential and associated wave functions of 16O using the finite-range N3LO realistic interaction.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, submitted to Eur. Phys. J.

Variational calculations for the hydrogen-antihydrogen system with a mass-scaled Born-Oppenheimer potential

The problem of proton-antiproton motion in the ${\rm H}$--${\rm \bar{H}}$ system is investigated by means of the variational method. We introduce a modified nuclear interaction through mass-scaling of the Born-Oppenheimer potential. This improved treatment of the interaction includes the nondivergent part of the otherwise divergent adiabatic correction and shows the correct threshold behavior. Using this potential we calculate the vibrational energy levels with angular momentum 0 and 1 and the corresponding nuclear wave functions, as well as the S-wave scattering length. We obtain a full set of all bound states together with a large number of discretized continuum states that might be utilized in variational four-body calculations. The results of our calculations gives an indication of resonance states in the hydrogen-antihydrogen system

Characterization of one-dimensional quantum channels in InAs/AlSb

We report the magnetoresistance characteristics of one-dimensional electrons confined in a single InAs quantum well sandwiched between AlSb barriers. As a result of a novel nanofabrication scheme that utilizes a 3nm-shallow wet chemical etching to define the electrostatic lateral confinement, the system is found to possess three important properties: specular boundary scattering, a strong lateral confinement potential, and a conducting channel width that is approximately the lithography width. Ballistic transport phenomena, including the quenching of the Hall resistance, the last Hall plateau, and a strong negative bend resistance, are observed at 4K in cross junctions with sharp corners. In a ring geometry, we have observed Aharonov-Bohm interference that exhibits characteristics different from those of the GaAs counterpart due to the ballistic nature of electron transport and the narrowness of the conducting channel width.Comment: pdf-file, 8 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev.