261 research outputs found
Determination of anisotropic dipole moments in self-assembled quantum dots using Rabi oscillations
By investigating the polarization-dependent Rabi oscillations using
photoluminescence spectroscopy, we determined the respective transition dipole
moments of the two excited excitonic states |Ex> and |Ey> of a single
self-assembled quantum dot that are nondegenerate due to shape anisotropy. We
find that the ratio of the two dipole moments is close to the physical
elongation ratio of the quantum dot.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures, MS Word generated PDF fil
The human hand and foot in evolution and art : the effects of wearing footwear
The structures of the human hands and feet are shaped by evolution and its effects on the brain, skeleton and other structures, and on behavior. We used measurements obtained of hands and feet from living humans in Europe, the Americas (South and North) and Australia and images of hands and feet in cave art, paintings, and photographs obtained from the Web including some from Africa. We used the ratios of the third finger/width of hand and second toe/width of foot. We hypothesized that hand ratios would not have changed over millennia whereas, because of the use of footwear and mechanical locomotion, the ratios obtained from feet could have changed significantly. Here we report that statistical analyses and modeling confirmed our initial hypothesi
Surface Nanoscale Axial Photonics (SNAP) at the silica microcapillary with ultrathin wall
We demonstrate SNAP microresonators fabricated in silica capillary fiber with ultrathin walls by local annealing with a focused CO2 laser and internal etching with hydrofluoric acid. We investigate the introduced capillary wall nonuniformity and demonstrate the feasibility of advanced microfluidic sensing with SNAP microresonators
Self-organized criticality in deterministic systems with disorder
Using the Bak-Sneppen model of biological evolution as our paradigm, we
investigate in which cases noise can be substituted with a deterministic signal
without destroying Self-Organized Criticality (SOC). If the deterministic
signal is chaotic the universality class is preserved; some non-universal
features, such as the threshold, depend on the time correlation of the signal.
We also show that, if the signal introduced is periodic, SOC is preserved but
in a different universality class, as long as the spectrum of frequencies is
broad enough.Comment: RevTex, 8 pages, 8 figure
Did Frédéric Chopin die from heart failure?
On October 17, 1849, Poland's greatest composer, Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849) died aged 39. His cause of death remains unknown. An investigation of the documental sources was performed to reconstruct the medical history of the artist. Since his earliest years, his life had been dominated by poor health. Recurrent episodes of cough, fever, headaches, lymphadenopathy- a series of symptoms that may be attributed to viral respiratory infections- manifested in his teens. Later in life, he had chest pain, hemoptysis, hematemesis, neuralgia, and arthralgia. Exhaustion and breathlessness characterized all his adult life. Coughing, choking, and edema of the legs and ankles manifested four months before his death. Several hypotheses ranging from cystic fibrosis to alpha-1 anti-trypsin deficiency and pulmonary tuberculosis have been proposed to explain Chopin's lifelong illness. We suggest that Chopin had dilated cardiomyopathy with consequent heart failure and cirrhosis that caused his death
Fluctuation-dissipation relationship in chaotic dynamics
We consider a general N-degree-of-freedom dissipative system which admits of
chaotic behaviour. Based on a Fokker-Planck description associated with the
dynamics we establish that the drift and the diffusion coefficients can be
related through a set of stochastic parameters which characterize the steady
state of the dynamical system in a way similar to fluctuation-dissipation
relation in non-equilibrium statistical mechanics. The proposed relationship is
verified by numerical experiments on a driven double well system.Comment: Revtex, 23 pages, 2 figure
Decoherence processes during active manipulation of excitonic qubits in semiconductor quantum dots
Using photoluminescence spectroscopy, we have investigated the nature of Rabi
oscillation damping during active manipulation of excitonic qubits in
self-assembled quantum dots. Rabi oscillations were recorded by varying the
pulse amplitude for fixed pulse durations between 4 ps and 10 ps. Up to 5
periods are visible, making it possible to quantify the excitation dependent
damping. We find that this damping is more pronounced for shorter pulse widths
and show that its origin is the non-resonant excitation of carriers in the
wetting layer, most likely involving bound-to-continuum and continuum-to-bound
transitions.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figure
Self-Organized Criticality Driven by Deterministic Rules
We have investigated the essential ingredients allowing a system to show Self
Organized Criticality (SOC) in its collective behavior. Using the Bak-Sneppen
model of biological evolution as our paradigm, we show that the random
microscopic rules of update can be effectively substituted with a chaotic map
without changing the universality class. Using periodic maps SOC is preserved,
but in a different universality class, as long as the spectrum of frequencies
is broad enough.Comment: 4 pages, RevTex (tar.gz), 4 eps-figures include
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