1,273 research outputs found
Using Abrupt Changes in Magnetic Susceptibility within Type-II Superconductors to Explore Global Decoherence Phenomena
A phenomenon of a periodic staircase of macroscopic jumps in the admitted
magnetic field has been observed, as the magnitude of an externally applied
magnetic field is smoothly increased or decreased upon a superconducting (SC)
loop of type II niobium-titanium wire which is coated with a
non-superconducting layer of copper. Large temperature spikes were observed to
occur simultaneously with the jumps, suggesting brief transitions to the normal
state, caused by en masse motions of Abrikosov vortices. An experiment that
exploits this phenomenon to explore the global decoherence of a large
superconducting system will be discussed, and preliminary data will be
presented. Though further experimentation is required to determine the actual
decoherence rate across the superconducting system, multiple classical
processes are ruled out, suggesting that jumps in magnetic flux are fully
quantum mechanical processes which may correspond to large group velocities
within the global Cooper pair wavefunction.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures, part of proceedings for FQMT 2011 conference in
Prague, Czech Republi
Motion analysis of a trapped ion chain by single photon self-interference
We present an optical scheme to detect the oscillations of a two-ion string
confined in a linear Paul trap. The motion is detected by analyzing the
intensity correlations in the fluorescence light emitted by one or two ions in
the string. We present measurements performed under continuous Doppler cooling
and under pulsed illumination. We foresee several direct applications of this
detection method, including motional analysis of multi-ion species or coupled
mechanical oscillators, and sensing of mechanical correlations.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure
Optogenetic manipulation of stomatal kinetics improves carbon assimilation, water use, and growth
Stomata serve dual and often conflicting roles, facilitating carbon dioxide influx into the plant leaf for photosynthesis and restricting water efflux via transpiration. Strategies for reducing transpiration without incurring a cost for photosynthesis must circumvent this inherent coupling of carbon dioxide and water vapor diffusion. We expressed the synthetic, light-gated K+ channel BLINK1 in guard cells surrounding stomatal pores in Arabidopsis to enhance the solute fluxes that drive stomatal aperture. BLINK1 introduced a K+ conductance and accelerated both stomatal opening under light exposure and closing after irradiation. Integrated over the growth period, BLINK1 drove a 2.2-fold increase in biomass in fluctuating light without cost in water use by the plant. Thus, we demonstrate the potential of enhancing stomatal kinetics to improve water use efficiency without penalty in carbon fixation
Natural orbital functional theory and pairing correlation effects in electron momentum density
Occupation numbers of natural orbitals capture the physics of strong electron
correlations in momentum space. A Natural Orbital Density Functional Theory
based on the antisymmetrized geminal product provides these occupation numbers
and the corresponding electron momentum density. A practical implementation of
this theory approximates the natural orbitals by the Kohn-Sham orbitals and
uses a mean-field approach to estimate pairing amplitudes leading to
corrections for the independent particle model. The method is applied to weakly
doped \mbox{La_2_4}.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures. Review paper contribution for the special issue
(V.40, No.3 2014) of Fizika Nizkikh Temperatur on New Trends of Fermiology
(shorter version
Suppression of collisional shifts in a strongly interacting lattice clock
Optical lattice clocks have the potential for extremely high frequency
stability owing to the simultaneous interrogation of many atoms, but this
precision may come at the cost of systematic inaccuracy due to atomic
interactions. Density-dependent frequency shifts can occur even in a clock that
uses fermionic atoms if they are subject to inhomogeneous optical excitation
[1, 2]. Here we present a seemingly paradoxical solution to this problem. By
dramatically increasing the strength of atomic interactions, we suppress
collisional shifts in lattice sites containing > 1 atoms; strong
interactions introduce an energy splitting into the system, and evolution into
a many-particle state in which collisions occur is inhibited. We demonstrate
the effectiveness of this approach with the JILA Sr lattice clock by reducing
both the collisional frequency shift and its uncertainty by more than a factor
of ten [3], to the level of . This result eliminates the compromise
between precision and accuracy in a many-particle system, since both will
continue to improve as the particle number increases.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figure
Giant lasing effect in magnetic nanoconductors
We propose a new principle for a compact solid-state laser in the 1-100 THz
regime. This is a frequency range where attempts to fabricate small size lasers
up till now have met severe technical problems. The proposed laser is based on
a new mechanism for creating spin-flip processes in ferromagnetic conductors.
The mechanism is due to the interaction of light with conduction electrons; the
interaction strength, being proportional to the large exchange energy, exceeds
the Zeeman interaction by orders of magnitude. On the basis of this
interaction, a giant lasing effect is predicted in a system where a population
inversion has been created by tunneling injection of spin-polarized electrons
from one ferromagnetic conductor to another -- the magnetization of the two
ferromagnets having different orientations. Using experimental data for
ferromagnetic manganese perovskites with nearly 100% spin polarization we show
the laser frequency to be in the range 1-100 THz. The optical gain is estimated
to be of order 10^7 cm^{-1}, which exceeds the gain of conventional
semiconductor lasers by 3 or 4 orders of magnitude. A relevant experimental
study is proposed and discussed.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Pseudopotential in resonant regimes
The zero-range potential approach is extended for the description of
situations where two-body scattering is resonant in arbitrary partial waves.
The formalism generalizes the Fermi pseudopotential which can be used only for
s-wave broad resonances. In a given channel, the interaction is described
either in terms of a contact condition on the wave function or with a family of
pseudopotentials. We show that it is necessary to introduce a regularized
scalar product for wave functions obtained in the zero-range potential
formalism (except for the Fermi pseudopotential). This metrics shows that the
geometry of these Hilbert spaces depends crucially on the interaction.Comment: 12 pages - 1 figur
Microscopic Theory of Magnon-Drag Thermoelectric Transport in Ferromagnetic Metals
A theoretical study of the magnon-drag Peltier and Seebeck effects in
ferromagnetic metals is presented. A magnon heat current is described
perturbatively from the microscopic viewpoint with respect to electron--magnon
interactions and the electric field. Then, the magnon-drag Peltier coefficient
\Pi_\MAG is obtained as the ratio between the magnon heat current and the
electric charge current. We show that \Pi_\MAG=C_\MAG T^{5/2} at a low
temperature ; that the coefficient C_\MAG is proportional to the spin
polarization of the electric conductivity; and that for C_\MAG<0,
but . From experimental results for magnon-drag Peltier
effects, we estimate that the strength of the electron--magnon interaction is
about 0.3 eV for permalloy.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in Journal of the
Physical Society of Japa
A Q-Ising model application for linear-time image segmentation
A computational method is presented which efficiently segments digital
grayscale images by directly applying the Q-state Ising (or Potts) model. Since
the Potts model was first proposed in 1952, physicists have studied lattice
models to gain deep insights into magnetism and other disordered systems. For
some time, researchers have realized that digital images may be modeled in much
the same way as these physical systems (i.e., as a square lattice of numerical
values). A major drawback in using Potts model methods for image segmentation
is that, with conventional methods, it processes in exponential time. Advances
have been made via certain approximations to reduce the segmentation process to
power-law time. However, in many applications (such as for sonar imagery),
real-time processing requires much greater efficiency. This article contains a
description of an energy minimization technique that applies four Potts
(Q-Ising) models directly to the image and processes in linear time. The result
is analogous to partitioning the system into regions of four classes of
magnetism. This direct Potts segmentation technique is demonstrated on
photographic, medical, and acoustic images.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figures, revtex, uses subfigure.sty. Central European
Journal of Physics, in press (2010
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