Secular Effects of Tidal Damping in Compact Planetary Systems

We describe the long-term evolution of compact systems of terrestrial planets, using a set of simulations that match the statistical properties of the observed exoplanet distribution. The evolution is driven by tidal dissipation in the planetary interiors, but the systems evolve as a whole due to secular gravitational interactions. We find that, for Earth-like dissipation levels, planetary orbits can be circularised out to periods of order 100 days, an order of magnitude larger than is possible for single planets. The resulting distribution of eccentricities is a qualitative match to that inferred from transit timing variations, with a minority of non-zero eccentricities maintained by particular secular configurations. The coupling of the tidal and secular processes enhance the inward migration of the innermost planets in these systems, and can drive them to short orbital periods. Resonant interactions of both the mean motion and secular variety are observed, although the interactions are not strong enough to drive systemic instability in most cases. However, we demonstrate that these systems can easily be driven unstable if coupled to giant planets on longer period orbits.Comment: 17 pages, 22 figures, 2 tables, submitted to Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Societ

Bright bichromatic entanglement and quantum dynamics of sum frequency generation

We investigate the quantum properties of the well-known process of sum frequency generation, showing that it is potentially a very useful source of non-classical states of the electromagnetic field, some of which are not possible with the more common techniques. We show that it can produce quadrature squeezed light, bright bichromatic entangled states and symmetric and asymmetric demonstrations of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox. We also show that the semiclassical equations totally fail to describe the mean-field dynamics when the cavity is strongly pumped

Scale invariant thermodynamics of a toroidally trapped Bose gas

We consider a system of bosonic atoms in an axially symmetric harmonic trap augmented with a two dimensional repulsive Gaussian optical potential. We find an expression for the grand free energy of the system for configurations ranging from the harmonic trap to the toroidal regime. For large tori we identify an accessible regime where the ideal gas thermodynamics of the system are found to be independent of toroidal radius. This property is a consequence of an invariant extensive volume of the system that we identify analytically in the regime where the toroidal potential is radially harmonic. In considering corrections to the scale invariant transition temperature, we find that the first order interaction shift is the dominant effect in the thermodynamic limit, and is also scale invariant. We also consider adiabatic loading from the harmonic to toroidal trap configuration, which we show to have only a small effect on the condensate fraction of the ideal gas, indicating that loading into the scale invariant regime may be experimentally practical.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. A, typos corrected, references added, rewritten to emphasize generalized volume. Results unchange

Accounting for Multiplicity in Calculating Eta Earth

Using the updated exoplanet population parameters of our previous study, which includes the planetary radius updates from Gaia DR2 and an inferred multiplicity distribution, we provide a revised $\eta_{\oplus}$ calculation. This is achieved by sampling planets from our derived population model and determining which planets meet our criterion for habitability. To ensure robust results, we provide probabilities calculated over a range of upper radius limits. Our most optimistic criterion for habitability provides an $\eta_{\oplus}$ value of $0.34\pm 0.02 \frac{\rm planets}{\rm star}$. We also consider the effects of multiplicity and the number of habitable planets each system may contain. Our calculation indicates that $6.4\pm0.5\%$ of GK dwarfs have more than one planet within their habitable zone. This optimistic habitability criterion also suggests that $0.036\pm0.009\%$ of solar-like stars will harbor 5 or more habitable planets. These tightly packed highly habitable system should be extremely rare, but still possible. Even with our most pessimistic criterion we still expect that $1.8\pm0.2\%$ of solar-like stars harbor more than one habitable planet.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure; Accepted for publication in MNRA

Tripartite entanglement from interlinked χ(2)\chi^{(2)} parametric interactions

We examine the tripartite entanglement properties of an optical system using interlinked $\chi^{(2)}$ interactions, recently studied experimentally in terms of its phase-matching properties by Bondani et al [M. Bondani, A. Allevi, E. Gevinti, A. Agliati, and A. Andreoni, arXiv:quant-ph/0604002.]. We show that the system does produce output modes which are genuinely tripartite entangled and that detection of this entanglement depends crucially on the correlation functions which are measured, with a three-mode Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen inequality being the most sensitive.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figure