Surface-induced heating of cold polar molecules

We study the rotational and vibrational heating of diatomic molecules placed near a surface at finite temperature on the basis of macroscopic quantum electrodynamics. The internal molecular evolution is governed by transition rates that depend on both temperature and position. Analytical and numerical methods are used to investigate the heating of several relevant molecules near various surfaces. We determine the critical distances at which the surface itself becomes the dominant source of heating and we investigate the transition between the long-range and short-range behaviour of the heating rates. A simple formula is presented that can be used to estimate the surface-induced heating rates of other molecules of interest. We also consider how the heating depends on the thickness and composition of the surface.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figure

Ground-state van der Waals forces in planar multilayer magnetodielectrics

Within the frame of lowest-order perturbation theory, the van der Waals potential of a ground-state atom placed within an arbitrary dispersing and absorbing magnetodielectric multilayer system is given. Examples of an atom situated in front of a magnetodielectric plate or between two such plates are studied in detail. Special emphasis is placed on the competing attractive and repulsive force components associated with the electric and magnetic matter properties, respectively, and conditions for the formation of repulsive potential walls are given. Both numerical and analytical results are presented.Comment: 16 pages, 8 figures, minor correction

Casimir force on amplifying bodies

Based on a unified approach to macroscopic QED that allows for the inclusion of amplification in a limited space and frequency range, we study the Casimir force as a Lorentz force on an arbitrary partially amplifying system of linearly locally responding (isotropic) magnetoelectric bodies. We demonstrate that the force on a weakly polarisable/magnetisable amplifying object in the presence of a purely absorbing environment can be expressed as a sum over the Casimir--Polder forces on the excited atoms inside the body. As an example, the resonant force between a plate consisting of a dilute gas of excited atoms and a perfect mirror is calculated

Interatomic van der Waals potential in the presence of a magneto-electric sphere

On the basis of a general formula obtained earlier via fourth-order erturbation theory within the framework of macroscopic quantum electrodynamics, the van der Waals potential between two neutral, unpolarized, ground-state atoms in the presence of a homogeneous, dispersing and absorbing magnetoelectric sphere is studied. When the radius of the sphere becomes sufficiently large, the result asymptotically agrees with that for two atoms near a planar interface. In the opposite limit of a very small sphere, the sphere can effectively be regarded as being a third ground-state atom, and the nonadditive three-atom van der Waals potential is recovered. To illustrate the effect of a sphere of arbitrary radius, numerical results are presented for the triangular arrangement where the atoms are at equidistance from the sphere, and for the linear arrangement where the atoms and the sphere are aligned along a straight line. As demonstrated, the enhancement or reduction of the interaction potential in the presence of purely electric or magnetic spheres can be physically understood in terms of image charges.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figure

Thermopower of a Kondo-correlated quantum dot

The thermopower of a Kondo-correlated gate-defined quantum dot is studied using a current heating technique. In the presence of spin correlations the thermopower shows a clear deviation from the semiclassical Mott relation between thermopower and conductivity. The strong thermopower signal indicates a significant asymmetry in the spectral density of states of the Kondo resonance with respect to the Fermi energies of the reservoirs. The observed behavior can be explained within the framework of an Anderson-impurity model. Keywords: Thermoelectric and thermomagnetic effects, Coulomb blockade, single electron tunneling, Kondo-effect PACS Numbers: 72.20.Pa, 73.23.HkComment: 4 pages, 4 figures, revised version, changed figure

Sequential and co-tunneling behavior in the temperature-dependent thermopower of few-electron quantum dots

We have studied the temperature dependent thermopower of gate-defined, lateral quantum dots in the Coulomb blockade regime using an electron heating technique. The line shape of the thermopower oscillations depends strongly on the contributing tunneling processes. Between 1.5 K and 40 mK a crossover from a pure sawtooth- to an intermitted sawtooth-like line shape is observed. The latter is attributed to the increasing dominance of cotunneling processes in the Coulomb blockade regime at low temperatures.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Laughlin liquid - Wigner solid transition at high density in wide quantum wells

Assuming that the phase transition between the Wigner solid and the Laughlin liquid is first-order, we compare ground-state energies to find features of the phase diagram at fixed $\nu$. Rather than use the Coulomb interaction, we calculate the effective interaction in a square quantum well, and fit the results to a model interaction with length parameter $\lambda$ roughly proportional to the width of the well. We find a transition to the Wigner solid phase at high density in very wide wells, driven by the softening of the interaction at short distances, as well as the more well-known transition to the Wigner solid at low density, driven by Landau-level mixing.Comment: RevTeX 3.0, 3 Postscript figures appended in uuencoded forma

Proteome coverage prediction with infinite Markov models

Motivation: Liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) is the predominant method to comprehensively characterize complex protein mixtures such as samples from prefractionated or complete proteomes. In order to maximize proteome coverage for the studied sample, i.e. identify as many traceable proteins as possible, LC-MS/MS experiments are typically repeated extensively and the results combined. Proteome coverage prediction is the task of estimating the number of peptide discoveries of future LC-MS/MS experiments. Proteome coverage prediction is important to enhance the design of efficient proteomics studies. To date, there does not exist any method to reliably estimate the increase of proteome coverage at an early stage

Casimir-Polder forces: A non-perturbative approach

Within the frame of macroscopic QED in linear, causal media, we study the radiation force of Casimir-Polder type acting on an atom which is positioned near dispersing and absorbing magnetodielectric bodies and initially prepared in an arbitrary electronic state. It is shown that minimal and multipolar coupling lead to essentially the same lowest-order perturbative result for the force acting on an atom in an energy eigenstate. To go beyond perturbation theory, the calculations are based on the exact center-of-mass equation of motion. For a nondriven atom in the weak-coupling regime, the force as a function of time is a superposition of force components that are related to the electronic density-matrix elements at a chosen time. Even the force component associated with the ground state is not derivable from a potential in the ususal way, because of the position dependence of the atomic polarizability. Further, when the atom is initially prepared in a coherent superposition of energy eigenstates, then temporally oscillating force components are observed, which are due to the interaction of the atom with both electric and magnetic fields.Comment: 23 pages, 3 figures, additional misprints correcte