An Ultrasonic Technique for Sizing Surface Cracks

Rayleigh surface waves are proposed as a non-destructive method to find the depth of surface cracks. The paper describes how dynamic photoelasticity was used to develop an understanding of the subsurface interactions between R-waves and a narrow slot. A frequency analysis of the transmitted wave confirmed that the slot acts as a low pass filter for the high frequency Fourier components of the input wave. It is then shown that the high frequency cut-off in the spectrum of the transmitted wave from broadband ultrasonic surface pulse can be used to determine the depth of surface slots

Quasi 2D Bose-Einstein condensation in an optical lattice

We study the phase transition of a gas of Rb atoms to quantum degeneracy in the combined potential of a harmonically confining magnetic trap and the periodic potential of an optical lattice. For high optical lattice potentials we observe a significant change in the temperature dependency of the population of the ground state of the system. The experimental results are explained by the subsequent formation of quasi 2D condensates in the single lattice sites.Comment: 7 pages (including 3 figures