2,183 research outputs found
Radiative charge transfer lifetime of the excited state of (NaCa)
New experiments were proposed recently to investigate the regime of cold
atomic and molecular ion-atom collision processes in a special hybrid
neutral-atom--ion trap under high vacuum conditions. The collisional cooling of
laser pre-cooled Ca ions by ultracold Na atoms is being studied. Modeling
this process requires knowledge of the radiative lifetime of the excited
singlet A state of the (NaCa) molecular system. We calculate
the rate coefficient for radiative charge transfer using a semiclassical
approach. The dipole radial matrix elements between the ground and the excited
states, and the potential curves were calculated using Complete Active Space
Self-Consistent field and M\"oller-Plesset second order perturbation theory
(CASSCF/MP2) with an extended Gaussian basis, 6-311+G(3df). The semiclassical
charge transfer rate coefficient was averaged over a thermal Maxwellian
distribution. In addition we also present elastic collision cross sections and
the spin-exchange cross section. The rate coefficient for charge transfer was
found to be cm/sec, while those for the elastic and
spin-exchange cross sections were found to be several orders of magnitude
higher ( cm/sec and cm/sec,
respectively). This confirms our assumption that the milli-Kelvin regime of
collisional cooling of calcium ions by sodium atoms is favorable with the
respect to low loss of calcium ions due to the charge transfer.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures; v.2 - conceptual change
Collective Modes of Quantum Hall Stripes
The collective modes of striped phases in a quantum Hall system are computed
using the time-dependent Hartree-Fock approximation. Uniform stripe phases are
shown to be unstable to the formation of modulations along the stripes, so that
within the Hartree-Fock approximation the groundstate is a stripe crystal. Such
crystalline states are generically gapped at any finite wavevector; however, in
the quantum Hall system the interactions of modulations among different stripes
is found to be remarkably weak, leading to an infinite collection of collective
modes with immeasurably small gaps. The resulting long wavelength behavior is
derivable from an elastic theory for smectic liquid crystals. Collective modes
for the phonon branch are computed throughout the Brillouin zone, as are spin
wave and magnetoplasmon modes. A soft mode in the phonon spectrum is identified
for partial filling factors sufficiently far from 1/2, indicating a second
order phase transition. The modes contain several other signatures that should
be experimentally observable.Comment: 36 pages LaTex with 11 postscript figures. Short animations of the
collective modes can be found at
http://www.physique.usherb.ca/~rcote/stripes/stripes.ht
Commensurate-incommensurate transitions of quantum Hall stripe states in double-quantum-well systems
In higher Landau levels (N>0) and around filling factors nu =4N+1, a
two-dimensional electron gas in a double-quantum-well system supports a stripe
groundstate in which the electron density in each well is spatially modulated.
When a parallel magnetic field is added in the plane of the wells, tunneling
between the wells acts as a spatially rotating effective Zeeman field coupled
to the ``pseudospins'' describing the well index of the electron states. For
small parallel fields, these pseudospins follow this rotation, but at larger
fields they do not, and a commensurate-incommensurate transition results.
Working in the Hartree-Fock approximation, we show that the combination of
stripes and commensuration in this system leads to a very rich phase diagram.
The parallel magnetic field is responsible for oscillations in the tunneling
matrix element that induce a complex sequence of transitions between
commensurate and incommensurate liquid or stripe states. The homogeneous and
stripe states we find can be distinguished by their collective excitations and
tunneling I-V, which we compute within the time-dependent Hartree-Fock
approximation.Comment: 23 pages including 8 eps figure
Continuous star cluster formation in the spiral NGC 45
We determined ages for 52 star clusters with masses < 10^6 solar masses in
the low surface brightness spiral galaxy NGC 45. Four of these candidates are
old globular clusters located in the bulge. The remaining ones span a large age
range. The cluster ages suggest a continuous star/cluster formation history
without evidence for bursts, consistent with the galaxy being located in a
relatively unperturbed environment in the outskirts of the Sculptor group.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures. To appear in "Island Universes - Structure and
Evolution of Disk Galaxies", Terschelling (Netherlands), July 200
Macrodimers: ultralong range Rydberg molecules
We study long range interactions between two Rydberg atoms and predict the
existence of ultralong range Rydberg dimers with equilibrium distances of many
thousand Bohr radii. We calculate the dispersion coefficients ,
and for two rubidium atoms in the same excited level , and find
that they scale like , and , respectively. We show that
for certain molecular symmetries, these coefficients lead to long range
potential wells that can support molecular bound levels. Such macrodimers would
be very sensitive to their environment, and could probe weak interactions. We
suggest experiments to detect these macrodimers.Comment: 4 pages, submitted to PR
Surface Contribution to Raman Scattering from Layered Superconductors
Generalizing recent work, the Raman scattering intensity from a semi-infinite
superconducting superlattice is calculated taking into account the surface
contribution to the density response functions. Our work makes use of the
formalism of Jain and Allen developed for normal superlattices. The surface
contributions are shown to strongly modify the bulk contribution to the
Raman-spectrum line shape below , and also may give rise to additional
surface plasmon modes above . The interplay between the bulk and
surface contribution is strongly dependent on the momentum transfer
parallel to layers. However, we argue that the scattering
cross-section for the out-of-phase phase modes (which arise from interlayer
Cooper pair tunneling) will not be affected and thus should be the only
structure exhibited in the Raman spectrum below for relatively large
. The intensity is small but perhaps observable.Comment: 14 pages, RevTex, 6 figure
Anisotropic states of two-dimensional electrons in high magnetic fields
We study the collective states formed by two-dimensional electrons in Landau
levels of index near half-filling. By numerically solving the
self-consistent Hartree-Fock (HF) equations for a set of oblique
two-dimensional lattices, we find that the stripe state is an anisotropic
Wigner crystal (AWC), and determine its precise structure for varying values of
the filling factor. Calculating the elastic energy, we find that the shear
modulus of the AWC is small but finite (nonzero) within the HF approximation.
This implies, in particular, that the long-wavelength magnetophonon mode in the
stripe state vanishes like as in an ordinary Wigner crystal, and not
like as was found in previous studies where the energy of shear
deformations was neglected.Comment: minor corrections; 5 pages, 4 figures; version to be published in
Physical Review Letter
The Rich Globular Cluster System of Abell 1689 and the Radial Dependence of the Globular Cluster Formation Efficiency
We study the rich globular cluster (GC) system in the center of the massive
cluster of galaxies Abell 1689 (z=0.18), one of the most powerful gravitational
lenses known. With 28 HST/ACS orbits in the F814W bandpass, we reach magnitude
I_814=29 with >90% completeness and sample the brightest ~5% of the GC system.
Assuming the well-known Gaussian form of the GC luminosity function (GCLF), we
estimate a total population of N(GC_total) = 162,850 GCs within a projected
radius of 400kpc. As many as half may comprise an intracluster component. Even
with the sizable uncertainties, which mainly result from the uncertain GCLF
parameters, this is by far the largest GC system studied to date. The specific
frequency S_N is high, but not uncommon for central galaxies in massive
clusters, rising from S_N~5 near the center to ~12 at large radii. Passive
galaxy fading would increase S_N by ~20% at z=0. We construct the radial mass
profiles of the GCs, stars, intracluster gas, and lensing-derived total mass,
and we compare the mass fractions as a function of radius. The estimated mass
in GCs, M(GC_total)=3.9x10^10 Msun, is comparable to ~80% of the total stellar
mass of the Milky Way. The shape of the GC mass profile appears intermediate
between those of the stellar light and total cluster mass. Despite the extreme
nature of this system, the ratios of the GC mass to the baryonic and total
masses, and thus the GC formation efficiency, are typical of those in other
rich clusters when comparing at the same physical radii. The GC formation
efficiency is not constant, but varies with radius, in a manner that appears
similar for different clusters; we speculate on the reasons for this similarity
in profile.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures; accepted for publication in Ap
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