15,081 research outputs found
Structure formation by cosmic strings with a cosmological constant
Final published version.Comment: 4 Page
Optical diode based on the chirality of guided photons
Photons are nonchiral particles: their handedness can be both left and right.
However, when light is transversely confined, it can locally exhibit a
transverse spin whose orientation is fixed by the propagation direction of the
photons. Confined photons thus have chiral character. Here, we employ this to
demonstrate nonreciprocal transmission of light at the single-photon level
through a silica nanofibre in two experimental schemes. We either use an
ensemble of spin-polarised atoms that is weakly coupled to the nanofibre-guided
mode or a single spin-polarised atom strongly coupled to the nanofibre via a
whispering-gallery-mode resonator. We simultaneously achieve high optical
isolation and high forward transmission. Both are controlled by the internal
atomic state. The resulting optical diode is the first example of a new class
of nonreciprocal nanophotonic devices which exploit the chirality of confined
photons and which are, in principle, suitable for quantum information
processing and future quantum optical networks
Enhancement of laser cooling by the use of magnetic gradients
We present a laser cooling scheme for trapped ions and atoms using a
combination of laser couplings and a magnetic gradient field. In a
Schrieffer-Wolff transformed picture, this setup cancels the carrier and blue
sideband terms completely resulting in an improved cooling behaviour compared
to standard cooling schemes (e.g. sideband cooling) and allowing cooling to the
vibrational ground state. A condition for optimal cooling rates is presented
and the cooling behaviour for different Lamb-Dicke parameters and spontaneous
decay rates is discussed. Cooling rates of one order of magnitude less than the
trapping frequency are achieved using the new cooling method. Furthermore the
scheme turns out to be robust under deviations from the optimal parameters and
moreover provides good cooling rates also in the multi particle case.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figure
Cosmogenic radionuclides on LDEF: An unexpected Be-10 result
Following the discovery of the atmospheric derived cosmogenic radionuclide Be-7 on the Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF), a search began for other known nuclides produced by similar mechanisms. None of the others have the narrow gamma-ray line emission of Be-7 decay which enabled its rapid detection and quantification. A search for Be-10 atoms on LDEF clamp plates using accelerator mass spectrometry is described. An unexpected result was obtained
A Closed-Form Expression for the Gravitational Radiation Rate from Cosmic Strings
We present a new formula for the rate at which cosmic strings lose energy
into gravitational radiation, valid for all piecewise-linear cosmic string
loops. At any time, such a loop is composed of straight segments, each of
which has constant velocity. Any cosmic string loop can be arbitrarily-well
approximated by a piecewise-linear loop with sufficiently large. The
formula is a sum of polynomial and log terms, and is exact when the
effects of gravitational back-reaction are neglected. For a given loop, the
large number of terms makes evaluation ``by hand" impractical, but a computer
or symbolic manipulator yields accurate results. The formula is more accurate
and convenient than previous methods for finding the gravitational radiation
rate, which require numerical evaluation of a four-dimensional integral for
each term in an infinite sum. It also avoids the need to estimate the
contribution from the tail of the infinite sum. The formula has been tested
against all previously published radiation rates for different loop
configurations. In the cases where discrepancies were found, they were due to
errors in the published work. We have isolated and corrected both the analytic
and numerical errors in these cases. To assist future work in this area, a
small catalog of results for some simple loop shapes is provided.Comment: 29 pages TeX, 16 figures and computer C-code available via anonymous
ftp from directory pub/pcasper at alpha1.csd.uwm.edu, WISC-MILW-94-TH-10,
(section 7 has been expanded, two figures added, and minor grammatical
changes made.
Characterization of nanometer-sized, mechanically exfoliated graphene on the H-passivated Si(100) surface using scanning tunnelling microscopy
We have developed a method for depositing graphene monolayers and bilayers
with minimum lateral dimensions of 2-10 nm by the mechanical exfoliation of
graphite onto the Si(100)-2x1:H surface. Room temperature, ultra-high vacuum
(UHV) tunnelling spectroscopy measurements of nanometer-sized single-layer
graphene reveal a size dependent energy gap ranging from 0.1-1 eV. Furthermore,
the number of graphene layers can be directly determined from scanning
tunnelling microscopy (STM) topographic contours. This atomistic study provides
an experimental basis for probing the electronic structure of nanometer-sized
graphene which can assist the development of graphene-based nanoelectronics.Comment: Accepted for publication in Nanotechnolog
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