576 research outputs found
Polarization and energy dynamics in ultrafocused optical Kerr propagation
Developing a complete vectorial description of optical nonparaxial propagation of highly focused beams in Kerr media, we disclose a family of new phenomena. These phenomena appear to emerge as a consequence of the mutual coupling of all three components of the optical field. This circumstance, which is intrinsic to the very nature of Kerr propagation, was previously discarded on the basis of the conjecture that a reduced system is possible in which only one transverse field component interacts with the longitudinal component
Roles of resonance and dark irradiance for infrared photorefractive self-focusing and solitons in bi-polar InP:Fe
This paper shows experimental evidence of photorefractive steady state
self-focusing in InP:Fe for a wide range of intensities, at both 1.06 and
1.55m. To explain those results, it is shown that despite the bi-polar
nature of InP:Fe where one photocarrier and one thermal carrier are to be
considered, the long standing one photocarrier model for photorefractive
solitons can be usefully applied. The relationship between the dark irradiance
stemming out of this model and the known resonance intensity is then discussed
The Adiabatic Piston and the Second Law of Thermodynamics
A detailed analysis of the adiabatic-piston problem reveals peculiar
dynamical features that challenge the general belief that isolated systems
necessarily reach a static equilibrium state. In particular, the fact that the
piston behaves like a perpetuum mobile, i.e., it never stops but keeps
wandering, undergoing sizable oscillations, around the position corresponding
to maximum entropy, has remarkable implications on the entropy variations of
the system and on the validity of the second law when dealing with systems of
mesoscopic dimensions.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, First International Conference on Quantum Limits
to the Second La
Collision and fusion of counterpropagating micron-sized optical beams in non-uniformly biased photorefractive crystals
We theoretically investigate collision of optical beams travelling in
opposite directions through a centrosymmetric photorefractive crystal biased by
a spatially non-uniform voltage. We analytically predict the fusion of
counterpropagating solitons in conditions in which the applied voltage is
rapidly modulated along the propagation axis, so that self-bending is
suppressed by the "restoring symmetry" mechanism. Moreover, when the applied
voltage is slowly modulated, we predict that the modified self-bending allows
conditions in which the two beams fuse together, forming a curved light-channel
splice.Comment: 12 page
Metabolic syndrome and postmenopausal breast cancer in the ORDET cohort : a nested case-control study
Background and aims: The increase in breast cancer incidence over recent decades has been accompanied by an increase in the frequency of metabolic syndrome. Several studies suggest that breast cancer risk is associated with the components of metabolic syndrome (high serum glucose and triglycerides, low HDL-cholesterol, high blood pressure, and abdominal obesity), but no prospective study has investigated risk in relation to the presence of explicitly defined metabolic syndrome. We investigated associations between metabolic syndrome, its components, and breast cancer risk in a nested case-control study on postmenopausal women of the ORDET cohort. Methods and results: After a median follow-up of 13.5 years, 163 women developed breast cancer; metabolic syndrome was present in 29.8%. Four matched controls per case were selected by incidence density sampling, and rate ratios were estimated by conditional logistic regression. Metabolic syndrome (i.e. presence of three or more metabolic syndrome components) was significantly associated with breast cancer risk (rate ratio 1.58 [95% confidence interval 1.07-2.33]), with a significant risk increase for increasing number of components (P for trend 0.004). Among individual metabolic syndrome components, only low serum HDL-cholesterol and high triglycerides were significantly associated with increased risk. Conclusions: This prospective study indicates that metabolic syndrome is an important risk factor for breast cancer in postmenopausal women. Although serum HDL-cholesterol and triglycerides had the strongest association with breast cancer, all components may contribute to increased risk by multiple interacting mechanisms. Prevention or reversal of metabolic syndrome by life-style changes may be effective in preventing breast cancer in postmenopausal women
Qualitative and quantitative analysis of stability and instability dynamics of positive lattice solitons
We present a unified approach for qualitative and quantitative analysis of
stability and instability dynamics of positive bright solitons in
multi-dimensional focusing nonlinear media with a potential (lattice), which
can be periodic, periodic with defects, quasiperiodic, single waveguide, etc.
We show that when the soliton is unstable, the type of instability dynamic that
develops depends on which of two stability conditions is violated.
Specifically, violation of the slope condition leads to an amplitude
instability, whereas violation of the spectral condition leads to a drift
instability. We also present a quantitative approach that allows to predict the
stability and instability strength
Coupled-mode theory approach to nonlinear pulse propagation in optical fibers
The formalism of coupled-mode theory is adopted for describing nonlinear pulse propagation in optical fibers, the coupling being induced by the nonlinear part of the refractive index. This approach describes in a natural way the influence of the waveguide, and in principle allows of the possibility of investigating soliton propagation when more than one mode is excited
On the Second Law of thermodynamics and the piston problem
The piston problem is investigated in the case where the length of the
cylinder is infinite (on both sides) and the ratio is a very small
parameter, where is the mass of one particle of the gaz and is the mass
of the piston. Introducing initial conditions such that the stochastic motion
of the piston remains in the average at the origin (no drift), it is shown that
the time evolution of the fluids, analytically derived from Liouville equation,
agrees with the Second Law of thermodynamics.
We thus have a non equilibrium microscopical model whose evolution can be
explicitly shown to obey the two laws of thermodynamics.Comment: 29 pages, 9 figures submitted to Journal of Statistical Physics
(2003
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