Flow transitions in two-dimensional foams

For sufficiently slow rates of strain, flowing foam can exhibit inhomogeneous flows. The nature of these flows is an area of active study in both two-dimensional model foams and three dimensional foam. Recent work in three-dimensional foam has identified three distinct regimes of flow [S. Rodts, J. C. Baudez, and P. Coussot, Europhys. Lett. {\bf 69}, 636 (2005)]. Two of these regimes are identified with continuum behavior (full flow and shear-banding), and the third regime is identified as a discrete regime exhibiting extreme localization. In this paper, the discrete regime is studied in more detail using a model two dimensional foam: a bubble raft. We characterize the behavior of the bubble raft subjected to a constant rate of strain as a function of time, system size, and applied rate of strain. We observe localized flow that is consistent with the coexistence of a power-law fluid with rigid body rotation. As a function of applied rate of strain, there is a transition from a continuum description of the flow to discrete flow when the thickness of the flow region is approximately 10 bubbles. This occurs at an applied rotation rate of approximately $0.07 {\rm s^{-1}}$

A new effective interaction for the trapped fermi gas: the BEC-BCS crossover

We extend a recently introduced separable interaction for the unitary trapped Fermi gas to all values of the scattering length. We derive closed expressions for the interaction matrix elements and the two-particle eigenvectors and analytically demonstrate the convergence of this interaction to the zero-range two-body pseudopotential for s-wave scattering. We apply this effective interaction to the three- and four-particle systems along the BEC-BCS crossover, and find that their low-lying energies exhibit convergence in the regularization parameter that is much faster than for the conventional renormalized contact interaction. We find similar convergence properties of the three-particle free energy at unitarity.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figure

Extracting spectra in the shell model Monte Carlo method using imaginary-time correlation matrices

Conventional diagonalization methods to calculate nuclear energy levels in the framework of the configuration-interaction (CI) shell model approach are prohibited in very large model spaces. The shell model Monte Carlo (SMMC) is a powerful technique for calculating thermal and ground-state observables of nuclei in very large model spaces, but it is challenging to extract nuclear spectra in this approach. We present a novel method to extract low-lying energy levels for given values of a set of good quantum numbers such as spin and parity. The method is based on imaginary-time one-body density correlation matrices that satisfy asymptotically a generalized eigenvalue problem. We validate the method in a light nucleus that allows comparison with exact diagonalization results of the CI shell model Hamiltonian. The method is applicable to other finite-size quantum many-body systems that can be described within a CI shell model approach.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure