Control of coherent backscattering by breaking optical reciprocity

Reciprocity is a universal principle that has a profound impact on many areas of physics. A fundamental phenomenon in condensed-matter physics, optical physics and acoustics, arising from reciprocity, is the constructive interference of quantum or classical waves which propagate along time-reversed paths in disordered media, leading to, for example, weak localization and metal-insulator transition. Previous studies have shown that such coherent effects are suppressed when reciprocity is broken. Here we show that by breaking reciprocity in a controlled manner, we can tune, rather than simply suppress, these phenomena. In particular, we manipulate coherent backscattering of light, also known as weak localization. By utilizing a non-reciprocal magneto-optical effect, we control the interference between time-reversed paths inside a multimode fiber with strong mode mixing, and realize a continuous transition from the well-known peak to a dip in the backscattered intensity. Our results may open new possibilities for coherent control of classical and quantum waves in complex systemsComment: Comments are welcom

Stability analysis of the Witten black hole (cigar soliton) under world-sheet RG flow

We analyze the stability of the Euclidean Witten black hole (the cigar soliton in mathematics literature) under first-order RG (Ricci) flow of the world-sheet sigma model. This analysis is from the target space point of view. We find that the Witten black hole has no unstable normalizable perturbative modes in a linearized mode analysis in which we consider circularly symmetric perturbations. Finally, we discuss a result from mathematics that implies the existence of a non-normalizable mode of the Witten black hole under which the geometry flows to the sausage solution studied by Fateev, Onofri and Zamolodchikov.Comment: 17 pages, version to appear in Physical Review D, and now has complete proof of stability for circularly symmetric perturbations, in response to referee comment

Influence of Spatial Correlations on the Lasing Threshold of Random Lasers

The lasing threshold of a random laser is computed numerically from a generic model. It is shown that spatial correlations of the disorder in the medium (i.e., dielectric constant) lead to an increase of the decay rates of the eigenmodes and of the lasing threshold. This is in conflict with predictions that such correlations should lower the threshold. While all results are derived for photonic systems, the computed decay rate distributions also apply to electronic systems

A Reinvestigation of Moving Punctured Black Holes with a New Code

We report on our code, in which the moving puncture method is applied and an adaptive/fixed mesh refinement is implemented, and on its preliminary performance on black hole simulations. Based on the BSSN formulation, up-to-date gauge conditions and the modifications of the formulation are also implemented and tested. In this work we present our primary results about the simulation of a single static black hole, of a moving single black hole, and of the head-on collision of a binary black hole system. For the static punctured black hole simulations, different modifications of the BSSN formulation are applied. It is demonstrated that both the currently used sets of modifications lead to a stable evolution. For cases of a moving punctured black hole with or without spin, we search for viable gauge conditions and study the effect of spin on the black hole evolution. Our results confirm previous results obtained by other research groups. In addition, we find a new gauge condition, which has not yet been adopted by any other researchers, which can also give stable and accurate black hole evolution calculations. We examine the performance of the code for the head-on collision of a binary black hole system, and the agreement of the gravitational waveform it produces with that obtained in other works. In order to understand qualitatively the influence of matter on the binary black hole collisions, we also investigate the same head-on collision scenarios but perturbed by a scalar field. The numerical simulations performed with this code not only give stable and accurate results that are consistent with the works by other numerical relativity groups, but also lead to the discovery of a new viable gauge condition, as well as clarify some ambiguities in the modification of the BSSN formulation.Comment: 17 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in PR

Fluctuations of Spatial Patterns as a Measure of Classical Chaos

In problems where the temporal evolution of a nonlinear system cannot be followed, a method for studying the fluctuations of spatial patterns has been developed. That method is applied to well-known problems in deterministic chaos (the logistic map and the Lorenz model) to check its effectiveness in characterizing the dynamical behaviors. It is found that the indices $\mu _q$ are as useful as the Lyapunov exponents in providing a quantitative measure of chaos.Comment: 10 pages + 7 figures (in ps file), LaTex, Submitted to Phys. Rev.

Noise of Kondo dot with ac gate: Floquet-Green's function and Noncrossing Approximation Approach

The transport properties of an ac-driving quantum dot in the Kondo regime are studied by the Floquet-Green's function method with slave-boson infinite-$U$ noncrossing approximation. Our results show that the Kondo peak of the local density of states is robust against weak ac gate modulation. Significant suppression of the Kondo peak can be observed when the ac gate field becomes strong. The photon-assisted noise of Kondo resonance as a function of dc voltage does not show singularities which are expected for noninteracting resonant quantum dot. These findings suggest that one may make use of the photon-assisted noise measurement to tell apart whether the resonant transport is via noninteracting resonance or strongly-correlated Kondo resonance