Constraining the bulk Lorentz factor from the photosphere emission

We propose a direct and model-independent method to constrain the Lorentz factor of a relativistically expanding object, like gamma-ray bursts. Only the measurements, such as thermal component of the emission, the distance and the variable time scale of the light curve, are used. If the uncertainties are considered, we will obtain lower limits of the Lorentz factor instead. We apply this method to GRB 090618 and get a lower limit of the Lorentz factor to be 22. The method can be used to any relativistically moving object, such as gamma-ray bursts, blazars, and soft gamma-ray repeaters, providing the thermal component of the emission being observed.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figur

Supersolidity and phase diagram of softcore bosons in a triangular lattice

We study the softcore extended Bose Hubbard model in a two-dimensional triangular lattice by using the quantum Monte Carlo methods. The ground state phase diagram of the system exhibits a very fruitful structure. Except the Mott insulating state, four kinds of solid states with respect to the commensurate filling factors $\rho=1/3,2/3$ and $\rho=1$ are identified. Two of them (CDW II and CDW III) are newly predicted. In incommensurate fillings, superfluid, spuersolid as well as phase separation states are detected . As in the case for the hardcore bosons, a supersolid phase exists in $1/3<\rho<2/3$ while it is unstable towards the phase separation in $\rho<1/3$. However, this instability is refrained in $2/3<\rho<1$ due to the softening of the bosons and then a supersolid phase survives.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Static impurities in a supersolid of interacting hard-core bosons on a triangular lattice

We study the effect of impurities in a supersolid phase in comparison to the behavior in the solid and superfluid phases. A supersolid phase has been established for interacting hardcore bosons on a triangular lattice which may be realizable by ultracold atomic gases. Static vacancies are considered in this model which always lower the magnitude of the order parameter in the solid or superfluid phases. In the supersolid phase, however, the impurities directly affect both order parameters simultaneously and thereby reveal an interesting interplay between them. In particular the solid order may be enhanced at the cost of a strong reduction of the superfluidity, which shows that the two order parameters cannot be in a simple superposition. We also observe an unusual impurity pinning effect in the solid ordered phase, which results in two distinct states separated by a first-order transition.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, final version. More information at http://www.physik.uni-kl.de/eggert/papers/index.htm

Criteria for two distinguishable fermions to behave like a boson

We study the necessary conditions for bosons composed of two distinguishable fermions to exhibit bosonic-like behaviour. We base our analysis on tools of quantum information theory such as entanglement and the majorization criterion for probability distributions. In particular we scrutinize a recent interesting hypothesis by C. K. Law in the Ref. Phys. Rev. A 71, 034306 (2005) that suggests that the amount of entanglement between the constituent fermions is related to the bosonic properties of the composite boson. We show that a large amount of entanglement does not necessarily imply a good boson-like behaviour by constructing an explicit counterexample. Moreover, we identify more precisely the role entanglement may play in this situation.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure (in color

Experimental detection of quantum coherent evolution through the violation of Leggett-Garg-type inequalities

We discuss the use of inequalities of the Leggett-Garg type (LGtI) to witness quantum coherence and present the first experimental violation of this type of inequalities using a light-matter interfaced system. By separately benchmarking the Markovian character of the evolution and the translational invariance of the conditional probabilities, the observed violation of a LGtI is attributed to the quantum coherent character of the process. These results provide a general method to benchmark `quantumness' when the absence of memory effects can be independently certified and confirm the persistence of quantum coherent features within systems of increasing complexity.Comment: published version, including supplementary materia

Correlation between Voronoi volumes in disc packings

We measure the two-point correlation of free Voronoi volumes in binary disc packings, where the packing fraction $\phi_{\rm avg}$ ranges from 0.8175 to 0.8380. We observe short-ranged correlations over the whole range of $\phi_{\rm avg}$ and anti-correlations for $\phi_{\rm avg}>0.8277$. The spatial extent of the anti-correlation increases with $\phi_{\rm avg}$ while the position of the maximum of the anti-correlation and the extent of the positive correlation shrink with $\phi_{\rm avg}$. We conjecture that the onset of anti-correlation corresponds to dilatancy onset in this system