Statistical properties of energy levels of chaotic systems: Wigner or non-Wigner

For systems whose classical dynamics is chaotic, it is generally believed that the local statistical properties of the quantum energy levels are well described by Random Matrix Theory. We present here two counterexamples - the hydrogen atom in a magnetic field and the quartic oscillator - which display nearest neighbor statistics strongly different from the usual Wigner distribution. We interpret the results with a simple model using a set of regular states coupled to a set of chaotic states modeled by a random matrix.Comment: 10 pages, Revtex 3.0 + 4 .ps figures tar-compressed using uufiles package, use csh to unpack (on Unix machine), to be published in Phys. Rev. Let

Postquench prethermalization in a disordered quantum fluid of light

We study the coherence of a disordered and interacting quantum light field after propagation along a nonlinear optical fiber. Disorder is generated by a cross-phase modulation with a randomized auxiliary classical light field, while interactions are induced by self-phase modulation. When penetrating the fiber from free space, the incoming quantum light undergoes a disorder and interaction quench. By calculating the coherence function of the transmitted quantum light, we show that the decoherence induced by the quench spreads in a light-cone fashion in the nonequilibrium many-body quantum system, leaving the latter prethermalize with peculiar features originating from disorder.Comment: 18 pages, 5 figure

Cooperative emission of a pulse train in an optically thick scattering medium

An optically thick cold atomic cloud emits a coherent flash of light in the forward direction when the phase of an incident probe field is abruptly changed. Because of cooperativity, the duration of this phenomena can be much shorter than the excited lifetime of a single atom. Repeating periodically the abrupt phase jump, we generate a train of pulses with short repetition time, high intensity contrast and high efficiency. In this regime, the emission is fully governed by cooperativity even if the cloud is dilute.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Coherent Backscattering with Nonlinear Atomic Scatterers

We study coherent backscattering of a quasi-monochromatic laser by a dilute gas of cold two-level atoms. We consider the perturbative regime of weak intensities, where nonlinear effects arise from {\em inelastic} two-photon scattering processes. Here, coherent backscattering can be formed by interference between {\em three} different scattering amplitudes. Consequently, if elastically scattered photons are filtered out from the photodetection signal by means of suitable frequency-selective detection, we find the nonlinear backscattering enhancement factor to exceed the linear barrier two.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Comment on ``Intensity correlations and mesoscopic fluctuations of diffusing photons in cold atoms''

In a recent Letter (Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{98}, 083601 (2007), arXiv:cond-mat/0610804), O. Assaf and E. Akkermans claim that the angular correlations of the light intensity scattered by a cloud of cold atoms with internal degeneracy (Zeeman sublevels) of the ground state overcome the usual Rayleigh law. More precisely, they found that they become exponentially large with the size of the sample. In what follows, we will explain why their results are wrong and, in contrary, why the internal degeneracy leads to lower intensity correlations.Comment: 1 page. Comment submitted to PR

A second-order PHD filter with mean and variance in target number

The Probability Hypothesis Density (PHD) and Cardinalized PHD (CPHD) filters are popular solutions to the multi-target tracking problem due to their low complexity and ability to estimate the number and states of targets in cluttered environments. The PHD filter propagates the first-order moment (i.e. mean) of the number of targets while the CPHD propagates the cardinality distribution in the number of targets, albeit for a greater computational cost. Introducing the Panjer point process, this paper proposes a second-order PHD filter, propagating the second-order moment (i.e. variance) of the number of targets alongside its mean. The resulting algorithm is more versatile in the modelling choices than the PHD filter, and its computational cost is significantly lower compared to the CPHD filter. The paper compares the three filters in statistical simulations which demonstrate that the proposed filter reacts more quickly to changes in the number of targets, i.e., target births and target deaths, than the CPHD filter. In addition, a new statistic for multi-object filters is introduced in order to study the correlation between the estimated number of targets in different regions of the state space, and propose a quantitative analysis of the spooky effect for the three filters

Residual Symmetries in the Spectrum of Periodically Driven Alkali Rydberg States

We identify a fundamental structure in the spectrum of microwave driven alkali Rydberg states, which highlights the remnants of the Coulomb symmetry in the presence of a non-hydrogenic core. Core-induced corrections with respect to the hydrogen spectrum can be accounted for by a perturbative approach.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, to be published in Europhysics Letter

Extracting information from non adiabatic dynamics: excited symmetric states of the Bose-Hubbard model

Using Fourier transform on a time series generated by unitary evolution, we extract many-body eigenstates of the Bose-Hubbard model corresponding to low energy excitations, which are generated when the insulator-superfluid phase transition is realized in a typical experiment. The analysis is conducted in a symmetric external potential both without and with and disorder. A simple classification of excitations in the absence disorder is provided. The evolution is performed assuming the presence of the parity symmetry in the system rendering many-body quantum states either symmetric or antisymmetric. Using symmetry-breaking technique, those states are decomposed into elementary one-particle processes.Comment: inv. talk at 5th Workshop on Quantum Chaos and Localization Phenomena, Warsaw 201