37,428 research outputs found
The asymmetric structure of the Galactic halo
Using the stellar photometry catalogue based on the latest data release (DR4)
of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), a study of the Galactic structure using
star counts is carried out for selected areas of the sky. The sample areas are
selected along a circle at a Galactic latitude of +60, and 10 strips of
high Galactic latitude along different longitudes. Direct statistics of the
data show that the surface densities of from to
are systematically higher than those of from
to , defining a region of overdensity (in the direction of Virgo)
and another one of underdensity (in the direction of Ursa Major) with respect
to an axisymmetric model. It is shown by comparing the results from star counts
in the colour that the density deviations are due to an asymmetry of
the stellar density in the halo. Theoretical models for the surface density
profile are built and star counts are performed using a triaxial halo of which
the parameters are constrained by observational data. Two possible reasons for
the asymmetric structure are discussed.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figures, 5 tables, MNRAS accepte
Heralded Entanglement between Atomic Ensembles: Preparation, Decoherence, and Scaling
Heralded entanglement between collective excitations in two atomic ensembles
is probabilistically generated, stored, and converted to single photon fields.
By way of the concurrence, quantitative characterizations are reported for the
scaling behavior of entanglement with excitation probability and for the
temporal dynamics of various correlations resulting in the decay of
entanglement. A lower bound of the concurrence for the collective atomic state
of 0.9\pm 0.3 is inferred. The decay of entanglement as a function of storage
time is also observed, and related to the local dynamics.Comment: 4 page
New Consequences of Induced Transparency in a Double-Lambda scheme: Destructive Interference In Four-wave Mixing
We investigate a four-state system interacting with long and short laser
pulses in a weak probe beam approximation. We show that when all lasers are
tuned to the exact unperturbed resonances, part of the four-wave mixing (FWM)
field is strongly absorbed. The part which is not absorbed has the exact
intensity required to destructively interfere with the excitation pathway
involved in producing the FWM state. We show that with this three-photon
destructive interference, the conversion efficiency can still be as high as
25%. Contrary to common belief,our calculation shows that this process, where
an ideal one-photon electromagnetically induced transparency is established, is
not most suitable for high efficiency conversion. With appropriate
phase-matching and propagation distance, and when the three-photon destructive
interference does not occur, we show that the photon flux conversion efficiency
is independent of probe intensity and can be close to 100%. In addition, we
show clearly that the conversion efficiency is not determined by the maximum
atomic coherence between two lower excited states, as commonly believed. It is
the combination of phase-matching and constructive interference involving the
two terms arising in producing the mixing wave that is the key element for the
optimized FWM generation. Indeed, in this scheme no appreciable excited state
is produced, so that the atomic coherence between states |0> and |2> is always
very small.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev. A, 7 pages, 4 figure
Jacobi-Predictor-Corrector Approach for the Fractional Ordinary Differential Equations
We present a novel numerical method, called {\tt Jacobi-predictor-corrector
approach}, for the numerical solution of fractional ordinary differential
equations based on the polynomial interpolation and the Gauss-Lobatto
quadrature w.r.t. the Jacobi-weight function
. This method has the computational cost
O(N) and the convergent order , where and are, respectively, the
total computational steps and the number of used interpolating points. The
detailed error analysis is performed, and the extensive numerical experiments
confirm the theoretical results and show the robustness of this method.Comment: 24 pages, 5 figure
Generation of N-qubit W state with rf-SQUID qubits by adiabatic passage
A simple scheme is presented to generate n-qubit W state with
rf-superconducting quantum interference devices (rf-SQUIDs) in cavity QED
through adiabatic passage. Because of the achievable strong coupling for
rf-SQUID qubits embedded in cavity QED, we can get the desired state with high
success probability. Furthermore, the scheme is insensitive to position
inaccuracy of the rf-SQUIDs. The numerical simulation shows that, by using
present experimental techniques, we can achieve our scheme with very high
success probability, and the fidelity could be eventually unity with the help
of dissipation.Comment: to appear in Phys. Rev.
Effective g-factor in Majorana Wires
We use the effective g-factor of subgap states, g*, in hybrid InAs nanowires
with an epitaxial Al shell to investigate how the superconducting density of
states is distributed between the semiconductor core and the metallic shell. We
find a step-like reduction of g* and improved hard gap with reduced carrier
density in the nanowire, controlled by gate voltage. These observations are
relevant for Majorana devices, which require tunable carrier density and g*
exceeding the g-factor of the proximitizing superconductor. Additionally, we
observe the closing and reopening of a gap in the subgap spectrum coincident
with the appearance of a zero-bias conductance peak
De Novo Genome Sequence of "Candidatus Liberibacter solanacearum" from a Single Potato Psyllid in California.
The draft genome sequence of "Candidatus Liberibacter solanacearum" strain RSTM from a potato psyllid (Bactericera cockerelli) in California is reported here. The RSTM strain has a genome size of 1,286,787Â bp, a G+C content of 35.1%, 1,211 predicted open reading frames (ORFs), and 43 RNA genes
Technological innovations at the onset of the Mid-Pleistocene Climate Transition in high-latitude East Asia
The interplay between Pleistocene climatic variability and hominin adaptations to diverse terrestrial ecosystems is a key topic in human evolutionary studies. Early and Middle Pleistocene environmental change and its relation to hominin behavioural responses has been a subject of great interest in Africa and Europe, though little information is available for other key regions of the Old World, particularly from Eastern Asia. Here we examine key Early Pleistocene sites of the Nihewan Basin, in high-latitude northern China, dating between ∼1.4 to 1.0 million years ago (Ma). We compare stone tool assemblages from three Early Pleistocene sites in the Nihewan Basin, including detailed assessment of stone tool refitting sequences at the ∼1.1 Ma-old site of Cenjiawan. Increased toolmaking skills and technological innovations are evident in the Nihewan Basin at the onset of the Mid-Pleistocene Climate Transition (MPT). Examination of the lithic technology of the Nihewan sites, together with an assessment of other key Palaeolithic sites of China, indicates that toolkits show increasing diversity at the outset of the MPT and in its aftermath. The overall evidence indicates the adaptive flexibility of early hominins to ecosystem changes since the MPT, though regional abandonments are also apparent in high-latitudes, likely owing to cold and oscillating environmental conditions. The view presented here sharply contrasts with traditional arguments that stone tool technologies of China are homogeneous and continuous over the course of the Early Pleistocene.Introduction Results - Stone-tool-knapping skills recorded in the Cenjiawan assemblage - Technological comparisons of the Nihewan Basin assemblages Discussio
Quantized vortices in a rotating Bose-Einstein condensate with spatiotemporally modulated interaction
We present theoretical analysis and numerical studies of the quantized
vortices in a rotating Bose-Einstein condensate with spatiotemporally modulated
interaction in harmonic and anharmonic potentials, respectively. The exact
quantized vortex and giant vortex solutions are constructed explicitly by
similarity transformation. Their stability behavior has been examined by
numerical simulation, which shows that a new series of stable vortex states
(defined by radial and angular quantum numbers) can be supported by the
spatiotemporally modulated interaction in this system. We find that there exist
stable quantized vortices with large topological charges in repulsive
condensates with spatiotemporally modulated interaction. We also give an
experimental protocol to observe these vortex states in future experiments
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