6,624 research outputs found
Sensitivity of a highâelevation rocky mountain watershed to altered climate and CO2
We explored the hydrologic and ecological responses of a headwater mountain catchment, Loch Vale watershed, to climate change and doubling of atmospheric CO2 scenarios using the Regional HydroâEcological Simulation System (RHESSys). A slight (2°C) cooling, comparable to conditions observed over the past 40 years, led to greater snowpack and slightly less runoff, evaporation, transpiration, and plant productivity. An increase of 2°C yielded the opposite response, but model output for an increase of 4°C showed dramatic changes in timing of hydrologic responses. The snowpack was reduced by 50%, and runoff and soil water increased and occurred 4â5 weeks earlier with 4°C warming. Alpine tundra photosynthetic rates responded more to warmer and wetter conditions than subalpine forest, but subalpine forest showed a greater response to doubling of atmospheric CO2 than tundra. Even though water use efficiency increased with the double CO2 scenario, this had little effect on basinâwide runoff because the catchment is largely unvegetated. Changes in winter and spring climate conditions were more important to hydrologic and vegetation dynamics than changes that occurred during summer
On the conversion efficiency of ultracold fermionic atoms to bosonic molecules via Feshbach resonances
We explain why the experimental efficiency observed in the conversion of
ultracold Fermi gases of K and Li atoms into diatomic Bose gases
is limited to 0.5 when the Feshbach resonance sweep rate is sufficiently slow
to pass adiabatically through the Landau Zener transition but faster than ``the
collision rate'' in the gas, and increases beyond 0.5 when it is slower. The
0.5 efficiency limit is due to the preparation of a statistical mixture of two
spin-states, required to enable s-wave scattering. By constructing the
many-body state of the system we show that this preparation yields a mixture of
even and odd parity pair-states, where only even parity can produce molecules.
The odd parity spin-symmetric states must decorrelate before the constituent
atoms can further Feshbach scatter thereby increasing the conversion
efficiency; ``the collision rate'' is the pair decorrelation rate.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, final version accepted to Phys. Rev. Let
Interferences in the density of two Bose-Einstein condensates consisting of identical or different atoms
The density of two {\it initially independent} condensates which are allowed
to expand and overlap can show interferences as a function of time due to
interparticle interaction. Two situations are separately discussed and
compared: (1) all atoms are identical and (2) each condensate consists of a
different kind of atoms. Illustrative examples are presented.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figure
Pauli problem for a spin of arbitrary length: A simple method to determine its wave function
The problem of determining a pure state vector from measurements is investigated for a quantum spin of arbitrary length. Generically, only a finite number of wave functions is compatible with the intensities of the spin components in two different spatial directions, measured by a Stern-Gerlach apparatus. The remaining ambiguity can be resolved by one additional well-defined measurement. This method combines efficiency with simplicity: only a small number of quantities have to be measured and the experimental setup is elementary. Other approaches to determine state vectors from measurements, also known as the ââPauli problem,ââ are reviewed for both spin and particle systems
Many-body effects on adiabatic passage through Feshbach resonances
We theoretically study the dynamics of an adiabatic sweep through a Feshbach
resonance, thereby converting a degenerate quantum gas of fermionic atoms into
a degenerate quantum gas of bosonic dimers. Our analysis relies on a zero
temperature mean-field theory which accurately accounts for initial molecular
quantum fluctuations, triggering the association process. The structure of the
resulting semiclassical phase space is investigated, highlighting the dynamical
instability of the system towards association, for sufficiently small detuning
from resonance. It is shown that this instability significantly modifies the
finite-rate efficiency of the sweep, transforming the single-pair exponential
Landau-Zener behavior of the remnant fraction of atoms Gamma on sweep rate
alpha, into a power-law dependence as the number of atoms increases. The
obtained nonadiabaticity is determined from the interplay of characteristic
time scales for the motion of adiabatic eigenstates and for fast periodic
motion around them. Critical slowing-down of these precessions near the
instability leads to the power-law dependence. A linear power law is obtained when the initial molecular fraction is smaller than the 1/N
quantum fluctuations, and a cubic-root power law is
attained when it is larger. Our mean-field analysis is confirmed by exact
calculations, using Fock-space expansions. Finally, we fit experimental low
temperature Feshbach sweep data with a power-law dependence. While the
agreement with the experimental data is well within experimental error bars,
similar accuracy can be obtained with an exponential fit, making additional
data highly desirable.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figure
Simulations of snow distribution and hydrology in a mountain basin
We applied a version of the Regional HydroâEcologic Simulation System (RHESSys) that implements snow redistribution, elevation partitioning, and windâdriven sublimation to Loch Vale Watershed (LVWS), an alpineâsubalpine Rocky Mountain catchment where snow accumulation and ablation dominate the hydrologic cycle. We compared simulated discharge to measured discharge and the simulated snow distribution to photogrammetrically rectified aerial (remotely sensed) images. Snow redistribution was governed by a topographic similarity index. We subdivided each hillslope into elevation bands that had homogeneous climate extrapolated from observed climate. We created a distributed wind speed field that was used in conjunction with daily measured wind speeds to estimate sublimation. Modeling snow redistribution was critical to estimating the timing and magnitude of discharge. Incorporating elevation partitioning improved estimated timing of discharge but did not improve patterns of snow cover since wind was the dominant controller of areal snow patterns. Simulating windâdriven sublimation was necessary to predict moisture losses
Theory of four-wave mixing of matter waves from a Bose-Einstein condensate
A recent experiment [Deng et al., Nature 398, 218(1999)] demonstrated
four-wave mixing of matter wavepackets created from a Bose-Einstein condensate.
The experiment utilized light pulses to create two high-momentum wavepackets
via Bragg diffraction from a stationary Bose-Einstein condensate. The
high-momentum components and the initial low momentum condensate interact to
form a new momentum component due to the nonlinear self-interaction of the
bosonic atoms. We develop a three-dimensional quantum mechanical description,
based on the slowly-varying-envelope approximation, for four-wave mixing in
Bose-Einstein condensates using the time-dependent Gross-Pitaevskii equation.
We apply this description to describe the experimental observations and to make
predictions. We examine the role of phase-modulation, momentum and energy
conservation (i.e., phase-matching), and particle number conservation in
four-wave mixing of matter waves, and develop simple models for understanding
our numerical results.Comment: 18 pages Revtex preprint form, 13 eps figure
Nonlinear adiabatic passage from fermion atoms to boson molecules
We study the dynamics of an adiabatic sweep through a Feshbach resonance in a
quantum gas of fermionic atoms. Analysis of the dynamical equations, supported
by mean-field and many-body numerical results, shows that the dependence of the
remaining atomic fraction on the sweep rate varies from
exponential Landau-Zener behavior for a single pair of particles to a power-law
dependence for large particle number . The power-law is linear, , when the initial molecular fraction is smaller than the 1/N
quantum fluctuations, and when it is larger.
Experimental data agree better with a linear dependence than with an
exponential Landau-Zener fit, indicating that many-body effects are significant
in the atom-molecule conversion process.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
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