10,752 research outputs found
First Direct Detection Limits on sub-GeV Dark Matter from XENON10
The first direct detection limits on dark matter in the MeV to GeV mass range
are presented, using XENON10 data. Such light dark matter can scatter with
electrons, causing ionization of atoms in a detector target material and
leading to single- or few-electron events. We use 15 kg-days of data acquired
in 2006 to set limits on the dark-matter-electron scattering cross section. The
strongest bound is obtained at 100 MeV where sigma_e < 3 x 10^{-38} cm^2 at 90%
CL, while dark matter masses between 20 MeV and 1 GeV are bounded by sigma_e <
10^{-37} cm^2 at 90% CL. This analysis provides a first proof-of-principle that
direct detection experiments can be sensitive to dark matter candidates with
masses well below the GeV scale.Comment: Submitted to PR
Reflections on inherently embedding safety teaching within a chemical engineering programme
The importance and the challenges of teaching safety are widely recognised amongst educators and industry. There are different approaches to teaching safety, from incorporation of safety into every aspect of a degree programme, to focusing all the safety teaching within stand-alone courses, to an integrated approach which simultaneously combines both approaches to varying extents. Effective safety teaching is also dependent on the experience and knowledge of the teaching staff involved and the locational context of the institution. Here, the novel and comprehensive approaches taken to inherently embed safety teaching within a chemical engineering programme, which is part of the wider Integrated Engineering Programme (IEP) teaching framework at UCL's Faculty of Engineering Sciences, are examined and its success is measured against student perceptions. Students following the IEP chemical engineering degree programme widely recognise that safety teaching is immediately embedded into the curriculum from the first year and they are given increasing opportunities to apply safety learnings throughout their degree. This leads to a feeling of preparedness for their capstone design projects and future industrial roles, ultimately achieving the aim of developing well-rounded, responsible graduate engineers with a strong safety culture embedded in the way they will approach their future work
Strong coupling of single emitters to surface plasmons
We propose a method that enables strong, coherent coupling between individual
optical emitters and electromagnetic excitations in conducting nano-structures.
The excitations are optical plasmons that can be localized to sub-wavelength
dimensions. Under realistic conditions, the tight confinement causes optical
emission to be almost entirely directed into the propagating plasmon modes via
a mechanism analogous to cavity quantum electrodynamics. We first illustrate
this result for the case of a nanowire, before considering the optimized
geometry of a nanotip. We describe an application of this technique involving
efficient single-photon generation on demand, in which the plasmons are
efficiently out-coupled to a dielectric waveguide. Finally we analyze the
effects of increased scattering due to surface roughness on these
nano-structures.Comment: 34 pages, 7 figure
Bond-versus-site doping models for off-chain-doped Haldane-gap system Y Ba Ni O
Using the density matrix renormalization-group technique, we calculate the
impurity energy levels for two different effective models of off-chain doping
for quasi-one-dimensional Heisenberg chain compound Y Ba Ni O:
ferromagnetic bond doping and antiferromagnetic site spin-1/2 doping.
Thresholds of the impurity strength for the appearance of localized states are
found for both models. However, the ground-state and low-energy excitations for
weak impurity strength are different for these two models and the difference
can be detected by experiments.Comment: 5 pages, 5 eps figures included, to be published in Phys. Rev.
Information transfer through a one-atom micromaser
We consider a realistic model for the one-atom micromaser consisting of a
cavity maintained in a steady state by the streaming of two-level Rydberg atoms
passing one at a time through it. We show that it is possible to monitor the
robust entanglement generated between two successive experimental atoms passing
through the cavity by the control decoherence parameters. We calculate the
entanglement of formation of the joint two-atom state as a function of the
micromaser pump parameter. We find that this is in direct correspondence with
the difference of the Shannon entropy of the cavity photons before and after
the passage of the atoms for a reasonable range of dissipation parameters. It
is thus possible to demonstrate information transfer between the cavity and the
atoms through this set-up.Comment: Revtex, 5 pages, 2 encapsulated ps figures; added discussion on
information transfer in relation with cavity photon statistics; typos
corrected; Accepted for Publicaiton in Europhysics Letter
Low temperature spin diffusion in the one-dimensional quantum nonlinear -model
An effective, low temperature, classical model for spin transport in the
one-dimensional, gapped, quantum non-linear -model is developed.
Its correlators are obtained by a mapping to a model solved earlier by Jepsen.
We obtain universal functions for the ballistic-to-diffusive crossover and the
value of the spin diffusion constant, and these are claimed to be exact at low
temperatures. Implications for experiments on one-dimensional insulators with a
spin gap are noted.Comment: 4 pages including 3 eps-figures, Revte
Divergence-type 2+1 dissipative hydrodynamics applied to heavy-ion collisions
We apply divergence-type theory (DTT) dissipative hydrodynamics to study the
2+1 space-time evolution of the fireball created in Au+Au relativistic
heavy-ion collisions at 200 GeV. DTTs are exact hydrodynamic
theories that do no rely on velocity gradient expansions and therefore go
beyond second-order theories. We numerically solve the equations of motion of
the DTT for Glauber initial conditions and compare the results with those of
second-order theory based on conformal invariants (BRSS) and with data. We find
that the charged-hadron minumum-bias elliptic flow reaches its maximum value at
lower in the DTT, and that the DTT allows for a value of
slightly larger than that of the BRSS. Our results show that the differences
between viscous hydrodynamic formalisms are a significant source of uncertainty
in the precise extraction of from experiments.Comment: v4: 29 pages, 12 figures, minor changes. Final version as published
in Phys. Rev.
Evidence from Identified Particles for Active Quark and Gluon Degrees of Freedom
Measurements of intermediate pT (1.5 < pT < 5.0 GeV/c) identified particle
distributions in heavy ion collisions at SPS and RHIC energies display striking
dependencies on the number of constituent quarks in the corresponding hadron.
One finds that elliptic flow at intermediate pT follows a constituent quark
scaling law as predicted by models of hadron formation through coalescence. In
addition, baryon production is also found to increase with event multiplicity
much faster than meson production. The rate of increase is similar for all
baryons, and seemingly independent of mass. This indicates that the number of
constituent quarks determines the multiplicity dependence of identified hadron
production at intermediate pT. We review these measurements and interpret the
experimental findings.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, proceedings for SQM2006 conference in Los Angele
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