The effect of sample properties on the electron velocity in quantum Hall bars

We report on our theoretical investigation of the effects of the confining potential profile and sample size on the electron velocity distribution in (narrow) quantum-Hall systems. The electrostatic properties of the electron system are obtained by the Thomas-Fermi-Poisson nonlinear screening theory. The electron velocity distribution as a function of the lateral coordinate is obtained from the slope of the screened potential at the Fermi level and within the incompressible strips (ISs). We compare our findings with the recent experiments.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure

Multiphoton ionization and multiphoton resonances in the tunneling regime

The rate of ionization of an atom of helium, argon, or hydrogen exposed to an intense monochromatic laser field and the quasienergy spectrum of their dressed states are studied for values of the Keldysh parameter between 1 and 0.6 and wavelengths between 390 and 1300 nm. The calculations are carried out within the non-Hermitian Floquet theory. Resonances with intermediate excited states significantly affect ionization from the dressed ground state at all the intensities and all the wavelengths considered. The dressed excited states responsible for these structures are large-α0 states akin to the Kramers-Henneberger states of the high-frequency Floquet theory. Within the single-active-electron approximation, these large-α0 states become species independent at sufficiently high intensity or sufficiently long wavelength. Apart for the resonance structures arising from multiphoton coupling with excited states, the ab initio Floquet ionization rate is in excellent agreement with the predictions of two different calculations in the strong field approximation, one based on a length-gauge formulation of this approximation and one based on a velocity-gauge formulation. The calculations also confirm the validity of the ω2 expansion as an alternative to the strong field approximation for taking into account the nonadiabaticity of the ionization process in intense low-frequency laser fields

Spatial Distribution of the Incompressible Strips at Aharonov-Bohm Interferometer

In this work, the edge physics of an Aharonov-Bohm interferometer (ABI) defined on a two dimensional electron gas, subject to strong perpendicular magnetic field B, is investigated. We solve the three dimensional Poisson equation using numerical techniques starting from the crystal growth parameters and surface image of the sample. The potential profiles of etched and gate defined geometries are compared and it is found that the etching yields a steeper landscape. The spatial distribution of the incompressible strips is investigated as a function of the gate voltage and applied magnetic field, where the imposed current is confined to. AB interference is investigated due to scattering processes between two incompressible "edge-states".Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

The off-resonant aspects of decoherence and a critique of the two-level approximation

Conditions in favour of a realistic multilevelled description of a decohering quantum system are examined. In this regard the first crucial observation is that the thermal effects, contrary to the conventional belief, play a minor role at low temperatures in the decoherence properties. The system-environment coupling and the environmental energy spectrum dominantly affect the decoherence. In particular, zero temperature quantum fluctuations or non-equilibrium sources can be present and influential on the decoherence rates in a wide energy range allowed by the spectrum of the environment. A crucial observation against the validity of the two-level approximation is that the decoherence rates are found to be dominated not by the long time resonant but the short time off-resonant processes. This observation is demonstrated in two stages. Firstly, our zero temperature numerical results reveal that the calculated short time decoherence rates are Gaussian-like (the time dependence of the density matrix is led by the second time derivative at t ≤ 0). Exact analytical results are also permitted in the short time limit, which, consistent with our numerical results, reveal that this specific Gaussian-like behaviour is a property of the non-Markovian correlations in the environment. These Gaussian-like rates have no dependence on any spectral parameter (position and the width of the spectrum) except, in totality, the spectral area itself. The dependence on the spectral area is a power law. Furthermore, the Gaussian-like character at short times is independent of the number of levels (N), but the numerical value of the decoherence rates is a monotonic function of N. In this context, we demonstrate that leakage, as a characteristic multilevel effect, is dominated by the non-resonant processes. The long time behaviour of decoherence is also examined. Since our spectral model allows Markovian environmental correlations at long times, the decoherence rates in this regime become exponential independently from the number of levels. The latter and the coupling strengths play the major role in the quantitative values of the rates and the rates are independent of the other spectral parameters. The validity of the presented results is restricted only by their reliance on the Born-Oppenheimer approximation. This approximation is strongly dependent on the external observational time and its reliability depends on an additional timescale. In the rest of the work, the crossover between the short and the long time behaviour of the density matrix of the multilevelled system is examined using an intuitive argument. It is shown that the Born approximation weakens as the resonant couplings become more effective at long times. This implies that, in calculations made with this approximation in the long time regime, a need for a justification arises for the reliability of the results. This justification is made for the present work. © 2006 IOP Publishing Ltd

An application of EMS98 in a medium-sized city: The case of L’Aquila (Central Italy) after the April 6, 2009 Mw 6.3 earthquake

This paper describes the damage survey in the city of L’Aquila after the 6 April 2009 earthquake. The earthquake, whose magnitude and intensity reached Mw=6.3 and Imax=9–10 MCS, struck the Abruzzi region of Central Italy producing severe damage in L’Aquila and in many villages along theMiddle Aterno River valley. After the event, a building- to-building survey was performed in L’Aquila downtown aiming to collect data in order to perform a strict evaluation of the damage. The survey was carried out under the European Macroseismic Scale (EMS98) to evaluate the local macroseismic intensity. This damage survey represents the most complex application of the EMS98 in Italy since it became effective. More than 1,700 buildings (99% of the building stock) were taken into account during the survey at L’Aquila downtown, highlighting the difficult application of the macroseismic scale in a large urban context. The EMS98 revealed itself to be the best tool to perform such kind of analysis in urban settings. The complete survey displayed evidence of peculiar features in the damage distribution. Results revealed that the highest rate of collapses occurred within a delimited area of the historical centre and along the SW border of the fluvial terrace on which the city is settled. Intensity assessed for L’Aquila downtown was 8–9 EMS.Published67-801.11. TTC - Osservazioni e monitoraggio macrosismico del territorio nazionaleJCR Journalrestricte

The Emilia 2012 sequence: a macroseismic survey

On May 20, 2012, at 4:03 local time (2:03 UTC), a large part of the Po Valley between the cities of Ferrara, Modena and Mantova was struck by a damaging earthquake (Ml 5.9). The epicenter was located by the Istituto Nazionale di Geo-fisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) seismic network [ISIDe 2010] at 44.889 ˚N and 11.228 ˚E, approximately 30 km west of Ferrara (Figure 1). The event was preceded by a foreshock that occurred at 01:13 local time, with a magnitude of Ml 4. The mainshock started an intense seismic sequence that lasted for weeks, counting more than 2,000 events, six of which had Ml >5. The strongest earthquakes of this sequence occurred on May 29, 2012, with Ml 5.8 and Ml 5.3, recorded at 9:00 and 12:55 local time, respectively. The epicenters of the May 29, 2012, events were located at the westernmost part of the rupture zone of the May 20, 2012, earthquake (Figure 2). The May 20 and 29, 2012, earthquakes were felt through the whole of northern and central Italy, and as far as Switzerland, Slovenia, Croatia, Austria, south-eastern France and southern Germany. Historical information reveals that the seismic activity in the Po Valley is moderate […

La Rete Integrata Nazionale GPS (RING) dell' INGV: una infrastruttura aperta per la ricerca scientifica

Since 2004, the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) is investing important energies for the creation of a continuous GPS network dislocated all over the Italian territory. Data transmission will occur in real time, integrating the experiences already existing in the different INGV institutes and developing a 3-yrs strategy for the new installations. The main targets of the network are represented by active tectonics studies, including also the seismological part as strain accumulation on faults. Within a 3-yrs funding project, it is expected, to realize for the scientific community an infrastructure which is comparable to those existing in countries where advanced crustal deformation studies are carried out. Thus, INGV have co-located the classical seismological instrumentation (broad band seismometers and accelerometers) with GPS receivers to observe and quantify the whole seismic cycle. In this short paper, we describe the CGPS network, the technological choices for the monumentation and the data transmission, the data and metadata management and, finally, the data policy and the deliverables.INGVUnpublishedreserve

Rilievo macrosismico del terremoto emiliano del 23 dicembre 2008

Questa nota presenta una sintesi delle attività svolte durante il rilievomacrosismico del terremoto avvenuto tra le province di Parma e Reggio Emilia il 23 dicembre 2008. La scossa di Ml 5.2 è stata localizzata a sud di Parma ed è stata avvertita in tutta l’Italia settentrionale e in gran parte della Liguria e della Toscana. Il presente rapporto illustra lemodalità di intervento del teamQUEST, relative al rilievo degli effetti e alla valutazione in intensità MCS in particolare per le località della zona epicentrale. L’ampia documentazione fotografica illustra alcuni dettagli delle tipologie di danneggiamento rilevate e consente di comprendere meglio le valutazioni dell’intensità macrosismica. This paper presents an overview of the activities performed during the macroseismic field survey of the earthquake that occurred in the Parma and Reggio Emilia region on December 23, 2008. The mainshock (Ml=5.2), was located south of the city of Parma and was resolutely felt through Northern Italy. The report here presented shows the procedures carried out by QUEST (Quick Earthquake Survey Team), concerning the survey. QUEST has been engaged in gathering the damage information and in assessing the macroseismic intensity, in particular about the epicentral area. A copious photo collection shows details of the observed damage nature and allows to better illustrate the intensit

GPS observations of coseismic deformation following the May 20 and 29, 2012, Emilia seismic events (northern Italy): data, analysis and preliminary models

In May-July 2012, a seismic sequence struck a broad area of the Po Plain Region in northern Italy. The sequence in- cluded two ML >5.5 mainshocks. The first one (ML 5.9) oc- curred near the city of Finale Emilia (ca. 30 km west of Ferrara) on May 20 at 02:03:53 (UTC), and the second (ML 5.8) occurred on May 29 at 7:00:03 (UTC), about 12 km south- west of the May 20 mainshock (Figure 1), near the city of Mirandola. The seismic sequence involved an area that ex- tended in an E-W direction for more than 50 km, and in- cluded seven ML ≥5.0 events and more than 2,300 ML >1.5 events (http://iside.rm.ingv.it). The focal mechanisms of the main events [Pondrelli et al. 2012, Scognamiglio et al. 2012, this volume] consistently showed compressional kinematics with E-W oriented reverse nodal planes. This sector of the Po Plain is known as a region charac- terized by slow deformation rates due to the northwards mo- tion of the northern Apennines fold-and-thrust belt, which is buried beneath the sedimentary cover of the Po Plain [Pi- cotti and Pazzaglia 2008, Toscani et al. 2009]. Early global po- sitioning system (GPS) measurements [Serpelloni et al. 2006] and the most recent updates [Devoti et al. 2011, Bennett et al. 2012] recognized that less than 2 mm/yr of SW-NE short- ening are accommodated across this sector of the Po Plain, in agreement with other present-day stress indicators [Mon- tone et al. 2012] and known active faults [Basili et al. 2008]. In the present study, we describe the GPS data used to study the coseismic deformation related to the May 20 and 29 mainshocks, and provide preliminary models of the two seismic sources, as inverted from consensus GPS coseismic deformation fields