796 research outputs found
The new physics of non-equilibrium condensates: insights from classical dynamics
We discuss the dynamics of classical Dicke-type models, aiming to clarify the
mechanisms by which coherent states could develop in potentially
non-equilibrium systems such as semiconductor microcavities. We present
simulations of an undamped model which show spontaneous coherent states with
persistent oscillations in the magnitude of the order parameter. These states
are generalisations of superradiant ringing to the case of inhomogeneous
broadening. They correspond to the persistent gap oscillations proposed in
fermionic atomic condensates, and arise from a variety of initial conditions.
We show that introducing randomness into the couplings can suppress the
oscillations, leading to a limiting dynamics with a time-independent order
parameter. This demonstrates that non-equilibrium generalisations of polariton
condensates can be created even without dissipation. We explain the dynamical
origins of the coherence in terms of instabilities of the normal state, and
consider how it can additionally develop through scattering and dissipation.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, submitted for a special issue of J. Phys.:
Condensed Matter on "Optical coherence and collective phenomena in
nanostructures". v2: added discussion of links to exact solution
Mechanism for the failure of the Edwards hypothesis in the SK spin glass
The dynamics of the SK model at T=0 starting from random spin configurations
is considered. The metastable states reached by such dynamics are atypical of
such states as a whole, in that the probability density of site energies,
, is small at . Since virtually all metastable states
have a much larger , this behavior demonstrates a qualitative failure of
the Edwards hypothesis. We look for its origins by modelling the changes in the
site energies during the dynamics as a Markov process. We show how the small
arises from features of the Markov process that have a clear physical
basis in the spin-glass, and hence explain the failure of the Edwards
hypothesis.Comment: 5 pages, new title, modified text, additional reference
Microcavity quantum-dot systems for non-equilibrium Bose-Einstein condensation
We review the practical conditions required to achieve a non-equilibrium BEC
driven by quantum dynamics in a system comprising a microcavity field mode and
a distribution of localised two-level systems driven to a step-like population
inversion profile. A candidate system based on eight 3.8nm layers of
In(0.23)Ga(0.77)As in GaAs shows promising characteristics with regard to the
total dipole strength which can be coupled to the field mode.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, to be published in J. Phys. Conf. Ser. for QD201
The ratio of initial/residual DNA damage predicts intrinsic radiosensitivity in seven cervix carcinoma cell lines.
The single-cell gel electrophoresis (comet) assay was used to measure radiation-produced DNA double-strand breaks (dsbs) in a series of seven cervical tumour cell lines (ME180, HT3, C33A, C41, SiHa, MS751 and CaSki). The proportion of DNA dsbs was measured immediately after radiation treatment (initial damage) and 16 h later after incubation at 37 degrees C (residual damage). Linear dose-response curves were seen for initial (slopes 0.23-0.66) and residual (slopes 0.16-0.87) DNA dsbs. Neither of the slopes of the linear regression analysis on the initial and on the residual DNA dsbs dose-response curves (range 0-80 Gy) correlated with SF2 (surviving fraction at 2 Gy) measured after high- (HDR) or low-dose-rate (LDR) irradiation. An association was evident between SF2 after HDR and LDR irradiation and the ratio of the absolute level of initial and residual damage after a single dose of 60 Gy. However, a significant correlation was found between HDR (r= -0.78, P = 0.04) and LDR (r = -0.86, P = 0.03) SF2 values and the ratio of the slopes of the initial and residual DNA dsbs dose-response curves (range 0.47-0.99), representing the fraction of DNA damage remaining. These results indicate that the neutral comet assay can be used to predict radiosensitivity of cervical tumour cell lines by assessing the ratio of initial and residual DNA dsbs
Modulated Floquet Topological Insulators
Floquet topological insulators are topological phases of matter generated by
the application of time-periodic perturbations on otherwise conventional
insulators. We demonstrate that spatial variations in the time-periodic
potential lead to localized quasi-stationary states in two-dimensional systems.
These states include one-dimensional interface modes at the nodes of the
external potential, and fractionalized excitations at vortices of the external
potential. We also propose a setup by which light can induce currents in these
systems. We explain these results by showing a close analogy to px+ipy
superconductors
On mathematical models for Bose-Einstein condensates in optical lattices (expanded version)
Our aim is to analyze the various energy functionals appearing in the physics
literature and describing the behavior of a Bose-Einstein condensate in an
optical lattice. We want to justify the use of some reduced models. For that
purpose, we will use the semi-classical analysis developed for linear problems
related to the Schr\"odinger operator with periodic potential or multiple wells
potentials. We justify, in some asymptotic regimes, the reduction to low
dimensional problems and analyze the reduced problems
Strong resonant tunneling, level repulsion and spectral type for one-dimensional adiabatic quasi-periodic Schr\"{o}dinger operators
In this paper, we consider one dimensional adiabatic quasi-periodic
Schr\"{o}dinger operators in the regime of strong resonant tunneling. We show
the emergence of a level repulsion phenomenon which is seen to be very
naturally related to the local spectral type of the operator: the more singular
the spectrum, the weaker the repulsion
Androgen receptor mutations in prostate cancer
We analyzed the frequency and relevance of mutations in the coding region of the androgen receptor (AR) in genomic DNA extracted from 137 specimens of prostate cancer. The specimens were obtained from the primary tumors of patients affected by stage B disease [15 nonmicrodissected (group 1A) and 84 microdissected (group 1B)] and from the metastatic deposits of individuals with stage D1 disease [8 nonmicrodissected (group 2A) and 30 microdissected (group 2B)] who had not undergone androgen ablation therapy. The study was conducted by PCR-single strand conformational polymorphism (SSCP) analysis of exons 2-8 in the four groups and direct sequence analysis of exon 1 in group 1B. As positive and negative controls, we used genomic DNA extracted from genital skin fibroblasts of patients affected by various forms of androgen resistance with known mutations in the AR. To control for genetic instability, PCR-SSCP analysis of exon 2 of the human progesterone receptor was carried out on each specimen. The overall number of mutations detected was 11 (8%). No mutations were detected in any of the 99 patients with stage B disease. Eleven mutations were detected in exons 2-8 in 8 of the 38 patients with stage D1 disease (all in group 2B). Simultaneous analysis of exon 2 of the progesterone receptor was carried out, and no SSCP changes were identified. These data suggest that AR mutations are rare and presumably do not play a role in the initial phase of prostatic carcinogenesis. The presence of a significant number of AR mutations in metastatic disease indicates that mutations of this molecule may play a role in the most advanced phases of the natural history of this disease, either by facilitating growth or acquisition of the metastatic phenotype
Bifurcations and stability of gap solitons in periodic potentials
We analyze the existence, stability, and internal modes of gap solitons in
nonlinear periodic systems described by the nonlinear Schrodinger equation with
a sinusoidal potential, such as photonic crystals, waveguide arrays,
optically-induced photonic lattices, and Bose-Einstein condensates loaded onto
an optical lattice. We study bifurcations of gap solitons from the band edges
of the Floquet-Bloch spectrum, and show that gap solitons can appear near all
lower or upper band edges of the spectrum, for focusing or defocusing
nonlinearity, respectively. We show that, in general, two types of gap solitons
can bifurcate from each band edge, and one of those two is always unstable. A
gap soliton corresponding to a given band edge is shown to possess a number of
internal modes that bifurcate from all band edges of the same polarity. We
demonstrate that stability of gap solitons is determined by location of the
internal modes with respect to the spectral bands of the inverted spectrum and,
when they overlap, complex eigenvalues give rise to oscillatory instabilities
of gap solitons.Comment: 18 pages, 11 figures; updated bibliograph
Far-off-resonant wave interaction in one-dimensional photonic crystals with quadratic nonlinearity
We extend a recently developed Hamiltonian formalism for nonlinear wave
interaction processes in spatially periodic dielectric structures to the
far-off-resonant regime, and investigate numerically the three-wave resonance
conditions in a one-dimensional optical medium with nonlinearity.
In particular, we demonstrate that the cascading of nonresonant wave
interaction processes generates an effective nonlinear response in
these systems. We obtain the corresponding coupling coefficients through
appropriate normal form transformations that formally lead to the Zakharov
equation for spatially periodic optical media.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figure
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