188 research outputs found
Active Brownian particles with velocity-alignment and active fluctuations
We consider a model of active Brownian particles with velocity-alignment in
two spatial dimensions with passive and active fluctuations. Hereby, active
fluctuations refers to purely non-equilibrium stochastic forces correlated with
the heading of an individual active particle. In the simplest case studied
here, they are assumed as independent stochastic forces parallel (speed noise)
and perpendicular (angular noise) to the velocity of the particle. On the other
hand, passive fluctuations are defined by a noise vector independent of the
direction of motion of a particle, and may account for example for thermal
fluctuations.
We derive a macroscopic description of the active Brownian particle gas with
velocity-alignment interaction. Hereby, we start from the individual based
description in terms of stochastic differential equations (Langevin equations)
and derive equations of motion for the coarse grained kinetic variables
(density, velocity and temperature) via a moment expansion of the corresponding
probability density function.
We focus here in particular on the different impact of active and passive
fluctuations on the onset of collective motion and show how active fluctuations
in the active Brownian dynamics can change the phase-transition behaviour of
the system. In particular, we show that active angular fluctuation lead to an
earlier breakdown of collective motion and to emergence of a new bistable
regime in the mean-field case.Comment: 5 figures, 22 pages, submitted to New Journal of Physic
Dissociation and ionization of small molecules steered by external noise
We show that ionization and dissociation can be influenced separately in a
molecule with appropriate external noise. Specifically we investigate the
hydrogen molecular ion under a stochastic force quantum mechanically beyond the
Born-Oppenheimer approximation. We find that up to 30% of dissociation without
ionization can be achieved by suitably tuning the forcing parameters.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figure
Semiclassical time--dependent propagation in three dimensions: How accurate is it for a Coulomb potential?
A unified semiclassical time propagator is used to calculate the
semiclassical time-correlation function in three cartesian dimensions for a
particle moving in an attractive Coulomb potential. It is demonstrated that
under these conditions the singularity of the potential does not cause any
difficulties and the Coulomb interaction can be treated as any other
non-singular potential. Moreover, by virtue of our three-dimensional
calculation, we can explain the discrepancies between previous semiclassical
and quantum results obtained for the one-dimensional radial Coulomb problem.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures (EPS
Coulomb blockade effects in driven electron transport
We study numerically the influence of strong Coulomb repulsion on the current
through molecular wires that are driven by external electromagnetic fields. The
molecule is described by a tight-binding model whose first and last site is
coupled to a respective lead. The leads are eliminated within a perturbation
theory yielding a master equation for the wire. The decomposition into a
Floquet basis enables an efficient treatment of the driving field. For the
electronic excitations in bridged molecular wires, we find that strong Coulomb
repulsion significantly sharpens resonance peaks which broaden again with
increasing temperature. By contrast, Coulomb blockade has only a small
influence on effects like non-adiabatic electron pumping and coherent current
suppression.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures. Added a plot for temperature dependence of
resonance peaks. Published versio
Chemical and physical small-scale structure in a pre-stellar core
We present a comparative study of several molecular lines and of the dust
contiunuum at 1.2mm in a pre-stellar core that is embedded in the Galactic
cirrus cloud MCLD123.5+24.9. Previous studies found that the core is
gravitationally stable and shows signs of inward motion. Using the Owens Valley
(OVRO) and Plateau de Bure (PdB) interferometers we obtained high-angular
resolution maps of the core in the carbon monosulfide CS 2-1 and the
cyanoacetylene HC3N 10-9 transitions. Together with CS 5-4, C34S 3-2, and
bolometer data obtained with the IRAM 30m telescope, we analyse the excitation
conditions and the structural properties of the cloud. On the one hand, the new
CS 2-1 observations reveal significant substructure on a scale of about 7",
i.e., the beam size, corresponding to about 1050 AU at an adopted distance of
150pc. On the other hand, the interferometric observations in the HC3N 10-9
transition shows just one single well resolved clump in the inner part of the
core. This core is well described by an intensity profile following from a
centrally peaked volume density distribution. We find no evidence for depletion
of CS onto dust grains. The inward motion seen in the CS 2-1 occurs one-sided
from the middle of the filamentary cloud towards the HC3N core.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures, accepted by A&
Spin correlations in spin blockade
We investigate spin currents and spin-current correlations for double quantum
dots in the spin blockade regime. By analysing the time evolution of the
density matrix, we obtain the spin resolved currents and derive from a
generating function an expression for the fluctuations and correlations. Both
the charge current and the spin current turn out to be generally
super-Poissonian. Moreover, we study the influence of ac fields acting upon the
transported electrons. In particular, we focus on fields that cause spin
rotation or photon-assisted tunnelling.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figure
Semiclassical description of multiphoton processes
We analyze strong field atomic dynamics semiclassically, based on a full
time-dependent description with the Hermann-Kluk propagator. From the
properties of the exact classical trajectories, in particular the accumulation
of action in time, the prominent features of above threshold ionization (ATI)
and higher harmonic generation (HHG) are proven to be interference phenomena.
They are reproduced quantitatively in the semiclassical approximation.
Moreover, the behavior of the action of the classical trajectories supports the
so called strong field approximation which has been devised and postulated for
strong field dynamics.Comment: 10 pages, 11 figure
Iodine monoxide in the Western Pacific marine boundary layer
A latitudinal cross-section and vertical profiles of iodine monoxide (IO) are reported from the marine boundary layer of the Western Pacific. The measurements were taken using Multi-Axis Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy (MAX-DOAS) during the TransBrom cruise of the German research vessel Sonne, which led from Tomakomai, Japan (42° N, 141° E) through the Western Pacific to Townsville, Australia (19° S, 146° E) in October 2009. In the marine boundary layer within the tropics (between 20° N and 5° S), IO mixing ratios ranged between 1 and 2.2 ppt, whereas in the subtropics and at mid-latitudes typical IO mixing ratios were around 1 ppt in the daytime. The profile retrieval reveals that the bulk of the IO was located in the lower part of the marine boundary layer. Photochemical simulations indicate that the organic iodine precursors observed during the cruise (CH3I, CH2I2, CH2ClI, CH2BrI) are not sufficient to explain the measured IO mixing ratios. Reasonable agreement between measured and modelled IO can only be achieved, if an additional sea-air flux of inorganic iodine (e.g. I2) is assumed in the model. Our observations add further evidence to previous studies that reactive iodine is an important oxidant in the marine boundary layer
Atomic-scale confinement of optical fields
In the presence of matter there is no fundamental limit preventing
confinement of visible light even down to atomic scales. Achieving such
confinement and the corresponding intensity enhancement inevitably requires
simultaneous control over atomic-scale details of material structures and over
the optical modes that such structures support. By means of self-assembly we
have obtained side-by-side aligned gold nanorod dimers with robust
atomically-defined gaps reaching below 0.5 nm. The existence of
atomically-confined light fields in these gaps is demonstrated by observing
extreme Coulomb splitting of corresponding symmetric and anti-symmetric dimer
eigenmodes of more than 800 meV in white-light scattering experiments. Our
results open new perspectives for atomically-resolved spectroscopic imaging,
deeply nonlinear optics, ultra-sensing, cavity optomechanics as well as for the
realization of novel quantum-optical devices
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