305 research outputs found
Dissipation-induced symmetry breaking in a driven optical lattice
We analyze the atomic dynamics in an ac driven periodic optical potential
which is symmetric in both time and space. We experimentally demonstrate that
in the presence of dissipation the symmetry is broken, and a current of atoms
through the optical lattice is generated as a result
Symmetry and transport in cold atom ratchets.
Ratchets are devices that operate away from thermal equilibrium and can rectify zero-mean perturbations to achieve directed transport. We implement a ratchet system by using cold atoms in a driven optical lattice. This ratchet system can be precisely controlled experimentally, by adjusting either the driving parameters or the characteristics of the optical lattice. Directed transport in our ratchet is caused by rectification of either the driving force or fluctuations. We demonstrate under which conditions these types of rectification occur. Rectification of the driving force is a deterministic process, while rectification of fluctuations implies that the atoms act as Brownian motors. We show that resonant activation is the underlying mechanism of operation of these Brownian motors. The ratchet transport is controlled by symmetries of the system. The temporal symmetry of the system is normally broken by a time- asymmetric driving force. Here we show that for a system with symmetric driving and a symmetric potential, directed transport can also be caused by dissipation-induced breaking of time-reversal symmetry. This happens in the limit of small driving amplitude and large dissipation. We also study quasiperiodic driving of a cold atom ratchet and examine the relationship between symmetries and transport in this case. When mapping the route to quasiperiodicity we find a characteristic peak spectrum with transport occurring for certain ratios of frequencies. We characterize these peaks spectroscopically, and conclude that their shape is determined by the duration of driving. Finally, we investigate the coherency of transport with quasiperiodic driving and find large coherencies for certain driving parameters
Enhanced Pauli blocking of light scattering in a trapped Fermi gas
Pauli blocking of spontaneous emission by a single excited-state atom has
been predicted to be dramatic at low temperature when the Fermi energy
exceeds the recoil energy . The photon scattering
rate of a ground-state Fermi gas can also be suppressed by occupation of the
final states accessible to a recoiling atom, however suppression is diminished
by scattering events near the Fermi edge. We analyze two new approaches to
improve the visibility of Pauli blocking in a trapped Fermi gas. Focusing the
incident light to excite preferentially the high-density region of the cloud
can increase the blocking signature by 14%, and is most effective at
intermediate temperature. Spontaneous Raman scattering between imbalanced
internal states can be strongly suppressed at low temperature, and is
completely blocked for a final-state in the
high imbalance limit.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures. v4: to appear in Journal of Physics B: Atomic,
Molecular, and Optical Physic
Anharmonic mixing in a magnetic trap
We have experimentally observed re-equilibration of a magnetically trapped
cloud of metastable neon atoms after it was put in a non-equilibrium state.
Using numerical simulations we show that anharmonic mixing, equilibration due
to the collisionless dynamics of atoms in a magnetic trap, is the dominant
process in this equilibration. We determine the dependence of its time on trap
parameters and atom temperature. Furthermore we observe in the simulations a
resonant energy exchange between the radial and axial trap dimensions at a
ratio of trap frequencies \omega_r / \omega_z = 3/2. This resonance is
explained by a simple oscillator model.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figure
High-frequency oscillatory ventilation is not superior to conventional mechanical ventilation in surfactant-treated rabbits with lung injury
The aim of this study was to compare high-frequency oscillatory
ventilation (HFOV) with conventional mechanical ventilation (CMV) with and
without surfactant in the treatment of surfactant-deficient rabbits. A
previously described saline lung lavage model of lung injury in adult
rabbits was used. The efficacy of each therapy was assessed by evaluating
gas exchange, lung deflation stability and lung histopathology. Arterial
oxygenation did not improve in the CMV group without surfactant but
increased rapidly to prelavage values in the other three study groups.
During deflation stability, arterial oxygenation decreased to postlavage
values in the group that received HFOV alone, but not in both
surfactant-treated groups (HFOV and CMV). The HFOV group without
surfactant showed more cellular infiltration and epithelial damage
compared with both surfactant-treated groups. There was no difference in
gas exchange, lung deflation stability and lung injury between HFOV and
CMV after surfactant therapy. It is concluded that the use of surfactant
therapy in combination with high-frequency oscillatory ventilation is not
superior to conventional mechanical ventilation in improving gas exchange,
lung deflation stability and in the prevention of lung injury, if lungs
are kept expanded. This indicates that achieving and maintaining alveolar
expansion (i.e. open lung) is of more importance than the type of
ventilator
Improved filtering methods to suppress cardiovascular contamination in electrical impedance tomography recordings
Objective. Electrical impedance tomography (EIT) produces clinical useful visualization of the distribution of ventilation inside the lungs. The accuracy of EIT-derived parameters can be compromised by the cardiovascular signal. Removal of these artefacts is challenging due to spectral overlapping of the ventilatory and cardiovascular signal components and their time-varying frequencies. We designed and evaluated advanced filtering techniques and hypothesized that these would outperform traditional low-pass filters. Approach. Three filter techniques were developed and compared against traditional low-pass filtering: multiple digital notch filtering (MDN), empirical mode decomposition (EMD) and the maximal overlap discrete wavelet transform (MODWT). The performance of the filtering techniques was evaluated (1) in the time domain (2) in the frequency domain (3) by visual inspection. We evaluated the performance using simulated contaminated EIT data and data from 15 adult and neonatal intensive care unit patients. Main result. Each filter technique exhibited varying degrees of effectiveness and limitations. Quality measures in the time domain showed the best performance for MDN filtering. The signal to noise ratio was best for DLP, but at the cost of a high relative and removal error. MDN outbalanced the performance resulting in a good SNR with a low relative and removal error. MDN, EMD and MODWT performed similar in the frequency domain and were successful in removing the high frequency components of the data. Significance. Advanced filtering techniques have benefits compared to traditional filters but are not always better. MDN filtering outperformed EMD and MODWT regarding quality measures in the time domain. This study emphasizes the need for careful consideration when choosing a filtering approach, depending on the dataset and the clinical/research question.</p
Gating ratchet for cold atoms
We demonstrate experimentally a gating ratchet with cold rubidium atoms in a driven near-resonant optical lattice. A single-harmonic periodic modulation of the optical potential depth is applied, together with a single-harmonic rocking force. Directed motion is observed as a result of the breaking of the symmetries of the system
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