Proton recoil polarization in exclusive (e,e'pp) reactions

The general formalism of nucleon recoil polarization in the (${\vec e},e'{\vec N}N$) reaction is given. Numerical predictions are presented for the components of the outgoing proton polarization and of the polarization transfer coefficient in the specific case of the exclusive $^{16}$O(${\vec e},e'{\vec p}p$)$^{14}$C knockout reaction leading to discrete states in the residual nucleus. Reaction calculations are performed in a direct knockout framework where final-state interactions and one-body and two-body currents are included. The two-nucleon overlap integrals are obtained from a calculation of the two-proton spectral function of $^{16}$O where long-range and short-range correlations are consistently included. The comparison of results obtained in different kinematics confirms that resolution of different final states in the $^{16}$O(${\vec e},e'{\vec p}p$)$^{14}$C reaction may act as a filter to disentangle and separately investigate the reaction processes due to short-range correlations and two-body currents and indicates that measurements of the components of the outgoing proton polarization may offer good opportunities to study short-range correlations.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figure

Aharonov-Casher oscillations of spin current through a multichannel mesoscopic ring

The Aharonov-Casher (AC) oscillations of spin current through a 2D ballistic ring in the presence of Rashba spin-orbit interaction and external magnetic field has been calculated using the semiclassical path integral method. For classically chaotic trajectories the Fokker-Planck equation determining dynamics of the particle spin polarization has been derived. On the basis of this equation an analytic expression for the spin conductance has been obtained taking into account a finite width of the ring arms carrying large number of conducting channels. It was shown that the finite width results in a broadening and damping of spin current AC oscillations. We found that an external magnetic field leads to appearance of new nondiagonal components of the spin conductance, allowing thus by applying a rather weak magnetic field to change a direction of the transmitted spin current polarization.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figure

Dissipative dynamics of topological defects in frustrated Heisenberg spin systems

We study the dynamics of topological defects of a frustrated spin system displaying spiral order. As a starting point we consider the SO(3) nonlinear sigma model to describe long-wavelength fluctuations around the noncollinear spiral state. Besides the usual spin-wave magnetic excitations, the model allows for topologically non-trivial static solutions of the equations of motion, associated with the change of chirality (clockwise or counterclockwise) of the spiral. We consider two types of these topological defects, single vortices and vortex-antivortex pairs, and quantize the corresponding solutions by generalizing the semiclassical approach to a non-Abelian field theory. The use of the collective coordinates allows us to represent the defect as a particle coupled to a bath of harmonic oscillators, which can be integrated out employing the Feynman-Vernon path-integral formalism. The resulting effective action for the defect indicates that its motion is damped due to the scattering by the magnons. We derive a general expression for the damping coefficient of the defect, and evaluate its temperature dependence in both cases, for a single vortex and for a vortex-antivortex pair. Finally, we consider an application of the model for cuprates, where a spiral state has been argued to be realized in the spin-glass regime. By assuming that the defect motion contributes to the dissipative dynamics of the charges, we can compare our results with the measured inverse mobility in a wide range of temperature. The relatively good agreement between our calculations and the experiments confirms the possible relevance of an incommensurate spiral order for lightly doped cuprates.Comment: 22 pages, 7 figures, final published versio

Rotational Effects of Twisted Light on Atoms Beyond the Paraxial Approximation

The transition probability for the emission of a Bessel photon by an atomic system is calculated within first order perturbation theory. We derive a closed expression for the electromagnetic potentials beyond the paraxial approximation that permits a systematic multipole approximation . The matrix elements between center of mass and internal states are evaluated for some specially relevant cases. This permits to clarify the feasibility of observing the rotational effects of twisted light on atoms predicted by the calculations. It is shown that the probability that the internal state of an atom acquires orbital angular momentum from light is, in general, maximum for an atom located at the axis of a Bessel mode. For a Gaussian packet, the relevant parameter is the ratio of the spread of the atomic center of mass wave packet to the transversal wavelength of the photon.Comment: 10 pages, no figure

Spin Information from Vector-Meson Decay in Photoproduction

For the photoproduction of vector mesons, all single and double spin observables involving vector meson two-body decays are defined consistently in the $\gamma N$ center of mass. These definitions yield a procedure for extracting physically meaningful single and double spin observables that are subject to known rules concerning their angle and energy evolution. As part of this analysis, we show that measuring the two-meson decay of a photoproduced $\rho$ or $\phi$ does not determine the vector meson's vector polarization, but only its tensor polarization. The vector meson decay into lepton pairs is also insensitive to the vector meson's vector polarization, unless one measures the spin of one of the leptons. Similar results are found for all double spin observables which involve observation of vector meson decay. To access the vector meson's vector polarization, one therefore needs to either measure the spin of the decay leptons, make an analysis of the background interference effects or relate the vector meson's vector polarization to other accessible spin observables.Comment: 22 pages, 3 figure

Inflationary spectra and partially decohered distributions

It is generally expected that decoherence processes will erase the quantum properties of the inflationary primordial spectra. However, given the weakness of gravitational interactions, one might end up with a distribution which is only partially decohered. Below a certain critical change, we show that the inflationary distribution retains quantum properties. We identify four of these: a squeezed spread in some direction of phase space, non-vanishing off-diagonal matrix elements, and two properties used in quantum optics called non-$P$-representability and non-separability. The last two are necessary conditions to violate Bell's inequalities. The critical value above which all these properties are lost is associated to the `grain' of coherent states. The corresponding value of the entropy is equal to half the maximal (thermal) value. Moreover it coincides with the entropy of the effective distribution obtained by neglecting the decaying modes. By considering backreaction effects, we also provide an upper bound for this entropy at the onset of the adiabatic era.Comment: 42 pages, 9 figures; 1 ref. adde

Flavor Asymmetry of the Nucleon Sea: Consequences for Dilepton Production

Parton distributions derived from a chiral quark model that generates an excess of down quarks and antiquarks in the proton's sea satisfactorily describe the measured yields of muon pairs produced in proton-nucleus collisions. Comparison of dilepton yields from hydrogen and deuterium targets promises greater sensitivity to the predicted flavor asymmetry.Comment: 11 pages, REVTEX, (Three PostScript figures available by anonymous ftp from fnth06.fnal.gov in directory /pub/Fermilab-Pub/92.264.) FERMILAB-PUB-92/264--T LBL-3298

Higher Twist, ξw\xi_w Scaling, and Effective LOPDFsLO PDFs for Lepton Scattering in the Few GeV Region

We use a new scaling variable $\xi_w$, and add low $Q^2$ modifications to GRV98 leading order parton distribution functions such that they can be used to model electron, muon and neutrino inelastic scattering cross sections (and also photoproduction) at both very low and high energies.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures. To be published in J. Phys. G (Conf. Proceedings) based on two talks by Arie Bodek at the NuFact$'02$ conference, Imperial College, London, England, July 200

Mesoscopic superpositions of vibronic collective states of N trapped ions

We propose a scalable procedure to generate entangled superpositions of motional coherent states and electronic states in N trapped ions. Beyond their fundamental importance, these states may be of interest for quantum information processing and may be used in experimental studies of decoherence.Comment: Final version, as published in Physical Review Letters. See also further developments and applications in quant-ph/020207

The Balian-Br\'ezin Method in Relativistic Quantum Mechanics

The method suggested by Balian and Br\'ezin for treating angular momentum reduction in the Faddeev equations is shown to be applicable to the relativistic three-body problem.Comment: 14 pages in LaTe