283 research outputs found
RF bifurcation of a Josephson junction: microwave embedding circuit requirements
A Josephson tunnel junction which is RF-driven near a dynamical bifurcation
point can amplify quantum signals. The bifurcation point will exist robustly
only if the electrodynamic environment of the junction meets certain criteria.
In this article we develop a general formalism for dealing with the non-linear
dynamics of Josephson junction embedded in an arbitrary microwave circuit. We
find sufficient conditions for the existence of the bifurcation regime: a) the
embedding impedance of the junction need to present a resonance at a particular
frequency , with the quality factor of the resonance and the
participation ratio of the junction satisfying , b) the drive
frequency should be low frequency detuned away from by more than
.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev. B, 12 pages, 6 figure
A cascaded laser acceleration scheme for the generation of spectrally controlled proton beams
We present a novel, cascaded acceleration scheme for the generation of spectrally controlled ion beams using a laser-based accelerator in a 'double-stage' setup. An MeV proton beam produced during a relativistic laser–plasma interaction on a thin foil target is spectrally shaped by a secondary laser–plasma interaction on a separate foil, reliably creating well-separated quasi-monoenergetic features in the energy spectrum. The observed modulations are fully explained by a one-dimensional (1D) model supported by numerical simulations. These findings demonstrate that laser acceleration can, in principle, be applied in an additive manner.Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG contract no. TR18)Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (contract no. 03ZIK052)European Union (Laserlab Europe
Dilation of the Giant Vortex State in a Mesoscopic Superconducting Loop
We have experimentally investigated the magnetisation of a mesoscopic
aluminum loop at temperatures well below the superconducting transition
temperature . The flux quantisation of the superconducting loop was
investigated with a -Hall magnetometer in magnetic field intensities
between . The magnetic field intensity periodicity observed in
the magnetization measurements is expected to take integer values of the
superconducting flux quanta . A closer inspection of the
periodicity, however, reveal a sub flux quantum shift. This fine structure we
interpret as a consequence of a so called giant vortex state nucleating towards
either the inner or the outer side of the loop. These findings are in agreement
with recent theoretical reports.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.
Thermal effects on atomic friction
We model friction acting on the tip of an atomic force microscope as it is
dragged across a surface at non-zero temperatures. We find that stick-slip
motion occurs and that the average frictional force follows ,
where is the tip velocity. This compares well to recent experimental work
(Gnecco et al, PRL 84, 1172), permitting the quantitative extraction of all
microscopic parameters. We calculate the scaled form of the average frictional
force's dependence on both temperature and tip speed as well as the form of the
friction-force distribution function.Comment: Accepted for publication, Physical Review Letter
QSSOR and cubic non-polynomial spline method for the solution of two-point boundary value problems
Two-point boundary value problems are commonly used as a numerical test in developing an efficient numerical method. Several researchers studied the application of a cubic non-polynomial spline method to solve the two-point boundary value problems. A preliminary study found that a cubic non-polynomial spline method is better than a standard finite difference method in terms of the accuracy of the solution. Therefore, this paper aims to examine the performance of a cubic non-polynomial spline method through the combination with the full-, half-, and quarter-sweep iterations. The performance was evaluated in terms of the number of iterations, the execution time and the maximum absolute error by varying the iterations from full-, half- to quarter-sweep. A successive over-relaxation iterative method was implemented to solve the large and sparse linear system. The numerical result showed that the newly derived QSSOR method, based on a cubic non-polynomial spline, performed better than the tested FSSOR and HSSOR methods
In the light of directed evolution: Pathways of adaptive protein evolution
Directed evolution is a widely-used engineering strategy for improving the stabilities or biochemical functions of proteins by repeated rounds of mutation and selection. These experiments offer empirical lessons about how proteins evolve in the face of clearly-defined laboratory selection pressures. Directed evolution has revealed that single amino acid mutations can enhance properties such as catalytic activity or stability and that adaptation can often occur through pathways consisting of sequential beneficial mutations. When there are no single mutations that improve a particular protein property experiments always find a wealth of mutations that are neutral with respect to the laboratory-defined measure of fitness. These neutral mutations can open new adaptive pathways by at least 2 different mechanisms. Functionally-neutral mutations can enhance a protein's stability, thereby increasing its tolerance for subsequent functionally beneficial but destabilizing mutations. They can also lead to changes in “promiscuous” functions that are not currently under selective pressure, but can subsequently become the starting points for the adaptive evolution of new functions. These lessons about the coupling between adaptive and neutral protein evolution in the laboratory offer insight into the evolution of proteins in nature
Metastability in Josephson transmission lines
Thermal activation and macroscopic quantum tunneling in current-biased
discrete Josephson transmission lines are studied theoretically. The degrees of
freedom under consideration are the phases across the junctions which are
coupled to each other via the inductances of the system. The resistively
shunted junctions that we investigate constitute a system of N interacting
degrees of freedom with an overdamped dynamics. We calculate the decay rate
within exponential accuracy as a function of temperature and current. Slightly
below the critical current, the decay from the metastable state occurs via a
unique ("rigid") saddlepoint solution of the Euclidean action describing the
simultaneous decay of the phases in all the junctions. When the current is
reduced, a crossover to a regime takes place, where the decay occurs via an
"elastic" saddlepoint solution and the phases across the junctions leave the
metastable state one after another. This leads to an increased decay rate
compared with the rigid case both in the thermal and the quantum regime. The
rigid-to-elastic crossover can be sharp or smooth analogous to first- or
second- order phase transitions, respectively. The various regimes are
summarized in a current-temperature decay diagram.Comment: 11 pages, RevTeX, 3 PS-figures, revised versio
Near-field optical power transmission of dipole nano-antennas
Nano-antennas in functional plasmonic applications require high near-field optical power transmission. In this study, a model is developed to compute the near-field optical power transmission in the vicinity of a nano-antenna.
To increase the near-field optical power transmission from a nano-antenna, a tightly focused beam of light is utilized to illuminate a metallic nano-antenna. The modeling and simulation of these structures is performed using 3-D finite element method based full-wave solutions of Maxwell’s equations. Using the optical power transmission model, the interaction of a focused beam of light with plasmonic nanoantennas is investigated. In addition, the tightly focused beam of light is passed through a band-pass filter to identify the effect of various regions of the angular spectrum to the near-field radiation of a dipole nano-antenna. An extensive parametric study is performed to quantify the effects of various parameters on the transmission efficiency of dipole nano-antennas, including length, thickness, width, and the composition of the antenna, as well as the wavelength and half-beam angle of incident light. An optimal dipole nanoantenna geometry is identified based on the parameter studies in this work. In addition, the results of this study show the interaction of the optimized dipole nano-antenna with a magnetic recording medium when it is illuminated with a focused beam of light
Crossover from thermal hopping to quantum tunneling in Mn_{12}Ac
The crossover from thermal hopping to quantum tunneling is studied. We show
that the decay rate with dissipation can accurately be determined near
the crossover temperature. Besides considering the Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin
(WKB) exponent, we also calculate contribution of the fluctuation modes around
the saddle point and give an extended account of a previous study of crossover
region. We deal with two dangerous fluctuation modes whose contribution can't
be calculated by the steepest descent method and show that higher order
couplings between the two dangerous modes need to be taken into considerations.
At last the crossover from thermal hopping to quantum tunneling in the
molecular magnet Mn_{12}Ac is studied.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure
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