Two-step Doppler cooling of a three-level ladder system with an intermediate metastable level

Doppler laser cooling of a three-level ladder system using two near-resonant laser fields is analyzed in the case of the intermediate level being metastable while the upper level is short-lived. Analytical as well as numerical results for e.g. obtainable scattering rates and achievable temperatures are presented. When appropriate, comparisons with two-level single photon Doppler laser cooling is made. These results are relevant to recent experimental Doppler laser cooling investigations addressing intercombination lines in alkali-earth metal atoms and quadrupole transitions in alkali-earth metal ions.Comment: accepted by Phys Rev

Experimental Demonstration of a Terahertz Frequency Reference based on Coherent Population Trapping

A novel protocol of interrogation based on coherent population trapping in an N-level scheme atomic system leads to dark resonances involving three different photons. An ensemble of several hundreds of radiofrequency-trapped ions is probed by three lasers simultaneously locked onto the same optical frequency comb, resulting in high-contrast spectral lines referenced to an atomic transition in the THz domain. We discuss the cause of uncertainties and limitations for this method and show that reaching a sub-kHz resolution is experimentally accessible via this interrogation protocole

Biochemistry and Occurrence of O-Demethylation in Plant Metabolism

Demethylases play a pivitol role in numerous biological processes from covalent histone modification and DNA repair to specialized metabolism in plants and microorganisms. Enzymes that catalyze O- and N-demethylation include 2-oxoglutarate (2OG)/Fe(II)-dependent dioxygenases, cytochromes P450, Rieske-domain proteins and flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD)-dependent oxidases. Proposed mechanisms for demethylation by 2OG/Fe(II)-dependent enzymes involve hydroxylation at the O- or N-linked methyl group followed by formaldehyde elimination. Members of this enzyme family catalyze a wide variety of reactions in diverse plant metabolic pathways. Recently, we showed that 2OG/Fe(II)-dependent dioxygenases catalyze the unique O-demethylation steps of morphine biosynthesis in opium poppy, which provides a rational basis for the widespread occurrence of demethylases in benzylisoquinoline alkaloid metabolism

Constrained Molecular Dynamics II: a N-body approach to nuclear systems

In this work we illustrate the basic development of the constrained molecular dynamics applied to the N-body problem in nuclear physics. The heavy computational taskes related to quantum effects, to the presence of the "hard core" repulsive interaction have been worked out by defining a set of transformations based on the concept of impulsive forces. In particular in the implemented version II of the Constrained Molecular Dynamics model the problem related to the non conservation of the total angular momentum has been solved. This problem can affect others semiclassical microscopic approaches as due to the "hard core" repulsive interaction or to the use of stochastic forces. The effect of the restored conservation law on the fusion cross section for 40Ca+40Ca system is also briefly discussed.Comment: Tex version 3.1459 (Web2C 7.3.1);main text+fig.cap in .tex 13 page; +4 figures .ps;the order and the numerical label of the figure files reflect the figure numbers in the main tex and captions, Submited to Journal of computational physic

Nucleation and cluster formation in low-density nucleonic matter: A mechanism for ternary fission

Ternary fission yields in the reaction 241Pu(nth,f) are calculated using a new model which assumes a nucleation-time moderated chemical equilibrium in the low density matter which constitutes the neck region of the scissioning system. The temperature, density, proton fraction and fission time required to fit the experimental data are derived and discussed. A reasonably good fit to the experimental data is obtained. This model provides a natural explanation for the observed yields of heavier isotopes relative to those of the lighter isotopes, the observation of low proton yields relative to 2H and 3H yields and the non-observation of 3He, all features which are shared by similar thermal neutron induced and spontaneous fissioning systems.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure

Numerical Identification of Design Parameters for Electromagnetic Forming

In this work, approaches to the identification of high speed forming processes, whose simu lation requires models from different parts of physics are discussed. Particularly emphasis is laid on situations in which it is possible to break off the coupling and to profit from partial solutions for the design of the whole process. Such situations arise if it is possible to select relevant features that allow for a stable transfer of information between the different models. Creating situations in which a sequential approach to a coupled problem is favourably pos sible requires a profound process understanding. As an example, an electromagnetic form ing process is considered here. Approaches at identifying a coil geometry for electromag netic forming are discussed in case of an exemplary case involving the definition of a suitable feature-list and the study of several methods to tackle the electromagnetic subproblem, in cluding Nelder Mead Simplex Search, a combination of it with a neural network as surrogate model, and optimization via a neural network. These approaches are compared to each other, and quantitative results are given