614 research outputs found
Linking Ultracold Polar Molecules
We predict that pairs of polar molecules can be weakly bound together in an
ultracold environment, provided that a dc electric field is present. The field
that links the molecules together also strongly influences the basic properties
of the resulting dimer, such as its binding energy and predissociation
lifetime. Because of their long-range character these dimers will be useful in
disentangling cold collision dynamics of polar molecules. As an example, we
estimate the microwave photoassociation yield for OH-OH cold collisions.Comment: 4 pages 2 figure
Multi-channel scattering and Feshbach resonances: Effective theory, phenomenology, and many-body effects
A low energy effective theory based on a microscopic multi-channel
description of the atom-atom interaction is derived for the scattering of
alkali atoms in different hyperfine states. This theory describes all
scattering properties, including medium effects, in terms of the singlet and
triplet scattering lengths and the range of the atom-atom potential and
provides a link between a microscopic description of Feshbach scattering and
more phenomenological approaches. It permits the calculation of medium effects
on the resonance coming from the occupation of closed channel states. The
examination of such effects are demonstrated to be of particular relevance to
an experimentally important Feshbach resonance for K atoms. We analyze a
recent rethermalization rate experiment on K and demonstrate that a
measurement of the temperature dependence of this rate can determine the
magnetic moment of the Feshbach molecule. Finally, the energy dependence of the
Feshbach interaction is shown to introduce a negative effective range inversely
proportional to the width of the resonance. Since our theory is based on a
microscopic multi-channel picture, it allows the explicit calculation of
corrections to commonly used approximations such as the neglect of the
effective range and the treatment of the Feshbach molecule as a point boson.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures. Typos corrected. Accepted for PR
Bragg spectroscopy of a superfluid Bose-Hubbard gas
Bragg spectroscopy is used to measure excitations of a trapped,
quantum-degenerate gas of 87Rb atoms in a 3-dimensional optical lattice. The
measurements are carried out over a range of optical lattice depths in the
superfluid phase of the Bose-Hubbard model. For fixed wavevector, the resonant
frequency of the excitation is found to decrease with increasing lattice depth.
A numerical calculation of the resonant frequencies based on Bogoliubov theory
shows a less steep rate of decrease than the measurements.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figure
Suppression of power-broadening in strong-coupling photoassociation in the presence of a Feshbach resonance
Photoassociation (PA) spectrum in the presence of a magnetic Feshbach
resonance is analyzed. Nonperturbative solution of the problem yields
analytical expressions for PA linewidth and shift which are applicable for
arbitrary PA laser intensity and magnetic field tuning of Feshbach Resonance.
We show that by tuning magnetic field close to Fano minimum, it is possible to
suppress power broadening at increased laser intensities. This occurs due to
quantum interference of PA transitions from unperturbed and perturbed
continuum. Line narrowing at high laser intensities is accompanied by large
spectral shifts. We briefly discuss important consequences of line narrowing in
cold collisions.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figure
Cavity induced modifications to the resonance fluorescence and probe absorption of a laser-dressed V atom
A cavity-modified master equation is derived for a coherently driven, V-type
three-level atom coupled to a single-mode cavity in the bad cavity limit. We
show that population inversion in both the bare and dressed-state bases may be
achieved, originating from the enhancement of the atom-cavity interaction when
the cavity is resonant with an atomic dressed-state transition. The atomic
populations in the dressed state representation are analysed in terms of the
cavity-modified transition rates. The atomic fluorescence spectrum and probe
absorption spectrum also investigated, and it is found that the spectral
profiles may be controlled by adjusting the cavity frequency. Peak suppression
and line narrowing occur under appropriate conditions.Comment: 12 pages, 10 postscript figures, to be appeared in Phys. Rev.
Theoretical model for ultracold molecule formation via adaptive feedback control
We investigate pump-dump photoassociation of ultracold molecules with
amplitude- and phase-modulated femtosecond laser pulses. For this purpose a
perturbative model for the light-matter interaction is developed and combined
with a genetic algorithm for adaptive feedback control of the laser pulse
shapes. The model is applied to the formation of 85Rb2 molecules in a
magneto-optical trap. We find for optimized pulse shapes an improvement for the
formation of ground state molecules by more than a factor of 10 compared to
unshaped pulses at the same pump-dump delay time, and by 40% compared to
unshaped pulses at the respective optimal pump-dump delay time. Since our model
yields directly the spectral amplitudes and phases of the optimized pulses, the
results are directly applicable in pulse shaping experiments
Stimulated Raman adiabatic passage from an atomic to a molecular Bose-Einstein condensate
The process of stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) provides a
possible route for the generation of a coherent molecular Bose-Einstein
condensate (BEC) from an atomic BEC. We analyze this process in a
three-dimensional mean-field theory, including atom-atom interactions and
non-resonant intermediate levels. We find that the process is feasible, but at
larger Rabi frequencies than anticipated from a crude single-mode lossless
analysis, due to two-photon dephasing caused by the atomic interactions. We
then identify optimal strategies in STIRAP allowing one to maintain high
conversion efficiencies with smaller Rabi frequencies and under experimentally
less demanding conditions.Comment: Final published versio
Controlling two-species Mott-insulator phses in an optical lattice to form an array of dipolar molecules
We consider the transfer of a two-species Bose-Einstein condensate into an
optical lattice with a density such that that a Mott-insulator state with one
atom per species per lattice site is obtained in the deep lattice regime.
Depending on collision parameters the result could be either a `mixed' or a
`separated' Mott-insulator phase. Such a `mixed' two-species insulator could
then be photo-associated into an array of dipolar molecules suitable for
quantum computation or the formation of a dipolar molecular condensate. For the
case of a Rb-K two-species BEC, however, the large inter-species
scattering length makes obtaining the desired `mixed' Mott insulator phase
difficult. To overcome this difficulty we investigate the effect of varying the
lattice frequency on the mean-field interaction and find a favorable parameter
regime under which a lattice of dipolar molecules could be generated
Formation of Pairing Fields in Resonantly Coupled Atomic and Molecular Bose-Einstein Condensates
In this paper, we show that pair-correlations may play an important role in
the quantum statistical properties of a Bose-Einstein condensed gas composed of
an atomic field resonantly coupled with a corresponding field of molecular
dimers. Specifically, pair-correlations in this system can dramatically modify
the coherent and incoherent transfer between the atomic and molecular fields.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Exome sequencing followed by large-scale genotyping suggests a limited role for moderately rare risk factors of strong effect in schizophrenia.
Schizophrenia is a severe psychiatric disorder with strong heritability and marked heterogeneity in symptoms, course, and treatment response. There is strong interest in identifying genetic risk factors that can help to elucidate the pathophysiology and that might result in the development of improved treatments. Linkage and genome-wide association studies (GWASs) suggest that the genetic basis of schizophrenia is heterogeneous. However, it remains unclear whether the underlying genetic variants are mostly moderately rare and can be identified by the genotyping of variants observed in sequenced cases in large follow-up cohorts or whether they will typically be much rarer and therefore more effectively identified by gene-based methods that seek to combine candidate variants. Here, we consider 166 persons who have schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder and who have had either their genomes or their exomes sequenced to high coverage. From these data, we selected 5,155 variants that were further evaluated in an independent cohort of 2,617 cases and 1,800 controls. No single variant showed a study-wide significant association in the initial or follow-up cohorts. However, we identified a number of case-specific variants, some of which might be real risk factors for schizophrenia, and these can be readily interrogated in other data sets. Our results indicate that schizophrenia risk is unlikely to be predominantly influenced by variants just outside the range detectable by GWASs. Rather, multiple rarer genetic variants must contribute substantially to the predisposition to schizophrenia, suggesting that both very large sample sizes and gene-based association tests will be required for securely identifying genetic risk factors. © 2012 The American Society of Human Genetics
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