Non-random dispersal in the butterfly Maniola jurtina: implications for metapopulation models

The dispersal patterns of animals are important in metapopulation ecology because they affect the dynamics and survival of populations. Theoretical models assume random dispersal but little is known in practice about the dispersal behaviour of individual animals or the strategy by which dispersers locate distant habitat patches. In the present study, we released individual meadow brown butterflies (Maniola jurtina) in a non-habitat and investigated their ability to return to a suitable habitat. The results provided three reasons for supposing that meadow brown butterflies do not seek habitat by means of random flight. First, when released within the range of their normal dispersal distances, the butterflies orientated towards suitable habitat at a higher rate than expected at random. Second, when released at larger distances from their habitat, they used a non-random, systematic, search strategy in which they flew in loops around the release point and returned periodically to it. Third, butterflies returned to a familiar habitat patch rather than a non-familiar one when given a choice. If dispersers actively orientate towards or search systematically for distant habitat, this may be problematic for existing metapopulation models, including models of the evolution of dispersal rates in metapopulations

Effect of Quadratic Zeeman Energy on the Vortex of Spinor Bose-Einstein Condensates

The spinor Bose-Einstein condensate of atomic gases has been experimentally realized by a number of groups. Further, theoretical proposals of the possible vortex states have been sugessted. This paper studies the effects of the quadratic Zeeman energy on the vortex states. This energy was ignored in previous theoretical studies, although it exists in experimental systems. We present phase diagrams of various vortex states taking into account the quadratic Zeeman energy. The vortex states are calculated by the Gross-Pitaevskii equations. Several new kinds of vortex states are found. It is also found that the quadratic Zeeman energy affects the direction of total magnetization and causes a significant change in the phase diagrams.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures. Published in J. Phys. Soc. Jp

Coreless vortex ground state of the rotating spinor condensate

We study the ground state of the rotating spinor condensate and show that for slow rotation the ground state of the ferromagnetic spinor condensate is a coreless vortex. While coreless vortex is not topologically stable, we show that there is an energetic threshold for the creation of a coreless vortex. This threshold corresponds to a critical rotation frequency that vanishes as the system size increases. Also, we demonstrate the dramatically different behavior of the spinor condensate with anti-ferromagnetic interactions. For anti-ferromagnetic spinor condensate the angular momentum as a function of rotation frequency exhibits the familiar staircase behavior, but in contrast to an ordinary condensate the first step is to the state with angular momentum 1/2 per particle.Comment: v2: Numerical parameters for trapping frequency in z-direction and for the particle number changed. Two new citations added ([13] and [22]). More discussion in chapter III A. added. A new Figure 4 added, former figure 4 changed to Figure

Exploring quantum criticality based on ultracold atoms in optical lattices

Critical behavior developed near a quantum phase transition, interesting in its own right, offers exciting opportunities to explore the universality of strongly-correlated systems near the ground state. Cold atoms in optical lattices, in particular, represent a paradigmatic system, for which the quantum phase transition between the superfluid and Mott insulator states can be externally induced by tuning the microscopic parameters. In this paper, we describe our approach to study quantum criticality of cesium atoms in a two-dimensional lattice based on in situ density measurements. Our research agenda involves testing critical scaling of thermodynamic observables and extracting transport properties in the quantum critical regime. We present and discuss experimental progress on both fronts. In particular, the thermodynamic measurement suggests that the equation of state near the critical point follows the predicted scaling law at low temperatures.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figure

Rotating spin-1 bosons in the lowest Landau level

We present results for the ground states of a system of spin-1 bosons in a rotating trap. We focus on the dilute, weakly interacting regime, and restrict the bosons to the quantum states in the lowest Landau level (LLL) in the plane (disc), sphere or torus geometries. We map out parts of the zero temperature phase diagram, using both exact quantum ground states and LLL mean field configurations. For the case of a spin-independent interaction we present exact quantum ground states at angular momentum $L\leq N$. For general values of the interaction parameters, we present mean field studies of general ground states at slow rotation and of lattices of vortices and skyrmions at higher rotation rates. Finally, we discuss quantum Hall liquid states at ultra-high rotation.Comment: 24 pages, 14 figures, RevTe

Quantum Monte Carlo study of quasi-one-dimensional Bose gases

We study the behavior of quasi-one-dimensional (quasi-1d) Bose gases by Monte Carlo techniques, i.e., by the variational Monte Carlo, the diffusion Monte Carlo, and the fixed-node diffusion Monte Carlo technique. Our calculations confirm and extend our results of an earlier study [Astrakharchik et al., cond-mat/0308585]. We find that a quasi-1d Bose gas i) is well described by a 1d model Hamiltonian with contact interactions and renormalized coupling constant; ii) reaches the Tonks-Girardeau regime for a critical value of the 3d scattering length a_3d; iii) enters a unitary regime for |a_3d| -> infinity, where the properties of the gas are independent of a_3d and are similar to those of a 1d gas of hard-rods; and iv) becomes unstable against cluster formation for a critical value of the 1d gas parameter. The accuracy and implications of our results are discussed in detail.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figure

Vortex lattice of a Bose-Einstein Condensate in a rotating anisotropic trap

We study the vortex lattices in a Bose-Einstein Condensate in a rotating anisotropic harmonic trap. We first investigate the single particle wavefunctions obtained by the exact solution of the problem and give simple expressions for these wavefunctions in the small anisotropy limit. Depending on the strength of the interactions, a few or a large number of vortices can be formed. In the limit of many vortices, we calculate the density profile of the cloud and show that the vortex lattice stays triangular. We also find that the vortex lattice planes align themselves with the weak axis of the external potential. For a small number of vortices, we numerically solve the Gross-Pitaevskii equation and find vortex configurations that are very different from the vortex configurations in an axisymmetric rotating trap.Comment: 15 pages,4 figure

Observation of metastable states in spinor Bose-Einstein condensates

Bose-Einstein condensates have been prepared in long-lived metastable excited states. Two complementary types of metastable states were observed. The first is due to the immiscibility of multiple components in the condensate, and the second to local suppression of spin-relaxation collisions. Relaxation via re-condensation of non-condensed atoms, spin relaxation, and quantum tunneling was observed. These experiments were done with F=1 spinor Bose-Einstein condensates of sodium confined in an optical dipole trap.Comment: 3 figures included in paper, fourth figure separat

Bosons and Fermions near Feshbach resonances

Near Feshbach resonances, $n|a|^3\gg 1$, systems of Bose and Fermi particles become strongly interacting/dense. In this unitary limit both bosons and fermions have very different properties than in a dilute gas, e.g., the energy per particle approach a value $\hbar^2n^{2/3}/m$ times an universal many-body constant. Calculations based upon an approximate Jastrow wave function can quantitatively describe recent measurements of trapped Bose and Fermi atoms near Feshbach resonances. The pairing gap between attractive fermions also scales as $\Delta\sim\hbar^2n^{2/3}/m$ near Feshbach resonances and is a large fraction of the Fermi energy - promising for observing BCS superfluidity in traps. Pairing undergoes several transitions depending on interaction strength and the number of particles in the trap and can also be compared to pairing in nuclei.Comment: Revised version extended to include recent molecular BEC-BCS result

Effective theories of scattering with an attractive inverse-square potential and the three-body problem

A distorted-wave version of the renormalisation group is applied to scattering by an inverse-square potential and to three-body systems. In attractive three-body systems, the short-distance wave function satisfies a Schroedinger equation with an attractive inverse-square potential, as shown by Efimov. The resulting oscillatory behaviour controls the renormalisation of the three-body interactions, with the renormalisation-group flow tending to a limit cycle as the cut-off is lowered. The approach used here leads to single-valued potentials with discontinuities as the bound states are cut off. The perturbations around the cycle start with a marginal term whose effect is simply to change the phase of the short-distance oscillations, or the self-adjoint extension of the singular Hamiltonian. The full power counting in terms of the energy and two-body scattering length is constructed for short-range three-body forces.Comment: 19 pages (RevTeX), 2 figure