52,502 research outputs found
Oscillatory decay of a two-component Bose-Einstein condensate
We study the decay of a two-component Bose-Einstein condensate with negative
effective interaction energy. With a decreasing atom number due to losses, the
atom-atom interaction becomes less important and the system undergoes a
transition from a bistable Josephson regime to the monostable Rabi regime,
displaying oscillations in phase and number. We study the equations of motion
and derive an analytical expression for the oscillation amplitude. A quantum
trajectory simulation reveals that the classical description fails for low
emission rates, as expected from analytical considerations. Observation of the
proposed effect will provide evidence for negative effective interaction.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figue
New spectroscopic and polarimetric observations of the A0 supergiant HD92207
Our recent search for the presence of a magnetic field in the bright early
A-type supergiant HD92207 using FORS2 in spectropolarimetric mode revealed the
presence of a longitudinal magnetic field of the order of a few hundred Gauss.
However, the definite confirmation of the magnetic nature of this object
remained pending due to the detection of short-term spectral variability
probably affecting the position of line profiles in left- and right-hand
polarized spectra. We present new magnetic field measurements of HD92207
obtained on three different epochs in 2013 and 2014 using FORS2 in
spectropolarimetric mode. A 3sigma detection of the mean longitudinal magnetic
field using the entire spectrum, _all=104+-34G, was achieved in
observations obtained in 2014 January. At this epoch, the position of the
spectral lines appeared stable. Our analysis of spectral line shapes recorded
in opposite circularly polarized light, i.e. in light with opposite sense of
rotation, reveals that line profiles in the light polarized in a certain
direction appear slightly split. The mechanism causing such a behaviour in the
circularly polarized light is currently unknown. Trying to settle the issue of
short-term variability, we searched for changes in the spectral line profiles
on a time scale of 8-10min using HARPS polarimetric spectra and on a time scale
of 3-4min using time series obtained with the CORALIE spectrograph. No
significant variability was detected on these time scales during the epochs
studied.Comment: 10 pages, 11 figures, 2 tables, accepted for publication in
Astronomische Nachrichte
A Note on the Smoluchowski-Kramers Approximation for the Langevin Equation with Reflection
According to the Smoluchowski-Kramers approximation, the solution of the
equation
converges to the solution of the equation
as {\mu}->0. We consider here
a similar result for the Langevin process with elastic reflection on the
boundary.Comment: 14 pages, 2 figure
Improvements to 232-thorium, 230-thorium, and 231-protactinium analysis in seawater arising from GEOTRACES intercalibration
The GEOTRACES program requires the analysis of large numbers of seawater samples for ^(232)Th, ^(230)Th, and ^(231)Pa. During the GEOTRACES international intercalibration exercise, we encountered unexpected difficulties with recovery and contamination of these isotopes, ^(232)Th in particular. Experiments were carried out to identify the source of these issues, leading to a more streamlined and efficient procedure. The two particular problems that we identified and corrected were (1) frits in columns supplied by Bio-Rad Laboratories caused loss of Th during column chemistry and (2) new batches of AG1-X8 resin supplied by Bio-Rad Laboratories released more than 100 pg of ^(232)Th during elution of sample. To improve yields and blanks, we implemented a series of changes including switching to Eichrom anion exchange resin (100-200 μm mesh) and Environmental Express columns. All Th and Pa samples were analyzed on a Neptune multi-collector inductively-coupled-plasma mass spectrometer (MC-ICP-MS) using peak hopping of ^(230)Th and ^(229)Th on the central SEM, with either ^(232)Th, ^(236)U (or both) used to monitor for beam intensity. We used in-house laboratory standards to check for machine reproducibility, and the GEOTRACES intercalibration standard to check for accuracy. Over a 1-y period, the 2 s.d. reproducibility on the GEOTRACES SW STD 2010-1 was 2.5% for ^(230)Th, 1.8% for ^(232)Th, and 4% for ^(231)Pa. The lessons learned during this intercalibration process will be of value to those analyzing U-Th-Pa and rare earth elements as part of the GEOTRACES program as well as those using U-series elements in other applications that require high yields and low blanks, such as geochronology
Magnetic Instability in Strongly Correlated Superconductors
Recently a new phenomenological Hamiltonian has been proposed to describe the
superconducting cuprates. This so-called Gossamer Hamiltonian is an apt model
for a superconductor with strong on-site Coulomb repulsion betweenthe
electrons. It is shown that as one approaches half-filling the Gossamer
superconductor, and hence the superconducting state, with strong repulsion is
unstable toward an antiferromagnetic insulator an can undergo a quantum phase
transition to such an insulator if one increases the on-site Coulomb repulsion
Comment on ``Phase and Phase Diffusion of a Split Bose-Einstein Condensate''
Recently Javanainen and Wilkens [Phys. Rev. Lett. 78, 4675 (1997)] have
analysed an experiment in which an interacting Bose condensate, after being
allowed to form in a single potential well, is "cut" by splitting the well
adiabatically with a very high potential barrier, and estimate the rate at
which, following the cut, the two halves of the condensate lose the "memory" of
their relative phase. We argue that, by neglecting the effect of interactions
in the initial state before the separation, they have overestimated the rate of
phase randomization by a numerical factor which grows with the interaction
strength and with the slowness of the separation process.Comment: 2 pages, no figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. Let
Incompressible viscous flow near the leading edge of a flat plate admitting slip
The shear stress at the leading edge, calculated on basis of the Navier-Stokes equations and the no-slip boundary condition, approaches infinity. However, taking into account the mean free path of the molecules, which implies admitting a certain slip, the shear stress becomes inversely proportional to the square root of the Knudsen number κ if κ→0. κ is defined as the ratio between the mean free path and the viscous length. The new boundary condition modifies the shear stress only within the Knudsen region of which the size is of the order of 3 to 4 times the mean free path.
Gravitational Geons Revisited
A careful analysis of the gravitational geon solution found by Brill and
Hartle is made. The gravitational wave expansion they used is shown to be
consistent and to result in a gauge invariant wave equation. It also results in
a gauge invariant effective stress-energy tensor for the gravitational waves
provided that a generalized definition of a gauge transformation is used. To
leading order this gauge transformation is the same as the usual one for
gravitational waves. It is shown that the geon solution is a self-consistent
solution to Einstein's equations and that, to leading order, the equations
describing the geometry of the gravitational geon are identical to those
derived by Wheeler for the electromagnetic geon. An appendix provides an
existence proof for geon solutions to these equations.Comment: 18 pages, ReVTeX. To appear in Physical Review D. Significant changes
include more details in the derivations of certain key equations and the
addition of an appendix containing a proof of the existence of a geon
solution to the equations derived by Wheeler. Also a reference has been added
and various minor changes have been mad
Phase diagrams of correlated electrons: systematic corrections to the mean field theory
Perturbative corrections to the mean field theory for particle-hole
instabilities of interacting electron systems are computed within a scheme
which is equivalent to the recently developed variational approach to the
Kohn-Luttinger superconductivity. This enables an unbiased comparison of
particle-particle and particle-hole instabilities within the same approximation
scheme. A spin-rotation invariant formulation for the particle-hole
instabilities in the triplet channel is developed. The method is applied to the
phase diagram of the t-t' Hubbard model on the square lattice. At the Van Hove
density, antiferromagnetic and d-wave Pomeranchuk phases are found to be stable
close to half filling. However, the latter phase is confined to an extremely
narrow interval of densities and away from the singular filling, d-wave
superconducting instability dominates
Transfer of autocollimator calibration for use with scanning gantry profilometers for accurate determination of surface slope and curvature of state of the art x ray mirrors
X ray optics, desired for beamlines at free electron laser and diffraction limited storage ring x ray light sources, must have almost perfect surfaces, capable of delivering light to experiments without significant degradation of brightness and coherence. To accurately characterize such optics at an optical metrology lab, two basic types of surface slope profilometers are used the long trace profilers LTPs and nanometer optical measuring NOM like angular deflectometers, based on electronic autocollimator AC ELCOMAT 3000. The inherent systematic errors of the instrument s optical sensors set the principle limit to their measuring performance. Where autocollimator of a NOM like profiler may be calibrated at a unique dedicated facility, this is for a particular configuration of distance, aperture size, and angular range that does not always match the exact use in a scanning measurement with the profiler. Here we discuss the developed methodology, experimental set up, and numerical methods of transferring the calibration of one reference AC to the scanning AC of the Optical Surface Measuring System OSMS , recently brought to operation at the ALS Xray Optics Laboratory. We show that precision calibration of the OSMS performed in three steps, allows us to provide high confidence and accuracy low spatial frequency metrology and not print into measurements the inherent systematic error of tool in use. With the examples of the OSMS measurements with a state of the art x ray aspherical mirror, available from one of the most advanced vendors of X ray optics, we demonstrate the high efficacy of the developed calibration procedure. The results of our work are important for obtaining high reliability data, needed for sophisticated numerical simulations of beamline performance and optimization of beamline usage of the optics. This work was supported by the U. S. Department of Energy under contract number DE AC02 05CH1123
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