708 research outputs found
Phonon-mediated thermal conductance of mesoscopic wires with rough edges
We present an analysis of acoustic phonon propagation through long,
free-standing, insulating wires with rough surfaces. Due to a crossover from
ballistic propagation of the lowest-frequency phonon mode at to a diffusive (or even localized) behavior upon the increase of
phonon frequency, followed by re-entrance into the quasi-ballistic regime, the
heat conductance of a wire acquires an intermediate tendency to saturate within
the temperature range .Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures included; minor changes and corrections, figures 1
and 2 replaced by better versions; to appear in PRB Brief Report
Quantum nano-electromechanics with electrons, quasiparticles and Cooper pairs: effective bath descriptions and strong feedback effects
Using a quantum noise approach, we discuss the physics of both normal metal
and superconducting single electron transistors (SET) coupled to mechanical
resonators. Particular attention is paid to the regime where transport occurs
via incoherent Cooper-pair tunneling (either via the Josephson quasiparticle
(JQP) or double Josephson quasiparticle (DJQP) process). We show that,
surprisingly, the back-action of tunneling Cooper pairs (or superconducting
quasiparticles) can be used to significantly cool the oscillator. We also
discuss the physical origin of negative damping effects in this system, and how
they can lead to a regime of strong electro-mechanical feedback, where despite
a weak SET - oscillator coupling, the motion of the oscillator strongly effects
the tunneling of the Cooper pairs. We show that in this regime, the oscillator
is characterized by an energy-dependent effective temperature. Finally, we
discuss the strong analogy between back-action effects of incoherent
Cooper-pair tunneling and ponderomotive effects in an optical cavity with a
moveable mirror; in our case, tunneling Cooper pairs play the role of the
cavity photons.Comment: 27 pages, 7 figures; submitted to the New Journal of Physics focus
issue on Nano-electromechanical Systems; error in references correcte
Regularization of the Hamiltonian constraint and the closure of the constraint algebra
In the paper we discuss the process of regularization of the Hamiltonian
constraint in the Ashtekar approach to quantizing gravity. We show in detail
the calculation of the action of the regulated Hamiltonian constraint on Wilson
loops. An important issue considered in the paper is the closure of the
constraint algebra. The main result we obtain is that the Poisson bracket
between the regulated Hamiltonian constraint and the Diffeomorphism constraint
is equal to a sum of regulated Hamiltonian constraints with appropriately
redefined regulating functions.Comment: 23 pages, epsfig.st
Damping and decoherence of a nanomechanical resonator due to a few two level systems
We consider a quantum model of a nanomechanical flexing beam resonator
interacting with a bath comprising a few damped tunneling two level systems
(TLS's). In contrast with a resonator interacting bilinearly with an ohmic free
oscillator bath (modeling clamping loss, for example), the mechanical resonator
damping is amplitude dependent, while the decoherence of quantum superpositions
of mechanical position states depends only weakly on their spatial separation
Low-temperature heat transfer in nanowires
The new regime of low-temperature heat transfer in suspended nanowires is
predicted. It takes place when (i) only ``acoustic'' phonon modes of the wire
are thermally populated and (ii) phonons are subject to the effective elastic
scattering. Qualitatively, the main peculiarities of heat transfer originate
due to appearance of the flexural modes with high density of states in the wire
phonon spectrum. They give rise to the temperature dependence of the
wire thermal conductance. The experimental situations where the new regime is
likely to be detected are discussed.Comment: RevTex file, 1 PS figur
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