625 research outputs found
Anoxic nitrification in marine sediments
Nitrate peaks are found in pore-water profiles in marine sediments at depths considerably
below the conventional zone of oxic nitrification. These have been interpreted to represent nonsteady-
state effects produced by the activity of nitrifying bacteria, and suggest that nitrification
occurs throughout the anoxic sediment region. In this study, ΣNO3 peaks and molecular analysis of
DNA and RNA extracted from anoxic sediments of Loch Duich, an organic-rich marine fjord, are consistent
with nitrification occurring in the anoxic zone. Analysis of ammonia oxidiser 16S rRNA gene
fragments amplified from sediment DNA indicated the abundance of autotrophic ammonia-oxidising
bacteria throughout the sediment depth sampled (40 cm), while RT-PCR analysis indicated their
potential activity throughout this region. A large non-steady-state pore-water ΣNO3 peak at ~21 cm
correlated with discontinuities in this ammonia-oxidiser community. In addition, a subsurface nitrate
peak at ~8 cm below the oxygen penetration depth, correlated with the depth of a peak in nitrification
rate, assessed by transformation of 15N-labelled ammonia. The source of the oxidant required to
support nitrification within the anoxic region is uncertain. It is suggested that rapid recycling of N is
occurring, based on a coupled reaction involving Mn oxides (or possibly highly labile Fe oxides)
buried during small-scale slumping events. However, to fully investigate this coupling, advances in
the capability of high-resolution pore-water techniques are required
Cooling atomic motion with quantum interference
We theoretically investigate the quantum dynamics of the center of mass of
trapped atoms, whose internal degrees of freedom are driven in a
-shaped configuration with the lasers tuned at two-photon resonance.
In the Lamb-Dicke regime, when the motional wave packet is well localized over
the laser wavelenght, transient coherent population trapping occurs, cancelling
transitions at the laser frequency. In this limit the motion can be efficiently
cooled to the ground state of the trapping potential. We derive an equation for
the center-of-mass motion by adiabatically eliminating the internal degrees of
freedom. This treatment provides the theoretical background of the scheme
presented in [G. Morigi {\it et al}, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 85}, 4458 (2000)]
and implemented in [C.F. Roos {\it et al}, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 85}, 5547
(2000)]. We discuss the physical mechanisms determining the dynamics and
identify new parameters regimes, where cooling is efficient. We discuss
implementations of the scheme to cases where the trapping potential is not
harmonic.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figure
Phase Coherence and Control of Stored Photonic Information
We report the demonstration of phase coherence and control for the recently
developed "light storage" technique. Specifically, we use a pulsed magnetic
field to vary the phase of atomic spin excitations which result from the
deceleration and storing of a light pulse in warm Rb vapor. We then convert the
spin excitations back into light and detect the resultant phase shift in an
optical interferometric measurement. The coherent storage of photon states in
matter is essential for the practical realization of many basic concepts in
quantum information processing.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures. Submitted to Phys. Rev. Let
Transverse Phase Locking for Vortex Motion in Square and Triangular Pinning Arrays
We analyze transverse phase locking for vortex motion in a superconductor
with a longitudinal DC drive and a transverse AC drive. For both square and
triangular arrays we observe a variety of fractional phase locking steps in the
velocity versus DC drive which correspond to stable vortex orbits. The locking
steps are more pronounced for the triangular arrays which is due to the fact
that the vortex motion has a periodic transverse velocity component even for
zero transverse AC drive. All the steps increase monotonically in width with AC
amplitude. We confirm that the width of some fractional steps in the square
arrays scales as the square of the AC driving amplitude. In addition we
demonstrate scaling in the velocity versus applied DC driving curves at
depinning and on the main step, similar to that seen for phase locking in
charge-density wave systems. The phase locking steps are most prominent for
commensurate vortex fillings where the interstitial vortices form symmetrical
ground states. For increasing temperature, the fractional steps are washed out
very quickly, while the main step gains a linear component and disappears at
melting. For triangular pinning arrays we again observe transverse phase
locking, with the main and several of the fractional step widths scaling
linearly with AC amplitude.Comment: 10 pages, 14 postscript figure
Quantum jumps induced by the center-of-mass motion of a trapped atom
We theoretically study the occurrence of quantum jumps in the resonance
fluorescence of a trapped atom. Here, the atom is laser cooled in a
configuration of level such that the occurrence of a quantum jump is associated
to a change of the vibrational center-of-mass motion by one phonon. The
statistics of the occurrence of the dark fluorescence period is studied as a
function of the physical parameters and the corresponding features in the
spectrum of resonance fluorescence are identified. We discuss the information
which can be extracted on the atomic motion from the observation of a quantum
jump in the considered setup
Complete population transfer in a degenerate 3-level atom
We find conditions required to achieve complete population transfer, via
coherent population trapping, from an initial state to a designated final state
at a designated time in a degenerate 3-level atom, where transitions are caused
by an external interaction. Complete population transfer from an initially
occupied state 1 to a designated state 2 occurs under two conditions. First,
there is a constraint on the ratios of the transition matrix elements of the
external interaction. Second, there is a constraint on the action integral over
the interaction, or "area", corresponding to the phase shift induced by the
external interaction. Both conditions may be expressed in terms of simple odd
integers.Comment: 22 pages, 4 figure
Chiral-symmetry restoration in the linear sigma model at nonzero temperature and baryon density
We study the chiral phase transition in the linear sigma model with 2 quark
flavors and colors. One-loop calculations predict a first-order phase
transition at both and . We also discuss the phase diagram
and make a comparison with a thermal parametrization of existing heavy-ion
experimental data.Comment: 12 pages, 6 ps-figures, LaTe
Resonance fluorescence of a trapped three-level atom
We investigate theoretically the spectrum of resonance fluorescence of a
harmonically trapped atom, whose internal transitions are --shaped and
driven at two-photon resonance by a pair of lasers, which cool the
center--of--mass motion. For this configuration, photons are scattered only due
to the mechanical effects of the quantum interaction between light and atom. We
study the spectrum of emission in the final stage of laser--cooling, when the
atomic center-of-mass dynamics is quantum mechanical and the size of the wave
packet is much smaller than the laser wavelength (Lamb--Dicke limit). We use
the spectral decomposition of the Liouville operator of the master equation for
the atomic density matrix and apply second order perturbation theory. We find
that the spectrum of resonance fluorescence is composed by two narrow sidebands
-- the Stokes and anti-Stokes components of the scattered light -- while all
other signals are in general orders of magnitude smaller. For very low
temperatures, however, the Mollow--type inelastic component of the spectrum
becomes visible. This exhibits novel features which allow further insight into
the quantum dynamics of the system. We provide a physical model that interprets
our results and discuss how one can recover temperature and cooling rate of the
atom from the spectrum. The behaviour of the considered system is compared with
the resonance fluorescence of a trapped atom whose internal transition consists
of two-levels.Comment: 11 pages, 4 Figure
Covariance of Antiproton Yield and Source Size in Nuclear Collisions
We confront for the first time the widely-held belief that combined
event-by-event information from quark gluon plasma signals can reduce the
ambiguity of the individual signals. We illustrate specifically how the
measured antiproton yield combined with the information from pion-pion HBT
correlations can be used to identify novel event classes.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, improved title, references and readability;
results unchange
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