Polaritonic properties of the Jaynes-Cummings lattice model in two dimensions

Light-matter systems allow to realize a strongly correlated phase where photons are present. In these systems strong correlations are achieved by optical nonlinearities, which appear due to the coupling of photons to atomic-like structures. This leads to intriguing effects, such as the quantum phase transition from the Mott to the superfluid phase. Here, we address the two-dimensional Jaynes-Cummings lattice model. We evaluate the boundary of the quantum phase transition and study polaritonic properties. In order to be able to characterize polaritons, we investigate the spectral properties of both photons as well as two-level excitations. Based on this information we introduce polariton quasiparticles as appropriate wavevector, band index, and filling dependent superpositions of photons and two-level excitations. Finally, we analyze the contributions of the individual constituents to the polariton quasiparticles.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, Proceedings of the Conference on Computational Physics CCP, June 2010, Trondheim, Norwa

Sensitivity, specificity, and diagnostic accuracy of WHO 2013 criteria for diagnosis of gestational diabetes mellitus in low risk early pregnancies: international, prospective, multicentre cohort study

Objective: To evaluate the predictability of gestational diabetes mellitus wth a 75 g oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) in early pregnancy, based on the 2013 criteria of the World Health Organization, and to test newly proposed cut-off values. Design: International, prospective, multicentre cohort study.SettingSix university or cantonal departments in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland, from 1 May 2016 to 31 January 2019.ParticipantsLow risk cohort of 829 participants aged 18-45 years with singleton pregnancies attending first trimester screening and consenting to have an early 75 g OGTT at 12-15 weeks of gestation. Participants and healthcare providers were blinded to the results. Main outcome measures: Fasting, one hour, and two hour plasma glucose concentrations after an early 75 g OGTT (12-15 weeks of gestation) and a late 75 g OGTT (24-28 weeks of gestation). Results: Of 636 participants, 74 (12%) developed gestational diabetes mellitus, according to World Health Organization 2013 criteria, at 24-28 weeks of gestation. Applying WHO 2013 criteria to the early OGTT with at least one abnormal value gave a low sensitivity of 0.35 (95% confidence interval 0.24 to 0.47), high specificity of 0.96 (0.95 to 0.98), positive predictive value of 0.57 (0.41 to 0.71), negative predictive value of 0.92 (0.89 to 0.94), positive likelihood ratio of 10.46 (6.21 to 17.63), negative likelihood ratio of 0.65 (0.55 to 0.78), and diagnostic odds ratio of 15.98 (8.38 to 30.47). Lowering the postload glucose values (75 g OGTT cut-off values of 5.1, 8.9, and 7.8 mmol/L) improved the detection rate (53%, 95% confidence interval 41% to 64%) and negative predictive value (0.94, 0.91 to 0.95), but decreased the specificity (0.91, 0.88 to 0.93) and positive predictive value (0.42, 0.32 to 0.53) at a false positive rate of 9% (positive likelihood ratio 5.59, 4.0 to 7.81; negative likelihood ratio 0.64, 0.52 to 0.77; and diagnostic odds ratio 10.07, 6.26 to 18.31). Conclusions: The results of this prospective low risk cohort study indicated that the 75 g OGTT as a screening tool in early pregnancy is not sensitive enough when applying WHO 2013 criteria. Postload glucose values were higher in early pregnancy complicated by diabetes in pregnancy. Lowering the postload cut-off values identified a high risk group for later development of gestational diabetes mellitus or those who might benefit from earlier treatment. Results from randomised controlled trials showing a beneficial effect of early intervention are unclear. Trial registrationClinicalTrials.govNCT02035059

Observation of Bose-Einstein Condensation in a Strong Synthetic Magnetic Field

Extensions of Berry's phase and the quantum Hall effect have led to the discovery of new states of matter with topological properties. Traditionally, this has been achieved using gauge fields created by magnetic fields or spin orbit interactions which couple only to charged particles. For neutral ultracold atoms, synthetic magnetic fields have been created which are strong enough to realize the Harper-Hofstadter model. Despite many proposals and major experimental efforts, so far it has not been possible to prepare the ground state of this system. Here we report the observation of Bose-Einstein condensation for the Harper-Hofstadter Hamiltonian with one-half flux quantum per lattice unit cell. The diffraction pattern of the superfluid state directly shows the momentum distribution on the wavefuction, which is gauge-dependent. It reveals both the reduced symmetry of the vector potential and the twofold degeneracy of the ground state. We explore an adiabatic many-body state preparation protocol via the Mott insulating phase and observe the superfluid ground state in a three-dimensional lattice with strong interactions.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures. Supplement: 6 pages, 4 figure

Make a CHANGE: optimising communication and pain management decisions

Peer reviewe

Managing chronic pain in elderly patients requires a CHANGE of approach

Peer reviewe

Pain in the cancer patient : different pain characteristics CHANGE pharmacological treatment requirements

Peer reviewe

Basic Properties of Functor Structures

This article contains some theorems about functor structures. We start with some basic lemmata concerning the composition of functor structures. Then, two theorems about the restriction operator are stated. Later we show two theorems concerning the properties 'full' and 'faithful' of functor structures are equivalent to the 'onto' and 'one-to-one' properties of their morphmaps, respectively. Furthermore we prove some theorems about the inversion of functor structures. MML Identifier: FUNCTOR1

Chemical speciation of heavy metals in solid waste materials (sewage sludge, mining wastes, dredged materials, polluted sediments) by sequential extraction

Sequential extraction techniques are used to determine the chemical associations of heavy metals with specific solid phases, whereby the potential availability of toxic compounds in waste materials for biological uptake and possible remobilization effects into the aqueous phase may be estimated