Revealing the Exciton Fine Structure in PbSe Nanocrystal Quantum Dots

We measure the photoluminescence (PL) lifetime, $\tau$, of excitons in colloidal PbSe nanocrystals (NCs) at low temperatures to 270~mK and in high magnetic fields to 15~T. For all NCs (1.3-2.3~nm radii), $\tau$ increases sharply below 10~K but saturates by 500~mK. In contrast to the usual picture of well-separated ``bright" and ``dark" exciton states (found, e.g., in CdSe NCs), these dynamics fit remarkably well to a system having two exciton states with comparable - but small - oscillator strengths that are separated by only 300-900 $\mu$eV. Importantly, magnetic fields reduce $\tau$ below 10~K, consistent with field-induced mixing between the two states. Magnetic circular dichroism studies reveal exciton g-factors from 2-5, and magneto-PL shows $>$10\% circularly polarized emission.Comment: To appear in Physical Review Letter

A New Era in High-energy Physics

In TeV-scale gravity, scattering of particles with center-of-mass energy of the order of a few TeV can lead to the creation of nonperturbative, extended, higher-dimensional gravitational objects: Branes. Neutral or charged, spinning or spinless, Einsteinian or supersymmetric, low-energy branes could dramatically change our picture of high-energy physics. Will we create branes in future particle colliders, observe them from ultra high energy cosmic rays, and discover them to be dark matter?Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures. Essay submitted on Mar 26, 2002 to the Gravity Research Foundation. Awarded the third prize in the 2002 GRF competitio

Probing the nucleon structure with CLAS

An overview of recent results with CLAS is presented with emphasis on nucleon resonance studies, nucleon spin structure, and generalized parton distributions.Comment: Plenary talk presented at NSTAR 2007, Bonn, German

Generation of Three-Qubit Entangled W-State by Nonlinear Optical State Truncation

We propose an alternative scheme to generate W state via optical state truncation using quantum scissors. In particular, these states may be generated through three-mode optical state truncation in a Kerr nonlinear coupler. The more general three-qubit state may be also produced if the system is driven by external classical fields.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figur

Electroexcitation of the P33(1232), P11(1440), D13(1520), S11(1535) at Q^2=0.4 and 0.65(GeV/c)^2

Using two approaches: dispersion relations and isobar model, we have analyzed recent high precision CLAS data on cross sections of \pi^0, \pi^+, and \eta electroproduction on protons, and the longitudinally polarized electron beam asymmetry for p(\vec{e},e'p)\pi^0 and p(\vec{e},e'n)\pi^+. The contributions of the resonances P33(1232), P11(1440), D13(1520), S11(1535) to \pi electroproduction and S11(1535) to \eta electroproduction are found. The results obtained in the two approaches are in good agreement with each other. There is also good agreement between amplitudes of the \gamma^* N \to S11(1535) transition found in \pi and \eta electroproduction. For the first time accurate results are obtained for the longitudinal amplitudes of the P11(1440), D13(1520) and S11(1535) electroexcitation on protons.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figure

Upper critical field divergence induced by mesoscopic phase separation in the organic superconductor (TMTSF)2ReO4

Due to the competition of two anion orders, (TMTSF)2ReO4, presents a phase coexistence between semiconducting and metallic (superconducting) regions (filaments or droplets) in a wide range of pressure. In this regime, the superconducting upper critical field for H parallel to both c* and b' axes present a linear part at low fields followed by a divergence above a cross-over field. This cross-over corresponds to the 3D-2D decoupling transition expected in filamentary or granular superconductors. The sharpness of the transition also demonstrates that all filaments are of similar sizes and self organize in a very ordered way. The distance between the filaments and their cross-section are estimated.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

An Improved Effective Cost Review Process for Value Engineering

Second-look value engineering (VE) is an approach that aims to lower the costs of products for which target costs are not being met during the production stage. Participants in second-look VE typically come up with a variety of ideas for cost cutting, but the outcomes often depend on their levels of experience, and not many good alternatives are available during the production stage. Nonetheless, good ideas have been consistently generated by VE experts. This paper investigates past second-look VE cases and the thinking processes of VE experts and proposes a cost review process as a systematic means of investigating cost-cutting ideas. This cost review process includes the use of an idea checklist and a specification review process. In addition to presenting the process, this paper reports on its feasibility, based on its introduction into a VE training course as part of a pilot study. The results indicate that the cost review process is effective in generating ideas for later analysis

Production and optical properties of liquid scintillator for the JSNS2^{2} experiment

The JSNS$^{2}$ (J-PARC Sterile Neutrino Search at J-PARC Spallation Neutron Source) experiment will search for neutrino oscillations over a 24 m short baseline at J-PARC. The JSNS$^{2}$ inner detector will be filled with 17 tons of gadolinium-loaded liquid scintillator (LS) with an additional 31 tons of unloaded LS in the intermediate $\gamma$-catcher and outer veto volumes. JSNS$^{2}$ has chosen Linear Alkyl Benzene (LAB) as an organic solvent because of its chemical properties. The unloaded LS was produced at a refurbished facility, originally used for scintillator production by the RENO experiment. JSNS$^{2}$ plans to use ISO tanks for the storage and transportation of the LS. In this paper, we describe the LS production, and present measurements of its optical properties and long term stability. Our measurements show that storing the LS in ISO tanks does not result in degradation of its optical properties.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures

Hopping Conductivity of a Nearly-1d Fractal: a Model for Conducting Polymers

We suggest treating a conducting network of oriented polymer chains as an anisotropic fractal whose dimensionality D=1+\epsilon is close to one. Percolation on such a fractal is studied within the real space renormalization group of Migdal and Kadanoff. We find that the threshold value and all the critical exponents are strongly nonanalytic functions of \epsilon as \epsilon tends to zero, e.g., the critical exponent of conductivity is \epsilon^{-2}\exp (-1-1/\epsilon). The distribution function for conductivity of finite samples at the percolation threshold is established. It is shown that the central body of the distribution is given by a universal scaling function and only the low-conductivity tail of distribution remains $\epsilon$-dependent. Variable range hopping conductivity in the polymer network is studied: both DC conductivity and AC conductivity in the multiple hopping regime are found to obey a quasi-1d Mott law. The present results are consistent with electrical properties of poorly conducting polymers.Comment: 27 pages, RevTeX, epsf, 5 .eps figures, to be published in Phys. Rev.

Inhomogeneous superconductivity in organic conductors: role of disorder and magnetic field

Several experimental studies have shown the presence of spatially inhomogeneous phase coexistence of superconducting and non superconducting domains in low dimensional organic superconductors. The superconducting properties of these systems are found to be strongly dependent on the amount of disorder introduced in the sample regardless of its origin. The suppression of the superconducting transition temperature $T_c$ shows clear discrepancy with the result expected from the Abrikosov-Gor'kov law giving the behavior of $T_c$ with impurities. Based on the time dependent Ginzburg-Landau theory, we derive a model to account for the striking feature of $T_c$ in organic superconductors for different types of disorder by considering the segregated texture of the system. We show that the calculated $T_c$ quantitatively agrees with experiments. We also focus on the role of superconducting fluctuations on the upper critical fields $H_{c2}$ of layered superconductors showing slab structure where superconducting domains are sandwiched by non-superconducting regions. We found that $H_{c2}$ may be strongly enhanced by such fluctuations.Comment: to appear in Journal of Physics: Condensed Matte