Dipole excitation and geometry of borromean nuclei

We analyze the Coulomb breakup cross sections of $^{11}$Li and $^6$He nuclei using a three-body model with a density-dependent contact interaction. We show that the concentration of the B(E1) strength near the threshold can be well reproduced with this model. With the help of the calculated B(E1) value, we extract the root-mean-square (rms) distance between the core nucleus and the center of mass of two valence neutrons without resorting to the sum rule, which may suffer from unphysical Pauli forbidden transitions. Together with the empirical rms distance between the neutrons obtained from the matter radius study and also from the three-body correlation study in the break-up reaction, we convert these rms distances to the mean opening angle between the valence neutrons from the core nucleus. We find that the obtained mean opening angles in $^{11}$Li and $^6$He agree with the three-body model predictions.Comment: 4 pages, 4 eps figure

Quasirelativistic quasilocal finite wave-function collapse model

A Markovian wave function collapse model is presented where the collapse-inducing operator, constructed from quantum fields, is a manifestly covariant generalization of the mass density operator utilized in the nonrelativistic Continuous Spontaneous Localization (CSL) wave function collapse model. However, the model is not Lorentz invariant because two such operators do not commute at spacelike separation, i.e., the time-ordering operation in one Lorentz frame, the "preferred" frame, is not the time-ordering operation in another frame. However, the characteristic spacelike distance over which the commutator decays is the particle's Compton wavelength so, since the commutator rapidly gets quite small, the model is "almost" relativistic. This "QRCSL" model is completely finite: unlike previous, relativistic, models, it has no (infinite) energy production from the vacuum state. QRCSL calculations are given of the collapse rate for a single free particle in a superposition of spatially separated packets, and of the energy production rate for any number of free particles: these reduce to the CSL rates if the particle's Compton wavelength is small compared to the model's distance parameter. One motivation for QRCSL is the realization that previous relativistic models entail excitation of nuclear states which exceeds that of experiment, whereas QRCSL does not: an example is given involving quadrupole excitation of the $^{74}$Ge nucleus.Comment: 10 pages, to be published in Phys. Rev.

Nonlinear coupling of continuous variables at the single quantum level

We experimentally investigate nonlinear couplings between vibrational modes of strings of cold ions stored in linear ion traps. The nonlinearity is caused by the ions' Coulomb interaction and gives rise to a Kerr-type interaction Hamiltonian H = n_r*n_s, where n_r,n_s are phonon number operators of two interacting vibrational modes. We precisely measure the resulting oscillation frequency shift and observe a collapse and revival of the contrast in a Ramsey experiment. Implications for ion trap experiments aiming at high-fidelity quantum gate operations are discussed

Universal behavior of a trapped Fermi superfluid in the BCS-unitarity crossover

From an extensive calculation of static properties of a trapped Fermi superfluid at zero temperature using a density-functional formulation, we demonstrate a universal behavior of its observables, such as energy, chemical potential, radius etc., over the crossover from the BCS limit to unitarity leading to scaling over many orders of magnitude in fermion number. This scaling allows to predict the static properties of the system, with a large number ($\sim 10^5$) of fermions, over the crossover with an error of 1-2%, from the knowledge of those for a small number ($\sim 10$) of fermions.Comment: 6 page

Clustering data by inhomogeneous chaotic map lattices

A new approach to clustering, based on the physical properties of inhomogeneous coupled chaotic maps, is presented. A chaotic map is assigned to each data-point and short range couplings are introduced. The stationary regime of the system corresponds to a macroscopic attractor independent of the initial conditions. The mutual information between couples of maps serves to partition the data set in clusters, without prior assumptions about the structure of the underlying distribution of the data. Experiments on simulated and real data sets show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures. Revised version accepted for publication on Physical Review Letter