11,830 research outputs found
Manifestation of superfluidity in an evolving Bose-condensed gas
We study the generation of excitations due to an ''impurity''(static
perturbation) placed into an oscillating Bose-condensed gas in the
time-dependent trapping field. It is shown that there are two regions for the
position of the local perturbation. In the first region the condensate flows
around the ''impurity'' without generation of excitations demonstrating
superfluid properties. In the second region the creation of excitations occurs,
at least within a limited time interval, revealing destruction of
superfluidity. The phenomenon can be studied by measuring the damping of
condensate oscillations at different positions of the ''impurity''
Expansion of an interacting Fermi gas
We study the expansion of a dilute ultracold sample of fermions initially
trapped in a anisotropic harmonic trap. The expansion of the cloud provides
valuable information about the state of the system and the role of
interactions. In particular the time evolution of the deformation of the
expanding cloud behaves quite differently depending on whether the system is in
the normal or in the superfluid phase. For the superfluid phase, we predict an
inversion of the deformation of the sample, similarly to what happens with
Bose-Einstein condensates. Viceversa, in the normal phase, the inversion of the
aspect ratio is never achieved, if the mean field interaction is attractive and
collisions are negligible.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, final versio
Community, work and family and the metamorphosis of social change
On the ten year anniversary of this biannual conference we revisit our hopes/aims and expectations when Community, Work and Family was first developed, as a journal and later as a conferences. We reflect on where we are now; and to look forwards to the challenges posed by current and future contexts. We note a number of gathering storms – global social trends which can be described as crises and form the contemporary context for communities, workplaces and families and their interface. These include: economic crisis; demographic crisis including population mobility; gender crisis; crisis of care and crisis of violence
Measurement of positive and negative scattering lengths in a Fermi gas of atoms
An exotic superfluid phase has been predicted for an ultracold gas of
fermionic atoms. This phase requires strong attractive interactions in the gas,
or correspondingly atoms with a large, negative s-wave scattering length. Here
we report on progress toward realizing this predicted superfluid phase. We
present measurements of both large positive and large negative scattering
lengths in a quantum degenerate Fermi gas of atoms. Starting with a
two-component gas that has been evaporatively cooled to quantum degeneracy, we
create controllable, strong interactions between the atoms using a
magnetic-field Feshbach resonance. We then employ a novel rf spectroscopy
technique to directly measure the mean-field interaction energy, which is
proportional to the s-wave scattering length. Near the peak of the resonance we
observe a saturation of the interaction energy; it is in this strongly
interacting regime that superfluidity is predicted to occur. We have also
observed anisotropic expansion of the gas, which has recently been suggested as
a signature of superfluidity. However, we find that this can be attributed to a
purely collisional effect
Recognition for an Innate Explorer
On June 5, 2013, Ruslan Medzhitov received the Else Kröner-Fresenius Immunology Award. This recognition goes to an individual who has had such an influence on basic and medical immunology that it is almost difficult to recall a time before his discoveries were made. But in reality, that time was not long ago. To mark this celebratory event, I highlight the conceptual revolution spurred by his work, which continues to inspire excitement today
Rank-Ordering Statistics of Extreme Events: Application to the Distribution of Large Earthquakes
Rank-ordering statistics provides a perspective on the rare, largest elements
of a population, whereas the statistics of cumulative distributions are
dominated by the more numerous small events. The exponent of a power law
distribution can be determined with good accuracy by rank-ordering statistics
from the observation of only a few tens of the largest events. Using analytical
results and synthetic tests, we quantify the systematic and the random errors.
We also study the case of a distribution defined by two branches, each having
a power law distribution, one defined for the largest events and the other for
smaller events, with application to the World-Wide (Harvard) and Southern
California earthquake catalogs. In the case of the Harvard moment catalog, we
make more precise earlier claims of the existence of a transition of the
earthquake magnitude distribution between small and large earthquakes; the
-values are for large shallow earthquakes and for smaller shallow earthquakes. However, the cross-over
magnitude between the two distributions is ill-defined. The data available at
present do not provide a strong constraint on the cross-over which has a
probability of being between magnitudes and for shallow
earthquakes; this interval may be too conservatively estimated. Thus, any
influence of a universal geometry of rupture on the distribution of earthquakes
world-wide is ill-defined at best. We caution that there is no direct evidence
to confirm the hypothesis that the large-moment branch is indeed a power law.
In fact, a gamma distribution fits the entire suite of earthquake moments from
the smallest to the largest satisfactorily. There is no evidence that the
earthquakes of the Southern California catalog have a distribution with tw
Acoustic Emission Monitoring of the Syracuse Athena Temple: Scale Invariance in the Timing of Ruptures
We perform a comparative statistical analysis between the acoustic-emission time series from the ancient Greek Athena temple in Syracuse and the sequence of nearby earthquakes. We find an apparent association between acoustic-emission bursts and the earthquake occurrence. The waiting-time distributions for acoustic-emission and earthquake time series are described by a unique scaling law indicating self-similarity over a wide range of magnitude scales. This evidence suggests a correlation between the aging process of the temple and the local seismic activit
Bounce-free spherical hydrodynamic implosion
In a bounce-free spherical hydrodynamic implosion, the post-stagnation hot
core plasma does not expand against the imploding flow. Such an implosion
scheme has the advantage of improving the dwell time of the burning fuel,
resulting in a higher fusion burn-up fraction. The existence of bounce-free
spherical implosions is demonstrated by explicitly constructing a family of
self-similar solutions to the spherically symmetric ideal hydrodynamic
equations. When applied to a specific example of plasma liner driven
magneto-inertial fusion, the bounce-free solution is found to produce at least
a factor of four improvement in dwell time and fusion energy gain.Comment: accepted by Phys. Plasmas (Nov. 7, 2011); for Ref. 11, please see
ftp://ftp.lanl.gov/public/kagan/liner_evolution.gi
Finite temperature correlations and density profiles of an inhomogeneous interacting 1D Bose gas
We calculate the density profiles and density correlation functions of the
one-dimensional Bose gas in a harmonic trap, using the exact finite-temperature
solutions for the uniform case, and applying a local density approximation. The
results are valid for a trapping potential which is slowly varying relative to
a correlation length. They allow a direct experimental test of the transition
from the weak coupling Gross-Pitaevskii regime to the strong coupling,
'fermionic' Tonks-Girardeau regime. We also calculate the average two-particle
correlation which characterizes the bulk properties of the sample, and find
that it can be well approximated by the value of the local pair correlation in
the trap center.Comment: Final published version; updated references; 19 pages, 12 figure
Phenomenological implications of an alternative Hamiltonian constraint for quantum cosmology
In this paper we review a model based on loop quantum cosmology that arises
from a symmetry reduction of the self dual Plebanski action. In this
formulation the symmetry reduction leads to a very simple Hamiltonian
constraint that can be quantized explicitly in the framework of loop quantum
cosmology. We investigate the phenomenological implications of this model in
the semi-classical regime and compare those with the known results of the
standard Loop Quantum Cosmology.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figure
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