5,850 research outputs found
The influence of forward-scattered light in transmission measurements of (exo)planetary atmospheres
[Abridged] The transmission of light through a planetary atmosphere can be
studied as a function of altitude and wavelength using stellar or solar
occultations, giving often unique constraints on the atmospheric composition.
For exoplanets, a transit yields a limb-integrated, wavelength-dependent
transmission spectrum of an atmosphere. When scattering haze and/or cloud
particles are present in the planetary atmosphere, the amount of transmitted
flux not only depends on the total optical thickness of the slant light path
that is probed, but also on the amount of forward-scattering by the scattering
particles. Here, we present results of calculations with a three-dimensional
Monte Carlo code that simulates the transmitted flux during occultations or
transits. For isotropically scattering particles, like gas molecules, the
transmitted flux appears to be well-described by the total atmospheric optical
thickness. Strongly forward-scattering particles, however, such as commonly
found in atmospheres of Solar System planets, can increase the transmitted flux
significantly. For exoplanets, such added flux can decrease the apparent radius
of the planet by several scale heights, which is comparable to predicted and
measured features in exoplanet transit spectra. We performed detailed
calculations for Titan's atmosphere between 2.0 and 2.8 micron and show that
haze and gas abundances will be underestimated by about 8% if
forward-scattering is ignored in the retrievals. At shorter wavelengths, errors
in the gas and haze abundances and in the spectral slope of the haze particles
can be several tens of percent, also for other Solar System planetary
atmospheres. We also find that the contribution of forward-scattering can be
fairly well described by modelling the atmosphere as a plane-parallel slab.Comment: Icarus, accepted for publicatio
Effects of self-phase modulation on weak nonlinear optical quantum gates
A possible two-qubit gate for optical quantum computing is the parity gate
based on the weak Kerr effect. Two photonic qubits modulate the phase of a
coherent state, and a quadrature measurement of the coherent state reveals the
parity of the two qubits without destroying the photons. This can be used to
create so-called cluster states, a universal resource for quantum computing.
Here, the effect of self-phase modulation on the parity gate is studied,
introducing generating functions for the Wigner function of a modulated
coherent state. For materials with non-EIT-based Kerr nonlinearities, there is
typically a self-phase modulation that is half the magnitude of the cross-phase
modulation. Therefore, this effect cannot be ignored. It is shown that for a
large class of physical implementations of the phase modulation, the quadrature
measurement cannot distinguish between odd and even parity. Consequently, weak
nonlinear parity gates must be implemented with physical systems where the
self-phase modulation is negligable.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure
Information gap for classical and quantum communication in a Schwarzschild spacetime
Communication between a free-falling observer and an observer hovering above
the Schwarzschild horizon of a black hole suffers from Unruh-Hawking noise,
which degrades communication channels. Ignoring time dilation, which affects
all channels equally, we show that for bosonic communication using single and
dual rail encoding the classical channel capacity reaches a finite value and
the quantum coherent information tends to zero. We conclude that classical
correlations still exist at infinite acceleration, whereas the quantum
coherence is fully removed.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
A Quantum Rosetta Stone for Interferometry
Heisenberg-limited measurement protocols can be used to gain an increase in
measurement precision over classical protocols. Such measurements can be
implemented using, e.g., optical Mach-Zehnder interferometers and Ramsey
spectroscopes. We address the formal equivalence between the Mach-Zehnder
interferometer, the Ramsey spectroscope, and the discrete Fourier transform.
Based on this equivalence we introduce the ``quantum Rosetta stone'', and we
describe a projective-measurement scheme for generating the desired
correlations between the interferometric input states in order to achieve
Heisenberg-limited sensitivity. The Rosetta stone then tells us the same method
should work in atom spectroscopy.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure
Super-resolving multi-photon interferences with independent light sources
We propose to use multi-photon interferences from statistically independent
light sources in combination with linear optical detection techniques to
enhance the resolution in imaging. Experimental results with up to five
independent thermal light sources confirm this approach to improve the spatial
resolution. Since no involved quantum state preparation or detection is
required the experiment can be considered an extension of the Hanbury Brown and
Twiss experiment for spatial intensity correlations of order N>2
The creation of large photon-number path entanglement conditioned on photodetection
Large photon-number path entanglement is an important resource for enhanced
precision measurements and quantum imaging. We present a general constructive
protocol to create any large photon number path-entangled state based on the
conditional detection of single photons. The influence of imperfect detectors
is considered and an asymptotic scaling law is derived.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure
Partial Wave Analyses of the pp data alone and of the np data alone
We present results of the Nijmegen partial-wave analyses of all NN scattering
data below Tlab = 500 MeV. We have been able to extract for the first time the
important np phase shifts for both I = 0 and I = 1 from the np scattering data
alone. This allows us to study the charge independence breaking between the pp
and np I = 1 phases. In our analyses we obtain for the pp data chi^2_{min}/Ndf
= 1.13 and for the np data chi^2_{min}/Ndf = 1.12.Comment: Report THEF-NYM 94.04, 4 pages LaTeX, one PostScript figure appended.
Contribution to the 14th Few-Body Conference, May 26 - 31, Williamsburg, V
The GROUSE project III: Ks-band observations of the thermal emission from WASP-33b
In recent years, day-side emission from about a dozen hot Jupiters has been
detected through ground-based secondary eclipse observations in the
near-infrared. These near-infrared observations are vital for determining the
energy budgets of hot Jupiters, since they probe the planet's spectral energy
distribution near its peak. The aim of this work is to measure the Ks-band
secondary eclipse depth of WASP-33b, the first planet discovered to transit an
A-type star. This planet receives the highest level of irradiation of all
transiting planets discovered to date. Furthermore, its host-star shows
pulsations and is classified as a low-amplitude delta-Scuti. As part of our
GROUnd-based Secondary Eclipse (GROUSE) project we have obtained observations
of two separate secondary eclipses of WASP-33b in the Ks-band using the LIRIS
instrument on the William Herschel Telescope (WHT). The telescope was
significantly defocused to avoid saturation of the detector for this bright
star (K~7.5). To increase the stability and the cadence of the observations,
they were performed in staring mode. We collected a total of 5100 and 6900
frames for the first and the second night respectively, both with an average
cadence of 3.3 seconds. On the second night the eclipse is detected at the
12-sigma level, with a measured eclipse depth of 0.244+0.027-0.020 %. This
eclipse depth corresponds to a brightness temperature of 3270+115-160 K. The
measured brightness temperature on the second night is consistent with the
expected equilibrium temperature for a planet with a very low albedo and a
rapid re-radiation of the absorbed stellar light. For the other night the short
out-of-eclipse baseline prevents good corrections for the stellar pulsations
and systematic effects, which makes this dataset unreliable for eclipse depth
measurements. This demonstrates the need of getting a sufficient out-of-eclipse
baseline.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures. Accepted for publication in Astronomy and
Astrophysic
Carbon monoxide and water vapor in the atmosphere of the non-transiting exoplanet HD 179949 b
(Abridged) In recent years, ground-based high-resolution spectroscopy has
become a powerful tool for investigating exoplanet atmospheres. It allows the
robust identification of molecular species, and it can be applied to both
transiting and non-transiting planets. Radial-velocity measurements of the star
HD 179949 indicate the presence of a giant planet companion in a close-in
orbit. Here we present the analysis of spectra of the system at 2.3 micron,
obtained at a resolution of R~100,000, during three nights of observations with
CRIRES at the VLT. We targeted the system while the exoplanet was near superior
conjunction, aiming to detect the planet's thermal spectrum and the radial
component of its orbital velocity. We detect molecular absorption from carbon
monoxide and water vapor with a combined S/N of 6.3, at a projected planet
orbital velocity of K_P = (142.8 +- 3.4) km/s, which translates into a planet
mass of M_P = (0.98 +- 0.04) Jupiter masses, and an orbital inclination of i =
(67.7 +- 4.3) degrees, using the known stellar radial velocity and stellar
mass. The detection of absorption features rather than emission means that,
despite being highly irradiated, HD 179949 b does not have an atmospheric
temperature inversion in the probed range of pressures and temperatures. Since
the host star is active (R_HK > -4.9), this is in line with the hypothesis that
stellar activity damps the onset of thermal inversion layers owing to UV flux
photo-dissociating high-altitude, optical absorbers. Finally, our analysis
favors an oxygen-rich atmosphere for HD 179949 b, although a carbon-rich planet
cannot be statistically ruled out based on these data alone.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures. Accepted for publication in Astronomy and
Astrophysic
From Linear Optical Quantum Computing to Heisenberg-Limited Interferometry
The working principles of linear optical quantum computing are based on
photodetection, namely, projective measurements. The use of photodetection can
provide efficient nonlinear interactions between photons at the single-photon
level, which is technically problematic otherwise. We report an application of
such a technique to prepare quantum correlations as an important resource for
Heisenberg-limited optical interferometry, where the sensitivity of phase
measurements can be improved beyond the usual shot-noise limit. Furthermore,
using such nonlinearities, optical quantum nondemolition measurements can now
be carried out at the single-photon level.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures; Submitted to a Special Issue of J. Opt. B on
"Fluctuations and Noise in Photonics and Quantum Optics" (Herman Haus
Memorial Issue); v2: minor change
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