238 research outputs found
The bright and the dark sides of brachytherapy: mechanisms of stenosis reduction and findings of intracoronary β-radiation therapy revealed by IVUS-3D and QCA
Sincethe first percutaneous coronary intervention, 24 years ago, the field of interventional
cardiology has continued to grow rapidly. Although PTCA has demonstrated superiority
to medical therapy in alleviating angina, restenosis and acute closure of the treated
vessel remained major limitations. Stent has improved both problems by preventing
residual dissection, elastic recoil and negative remodeling. However, the occurrence
of restenosis after stenting remains unresolved. Furthermore, in-stent restenosis has
become a new enemy in the field of interventional cardiology, since the conventional
treatment of in-stent restenosis is rather disappointing with high restenosis rates (around
30 - 70%). Therefore, the holy grail to overcome this immense enemy went unabated.
Intracoronary brachytherapy is a powerful therapy to prevent restenosis after percutaneous
transluminal coronary intervention. The purpose of this thesis is to explore the
mechanism of action of intracoronary radiation and the problems related to this
procedure. For this purpose, three-dimensional intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) and
quantitative coronary angiography (QCA) were applied as investigational tools.
This thesis consists of 2 parts; the first part deals with the positive aspect of intracoronary
brachytherapy which explains its increasing application (Chapter 2) and its mechanistic
interpretation (Chapters 3-7). The second part reports on the dark sides of intracoronary
brachytherapy (Chapters 8-12)
Entanglement of orbital angular momentum states between an ensemble of cold atoms and a photon
Recently, atomic ensemble and single photons were successfully entangled by
using collective enhancement [D. N. Matsukevich, \textit{et al.}, Phys. Rev.
Lett. \textbf{95}, 040405(2005).], where atomic internal states and photonic
polarization states were correlated in nonlocal manner. Here we experimentally
clarified that in an ensemble of atoms and a photon system, there also exists
an entanglement concerned with spatial degrees of freedom. Generation of
higher-dimensional entanglement between remote atomic ensemble and an
application to condensed matter physics are also discussed.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
Temperature rise measurement for power-loss comparison of an aluminum electrolytic capacitor between sinusoidal and square-wave current injections
DC-link capacitors are a major factor of degrading reliability of power electric converters because they usually have a shorter lifetime and higher failure rate than those of semiconductor devices or magnetic devices. Characteristics of the capacitors are usually evaluated by a single sinusoidal current waveform. However, actual current flowing out of the converter into the capacitor is a modulated square current waveform. This paper provides experimental comparison of the power loss dissipated in an aluminum electrolytic capacitor between sinusoidal and square-wave current injections. Power loss is estimated by temperature rise of the capacitor. Experimental results confirm that power losses of the square-wave current injection were always lower than those of the sinusoidal current injection by 10–20%. Moreover, the power losses of the square-wave current injection can be estimated by a synthesis of fundamental and harmonic currents based on the Fourier series expansion, which brings a high accuracy less than 1% when more than fifth harmonic current is introduced. This comparison will be useful for estimating power loss and life time of electrolytic capacitors
Spontaneous emission of atoms via collisions of Bose-Einstein condensates
The widely used Gross-Pitaevskii equation treats only coherent aspects of the
evolution of a Bose-Einstein condensate. However, inevitably some atoms scatter
out of the condensate. We have developed a method, based on the field theory
formulation, describing the dynamics of incoherent processes which are due to
elastic collisions. We can therefore treat processes of spontaneous emission of
atoms into the empty modes, as opposed to stimulated processes, which require
non-zero initial occupation.
In this article we study two counter-propagating plane waves of atoms,
calculating the full dynamics of mode occupation, as well as the statistics of
scattered atoms. The more realistic case of Gaussian wavepackets is also
analyzed.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure
Mach-Zehnder Bragg interferometer for a Bose-Einstein Condensate
We construct a Mach-Zehnder interferometer using Bose-Einstein condensed
rubidium atoms and optical Bragg diffraction. In contrast to interferometers
based on normal diffraction, where only a small percentage of the atoms
contribute to the signal, our Bragg diffraction interferometer uses all the
condensate atoms. The condensate coherence properties and high phase-space
density result in an interference pattern of nearly 100% contrast. In
principle, the enclosed area of the interferometer may be arbitrarily large,
making it an ideal tool that could be used in the detection of vortices, or
possibly even gravitational waves.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, Quantum Electronics and Laser Science Conference
1999, Postdeadline papers QPD12-
Does matter wave amplification work for fermions?
We discuss the relationship between bosonic stimulation, density
fluctuations, and matter wave gratings. It is shown that enhanced stimulated
scattering, matter wave amplification and atomic four-wave mixing are in
principle possible for fermionic or non-degenerate samples if they are prepared
in a cooperative state. In practice, there are limitations by short coherence
times.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure
Coherence properties of an atom laser
We study the coherence properties of an atom laser, which operates by
extracting atoms from a gaseous Bose-Einstein condensate via a two-photon Raman
process, by analyzing a recent experiment. We obtain good agreement with the
experimental data by solving the time-dependent Gross-Pitaevskii equation in
three dimensions both numerically and with a Thomas-Fermi model. The coherence
length is strongly affected by the space-dependent phase developed by the
condensate when the trapping potential is turned off.Comment: 11 pages, 2 Postscript figure
Dynamics of Macroscopic Wave Packet Passing through Double Slits: Role of Gravity and Nonlinearity
Using the nonlinear Schroedinger equation (Gross-Pitaevskii equation), the
dynamics of a macroscopic wave packet for Bose-Einstein condensates falling
through double slits is analyzed. This problem is identified with a search for
the fate of a soliton showing a head-on collision with a hard-walled obstacle
of finite size. We explore the splitting of the wave packet and its
reorganization to form an interference pattern. Particular attention is paid to
the role of gravity (g) and repulsive nonlinearity (u_0) in the fringe pattern.
The peak-to-peak distance in the fringe pattern and the number of interference
peaks are found to be proportional to g^(-1/2) and u_0^(1/2)g^(1/4),
respectively. We suggest a way of designing an experiment under controlled
gravity and nonlinearity.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures and 1 tabl
Generating entangled atom-photon pairs from Bose-Einstein condensates
We propose using spontaneous Raman scattering from an optically driven
Bose-Einstein condensate as a source of atom-photon pairs whose internal states
are maximally entangled. Generating entanglement between a particle which is
easily transmitted (the photon) and one which is easily trapped and coherently
manipulated (an ultracold atom) will prove useful for a variety of
quantum-information related applications. We analyze the type of entangled
states generated by spontaneous Raman scattering and construct a geometry which
results in maximum entanglement
Quantum dynamical theory for squeezing the output of a Bose-Einstein condensate
A linear quantum dynamical theory for squeezing the output of the trapped
Bose-Einstein condensate is presented with the Bogoliubov approximation. We
observe that the non-classical properties, such as sub-Poisson distribution and
quadrature squeezing effect, mutually oscillate between the quantum states of
the applied optical field and the resulting atom laser beam with time. In
particular, it is shown that an initially squeezed optical field will lead to
squeezing in the outcoupled atomic beam at later times.Comment: 6 pages, Latex file, Phys.Rev.A 63(2001)1560
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