Strong-field Phenomena in Periodic Systems

The advent of visible-infrared laser pulses carrying a substantial fraction of their energy in a single field oscillation cycle has opened a new era in the experimental investigation of ultrafast processes in semiconductors and dielectrics (bulk as well as nanostructured), motivated by the quest for the ultimate frontiers of electron-based signal metrology and processing. Exploring ways to approach those frontiers requires insight into the physics underlying the interaction of strong high-frequency (optical) fields with electrons moving in periodic potentials. This Colloquium aims at providing this insight. Introduction to the foundations of strong-field phenomena defines and compares regimes of field--matter interaction in periodic systems, including (perfect) crystals as well as optical and semiconductor superlattices, followed by a review of recent experimental advances in the study of strong-field dynamics in crystals and nanostructures. Avenues toward measuring and controlling electronic processes up to petahertz frequencies are discussed

Attosecond streaking enables the measurement of quantum phase

Attosecond streaking, as a measurement technique, was originally conceived as a means to characterize attosecond light pulses, which is a good approximation if the relevant transition matrix elements are approximately constant within the bandwidth of the light pulse. Our analysis of attosecond streaking measurements on systems with complex response to the photoionizing pulse establishes a relation between the momentum-space wave function of the outgoing electron and the result of conventional retrieval algorithms. This finding enables the measurement of the quantum phase associated with bound-continuum transition matrix elements.Comment: similar to the version accepted for publication in PR

The art of unhappiness: Elfriede Jelineks The Pianist between tradition and mass media

Este artigo tem como propósito a contextualização do romance A Pianista, de Elfriede Jelinek, no âmbito de uma tradição literária austríaca caracterizada pela visão crítica da sociedade e de seus conflitos, da qual fizeram parte grandes expoentes das letras deste país no período entre-guerras. Se no pós-guerra o establishment literário austríaco empenhou-se pelo estabelecimento de um consenso social por meio da difusão de uma ideologia harmonística, que visava reinstaurar elementos da sociedade habsburga na 2ª. República, o ressurgimento de uma literatura de rebeldia e estranhamento na Áustria da década de 1980 pode ser compreendido como uma reação a este projeto de restauração de um ideário anacrônico. Neste sentido, a confrontação, em A Pianista, entre Erika Kohut, sua mãe e Walter Klemmer pode ser uma representação metafórica de conflitos próprios de uma sociedade dividida entre o apego às glórias de uma tradição cultural que se deseja preservar e o assédio permanente de uma mass-media globalizada e estruturada sobre parâmetros que estão em oposição diametral a esta tradição. Ao mesmo tempo, busca-se contextualizar as visões de mundo e formas de comportamento representadas no romance no âmbito da chamada Österreich Ideologie, onde surgem como princípios de convívio social herdados da ideologia habsburga, e que permanecem como substratos parcialmente anacrônicos e parcialmente ilusórios na cultura austríaca dos anos 1980.The purpose of this article is the contextualization of Elfriede Jelinek's Die Klaverspielerin within the tradition of social criticism in Austrian literature, to which several authors from the interbellum period belong. After 1945, Austria's literary establishment strove to create social peace by means of the diffusion of a harmonistic ideology. The aim of this ideology was to reestablish a system of values inherited from the Monarchy in te 2nd. Republic and the emergence of a literature of protest and estrangement in Austria in the 1980's can be seen as a reaction against this project of restoration of an anachronistic ideology. The central conflict structuring Jelinek's narrative - a conflict between Erika Kohut, her mother and Walter Klemmer - is here seen as a kind of metaphorical representation of conflicts characteristic of a society divided between its attachment to the glories of a vanished cultural tradition and the unremitting assault of global mass media, structured over parameters that are diametrically opposed to this tradition. At the same time, I attempt to situate specific ways of behavior and Weltanschauungen portrayed in this novel within the cultural atmosphere where they emerge, particularly that of the so-called Österreich Ideologie, pointing to principles of social conviviality that seem to derive from Habsburg ideology and which remain as partly unconscious and illusory undercurrents in Austrian culture in the 1980's and 1990's.Der Ziel dieses Artikels ist die Kontextualisierung von Elfriede Jelineks Roman Die Klavierspielerin innerhalb einer kritischen Tradition der österreichischen Literatur des 20. Jahrhunderts, zu welcher fast alle bedeutenden Autoren dieses Landes in den 20er. und 30er. Jahren irgendwie gehören. Nach 1945 gelang es dem österreichischen literarischen Establishment eine harmonistishce Ideologie durchzusetzen, die alle gesellschaftliche Gegensätze durch eine eskapistische Tendenz und eine Rückkehr zu Elemente der habsburgische Ideologie ersetzten. Die Protest-Literatur der 1980er. kann als Reaktion gegen diese sogenannte Österreich Ideologie verstanden werden. Die Klavierspielerin scheint auf einem Konflikt strukturiert zu sein und dieser Konflikt zeichnet sich als Opposition zwischen einer festen Beziehung zur österreichischen Vergangenheit, ins besondere zur vergangenen Musiktradition einerseits, und dem ständigen Einfluss der globalisierten Mass-media andererseits. Erika Kohut, ihre Mutter und Walter Klemmer, die Protagonisten des Romans, können daher als Sinnbilder verschiedener Weltanschauungen gedeutet werden, die zwischen den Trümmern der Ideologie der verschollenen Doppelmonarchie und der Integration in der globalisierten Welt schwanken. Dadurch können sie auch als bedeutende Symbole der österreichischen Gesellschaft unserer Zeit verstanden werde

Fora dos muros: entre a "Bildung" e a Revelação

This article discusses the change of paradigms perceived in Germany's Jewish community in the first decades of the 19th. Century, as a result of the fall of the walls which until that time separated Jews from their Christian German neighbours. The triumph of the ideas of Illuminism and the rapid penetration of these ideas in a community which longed for social integration, and which had hitherto been discriminated because of its ethnic and religious background, stimulated the adoption of new world views and new concepts of nationality and spirituality among Jews who had recently left the walls of the Ghettoes behind. One of the central passages in this change process is described by Berthold Auerbach (1812-1882) as the transformation of the idea of 'Revelation' into 'Bildung' – a cardinal concept in the 19th Century German culture. This seems to explain German Jews' affinity with the humanistic culture of their time: it now appears to occupy the central role which had hitherto been reserved to religious studies.Este artigo trata da rápida substituição de paradigmas que se processa no seio da comunidade judaica alemã nas primeiras décadas do século 19, como resultado da derrubada dos muros que, até então, separavam os judeus dos alemães cristãos. O triunfo das idéias do Iluminismo bem como sua rápida penetração no âmbito de uma comunidade ansiosa por integração numa sociedade que prometia a igualdade entre todos os seus membros, independentemente de sua origem étnica ou religiosa, estimulou, entre os judeus egressos dos guetos, a adoção de novas visões de mundo e de novos conceitos de nacionalidade e espiritualidade. Uma das passagens centrais nesse processo de mudança é descrita pelo escritor Berthold Auerbach (1812-1882) como a transformação da idéia de 'Revelação', central à tradição judaica, em 'Bildung', fundamental na cultura alemã do século 19. Trata-se de uma mudança de paradigmas que explica, de certa forma, a grande afinidade dos judeus do mundo de língua alemã com a reflexão humanística de seu tempo, que parece ocupar o lugar privilegiado antes reservado aos estudos de caráter religioso

O mal-estar da "Gerechtigkeit"

"Der Fall Maurizius" by Jakob Wassermann was first published in 1928. It is set partly in 1908 Germany and partly during the Weimar Republic. In this work, Wassermann criticizes German pragmatism by depicting the State bureaucracy as the absolute power over citizens, even after the Imperial Era. Disgusted with the mismanagement of the justice system and with the perverse character of those in charge, the author renders German pragmatism as non-adherence to the moral values supposedly justifying the State apparatus – in particular, as a breach of the "Gerechtigkeit" principle. The harmless innocence of the adolescent Etzel von Andergast, the only child of a well-known prosecutor, highlights this violation of justice. At the same time, Waremme is a sinister character whose Jewish parents fled from Prussian-occupied Poland. He breaks with his ancestors' moral values and is eager to play a key role in the German Nationalistic movement. However, he feels frustrated with his project of cultural assimilation and is pushed towards the outskirts of a bewildered society. The crisis of values and transgression of justice become the emblems of Wassermann’s generation.Em "Der Fall Maurizius", romance de Jakob Wassermann de 1928, parcialmente ambientado em 1908, à época da República de Weimar, o autor critica o pragmatismo alemão, apoiado numa burocracia de estado que, mesmo depois do fim do Império, continua a exercer o poder de maneira absoluta. Wassermann revolta-se contra a má administração da justiça, e contra o caráter perverso daqueles que, tendo se apoderado do aparelho estatal, arrogam a si mesmos o papel de representantes dos melhores princípios do humanismo alemão. O pragmatismo, assim, apresenta-se como a falsificação daqueles valores que supostamente o legitimariam – notadamente, do princípio de Justiça, "Gerechtigkeit". A inocência de um adolescente, Etzel von Andergast, filho de um grande promotor, é o que traz à luz este estado de adulteração. Ao mesmo tempo, a figura de Waremme, descendente de judeus provenientes de regiões da Polônia ocupadas pela Prússia desde 1772, é uma figura sinistra, que rompeu com o legado ético de seus antepassados, pretendendo exercer um papel de destaque no movimento nacionalista alemão, para frustrar-se e ocupar posição marginal numa sociedade repleta de desencaminhados e perplexos. Desta forma o autor representa as aporias de uma geração que sente na pele esse exílio da justiça e a crise generalizada de valores

Leopold Kompert : conciliador de facções judaicas na Mitteleuropa

This article deals with two short stories by Leopold Kompert (1822-1886), a Jewish author from the Austro-Hungarian Empire and one of the major names in a genre which became known as Ghettoliteratur. As all other authors in his genre, Kompert dealt mainly with the conflicts involved in the passage from the world of traditional Jewry towards 19th into modernity. But he did this in a typical Habsburg way. Rather then emphasizing the incompatibility between these two worlds, Kompert tries, on the one hand, to preserve the memory of the vanishing world of the Jewish Shtetl, and on the other hand to create a synthesis between this world and the multi-lingual and multi-cultural Austro-Hungarian Empire

Jakob Wassermann e Kaspar Hauser : 100 anos depois

This article draws a parallel between Jakob Wassermann's interest in the history of Kaspar Hauser, which led him to write a novel still considered as the most eloquent literary rendering of this episode, and his own situation as an outsider in German culture. Wassermann's feeling of alienation towards his own country is expressed in his autobiography, titled “Mein Weg als Deutscher und Jude” and his “Kaspar Hauser” is seen here a kind of "estrangement novel", a term which is a counterpoint to the traditional German concept of Bildungsroman. In this respect, it displays some striking analogies with works by later authors, who have drawn this specifically Jewish-German genre to a kind of paroxysm, such as Franz Kafka and Elias Canetti. A novel by an author usually seen as a conservative thus reveals an unexpected avant-garde aspect, which in certain ways foresees the future development of Jewish-German literature. On the other hand, Wassermann's critique to the Bismarckian mentality, which dominated Germany in the first half of the19th. Century, appears to detect some tendencies crucial to the development of German political life in the early 20th, century

A arte da infelicidade : "A Pianista", de Elfriede Jelinek, entre tradição e mass-media

The purpose of this article is the contextualization of Elfriede Jelinek's "Die Klaverspielerin" within the tradition of social criticism in Austrian literature, to which several authors from the interbellum period belong. After 1945, Austria's literary establishment strove to create social peace by means of the diffusion of a harmonistic ideology. The aim of this ideology was to reestablish a system of values inherited from the Monarchy in the 2nd Republic and the emergence of a literature of protest and estrangement in Austria in the 1980's can be seen as a reaction against this project of restoration of an anachronistic ideology. The central conflict structuring Jelinek's narrative – a conflict between Erika Kohut, her mother and Walter Klemmer – is here seen as a kind of metaphorical representation of conflicts characteristic of a society divided between its attachment to the glories of a vanished cultural tradition and the unremitting assault of global mass media, structured over parameters that are diametrically opposed to this tradition. At the same time, I attempt to situate specific ways of behavior and 'Weltanschauungen' portrayed in this novel within the cultural atmosphere where they emerge, particularly that of the so-called 'Österreich Ideologie', pointing to principles of social conviviality that seem to derive from Habsburg ideology and which remain as partly unconscious and illusory undercurrents in Austrian culture in the 1980's and 1990's.Este artigo tem como propósito a contextualização do romance "A Pianista", de Elfriede Jelinek, no âmbito de uma tradição literária austríaca caracterizada pela visão crítica da sociedade e de seus conflitos, da qual fizeram parte grandes expoentes das letras deste país no período entre-guerras. Se no pós-guerra o establishment literário austríaco empenhou-se pelo estabelecimento de um consenso social por meio da difusão de uma ideologia harmonística, que visava reinstaurar elementos da sociedade habsburga na 2ª. República, o ressurgimento de uma literatura de rebeldia e estranhamento na Áustria da década de 1980 pode ser compreendido como uma reação a este projeto de restauração de um ideário anacrônico. Neste sentido, a confrontação, em "A Pianista", entre Erika Kohut, sua mãe e Walter Klemmer pode ser uma representação metafórica de conflitos próprios de uma sociedade dividida entre o apego às glórias de uma tradição cultural que se deseja preservar e o assédio permanente de uma massmedia globalizada e estruturada sobre parâmetros que estão em oposição diametral a esta tradição. Ao mesmo tempo, busca-se contextualizar as visões de mundo e formas de comportamento representadas no romance no âmbito da chamada 'Österreich Ideologie', onde surgem como princípios de convívio social herdados da ideologia habsburga, e que permanecem como substratos parcialmente anacrônicos e parcialmente ilusórios na cultura austríaca dos anos 1980.Der Ziel dieses Artikels ist die Kontextualisierung von Elfriede Jelineks Roman "Die Klavierspielerin" innerhalb einer kritischen Tradition der österreichischen Literatur des 20. Jahrhunderts, zu welcher fast alle bedeutenden Autoren dieses Landes in den 20er. und 30er. Jahren irgendwie gehören. Nach 1945 gelang es dem österreichischen literarischen Establishment eine harmonistishce Ideologie durchzusetzen, die alle gesellschaftliche Gegensätze durch eine eskapistische Tendenz und eine Rückkehr zu Elemente der habsburgische Ideologie ersetzten. Die Protest-Literatur der 1980er. kann als Reaktion gegen diese sogenannte 'Österreich Ideologie' verstanden werden. "Die Klavierspielerin" scheint auf einem Konflikt strukturiert zu sein und dieser Konflikt zeichnet sich als Opposition zwischen einer festen Beziehung zur österreichischen Vergangenheit, ins besondere zur vergangenen Musiktradition einerseits, und dem ständigen Einfluss der globalisierten Mass-media andererseits. Erika Kohut, ihre Mutter und Walter Klemmer, die Protagonisten des Romans, können daher als Sinnbilder verschiedener Weltanschauungen gedeutet werden, die zwischen den Trümmern der Ideologie der verschollenen Doppelmonarchie und der Integration in der globalisierten Welt schwanken. Dadurch können sie auch als bedeutende Symbole der österreichischen Gesellschaft unserer Zeit verstanden werden

Kolonialismus, Regression und Sinnlichkeit in Robert Menasses «Sinnliche Gewissheit»: [Colonialism, regression and sensuality in Robert Menasse’s «Sinnliche Gewissheit»]

Even though Robert Menasse claims, through the words of his alter ego Roman Gilanian, the protagonist of Sinnliche Gewissheit [Sensual Certainty], that he does not know what to say about the Brazilians, this novel displays a certain portrait of Brazil. As a land of blatant social injustice, of sensuality, hedonism and irrationality, Brazil is at the same time fascinating and repulsive for a novelist who sees it through European eyes. For Menasse, Brazil remains foreign and mysterious, a land full of contradictions and paradoxes that seem to pose a threat to his philosophical concepts. This article highlights three themes that play a key role in the plot of Sinnliche Gewissheit: colonialism, regression and sensuality which, at the same time, challenge the idea of Heimat