Free-electron Model for Mesoscopic Force Fluctuations in Nanowires

When two metal electrodes are separated, a nanometer sized wire (nanowire) is formed just before the contact breaks. The electrical conduction measured during this retraction process shows signs of quantized conductance in units of G_0=2e^2/h. Recent experiments show that the force acting on the wire during separation fluctuates, which has been interpreted as being due to atomic rearrangements. In this report we use a simple free electron model, for two simple geometries, and show that the electronic contribution to the force fluctuations is comparable to the experimentally found values, about 2 nN.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, reference correcte

Complementarity of Resonant Scalar, Vector-Like Quark and Superpartner Searches in Elucidating New Phenomena

The elucidation of the nature of new phenomena requires a multi-pronged approach to understand the essential physics that underlies it. As an example, we study the simplified model containing a new scalar singlet accompanied by vector-like quarks, as motivated by the recent diphoton excess at the LHC. To be specific, we investigate three models with $SU(2)_L$-doublet, vector-like quarks with Yukawa couplings to a new scalar singlet and which also couple off-diagonally to corresponding Standard Model fermions of the first or third generation through the usual Higgs boson. We demonstrate that three classes of searches can play important and complementary roles in constraining this model. In particular, we find that missing energy searches designed for superparticle production, supply superior sensitivity for vector-like quarks than the dedicated new quark searches themselves.Comment: References added; small bug found in model and analysis implementation, numerical results slightly modified, conclusions unchange

Rotation of an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate with and without a quantized vortex

We theoretically examine the rotation of an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate in an elliptical trap, both in the absence and presence of a quantized vortex. Two methods of introducing the rotating potential are considered - adiabatically increasing the rotation frequency at fixed ellipticity, and adiabatically increasing the trap ellipticity at fixed rotation frequency. Extensive simulations of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation are employed to map out the points where the condensate becomes unstable and ultimately forms a vortex lattice. We highlight the key features of having a quantized vortex in the initial condensate. In particular, we find that the presence of the vortex causes the instabilities to shift to lower or higher rotation frequencies, depending on the direction of the vortex relative to the trap rotation.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figure

Observation of plaquette fluctuations in the spin-1/2 honeycomb lattice

Quantum spin liquids are materials that feature quantum entangled spin correlations and avoid magnetic long-range order at T = 0 K. Particularly interesting are two-dimensional honeycomb spin lattices where a plethora of exotic quantum spin liquids have been predicted. Here, we experimentally study an effective S=1/2 Heisenberg honeycomb lattice with competing nearest and next-nearest neighbor interactions. We demonstrate that YbBr$_3$ avoids order down to at least T=100 mK and features a dynamic spin-spin correlation function with broad continuum scattering typical of quantum spin liquids near a quantum critical point. The continuum in the spin spectrum is consistent with plaquette type fluctuations predicted by theory. Our study is the experimental demonstration that strong quantum fluctuations can exist on the honeycomb lattice even in the absence of Kitaev-type interactions, and opens a new perspective on quantum spin liquids.Comment: 32 pages, 7 Figure

Production of J/psi Mesons at HERA

Inelastic and diffractive production of J/psi mesons at HERA is reviewed. The data on inelastic photoproduction are described well within errors by the Colour Singlet Model in next-to-leading order. A search for colour octet processes predicted within the NRQCD/factorisation approach is conducted in many regions of phase space. No unambiguous evidence has been found to date. Diffractive elastic production of J/psi mesons has been measured in the limit of photoproduction up to the highest photon proton center of mass energies. The increase of the cross section is described by pQCD models. At larger Q^2, the W dependence is found to be similar to that observed in photoproduction. First analyses of data at high t yield a powerlike dependence on |t|. A LO BFKL calculation gives a good description of the data.Comment: 14 pages, 12 figures, contribution to Ringberg 200

Hall effects in Bose-Einstein condensates in a rotating optical lattice

Using the Kubo formalism, we demonstrate fractional quantum Hall features in a rotating Bose-Einstein condensate in a co-rotating two-dimensional optical lattice. The co-rotating lattice and trap potential allow for an effective magnetic field and compensation of the centrifugal potential. Fractional quantum Hall features are seen for the single-particle system and for few strongly interacting many-particle systems.Comment: 11 pages, 13 figure