1,419 research outputs found
Thin-film GaAs photovoltaic solar energy cells Final report
Thin film gallium arsenide photovoltaic solar cell
Synthetic gauge fields in synthetic dimensions
We describe a simple technique for generating a cold-atom lattice pierced by
a uniform magnetic field. Our method is to extend a one-dimensional optical
lattice into the "dimension" provided by the internal atomic degrees of
freedom, yielding a synthetic 2D lattice. Suitable laser-coupling between these
internal states leads to a uniform magnetic flux within the 2D lattice. We show
that this setup reproduces the main features of magnetic lattice systems, such
as the fractal Hofstadter butterfly spectrum and the chiral edge states of the
associated Chern insulating phases.Comment: 5+4 pages, 5+3 figures, two-column revtex; v2: discussion of role of
interactions added, Fig. 1 reshaped, minor changes, references adde
Engineering Time-Reversal Invariant Topological Insulators With Ultra-Cold Atoms
Topological insulators are a broad class of unconventional materials that are
insulating in the interior but conduct along the edges. This edge transport is
topologically protected and dissipationless. Until recently, all existing
topological insulators, known as quantum Hall states, violated time-reversal
symmetry. However, the discovery of the quantum spin Hall effect demonstrated
the existence of novel topological states not rooted in time-reversal
violations. Here, we lay out an experiment to realize time-reversal topological
insulators in ultra-cold atomic gases subjected to synthetic gauge fields in
the near-field of an atom-chip. In particular, we introduce a feasible scheme
to engineer sharp boundaries where the "edge states" are localized. Besides,
this multi-band system has a large parameter space exhibiting a variety of
quantum phase transitions between topological and normal insulating phases. Due
to their unprecedented controllability, cold-atom systems are ideally suited to
realize topological states of matter and drive the development of topological
quantum computing.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figure
Smoothed Analysis of the Minimum-Mean Cycle Canceling Algorithm and the Network Simplex Algorithm
The minimum-cost flow (MCF) problem is a fundamental optimization problem
with many applications and seems to be well understood. Over the last half
century many algorithms have been developed to solve the MCF problem and these
algorithms have varying worst-case bounds on their running time. However, these
worst-case bounds are not always a good indication of the algorithms'
performance in practice. The Network Simplex (NS) algorithm needs an
exponential number of iterations for some instances, but it is considered the
best algorithm in practice and performs best in experimental studies. On the
other hand, the Minimum-Mean Cycle Canceling (MMCC) algorithm is strongly
polynomial, but performs badly in experimental studies.
To explain these differences in performance in practice we apply the
framework of smoothed analysis. We show an upper bound of
for the number of iterations of the MMCC algorithm.
Here is the number of nodes, is the number of edges, and is a
parameter limiting the degree to which the edge costs are perturbed. We also
show a lower bound of for the number of iterations of the
MMCC algorithm, which can be strengthened to when
. For the number of iterations of the NS algorithm we show a
smoothed lower bound of .Comment: Extended abstract to appear in the proceedings of COCOON 201
Onset of Interlayer Phase Coherence in a Bilayer Two-Dimensional Electron System: Effect of Layer Density Imbalance
Tunneling and Coulomb drag are sensitive probes of spontaneous interlayer
phase coherence in bilayer two-dimensional electron systems at total Landau
level filling factor . We find that the phase boundary between the
interlayer phase coherent state and the weakly-coupled compressible phase moves
to larger layer separations as the electron density distribution in the bilayer
is imbalanced. The critical layer separation increases quadratically with layer
density difference.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Feedback cooled Bose-Einstein condensation: near and far from equilibrium
Continuously measured interacting quantum systems almost invariably heat,
causing loss of quantum coherence. Here, we study Bose-Einstein condensates
(BECs) subject to repeated weak measurement of the atomic density and describe
several protocols for generating a feedback signal designed to remove
excitations created by measurement backaction. We use a stochastic
Gross-Pitaevskii equation to model the system dynamics and find that a feedback
protocol utilizing momentum dependant gain and filtering can effectively cool
both 1D and 2D systems. The performance of these protocols is quantified in
terms of the steady state energy, entropy, and condensed fraction. These are
the first feedback cooling protocols demonstrated in 2D, and in 1D our optimal
protocol reduces the equilibrium energy by more than a factor of 100 as
compared with a previous cooling protocol developed using the same methodology.
We also use this protocol to quench-cool 1D BECs from non-condensed highly
excited states and find that they rapidly condense into a far from equilibrium
state with energy orders of magnitude higher than the equilibrium ground state
energy for that condensate fraction. We explain this in terms of the
near-integrability of our 1D system, whereby efficiently cooled low momentum
modes are effectively decoupled from the energetic `reservoir' of the higher
momentum modes. We observe that the quench-cooled condensed states can have
non-zero integer winding numbers described by quantized supercurrents.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figure
Strong enhancement of drag and dissipation at the weak- to strong- coupling phase transition in a bi-layer system at a total Landau level filling nu=1
We consider a bi-layer electronic system at a total Landau level filling
factor nu =1, and focus on the transition from the regime of weak inter-layer
coupling to that of the strongly coupled (1,1,1) phase (or ''quantum Hall
ferromagnet''). Making the assumption that in the transition region the system
is made of puddles of the (1,1,1) phase embedded in a bulk of the weakly
coupled state, we show that the transition is accompanied by a strong increase
in longitudinal Coulomb drag, that reaches a maximum of approximately
. In that regime the longitudinal drag is increased with decreasing
temperature.Comment: four pages, one included figur
Observation of Quantized Hall Drag in a Strongly Correlated Bilayer Electron System
The frictional drag between parallel two-dimensional electron systems has
been measured in a regime of strong interlayer correlations. When the bilayer
system enters the excitonic quantized Hall state at total Landau level filling
factor \nu_T=1 the longitudinal component of the drag vanishes but a strong
Hall component develops. The Hall drag resistance is observed to be accurately
quantized at h/e^2.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures. Version accepted for publication in Physical
Review Letters. Improved discussion of experimental and theoretical issues,
added references, correction to figure
Spin Transition in Strongly Correlated Bilayer Two Dimensional Electron Systems
Using a combination of heat pulse and nuclear magnetic resonance techniques
we demonstrate that the phase boundary separating the interlayer phase coherent
quantum Hall effect at in bilayer electron gases from the weakly
coupled compressible phase depends upon the spin polarization of the nuclei in
the host semiconductor crystal. Our results strongly suggest that, contrary to
the usual assumption, the transition is attended by a change in the electronic
spin polarization.Comment: 4 pages, 3 postscript figur
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