Boundary conditions at spatial infinity for fields in Casimir calculations

The importance of imposing proper boundary conditions for fields at spatial infinity in the Casimir calculations is elucidated.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure, submitted to the Proceedings of The Seventh Workshop QFEXT'05 (Barcelona, September 5-9, 2005

Recovery of chaotic tunneling due to destruction of dynamical localization by external noise

Quantum tunneling in the presence of chaos is analyzed, focusing especially on the interplay between quantum tunneling and dynamical localization. We observed flooding of potentially existing tunneling amplitude by adding noise to the chaotic sea to attenuate the destructive interference generating dynamical localization. This phenomenon is related to the nature of complex orbits describing tunneling between torus and chaotic regions. The tunneling rate is found to obey a perturbative scaling with noise intensity when the noise intensity is sufficiently small and then saturate in a large noise intensity regime. A relation between the tunneling rate and the localization length of the chaotic states is also demonstrated. It is shown that due to the competition between dynamical tunneling and dynamical localization, the tunneling rate is not a monotonically increasing function of Planck's constant. The above results are obtained for a system with a sharp border between torus and chaotic regions. The validity of the results for a system with a smoothed border is also explained.Comment: 14 pages, 15 figure

Radiative damping: a case study

We are interested in the motion of a classical charge coupled to the Maxwell self-field and subject to a uniform external magnetic field, B. This is a physically relevant, but difficult dynamical problem, to which contributions range over more than one hundred years. Specifically, we will study the Sommerfeld-Page approximation which assumes an extended charge distribution at small velocities. The memory equation is then linear and many details become available. We discuss how the friction equation arises in the limit of "small" B and contrast this result with the standard Taylor expansion resulting in a second order equation for the velocity of the charge.Comment: 4 figure

On the mutual polarization of two He-4 atoms

We propose a simple method based on the standard quantum-mechanical perturbation theory to calculate the mutual polarization of two atoms He^4.Comment: 9 pages, 1 table; the article is revised and the calculation is essentially refined; v4: final version, the Introduction is delete

Non-dipole angular anisotropy parameters of semi-filled shell atoms

We present the results of calculations of outer shell non-dipole angular anisotropy parameters for semi-filled shell atoms in the Hartree-Fock (HF) one-electron approximation and with account of inter-electron correlations in the frame of the Spin Polarized Random Phase Approximation with Exchange (SP RPAE). We demonstrate for the first time that this characteristic of photoionization process is essentially sensitive to the fact whether the photoelectron has the same or opposite spin orientation to that of the semi-filled shell.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figure

Small Disks and Semiclassical Resonances

We study the effect on quantum spectra of the existence of small circular disks in a billiard system. In the limit where the disk radii vanish there is no effect, however this limit is approached very slowly so that even very small radii have comparatively large effects. We include diffractive orbits which scatter off the small disks in the periodic orbit expansion. This situation is formally similar to edge diffraction except that the disk radii introduce a length scale in the problem such that for wave lengths smaller than the order of the disk radius we recover the usual semi-classical approximation; however, for wave lengths larger than the order of the disk radius there is a qualitatively different behaviour. We test the theory by successfully estimating the positions of scattering resonances in geometries consisting of three and four small disks.Comment: Final published version - some changes in the discussion and the labels on one figure are correcte

Formation of shock waves in a Bose-Einstein condensate

We consider propagation of density wave packets in a Bose-Einstein condensate. We show that the shape of initially broad, laser-induced, density perturbation changes in the course of free time evolution so that a shock wave front finally forms. Our results are well beyond predictions of commonly used zero-amplitude approach, so they can be useful in extraction of a speed of sound from experimental data. We discuss a simple experimental setup for shock propagation and point out possible limitations of the mean-field approach for description of shock phenomena in a BEC.Comment: 8 pages & 6 figures, minor changes, more references, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Matter Wave Scattering and Guiding by Atomic Arrays

We investigate the possibility that linear arrays of atoms can guide matter waves, much as fiber optics guide light. We model the atomic line as a quasi-1D array of s wave point scatterers embedded in 2D. Our theoretical study reveals how matter wave guiding arises from the interplay of scattering phenomena with bands and conduction along the array. We discuss the conditions under which a straight or curved array of atoms can guide a beam focused at one end of the array.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev.

Dynamics of a Tonks-Girardeau gas released from a hard-wall trap

We study the expansion dynamics of a Tonks-Girardeau gas released from a hard wall trap. Using the Fermi-Bose map, the density profile is found analytically and shown to differ from that one of a classical gas in the microcanonical ensemble even at macroscopic level, for any observation time larger than a critical time. The relevant time scale arises as a consequence of fermionization.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figure

Edge Diffraction, Trace Formulae and the Cardioid Billiard

We study the effect of edge diffraction on the semiclassical analysis of two dimensional quantum systems by deriving a trace formula which incorporates paths hitting any number of vertices embedded in an arbitrary potential. This formula is used to study the cardioid billiard, which has a single vertex. The formula works well for most of the short orbits we analyzed but fails for a few diffractive orbits due to a breakdown in the formalism for certain geometries. We extend the symbolic dynamics to account for diffractive orbits and use it to show that in the presence of parity symmetry the trace formula decomposes in an elegant manner such that for the cardioid billiard the diffractive orbits have no effect on the odd spectrum. Including diffractive orbits helps resolve peaks in the density of even states but does not appear to affect their positions. An analysis of the level statistics shows no significant difference between spectra with and without diffraction.Comment: 25 pages, 12 Postscript figures. Published versio