18,330 research outputs found
On-chip quantum tomography of mechanical nano-scale oscillators with guided Rydberg atoms
Nano-mechanical oscillators as well as Rydberg-atomic waveguides hosted on
micro-fabricated chip surfaces hold promise to become pillars of future quantum
technologies. In a hybrid platform with both, we show that beams of Rydberg
atoms in waveguides can quantum-coherently interrogate and manipulate
nanomechanical elements, allowing full quantum state tomography. Central to the
tomography are quantum non-demolition measurements using the Rydberg atoms as
probes. Quantum coherent displacement of the oscillator is also made possible,
by driving the atoms with external fields while they interact with the
oscillator. We numerically demonstrate the feasibility of this fully integrated
on-chip control and read-out suite for quantum nano-mechanics, taking into
account noise and error sources.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, 1 tabl
Development and initial validation of a sensory threshold examination protocol (STEP) for phenotyping canine pain syndromes
Objective
To study feasibility and test-retest repeatability of a sensory threshold examination protocol (STEP) and report quantitative sensory threshold distributions in healthy dogs.
Study design
Prospective, observational, cohort study.
Animals
Twenty-five healthy client-owned dogs.
Methods
Tactile sensitivity (TST) (von Frey filaments), mechanical thresholds (MT with 2, 4 and 8 mm probes), heat thresholds (HT) and responsiveness to cold stimulus (CT at 0 °C) were quantitatively assessed for five body areas (BA: tibias, humeri, neck, thoracolumbar region and abdomen) in a randomized order on three different occasions. Linear Mixed Model and Generalised Linear Mixed models were used to evaluate the effects of body weight category, age, sex, BA, occasion, feasibility score and investigator experience. Test-retest repeatability was evaluated with the Intra-class Correlation Coefficient (ICC).
Results
The STEP lasted 90 minutes without side effects. The BA affected most tests (p = 0.001). Higher thresholds and longer cold latencies were scored in the neck (p = 0.024) compared to other BAs. Weight category affected all thresholds (p = 0.037). Small dogs had lower MT (~1.4 N mean difference) and HT (1.1 0C mean difference) than other dogs (p = 0.029). Young dogs had higher HT than adults (2.2 0C mean difference) (p = 0.035). Gender also affected TST, MT and HT (p < 0.05) (females versus males: TST OR= 0.5, MT= 1.3 N mean difference, HT= 2.2 0C mean difference). Repeatability was substantial to moderate for all tests, but poor for TST. There was no difference in thresholds between occasions, except for CT. Test-retest repeatability was slightly better with the 2 mm MT probe compared to other diameters and improved with operator experience.
Conclusions
and clinical relevance The STEP was feasible, well tolerated and showed substantial test-retest repeatability in healthy dogs. Further validation is needed in dogs suffering pain
Superconducting transport through a vibrating molecule
Nonequilibrium electronic transport through a molecular level weakly coupled
to a single coherent phonon/vibration mode has been studied for superconducting
leads. The Keldysh Green function formalism is used to compute the current for
the entire bias voltage range. In the subgap regime, Multiple Andreev
Reflection (MAR) processes accompanied by phonon emission cause rich structure
near the onset of MAR channels, including an even-odd parity effect that can be
interpreted in terms of an inelastic MAR ladder picture. Thereby we establish a
connection between the Keldysh formalism and the Landauer scattering approach
for inelastic MAR.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, version contains now more details, accepted by
PR
Enabling science with Gaia observations of naked-eye stars
ESA's Gaia space astrometry mission is performing an all-sky survey of
stellar objects. At the beginning of the nominal mission in July 2014, an
operation scheme was adopted that enabled Gaia to routinely acquire
observations of all stars brighter than the original limit of G~6, i.e. the
naked-eye stars. Here, we describe the current status and extent of those
observations and their on-ground processing. We present an overview of the data
products generated for G<6 stars and the potential scientific applications.
Finally, we discuss how the Gaia survey could be enhanced by further exploiting
the techniques we developed.Comment: 16 pages, 8 figures. Submitted for the proceedings of the 2016 SPIE
Astronomical Instrumentation and Telescopes conference (SPIE 9904
Confinement-induced resonances for a two-component ultracold atom gas in arbitrary quasi-one-dimensional traps
We solve the two-particle s-wave scattering problem for ultracold atom gases
confined in arbitrary quasi-one-dimensional trapping potentials, allowing for
two different atom species. As a consequence, the center-of-mass and relative
degrees of freedom do not factorize. We derive bound-state solutions and obtain
the general scattering solution, which exhibits several resonances in the 1D
scattering length induced by the confinement. We apply our formalism to two
experimentally relevant cases: (i) interspecies scattering in a two-species
mixture, and (ii) the two-body problem for a single species in a non-parabolic
trap.Comment: 22 pages, 3 figure
- …