'Hole-digging' in ensembles of tunneling Molecular Magnets

The nuclear spin-mediated quantum relaxation of ensembles of tunneling magnetic molecules causes a 'hole' to appear in the distribution of internal fields in the system. The form of this hole, and its time evolution, are studied using Monte Carlo simulations. It is shown that the line-shape of the tunneling hole in a weakly polarised sample must have a Lorentzian lineshape- the short-time half-width $\xi_o$ in all experiments done so far should be $\sim E_0$, the half-width of the nuclear spin multiplet. After a time $\tau_o$, the single molecule tunneling relaxation time, the hole width begins to increase rapidly. In initially polarised samples the disintegration of resonant tunneling surfaces is found to be very fast.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Coherence Window in the dynamics of Quantum Nanomagnets

Decoherence in many solid-state systems is anomalously high, frustrating efforts to make solid-state qubits. We show that in nanomagnetic insulators in large transverse fields, there can be a fairly narrow field region in which both phonon and nuclear spin-mediated decoherence are drastically reduced. As examples we calculate decoherence rates for the $Fe$-8 nanomolecule, for $Ni$ particles, and for $Ho$ ions in $LiHo_xY_{1-z}F_4$. The reduction in the decoherence, compared to low field rates, can exceed 6 orders of magnitude. The results also give limitations on the observability of macroscopic coherence effects in magnetic systems.Comment: 5 LaTeX pages, 3 figure

Electrospun amplified fiber optics

A lot of research is focused on all-optical signal processing, aiming to obtain effective alternatives to existing data transmission platforms. Amplification of light in fiber optics, such as in Erbium-doped fiber amplifiers, is especially important for an efficient signal transmission. However, the complex fabrication methods, involving high-temperature processes performed in highly pure environment, slow down the fabrication and make amplified components expensive with respect to an ideal, high-throughput and room temperature production. Here, we report on near infrared polymer fiber amplifiers, working over a band of about 20 nm. The fibers are cheap, spun with a process entirely carried out at room temperature, and show amplified spontaneous emission with good gain coefficients as well as low optical losses (a few cm^-1). The amplification process is favoured by the high fiber quality and low self-absorption. The found performance metrics promise to be suitable for short-distance operation, and the large variety of commercially-available doping dyes might allow for effective multi-wavelength operation by electrospun amplified fiber optics.Comment: 27 pages, 8 figure

Development and validation of verbal emotion vignettes in Portuguese, English, and German

Everyday human social interaction involves sharing experiences verbally and these experiences often include emotional content. Providing this context generally leads to the experience of emotions in the conversation partner. However, most emotion elicitation stimulus sets are based on images or film-sequences providing visual and/or auditory emotion cues. To assimilate what occurs within social interactions, the current study aimed at creating and validating verbal emotion vignettes as stimulus set to elicit emotions (anger, disgust, fear, sadness, happiness, gratitude, guilt, and neutral). Participants had to mentally immerse themselves in 40 vignettes and state which emotion they experienced next to the intensity of this emotion. The vignettes were validated on a large sample of native Portuguese-speakers (N = 229), but also on native English-speaking (N = 59), and native German-speaking (N = 50) samples to maximise applicability of the vignettes. Hierarchical cluster analyses showed that the vignettes mapped clearly on their target emotion categories in all three languages. The final stimulus sets each include 4 vignettes per emotion category plus 1 additional vignette per emotion category which can be used for task familiarisation procedures within research. The high agreement rates on the experienced emotion in combination with the medium to large intensity ratings in all three languages suggest that the stimulus sets are suitable for application in emotion research (e.g., emotion recognition or emotion elicitation)

Quantum nanomagnets and nuclear spins: an overview

This mini-review presents a simple and accessible summary on the fascinating physics of quantum nanomagnets coupled to a nuclear spin bath. These chemically synthesized systems are an ideal test ground for the theories of decoherence in mesoscopic quantum degrees of freedom, when the coupling to the environment is local and not small. We shall focus here on the most striking quantum phenomenon that occurs in such nanomagnets, namely the tunneling of their giant spin through a high anisotropy barrier. It will be shown that perturbative treatments must be discarded, and replaced by a more sophisticated formalism where the dynamics of the nanomagnet and the nuclei that couple to it are treated together from the beginning. After a critical review of the theoretical predictions and their experimental verification, we continue with a set of experimental results that challenge our present understanding, and outline the importance of filling also this last gap in the theory.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures. Chapter in the Proceedings of the 2006 Les Houches summer school "Quantum Magnetism", ed. B. Barbara & Y. Imry, Springer (2007

Study of J/ψJ/\psi and ψ(3686)→Σ(1385)0Σˉ(1385)0\psi(3686)\rightarrow\Sigma(1385)^{0}\bar\Sigma(1385)^{0} and Ξ0Ξˉ0\Xi^0\bar\Xi^{0}

We study the decays of $J/\psi$ and $\psi(3686)$ to the final states $\Sigma(1385)^{0}\bar\Sigma(1385)^{0}$ and $\Xi^0\bar\Xi^{0}$ based on a single baryon tag method using data samples of $(1310.6 \pm 7.0) \times 10^{6}$ $J/\psi$ and $(447.9 \pm 2.9) \times 10^{6}$ $\psi(3686)$ events collected with the BESIII detector at the BEPCII collider. The decays to $\Sigma(1385)^{0}\bar\Sigma(1385)^{0}$ are observed for the first time. The measured branching fractions of $J/\psi$ and $\psi(3686)\rightarrow\Xi^0\bar\Xi^{0}$ are in good agreement with, and much more precise, than the previously published results. The angular parameters for these decays are also measured for the first time. The measured angular decay parameter for $J/\psi\rightarrow\Sigma(1385)^{0}\bar\Sigma(1385)^{0}$, $\alpha =-0.64 \pm 0.03 \pm 0.10$, is found to be negative, different to the other decay processes in this measurement. In addition, the "12\% rule" and isospin symmetry in the $J/\psi$ and $\psi(3686)\rightarrow\Xi\bar\Xi$ and $\Sigma(1385)\bar{\Sigma}(1385)$ systems are tested.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures. This version is consistent with paper published in Phys.Lett. B770 (2017) 217-22