222 research outputs found
Getting a Grip on the Transverse Motion in a Zeeman Decelerator
Zeeman deceleration is an experimental technique in which inhomogeneous,
time-dependent magnetic fields generated inside an array of solenoid coils are
used to manipulate the velocity of a supersonic beam. A 12-stage Zeeman
decelerator has been built and characterized using hydrogen atoms as a test
system. The instrument has several original features including the possibility
to replace each deceleration coil individually. In this article, we give a
detailed description of the experimental setup, and illustrate its performance.
We demonstrate that the overall acceptance in a Zeeman decelerator can be
significantly increased with only minor changes to the setup itself. This is
achieved by applying a rather low, anti-parallel magnetic field in one of the
solenoid coils that forms a temporally varying quadrupole field, and improves
particle confinement in the transverse direction. The results are reproduced by
three-dimensional numerical particle trajectory simulations thus allowing for a
rigorous analysis of the experimental data. The findings suggest the use of a
modified coil configuration to improve transverse focusing during the
deceleration process.Comment: accepted by J. Chem. Phy
Continuum limit of self-driven particles with orientation interaction
We consider the discrete Couzin-Vicsek algorithm (CVA), which describes the
interactions of individuals among animal societies such as fish schools. In
this article, we propose a kinetic (mean-field) version of the CVA model and
provide its formal macroscopic limit. The final macroscopic model involves a
conservation equation for the density of the individuals and a non conservative
equation for the director of the mean velocity and is proved to be hyperbolic.
The derivation is based on the introduction of a non-conventional concept of a
collisional invariant of a collision operator
Velocity-selected molecular pulses produced by an electric guide
Electrostatic velocity filtering is a technique for the production of
continuous guided beams of slow polar molecules from a thermal gas. We extended
this technique to produce pulses of slow molecules with a narrow velocity
distribution around a tunable velocity. The pulses are generated by
sequentially switching the voltages on adjacent segments of an electric
quadrupole guide synchronously with the molecules propagating at the desired
velocity. This technique is demonstrated for deuterated ammonia (ND),
delivering pulses with a velocity in the range of and a
relative velocity spread of at FWHM. At velocities around
, the pulses contain up to molecules each. The data are
well reproduced by Monte-Carlo simulations, which provide useful insight into
the mechanisms of velocity selection.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure
Solutions to Maxwell's Equations using Spheroidal Coordinates
Analytical solutions to the wave equation in spheroidal coordinates in the
short wavelength limit are considered. The asymptotic solutions for the radial
function are significantly simplified, allowing scalar spheroidal wave
functions to be defined in a form which is directly reminiscent of the
Laguerre-Gaussian solutions to the paraxial wave equation in optics.
Expressions for the Cartesian derivatives of the scalar spheroidal wave
functions are derived, leading to a new set of vector solutions to Maxwell's
equations. The results are an ideal starting point for calculations of
corrections to the paraxial approximation
Sisyphus Cooling of Electrically Trapped Polyatomic Molecules
The rich internal structure and long-range dipole-dipole interactions
establish polar molecules as unique instruments for quantum-controlled
applications and fundamental investigations. Their potential fully unfolds at
ultracold temperatures, where a plethora of effects is predicted in many-body
physics, quantum information science, ultracold chemistry, and physics beyond
the standard model. These objectives have inspired the development of a wide
range of methods to produce cold molecular ensembles. However, cooling
polyatomic molecules to ultracold temperatures has until now seemed
intractable. Here we report on the experimental realization of opto-electrical
cooling, a paradigm-changing cooling and accumulation method for polar
molecules. Its key attribute is the removal of a large fraction of a molecule's
kinetic energy in each step of the cooling cycle via a Sisyphus effect,
allowing cooling with only few dissipative decay processes. We demonstrate its
potential by reducing the temperature of about 10^6 trapped CH_3F molecules by
a factor of 13.5, with the phase-space density increased by a factor of 29 or a
factor of 70 discounting trap losses. In contrast to other cooling mechanisms,
our scheme proceeds in a trap, cools in all three dimensions, and works for a
large variety of polar molecules. With no fundamental temperature limit
anticipated down to the photon-recoil temperature in the nanokelvin range, our
method eliminates the primary hurdle in producing ultracold polyatomic
molecules. The low temperatures, large molecule numbers and long trapping times
up to 27 s will allow an interaction-dominated regime to be attained, enabling
collision studies and investigation of evaporative cooling toward a BEC of
polyatomic molecules
Assignment of resonances in dissociative recombination of HD+ ions: high-resolution measurements compared with accurate computations
The collision-energy resolved rate coefficient for dissociative recombination
of HD+ ions in the vibrational ground state is measured using the photocathode
electron target at the heavy-ion storage ring TSR. Rydberg resonances
associated with ro-vibrational excitation of the HD+ core are scanned as a
function of the electron collision energy with an instrumental broadening below
1 meV in the low-energy limit. The measurement is compared to calculations
using multichannel quantum defect theory, accounting for rotational structure
and interactions and considering the six lowest rotational energy levels as
initial ionic states. Using thermal equilibrium level populations at 300 K to
approximate the experimental conditions, close correspondence between
calculated and measured structures is found up to the first vibrational
excitation threshold of the cations near 0.24 eV. Detailed assignments,
including naturally broadened and overlapping Rydberg resonances, are performed
for all structures up to 0.024 eV. Resonances from purely rotational excitation
of the ion core are found to have similar strengths as those involving
vibrational excitation. A dominant low-energy resonance is assigned to
contributions from excited rotational states only. The results indicate strong
modifications in the energy dependence of the dissociative recombination rate
coefficient through the rotational excitation of the parent ions, and underline
the need for studies with rotationally cold species to obtain results
reflecting low-temperature ionized media.Comment: 15 pages, 10 figures. Paper to appear in Phys. Rev. A (version as
accepted
Singular Cucker-Smale Dynamics
The existing state of the art for singular models of flocking is overviewed,
starting from microscopic model of Cucker and Smale with singular communication
weight, through its mesoscopic mean-filed limit, up to the corresponding
macroscopic regime. For the microscopic Cucker-Smale (CS) model, the
collision-avoidance phenomenon is discussed, also in the presence of bonding
forces and the decentralized control. For the kinetic mean-field model, the
existence of global-in-time measure-valued solutions, with a special emphasis
on a weak atomic uniqueness of solutions is sketched. Ultimately, for the
macroscopic singular model, the summary of the existence results for the
Euler-type alignment system is provided, including existence of strong
solutions on one-dimensional torus, and the extension of this result to higher
dimensions upon restriction on the smallness of initial data. Additionally, the
pressureless Navier-Stokes-type system corresponding to particular choice of
alignment kernel is presented, and compared - analytically and numerically - to
the porous medium equation
Trail formation based on directed pheromone deposition
We propose an Individual-Based Model of ant-trail formation. The ants are
modeled as self-propelled particles which deposit directed pheromones and
interact with them through alignment interaction. The directed pheromones
intend to model pieces of trails, while the alignment interaction translates
the tendency for an ant to follow a trail when it meets it. Thanks to adequate
quantitative descriptors of the trail patterns, the existence of a phase
transition as the ant-pheromone interaction frequency is increased can be
evidenced. Finally, we propose both kinetic and fluid descriptions of this
model and analyze the capabilities of the fluid model to develop trail
patterns. We observe that the development of patterns by fluid models require
extra trail amplification mechanisms that are not needed at the
Individual-Based Model level
Search for supersymmetry with a dominant R-parity violating LQDbar couplings in e+e- collisions at centre-of-mass energies of 130GeV to 172 GeV
A search for pair-production of supersymmetric particles under the assumption
that R-parity is violated via a dominant LQDbar coupling has been performed
using the data collected by ALEPH at centre-of-mass energies of 130-172 GeV.
The observed candidate events in the data are in agreement with the Standard
Model expectation. This result is translated into lower limits on the masses of
charginos, neutralinos, sleptons, sneutrinos and squarks. For instance, for
m_0=500 GeV/c^2 and tan(beta)=sqrt(2) charginos with masses smaller than 81
GeV/c^2 and neutralinos with masses smaller than 29 GeV/c^2 are excluded at the
95% confidence level for any generation structure of the LQDbar coupling.Comment: 32 pages, 30 figure
The origin and legacy of the Etruscans through a 2000-year archeogenomic time transect
The origin, development, and legacy of the enigmatic Etruscan civilization from the central region of the Italian peninsula known as Etruria have been debated for centuries. Here we report a genomic time transect of 82 individuals spanning almost two millennia (800 BCE to 1000 CE) across Etruria and southern Italy. During the Iron Age, we detect a component of Indo-European–associated steppe ancestry and the lack of recent Anatolian-related admixture among the putative non–Indo-European–speaking Etruscans. Despite comprising diverse individuals of central European, northern African, and Near Eastern ancestry, the local gene pool is largely maintained across the first millennium BCE. This drastically changes during the Roman Imperial period where we report an abrupt population-wide shift to ~50% admixture with eastern Mediterranean ancestry. Last, we identify northern European components appearing in central Italy during the Early Middle Ages, which thus formed the genetic landscape of present-day Italian populations
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