S-matrix poles and the second virial coefficient

For cutoff potentials, a condition which is not a limitation for the calculation of physical systems, the S-matrix is meromorphic. We can express it in terms of its poles, and then calculate the quantum mechanical second virial coefficient of a neutral gas. Here, we take another look at this approach, and discuss the feasibility, attraction and problems of the method. Among concerns are the rate of convergence of the 'pole' expansion and the physical significance of the 'higher' poles.Comment: 20 pages, 8 tables, submitted to J. Mol. Phy

Theory of Optical Tweezers

We derive a partial-wave (Mie) expansion of the axial force exerted on a transparent sphere by a laser beam focused through a high numerical aperture objective. The results hold throughout the range of interest for practical applications. The ray optics limit is shown to follow from the Mie expansion by size averaging. Numerical plots show large deviations from ray optics near the focal region and oscillatory behavior (explained in terms of a simple interferometer picture) of the force as a function of the size parameter. Available experimental data favor the present model over previous ones.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Large time behavior for vortex evolution in the half-plane

In this article we study the long-time behavior of incompressible ideal flow in a half plane from the point of view of vortex scattering. Our main result is that certain asymptotic states for half-plane vortex dynamics decompose naturally into a nonlinear superposition of soliton-like states. Our approach is to combine techniques developed in the study of vortex confinement with weak convergence tools in order to study the asymptotic behavior of a self-similar rescaling of a solution of the incompressible 2D Euler equations on a half plane with compactly supported, nonnegative initial vorticity.Comment: 30 pages, no figure