Collective excitations of atomic Bose-Einstein condensates

We apply linear-response analysis of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation to obtain the excitation frequencies of a Bose-Einstein condensate confined in a time-averaged orbiting potential trap. Our calculated values are in excellent agreement with those observed in a recent experiment.Comment: 11 pages, 2 Postscript figures, uses psbox.tex for automatic figure inclusion. More info at http://amo.phy.gasou.edu/bec.htm

Probing dipolar effects with condensate shape oscillation

We discuss the low energy shape oscillations of a magnetic trapped atomic condensate including the spin dipole interaction. When the nominal isotropic s-wave interaction strength becomes tunable through a Feshbach resonance (e.g. as for $^{85}$Rb atoms), anisotropic dipolar effects are shown to be detectable under current experimental conditions [E. A. Donley {\it et al.}, Nature {\bf 412}, 295 (2001)].Comment: revised version, submitte

Automated glycan assembly of galactosylated xyloglucan oligosaccharides and their recognition by plant cell wall glycan-directed antibodies

We report the automated glycan assembly of oligosaccharides related to the plant cell wall hemicellulosic polysaccharide xyloglucan. The synthesis of galactosylated xyloglucan oligosaccharides was enabled by introducing p-methoxybenzyl (PMB) as a temporary protecting group for automated glycan assembly. The generated oligosaccharides were printed as microarrays, and the binding of a collection of xyloglucan-directed monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) to the oligosaccharides was assessed. We also demonstrated that the printed glycans can be further enzymatically modified while appended to the microarray surface by Arabidopsis thaliana xyloglucan xylosyltransferase 2 (AtXXT2)

NGC 6738: not a real open cluster

A photometric, astrometric and spectroscopic investigation of the poorly studied open cluster NGC 6738 has been performed in order to ascertain its real nature. NGC 6738 is definitely not a physical stellar ensemble: photometry does not show a defined mean sequence, proper motions and radial velocities are randomly distributed, spectro-photometric parallaxes range between 10 and 1600 pc, and the apparent luminosity function is identical to that of the surrounding field. NGC 6738 therefore appears to be an apparent concentration of a few bright stars projected on patchy background absorption.Comment: A&A, in press (compared with first submission to astro-ph, now Table 2 and Figure 4 are replaced with corrected versions

Ground-State Properties of a Rotating Bose-Einstein Condensate with Attractive Interaction

The ground state of a rotating Bose-Einstein condensate with attractive interaction in a quasi-one-dimensional torus is studied in terms of the ratio $\gamma$ of the mean-field interaction energy per particle to the single-particle energy-level spacing. The plateaus of quantized circulation are found to appear if and only if $\gamma<1$ with the lengths of the plateaus reduced due to hybridization of the condensate over different angular-momentum states.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, Accepted for publication in Physical Reveiw Letter

Enhancement of the Deuteron-Fusion Reactions in Metals and its Experimental Implications

Recent measurements of the reaction d(d,p)t in metallic environments at very low energies performed by different experimental groups point to an enhanced electron screening effect. However, the resulting screening energies differ strongly for divers host metals and different experiments. Here, we present new experimental results and investigations of interfering processes in the irradiated targets. These measurements inside metals set special challenges and pitfalls which make them and the data analysis particularly error-prone. There are multi-parameter collateral effects which are crucial for the correct interpretation of the observed experimental yields. They mainly originate from target surface contaminations due to residual gases in the vacuum as well as from inhomogeneities and instabilities in the deuteron density distribution in the targets. In order to address these problems an improved differential analysis method beyond the standard procedures has been implemented. Profound scrutiny of the other experiments demonstrates that the observed unusual changes in the reaction yields are mainly due to deuteron density dynamics simulating the alleged screening energy values. The experimental results are compared with different theoretical models of the electron screening in metals. The Debye-H\"{u}ckel model that has been previously proposed to explain the influence of the electron screening on both nuclear reactions and radioactive decays could be clearly excluded.Comment: 22 pages, 12 figures, REVTeX4, 2-column format. Submitted to Phys. Rev. C; accepte

RF Feedback and Detuning Studies for the BESSY Variable Pulse Length Storage Ring Higher Harmonic SC Cavities

For the feasibility of the BESSY VSR upgrade project of BESSY II two higher harmonic systems at a factor of 3 and 3.5 of the ring s RF fundamental of 500 MHz will be installed in the ring. Operating in continuous wave at high average accelerating field of 20 MV m and phased at zerocrossing, the superconducting cavities have to be detuned within tight margins to ensure stable operation and lowpower consumption at a loaded Q of 5 107. The field variation of the cavities is mainly driven by the repetitive transient beam loading of the envisaged complex bunch fill pattern in the ring. Within this work combined LLRF cavity and longitudinal beam dynamics simulation will demonstrate the limits for stable operation, especially the coupling between synchrotron oscillation and RF feedback settings. Further impact by beam current decay and top up injection shots are being simulate