12,528 research outputs found
The unreasonable effectiveness of equilibrium-like theory for interpreting non-equilibrium experiments
There has been great interest in applying the results of statistical
mechanics to single molecule experiements. Recent work has highlighted
so-called non-equilibrium work-energy relations and Fluctuation Theorems which
take on an equilibrium-like (time independent) form. Here I give a very simple
heuristic example where an equilibrium result (the barometric law for colloidal
particles) arises from theory describing the {\em thermodynamically}
non-equilibrium phenomenon of a single colloidal particle falling through
solution due to gravity. This simple result arises from the fact that the
particle, even while falling, is in {\em mechanical} equilibrium (gravitational
force equal the viscous drag force) at every instant. The results are
generalized by appeal to the central limit theorem. The resulting time
independent equations that hold for thermodynamically non-equilibrium (and even
non-stationary) processes offer great possibilities for rapid determination of
thermodynamic parameters from single molecule experiments.Comment: 6 page
Diffraction of a Bose-Einstein Condensate in the Time Domain
We have observed the diffraction of a Bose-Einstein condensate of rubidium
atoms on a vibrating mirror potential. The matter wave packet bounces back at
normal incidence on a blue-detuned evanescent light field after a 3.6 mm free
fall. The mirror vibrates at a frequency of 500 kHz with an amplitude of 3.0
nm. The atomic carrier and sidebands are directly imaged during their ballistic
expansion. The locations and the relative weights of the diffracted atomic wave
packets are in very good agreement with the theoretical prediction of Carsten
Henkel et al. [1].Comment: submitted to Phys. Rev.
Hanbury Brown Twiss effect for ultracold quantum gases
We have studied 2-body correlations of atoms in an expanding cloud above and
below the Bose-Einstein condensation threshold. The observed correlation
function for a thermal cloud shows a bunching behavior, while the correlation
is flat for a coherent sample. These quantum correlations are the atomic
analogue of the Hanbury Brown Twiss effect. We observe the effect in three
dimensions and study its dependence on cloud size.Comment: Figure 1 availabl
An Example of Quantum Anomaly in the Physics of Ultra-Cold Gases
In this article, we propose an experimental scheme for observation of a
quantum anomaly---quantum-mechanical symmetry breaking---in a two-dimensional
harmonically trapped Bose gas. The anomaly manifests itself in a shift of the
monopole excitation frequency away from the value dictated by the
Pitaevskii-Rosch dynamical symmetry [L. P. Pitaevskii and A. Rosch, Phys. Rev.
A, 55, R853 (1997)]. While the corresponding classical Gross-Pitaevskii
equation and the derived from it hydrodynamic equations do exhibit this
symmetry, it is---as we show in our paper---violated under quantization. The
resulting frequency shift is of the order of 1% of the carrier, well in reach
for modern experimental techniques. We propose using the dipole oscillations as
a frequency gauge.Comment: Misprints corrected, a discussion on damping added, text is polished
and shortened. 5 pages, 1 figur
Long-term spectropolarimetric monitoring of the cool supergiant Betelgeuse
We report on a long-term monitoring of the cool supergiant Betelgeuse, using
the NARVAL and ESPaDOnS high-resolution spectropolarimeters, respectively
installed at Telescope Bernard Lyot (Pic du Midi Observatory, France) and at
the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (Mauna Kea Observatory, Hawaii). The data
set, constituted of circularly polarized (Stokes V) and intensity (Stokes I)
spectra, was collected between 2010 and 2012. We investigate here the temporal
evolution of magnetic field, convection and temperature at photospheric level,
using simultaneous measurements of the longitudinal magnetic field component,
the core emission of the Ca II infrared triplet, the line-depth ratio of
selected photospheric lines and the radial velocity of the star.Comment: Proceedings of the Betelgeuse Workshop, Paris, 26-29 Nov 201
Normal modes of a small gamelan gong
© 2014 Acoustical Society of America. Studies have been made of the normal modes of a 20.7 cm diameter steel gamelan gong. A finite-element model has been constructed and its predictions for normal modes compared with experimental results obtained using electronic speckle pattern interferometry. Agreement was reasonable in view of the lack of precision in the manufacture of the instrument. The results agree with expectations for an axially symmetric system subject to small symmetry breaking. The extent to which the results obey Chladni's law is discussed. Comparison with vibrational and acoustical spectra enabled the identification of the small number of modes responsible for the sound output when played normally. Evidence of non-linear behavior was found, mainly in the form of subharmonics of true modes. Experiments using scanning laser Doppler vibrometry gave satisfactory agreement with the other methods
The sediment of mixtures of charged colloids: segregation and inhomogeneous electric fields
We theoretically study sedimentation-diffusion equilibrium of dilute binary,
ternary, and polydisperse mixtures of colloidal particles with different
buoyant masses and/or charges. We focus on the low-salt regime, where the
entropy of the screening ions drives spontaneous charge separation and the
formation of an inhomogeneous macroscopic electric field. The resulting
electric force lifts the colloids against gravity, yielding highly
nonbarometric and even nonmonotonic colloidal density profiles. The most
profound effect is the phenomenon of segregation into layers of colloids with
equal mass-per-charge, including the possibility that heavy colloidal species
float onto lighter ones
Transverse Momentum Correlations in Relativistic Nuclear Collisions
From the correlation structure of transverse momentum in relativistic
nuclear collisions we observe for the first time temperature/velocity structure
resulting from low- partons. Our novel analysis technique does not invoke
an {\em a priori} jet hypothesis. autocorrelations derived from the scale
dependence of fluctuations reveal a complex parton dissipation process
in RHIC heavy ion collisions. We also observe structure which may result from
collective bulk-medium recoil in response to parton stopping.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures, proceedings, MIT workshop on fluctuations and
correlations in relativistic nuclear collision
Non-equilibrium sedimentation of colloids on the particle scale
We investigate sedimentation of model hard sphere-like colloidal dispersions
confined in horizontal capillaries using laser scanning confocal microscopy,
dynamical density functional theory, and Brownian dynamics computer
simulations. For homogenized initial states we obtain quantitative agreement of
the results from the respective approaches for the time evolution of the
one-body density distribution and the osmotic pressure on the walls. We
demonstrate that single particle information can be obtained experimentally in
systems that were initialized further out-of-equilibrium such that complex
lateral patterns form.Comment: to be published in Phys. Rev. Let
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