Study to document low thrust trajectory optimization programs HILTOP and ASTOP

Detailed documentation of the HILTOP and ASTOP computer programs is presented along with results of the analyses of the possible extension of the HILTOP program and results of an extra-ecliptic mission study performed with HILTOP

The sonic analogue of black hole radiation

A microscopic description of Hawking radiation in sonic black holes has been recently presented (Giovanazzi S 2005 Phys. Rev. Lett. 94 061302). This exactly solvable model is formulated in terms of one-dimensional scattering of a Fermi gas. In this paper, the model is extended to account possible finite size effects of a realistic geometry. The flow of particles is maintained by a piston (i.e. an impenetrable barrier) moving slowly towards the sonic horizon. Using existing technologies the Hawking temperature can be of order of a few microkelvin in a realistic experiment.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures, submitted to Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular & Optical Physic

Zero sound in triplet-correlated superfluid neutron matter

The linear response of a superfluid neutron liquid onto external vector field is studied for the case of ^{3}P_{2}-\,^{3}F_{2} pairing. The consideration is limited to the case when the wave-length of the perturbation is large as compared to the coherence length in the superfluid matter and the transferred energy is small in comparison with the gap amplitude. The obtained results are used to analyse the collisionless phonon-like excitations of the condensate of superfluid neutrons. In particular, we analyze the case of neutron condensation into the state with $m_{j}=0$ which is conventionally considered as the preferable one in the bulk matter of neutron stars. Zero sound (if it exists) is found to be anisotropic and undergoes strong decrement below some temperature threshold depending substantially on the intensity of Fermi-liquid interactions.Comment: 16 pages, 2 figure

Number fluctuations in cold quantum gases

In ultracold gases many experiments use atom imaging as a basic observable. The resulting image is averaged over a number of realizations and mostly only this average is used. Only recently the noise has been measured to extract physical information. In the present paper we investigate the quantum noise arising in these gases at zero temperature. We restrict ourselves to the homogeneous situation and study the fluctuations in particle number found within a given volume in the gas, and more specifically inside a sphere of radius $R$. We show that zero-temperature fluctuations are not extensive and the leading term scales with sphere radius $R$ as $R^2\ln R$ (or $\ln R$) in three- (or one-) dimensional systems. We calculate systematically the next term beyond this leading order. We consider first the generic case of a compressible superfluid. Then we investigate the whole Bose-Einstein-condensation (BEC)-BCS crossover crossover, and in particular the limiting cases of the weakly interacting Bose gas and of the free Fermi gas.Comment: Minor changes due to referee comment

Ginzburg-Landau Expansion and the Slope of the Upper Critical Field in Disordered Superconductors with Anisotropic Pairing

It is demonstrated that the slope of the upper critical field $|dH_{c2}/dT|_{T_{c}}$ in superconductors with $d$-wave pairing drops rather fast with concentration of normal impurities, while in superconductors with anisotropic $s$-wave pairing $|dH_{c2}/dT|_{T_{c}}$ grows, and in the limit of strong disorder is described by the known dependences of the theory of ``dirty'' superconductors. This allows to use the measurements of $H_{c2}$ in disordered superconductors to discriminate between these different types of pairing in high-temperature and heavy-fermion superconductors.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, RevTeX 3.0, 4 Postscript figures attached; Submitted to JETP Letter

Frequency dependent polarizability of small metallic grains

We study the dynamic electronic polarizability of a single nano-scale spherical metallic grain using quantum mechanical approach. We introduce the model for interacting electrons bound in the grain allowing us numerically to calculate the frequency dependence of the polarizability of grains of different sizes. We show that within this model the main resonance peak corresponding to the surface plasmon mode is blue-shifted and some minor secondary resonances above and below the main peak exist. We study the behavior of blue shift as a function of grain size and compare our findings with the classical polarizability and with other results in the literature.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figure

Single-particle and collective excitations in quantum wires made up of vertically stacked quantum dots: Zero magnetic field

We report on the theoretical investigation of the elementary electronic excitations in a quantum wire made up of vertically stacked self-assembled InAs/GaAs quantum dots. The length scales (of a few nanometers) involved in the experimental setups prompt us to consider an infinitely periodic system of two-dimensionally confined (InAs) quantum dot layers separated by GaAs spacers. The the Bloch functions and the Hermite functions together characterize the whole system. We then make use of the Bohm-Pines' (full) random-phase approximation in order to derive a general nonlocal, dynamic dielectric function. Thus developed theoretical framework is then specified to work within a (lowest miniband and) two-subband model that enables us to scrutinize the single-particle as well as collective responses of the system. We compute and discuss the behavior of the eigenfunctions, band-widths, density of states, Fermi energy, single-particle and collective excitations, and finally size up the importance of studying the inverse dielectric function in relation with the quantum transport phenomena. It is remarkable to notice how the variation in the barrier- and well-widths can allow us to tailor the excitation spectrum in the desired energy range. Given the advantage of the vertically stacked quantum dots over the planar ones and the foreseen applications in the single-electron devices and in the quantum computation, it is quite interesting and important to explore the electronic, optical, and transport phenomena in such systems

Dust ion-acoustic shocks in quantum dusty pair-ion plasmas

The formation of dust ion-acoustic shocks (DIASs) in a four-component quantum plasma whose constituents are electrons, both positive and negative ions and immobile charged dust grains, is studied. The effects of both the dissipation due to kinematic viscosity and the dispersion caused by the charge separation as well as the quantum tunneling due to the Bohm potential are taken into account. The propagation of small but finite amplitude dust ion-acoustic waves (DIAWs) is governed by the Korteweg-de Vries-Burger (KdVB) equation which exhibits both oscillatory and monotonic shocks depending not only on the viscosity parameters, but also on the quantum parameter H (the ratio of the electron plasmon to the electron Fermi energy) and the positive to negative ion density ratio. Large amplitude stationary shocks are recovered for a Mach number exceeding its critical value. Unlike the small amplitude shocks, quite a smaller value of the viscosity parameter, H and the density ratio may lead to the large amplitude monotonic shock strucutres. The results could be of importance in astrophysical and laser produced plasmas.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figure

Unified hydrodynamics theory of the lowest Landau level

We propose a hydrodynamics theory of collective quantum Hall states, which describes incompressible liquids, hexatic liquid crystals, a bubble solid and a Wigner crystal states within a unified framework. The structure of the theory is uniquely determined by the space-time symmetry, and a symmetry with respect to static shear deformations. In agreement with recent experiments the theory predicts two gapped collective modes for incompressible liquids. We argue that the presence of the above two modes is a universal property of a magnetized two-dimensional collective liquid.Comment: RevTex, 8 pages. Revised and expanded versio

Experimental Test of the Dynamical Coulomb Blockade Theory for Short Coherent Conductors

We observed the recently predicted quantum suppression of dynamical Coulomb blockade on short coherent conductors by measuring the conductance of a quantum point contact embedded in a tunable on-chip circuit. Taking advantage of the circuit modularity we measured most parameters used by the theory. This allowed us to perform a reliable and quantitative experimental test of the theory. Dynamical Coulomb blockade corrections, probed up to the second conductance plateau of the quantum point contact, are found to be accurately normalized by the same Fano factor as quantum shot noise, in excellent agreement with the theoretical predictions.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Physical Review Letter