332 research outputs found
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
The absolute position of a resonance peak
It is common practice in scattering theory to correlate between the position
of a resonance peak in the cross section and the real part of a complex energy
of a pole of the scattering amplitude. In this work we show that the resonance
peak position appears at the absolute value of the pole's complex energy rather
than its real part. We further demonstrate that a local theory of resonances
can still be used even in cases previously thought impossible
Some Remarks about Variable Mass Systems
We comment about the general argument given to obtain the rocket equation as
it is exposed in standard textbooks. In our opinion, it can induce students to
a wrong answer when solving variable mass problems.Comment: 2 page
Demonstration of superluminal effects in an absorptionless, non-reflective system
We present an experimental and theoretical study of a simple, passive system
consisting of a birefringent, two-dimensional photonic crystal and a polarizer
in series, and show that superluminal dispersive effects can arise even though
no incident radiation is absorbed or reflected. We demonstrate that a vector
formulation of the Kramers-Kronig dispersion relations facilitates an
understanding of these counter-intuitive effects.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, accepted on Physical Review Letter
Surveying the solar system by measuring angles and times: from the solar density to the gravitational constant
A surprisingly large amount of information on our solar system can be gained
from simple measurements of the apparent angular diameters of the sun and the
moon. This information includes the average density of the sun, the distance
between earth and moon, the radius of the moon, and the gravitational constant.
In this note it is described how these and other quantities can be obtained by
simple earthbound measurements of angles and times only, without using any
explicit information on distances between celestial bodies. The pedagogical and
historical aspects of these results are also discussed briefly.Comment: 12 pges, one figur
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