Broadband boundary effects on Brownian motion

Brownian motion of particles in confined fluids is important for many applications, yet the effects of the boundary over a wide range of time scales are still not well understood. We report high-bandwidth, comprehensive measurements of Brownian motion of an optically trapped micrometer-sized silica sphere in water near an approximately flat wall. At short distances we observe anisotropic Brownian motion with respect to the wall. We find that surface confinement not only occurs in the long time scale diffusive regime but also in the short time scale ballistic regime, and the velocity autocorrelation function of the Brownian particle decays faster than that of a particle in bulk fluid. Furthermore, at low frequencies the thermal force loses its color due to the reflected flow from the no-slip boundary. The power spectrum of the thermal force on the particle near a no-slip boundary becomes flat at low frequencies. This detailed understanding of boundary effects on Brownian motion opens a door to developing a 3D microscope using particles as remote sensors.Sid W. Richardson FoundationR. A. Welch Foundation F-1258Physic

Magneto-Optical Cooling of Atoms

We propose an alternative method to laser cooling. Our approach utilizes the extreme brightness of a supersonic atomic beam, and the adiabatic atomic coilgun to slow atoms in the beam or to bring them to rest. We show how internal-state optical pumping and stimulated optical transitions, combined with magnetic forces can be used to cool the translational motion of atoms. This approach does not rely on momentum transfer from photons to atoms, as in laser cooling. We predict that our method can surpass laser cooling in terms of flux of ultra-cold atoms and phase-space density, with lower required laser power and reduced complexity

Lattice Interferometer for Ultra-Cold Atoms

We demonstrate an atomic interferometer based on ultra-cold atoms released from an optical lattice. This technique yields a large improvement in signal to noise over a related interferometer previously demonstrated. The interferometer involves diffraction of the atoms using a pulsed optical lattice. For short pulses a simple analytical theory predicts the expected signal. We investigate the interferometer for both short pulses and longer pulses where the analytical theory break down. Longer pulses can improve the precision and signal size. For specific pulse lengths we observe a coherent signal at times that differs greatly from what is expected from the short pulse model. The interferometric signal also reveals information about the dynamics of the atoms in the lattice. We investigate the application of the interferometer for a measurement of $h/m_A$ that together with other well known constants constitutes a measurement of the fine structure constant

Experimental Study of the Role of Atomic Interactions on Quantum Transport

We report an experimental study of quantum transport for atoms confined in a periodic potential and compare between thermal and BEC initial conditions. We observe ballistic transport for all values of well depth and initial conditions, and the measured expansion velocity for thermal atoms is in excellent agreement with a single-particle model. For weak wells, the expansion of the BEC is also in excellent agreement with single-particle theory, using an effective temperature. We observe a crossover to a new regime for the BEC case as the well depth is increased, indicating the importance of interactions on quantum transport.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Ellipsoidal Coulomb Crystals in a Linear Radiofrequency Trap

A static quadrupole potential breaks the cylindrical symmetry of the effective potential of a linear rf trap. For a one-component fluid plasma at low temperature, the resulting equilibrium charge distribution is predicted to be an ellipsoid. We have produced laser-cooled Be$^+$ ellipsoidal ion crystals and found good agreement between their shapes and the cold fluid prediction. In two-species mixtures, containing Be$^+$ and sympathetically cooled ions of lower mass, a sufficiently strong static quadrupole potential produces a spatial separation of the species.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Electro-worming: The Behaviors of Caenorhabditis (C.) elegans in DC and AC Electric Fields

The video showcases how C. elegans worms respond to DC and AC electrical stimulations. Gabel et al (2007) demonstrated that in the presence of DC and low frequency AC fields, worms of stage L2 and larger propel themselves towards the cathode. Rezai et al (2010) have demonstrated that this phenomenon, dubbed electrotaxis, can be used to control the motion of worms. In the video, we reproduce Rezai's experimental results. Furthermore, we show, for the first time, that worms can be trapped with high frequency, nonuniform electric fields. We studied the effect of the electric field on the nematode as a function of field intensity and frequency and identified a range of electric field intensities and frequencies that trap worms without apparent adverse effect on their viability. Worms tethered by dielectrophoresis (DEP) avoid blue light, indicating that at least some of the nervous system functions remain unimpaired in the presence of the electric field. DEP is useful to dynamically confine nematodes for observations, sort them according to size, and separate dead worms from live ones.Comment: Two videos are included. The videos have been uploaded on eCommons@Cornell. The link address is as follow: http://ecommons.library.cornell.edu/handle/1813/1410