50 research outputs found
Instabilities of waves in nonlinear disordered media
We develop a self-consistent theory of temporal fluctuations of a speckle
pattern resulting from the multiple scattering of a coherent wave in a weakly
nonlinear disordered medium. The speckle pattern is shown to become unstable if
the nonlinearity exceeds a threshold value. The instability is due to a
feedback provided by the multiple scattering and manifests itself in
spontaneous fluctuations of the scattered intensity. The development of
instability is independent of the sign of nonlinearity.Comment: 6 pages, 2 PostScript figures, accepted to Phys. Rev. Let
Weak localization of light by cold atoms: the impact of quantum internal structure
Since the work of Anderson on localization, interference effects for the
propagation of a wave in the presence of disorder have been extensively
studied, as exemplified in coherent backscattering (CBS) of light. In the
multiple scattering of light by a disordered sample of thermal atoms,
interference effects are usually washed out by the fast atomic motion. This is
no longer true for cold atoms where CBS has recently been observed. However,
the internal structure of the atoms strongly influences the interference
properties. In this paper, we consider light scattering by an atomic dipole
transition with arbitrary degeneracy and study its impact on coherent
backscattering. We show that the interference contrast is strongly reduced.
Assuming a uniform statistical distribution over internal degrees of freedom,
we compute analytically the single and double scattering contributions to the
intensity in the weak localization regime. The so-called ladder and crossed
diagrams are generalized to the case of atoms and permit to calculate
enhancement factors and backscattering intensity profiles for polarized light
and any closed atomic dipole transition.Comment: 22 pages Revtex, 9 figures, to appear in PR
Antrum Approach Planning for Removal of Impacted Tooth Using Cone-Beam Computed Tomography
Due to the great number of structures in the maxillofacial region, cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) is an important procedure in presurgical planning for removal of impacted teeth. Most of the information provided by this imaging technique cannot be visualized in conventional radiographs. In addition, CBCT reduces patient exposure to radiation in comparison with helical computed tomography and provides dental practitioners with easy access. We report the clinical case of a patient who underwent a surgical procedure for removal of an impacted maxillary premolar. CBCT-assisted presurgical treatment was used, enabling a more conservative surgical access, a less traumatic and less time consuming procedure than conventional surgical intervention
Temporal fluctuations of waves in weakly nonlinear disordered media
We consider the multiple scattering of a scalar wave in a disordered medium
with a weak nonlinearity of Kerr type. The perturbation theory, developed to
calculate the temporal autocorrelation function of scattered wave, fails at
short correlation times. A self-consistent calculation shows that for
nonlinearities exceeding a certain threshold value, the multiple-scattering
speckle pattern becomes unstable and exhibits spontaneous fluctuations even in
the absence of scatterer motion. The instability is due to a distributed
feedback in the system "coherent wave + nonlinear disordered medium". The
feedback is provided by the multiple scattering. The development of instability
is independent of the sign of nonlinearity.Comment: RevTeX, 15 pages (including 5 figures), accepted for publication in
Phys. Rev.