6,785 research outputs found
Mixture of ultracold lithium and cesium atoms in an optical dipole trap
We present the first simultaneous trapping of two different ultracold atomic
species in a conservative trap. Lithium and cesium atoms are stored in an
optical dipole trap formed by the focus of a CO laser. Techniques for
loading both species of atoms are discussed and observations of elastic and
inelastic collisions between the two species are presented. A model for
sympathetic cooling of two species with strongly different mass in the presence
of slow evaporation is developed. From the observed Cs-induced evaporation of
Li atoms we estimate a cross section for cold elastic Li-Cs collisions.Comment: 10 pages 9 figures, submitted to Appl. Phys. B; v2: Corrected
evaporation formulas and some postscript problem
Combined chips for atom-optics
We present experiments with Bose-Einstein condensates on a combined atom
chip. The combined structure consists of a large-scale "carrier chip" and
smaller "atom-optics chips", containing micron-sized elements. This allows us
to work with condensates very close to chip surfaces without suffering from
fragmentation or losses due to thermally driven spin flips. Precise
three-dimensional positioning and transport with constant trap frequencies are
described. Bose-Einstein condensates were manipulated with submicron accuracy
above atom-optics chips. As an application of atom chips, a direction sensitive
magnetic field microscope is demonstrated.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figure
Investigation of peak shapes in the MIBETA experiment calibrations
In calorimetric neutrino mass experiments, where the shape of a beta decay
spectrum has to be precisely measured, the understanding of the detector
response function is a fundamental issue. In the MIBETA neutrino mass
experiment, the X-ray lines measured with external sources did not have
Gaussian shapes, but exhibited a pronounced shoulder towards lower energies. If
this shoulder were a general feature of the detector response function, it
would distort the beta decay spectrum and thus mimic a non-zero neutrino mass.
An investigation was performed to understand the origin of the shoulder and its
potential influence on the beta spectrum. First, the peaks were fitted with an
analytic function in order to determine quantitatively the amount of events
contributing to the shoulder, also depending on the energy of the calibration
X-rays. In a second step, Montecarlo simulations were performed to reproduce
the experimental spectrum and to understand the origin of its shape. We
conclude that at least part of the observed shoulder can be attributed to a
surface effect
Toward Effective Violence Mitigation: Transforming Political Settlements
Recognising the centrality of violence in the development process (though not subscribing to the notion that conflict and violence are development in reverse), in 2012–14 a group of researchers at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) engaged in depth with the complex and thorny questions of how ‘new’ forms of violence in the developing world – as opposed to ‘traditional’ civil or intra-state war – should be understood; and through which policies they could best be prevented and/or mitigated. The result of this endeavour is a series of evidence-based reports that were produced in collaboration with Southern partners in a sample of four violence-affected countries in Africa: Nigeria (Niger Delta), Sierra Leone, Egypt and Kenya (Marsabit County).
The evidence from the four case studies suggests that – contrary to the early post-Cold War accounts of ‘barbarism’ and ‘senseless bloodshed’ – the violence we observe in many countries and locales today is about something. Yet, the analyses also show that the triggers, manifestations and effects of this violence – characterised as diffuse, recursive and globalised – cannot be captured by using the analytical tools developed to explain armed conflict within states. Strictly speaking, it would be misguided to label the violence in the Niger Delta, Marsabit County, Egypt and Sierra Leone as ‘civil war’, ‘internal armed conflict’ or ‘new war’. Instead, it is more accurate to speak of highly heterogeneous situations of violence or ‘fields of social violence’. At the same time, it is crucial not to dissociate these situations of violence from political processes by, for instance, reducing them to manifestations of criminality, such as homicide and illicit drug trafficking, or reflections of social problems like rampant youth unemployment, the use of prohibited psychoactive substances, and gang culture.UK Department for International Developmen
Proposed magneto-electrostatic ring trap for neutral atoms
We propose a novel trap for confining cold neutral atoms in a microscopic
ring using a magneto-electrostatic potential. The trapping potential is derived
from a combination of a repulsive magnetic field from a hard drive atom mirror
and the attractive potential produced by a charged disk patterned on the hard
drive surface. We calculate a trap frequency of [29.7, 42.6, 62.8] kHz and a
depth of [16.1, 21.8, 21.8] MHz for [133Cs, 87Rb, 40K], and discuss a simple
loading scheme and a method for fabrication. This device provides a
one-dimensional potential in a ring geometry that may be of interest to the
study of trapped quantum degenerate one-dimensional gases.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures; revised, including new calculations and further
discussio
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Outlier analysis for a silicon nanoparticle population balance model
© 2016 The Combustion Institute We assess the impact of individual experimental observations on a multivariate population balance model for the formation of silicon nanoparticles from the thermal decomposition of silane by means of basic regression influence diagnostics. The nanoparticle model is closely related to one which has been used to simulate soot formation in flames and includes morphological and compositional details which allow re presentation of primary particles within aggregates, and of coagulation, surface growth, and sintering processes. Predicted particle size distributions are optimised against 19 experiments across ranges of initial temperature, pressure, residence time, and initial silane mass fraction. The influence of each experimental observation on the model parameter estimates is then quantified using the Cook distance and DFBETA measures. Seven model parameters are included in the analysis, with five Arrhenius pre-exponential factors in the gas-phase kinetic rate expressions, and two kinetic rate constants in the population balance model. The analysis highlights certain experimental conditions and kinetic parameters which warrant closer inspection due to large influence, thus providing clues as to which aspects of the model require improvement. We find the insights provided can be useful for future model development and planning of experiments.This work was partly funded by the Cambridge Australia Trust, by the National Research Foundation (NRF), Prime Minister’s Office, Singapore under its Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise (CREATE) programme, and by the European Union Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under Grant agreement 646121
Broad Feshbach resonance in the 6Li-40K mixture
We study the widths of interspecies Feshbach resonances in a mixture of the
fermionic quantum gases 6Li and 40K. We develop a model to calculate the width
and position of all available Feshbach resonances for a system. Using the model
we select the optimal resonance to study the 6Li/40K mixture. Experimentally,
we obtain the asymmetric Fano lineshape of the interspecies elastic cross
section by measuring the distillation rate of 6Li atoms from a potassium-rich
6Li/40K mixture as a function of magnetic field. This provides us with the
first experimental determination of the width of a resonance in this mixture,
Delta B=1.5(5) G. Our results offer good perspectives for the observation of
universal crossover physics using this mass-imbalanced fermionic mixture.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
Diffraction of a Bose-Einstein condensate from a Magnetic Lattice on a Micro Chip
We experimentally study the diffraction of a Bose-Einstein condensate from a
magnetic lattice, realized by a set of 372 parallel gold conductors which are
micro fabricated on a silicon substrate. The conductors generate a periodic
potential for the atoms with a lattice constant of 4 microns. After exposing
the condensate to the lattice for several milliseconds we observe diffraction
up to 5th order by standard time of flight imaging techniques. The experimental
data can be quantitatively interpreted with a simple phase imprinting model.
The demonstrated diffraction grating offers promising perspectives for the
construction of an integrated atom interferometer.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Noise-assisted transport in the Wannier-Stark system
We investigated how the presence of an additional lattice potential, driven by a harmonic noise process, changes the transition rate from the ground band to the first excited band in a Wannier-Stark system. Alongside numerical simulations, we present two models that capture the essential features of the dynamics. The first model uses a noise-driven Landau-Zener approximation and describes the short-time evolution of the full system very well. The second model assumes that the noise process correlation time is much larger than the internal timescale of the system, yet it allows for good estimates of the observed transition rates and gives a simple interpretation of the dynamics. One of the central results is that we obtain a way of controlling the interband transitions with the help of the second lattice. This could readily be realized in state-of-the-art experiments using either Bose-Einstein condensates or optical pulses in engineered potentials
Irregular sloshing cold fronts in the nearby merging groups NGC 7618 and UGC 12491: evidence for Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities
We present results from two \sim30 ks Chandra observations of the hot
atmospheres of the merging galaxy groups centered around NGC 7618 and UGC
12491. Our images show the presence of arc-like sloshing cold fronts wrapped
around each group center and \sim100 kpc long spiral tails in both groups. Most
interestingly, the cold fronts are highly distorted in both groups, exhibiting
'wings' along the fronts. These features resemble the structures predicted from
non-viscous hydrodynamic simulations of gas sloshing, where Kelvin-Helmholtz
instabilities (KHIs) distort the cold fronts. This is in contrast to the
structure seen in many other sloshing and merger cold fronts, which are smooth
and featureless at the current observational resolution. Both magnetic fields
and viscosity have been invoked to explain the absence of KHIs in these smooth
cold fronts, but the NGC 7618/UGC 12491 pair are two in a growing number of
both sloshing and merger cold fronts that appear distorted. Magnetic fields
and/or viscosity may be able to suppress the growth of KHIs at the cold fronts
in some clusters and groups, but clearly not in all. We propose that the
presence or absence of KHI-distortions in cold fronts can be used as a measure
of the effective viscosity and/or magnetic field strengths in the ICM.Comment: ApJ, accepted. Uses emulateapj styl
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