122 research outputs found
Comment on "New Experimental Limit for the Electric Dipole Moment of the Neutron"
A new limit for the neutron electric dipole moment has been recently
reported. This new limit is obtained by combining the result from a previous
experiment with the result from a more recent experiment that has much worse
statistical accuracy. We show that the old result has a systematic error
possibly four times greater than the new limit, and under the circumstances,
averaging of the old and new results is statistically invalid. The conclusion
is that it would be more appropriate to quote two independent but mutually
supportive limits as obtained from each experiment separately.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figure
Temperature correction to the Casimir force in cryogenic range and anomalous skin effect
Temperature correction to the Casimir force is considered for real metals at
low temperatures. With the temperature decrease the mean free path for
electrons becomes larger than the field penetration depth. In this condition
description of metals with the impedance of anomalous skin effect is shown to
be more appropriate than with the permittivity. The effect is crucial for the
temperature correction. It is demonstrated that in the zero frequency limit the
reflection coefficients should coincide with those of ideal metal if we demand
the entropy to be zero at T=0. All the other prescriptions discussed in the
literature for the term in the Lifshitz formula give negative entropy. It
is shown that the temperature correction in the region of anomalous skin effect
is not suppressed as it happens in the plasma model. This correction will be
important in the future cryogenic measurements of the Casimir force.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev.
Higher order conductivity corrections to the Casimir force
The finite conductivity corrections to the Casimir force in two
configurations are calculated in the third and fourth orders in relative
penetration depth of electromagnetic zero oscillations into the metal. The
obtained analytical perturbation results are compared with recent computations.
Applications to the modern experiments are discussed.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figure
The Casimir Problem of Spherical Dielectrics: Numerical Evaluation for General Permittivities
The Casimir mutual free energy F for a system of two dielectric concentric
nonmagnetic spherical bodies is calculated, at arbitrary temperatures. The
present paper is a continuation of an earlier investigation [Phys. Rev. E {\bf
63}, 051101 (2001)], in which F was evaluated in full only for the case of
ideal metals (refractive index n=infinity). Here, analogous results are
presented for dielectrics, for some chosen values of n. Our basic calculational
method stems from quantum statistical mechanics. The Debye expansions for the
Riccati-Bessel functions when carried out to a high order are found to be very
useful in practice (thereby overflow/underflow problems are easily avoided),
and also to give accurate results even for the lowest values of l down to l=1.
Another virtue of the Debye expansions is that the limiting case of metals
becomes quite amenable to an analytical treatment in spherical geometry. We
first discuss the zero-frequency TE mode problem from a mathematical viewpoint
and then, as a physical input, invoke the actual dispersion relations. The
result of our analysis, based upon the adoption of the Drude dispersion
relation at low frequencies, is that the zero-frequency TE mode does not
contribute for a real metal. Accordingly, F turns out in this case to be only
one half of the conventional value at high temperatures. The applicability of
the Drude model in this context has however been questioned recently, and we do
not aim at a complete discussion of this issue here. Existing experiments are
low-temperature experiments, and are so far not accurate enough to distinguish
between the different predictions. We also calculate explicitly the
contribution from the zero-frequency mode for a dielectric. For a dielectric,
this zero-frequency problem is absent.Comment: 23 pages, LaTeX, 7 ps figures; expanded discussion, especially in
Sec. 5. To appear in Phys. Rev.
Template-stripped gold surfaces with 0.4 nm rms roughness suitable for force measurements. Application to the Casimir force in the 20-100 nm range
Using a template-stripping method, macroscopic gold surfaces with
root-mean-square (rms) roughness less than 0.4 nm have been prepared, making
them useful for studies of surface interactions in the nanometer range. The
utility of such substrates is demonstrated by measurements of the Casimir force
at surface separations between 20 and 100 nm, resulting in good agreement with
theory. The significance and quantification of this agreement is addressed, as
well as some methodological aspects regarding the measurement of the Casimir
force with high accuracy.Comment: 7 figure
Experimental Searches for the Axion and Axion-Like Particles
Four decades after its prediction, the axion remains the most compelling solution to the strong-CP problem and a well-motivated dark matter candidate, inspiring a host of elegant and ultrasensitive experiments based on axion-photon mixing. This article reviews the experimental situation on several fronts. The microwave cavity experiment is making excellent progress in the search for dark matter axions in the µeV range and may plausibly be extended up to 100 µeV. Within the past several years, however, researchers have realized that axions are pervasive throughout string theories, but with masses that fall naturally in the neV range, for which an NMR-based search is under development. Both searches for axions emitted from the Sun's burning core and purely laboratory experiments based on photon regeneration have recently made great progress, with ambitious projects proposed for the coming decade. Each of these campaigns has pushed the state of the art in technology, enabling large gains in sensitivity and mass reach. Furthermore, each modality has been exploited in order to search for more generalized axion-like particles, which we also discuss in this review. We are hopeful, even optimistic, that the next review of the subject will concern the discovery of the axion, its properties, and its exploitation as a probe of early universe cosmology and structure formation
A new "polarized version" of the Casimir Effect is measurable
We argue that the exactly computable, angle dependent, Casimir force between
parallel plates with different directions of conductivity can be measured.Comment: One Figure, 11 page
Neutron-Electron EDM Correlations in Supersymmetry and Prospects for EDM Searches
Motivated by recent progress in experimental techniques of electric dipole
moment (EDM) measurements, we study correlations between the neutron and
electron EDMs in common supersymmetric models. These include minimal
supergravity (mSUGRA) with small CP phases, mSUGRA with a heavy SUSY spectrum,
the decoupling scenario and split SUSY. In most cases, the electron and neutron
EDMs are found to be observable in the next round of EDM experiments. They
exhibit certain correlation patterns. For example, if d_n ~ 10^{-27} e cm is
found, d_e is predicted to lie in the range 10^{-28}-10^{-29} e cm.Comment: 16 pages,12 figures. To appear in JHEP. A note on stability of the
correlations added in Conclusions; refs. and footnotes adde
Energy levels and lifetimes of Nd IV, Pm IV, Sm IV, and Eu IV
To address the shortage of experimental data for electron spectra of
triply-ionized rare earth elements we have calculated energy levels and
lifetimes of 4f{n+1} and 4f{n}5d configurations of Nd IV (n=2), Pm IV (n=3), Sm
IV (n=4), and Eu IV (n=5) using Hartree-Fock and configuration interaction
methods. To control the accuracy of our calculations we also performed similar
calculations for Pr III, Nd III and Sm III, for which experimental data are
available. The results are important, in particular, for physics of magnetic
garnets.Comment: 4 pages 1 tabl
Onset voltage shift due to non-zero Landau ground state level in coherent magnetotransport
Coherent electron transport in double-barrier heterostructures with parallel
electric and magnetic fields is analyzed theoretically and with the aid of a
quantum simulator accounting for 3-dimensional transport effects. The
onset-voltage shift induced by the magnetic field in resonant tunneling diodes,
which was previously attributed to the cyclotron frequency inside the
well is found to arise from an upward shift of the non-zero ground (lowest)
Landau state energy in the entire quantum region where coherent transport takes
place. The spatial dependence of the cyclotron frequency is accounted for and
verified to have a negligible impact on resonant tunneling for the device and
magnetic field strength considered. A correction term for the onset-voltage
shift arising from the magnetic field dependence of the chemical potential is
also derived. The Landau ground state with its nonvanishing finite harmonic
oscillator energy is verified however to be the principal
contributor to the onset voltage shift at low temperatures.Comment: 13 pages, and 3 figures. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.
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