Driven Rydberg atoms reveal quartic level repulsion

The dynamics of Rydberg states of a hydrogen atom subject simultaneously to uniform static electric field and two microwave fields with commensurate frequencies is considered in the range of small fields amplitudes. In the certain range of the parameters of the system the classical secular motion of the electronic ellipse reveals chaotic behavior. Quantum mechanically, when the fine structure of the atom is taken into account, the energy level statistics obey predictions appropriate for the symplectic Gaussian random matrix ensemble.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Let

Plant structural complexity and mechanical defenses mediate predator-prey interactions in an odonate-bird system.

Habitat-forming species provide refuges for a variety of associating species; these refuges may mediate interactions between species differently depending on the functional traits of the habitat-forming species. We investigated refuge provisioning by plants with different functional traits for dragonfly and damselfly (Odonata: Anisoptera and Zygoptera) nymphs emerging from water bodies to molt into their adult stage. During this period, nymphs experience high levels of predation by birds. On the shores of a small pond, plants with mechanical defenses (e.g., thorns and prickles) and high structural complexity had higher abundances of odonate exuviae than nearby plants which lacked mechanical defenses and exhibited low structural complexity. To disentangle the relative effects of these two potentially important functional traits on nymph emergence-site preference and survival, we conducted two fully crossed factorial field experiments using artificial plants. Nymphs showed a strong preference for artificial plants with high structural complexity and to a lesser extent, mechanical defenses. Both functional traits increased nymph survival but through different mechanisms. We suggest that future investigations attempt to experimentally separate the elements contributing to structural complexity to elucidate the mechanistic underpinnings of refuge provisioning

Many-body Anderson localization in one dimensional systems

We show, using quasi-exact numerical simulations, that Anderson localization of one-dimensional particles in a disordered potential survives in the presence of attractive interaction between particles. The localization length of the composite particle can be computed analytically for weak disorder and is in good agreement with the quasi-exact numerical observations using Time Evolving Block Decimation. Our approach allows for simulation of the entire experiment including the final measurement of all atom positions.Comment: 12pp, 5 fig, version accepted in NJ

Dark soliton in a disorder potential

We consider dark soliton in a Bose-Einstein condensate in the presence of a weak disorder potential. Deformation of the soliton shape is analyzed within the Bogoliubov approach and by employing expansion in eigenstates of the P\"oschl-Teller Hamiltonian. Comparison of the results with the numerical simulations indicates that the linear response analysis reveals good agreement even if the strength of the disorder is of the order of the chemical potential of the system. In the second part of the paper we concentrate on quantum nature of the dark soliton and demonstrate that the soliton may reveal Anderson localization in the presence of a disorder. The Anderson localized soliton may decay due to quasi-particle excitations induced by the disorder. However, we show that the corresponding lifetime is much longer than condensate lifetime in a typical experiment.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.