2,336 research outputs found
You’re Having Fun When Time Flies: The Hedonic Consequences of Subjective Time Progression
Seven studies tested the hypothesis that people use subjective time progression in hedonic evaluation. When people believe that time has passed unexpectedly quickly, they rate tasks as more engaging, noises as less irritating, and songs as more enjoyable. We propose that felt time distortion operates as a metacognitive cue that people implicitly attribute to their enjoyment of an experience (i.e., time flew, so the experience must have been fun). Consistent with this attribution account, the effects of felt time distortion on enjoyment ratings were moderated by the need for attribution, the strength of the “time flies” naive theory, and the presence of an alternative attribution. These findings suggest a previously unexplored process through which subjective time progression can influence the hedonic evaluation of experiences
A Time-Orbiting Potential Trap for Bose-Einstein Condensate Interferometry
We describe a novel atom trap for Bose-Einstein condensates of 87Rb to be
used in atom interferometry experiments. The trap is based on a time-orbiting
potential waveguide. It supports the atoms against gravity while providing weak
confinement to minimize interaction effects. We observe harmonic oscillation
frequencies omega_x, omega_y, omega_z as low as 2 pi times (6.0,1.2,3.3) Hz. Up
to 2 times 10^4 condensate atoms have been loaded into the trap, at estimated
temperatures as low as 850 pK. We anticipate that interferometer measurement
times of 1 s or more should be achievable in this device.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figure
Stabilizing an Attractive Bose-Einstein Condensate by Driving a Surface Collective Mode
Bose-Einstein condensates of Li have been limited in number due to
attractive interatomic interactions. Beyond this number, the condensate
undergoes collective collapse. We study theoretically the effect of driving
low-lying collective modes of the condensate by a weak asymmetric sinusoidally
time-dependent field. We find that driving the radial breathing mode further
destabilizes the condensate, while excitation of the quadrupolar surface mode
causes the condensate to become more stable by imparting quasi-angular momentum
to it. We show that a significantly larger number of atoms may occupy the
condensate, which can then be sustained almost indefinitely. All effects are
predicted to be clearly visible in experiments and efforts are under way for
their experimental realization.Comment: 4 ReVTeX pages + 2 postscript figure
Realistic Earth escape strategies for solar sailing
With growing interest in solar sailing comes the requirement to provide a basis for future detailed planetary escape mission analysis by drawing together prior work, clarifying and explaining previously anomalies. Previously unexplained seasonal variations in sail escape times from Earth orbit are explained analytically and corroborated within a numerical trajectory model. Blended-sail control algorithms, explicitly independent of time, which providenear-optimal escape trajectories and maintain a safe minimum altitude and which are suitable as a potential autonomous onboard controller, are then presented. These algorithms are investigated from a range of initial conditions and are shown to maintain the optimality previously demonstrated by the use of a single-energy gain control law but without the risk of planetary collision. Finally, it is shown that the minimum sail characteristic acceleration required for escape from a polar orbit without traversing the Earth shadow cone increases exponentially as initial altitude is decreased
Self-Trapping, Quantum Tunneling and Decay Rates for a Bose Gas with Attractive Nonlocal Interaction
We study the Bose-Einstein condensation for a cloud of Li atoms with
attractive nonlocal (finite-range) interaction in a harmonic trap. In addition
to the low-density metastable branch, that is present also in the case of local
interaction, a new stable branch appears at higher densities. For a large
number of atoms, the size of the cloud in the stable high-density branch is
independent of the trap size and the atoms are in a macroscopic quantum
self-trapped configuration. We analyze the macroscopic quantum tunneling
between the low-density metastable branch and the high-density one by using the
istanton technique. Moreover we consider the decay rate of the Bose condensate
due to inelastic two- and three-body collisions.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.
Explosion of a collapsing Bose-Einstein condensate
We show that elastic collisions between atoms in a Bose-Einstein condensate
with attractive interactions lead to an explosion that ejects a large fraction
of the collapsing condensate. We study variationally the dynamics of this
explosion and find excellent agreement with recent experiments on magnetically
trapped Rubidium-85. We also determine the energy and angular distribution of
the ejected atoms during the collapse.Comment: Four pages of ReVTeX and five postscript figure
Intermittent implosion and pattern formation of trapped Bose-Einstein condensates with attractive interaction
The collapsing dynamics of a trapped Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) with
attractive interaction are revealed to exhibit two previously unknown
phenomena. During the collapse, BEC undergoes a series of rapid implosions that
occur {\it intermittently} within a very small region. When the sign of the
interaction is suddenly switched from repulsive to attractive, e.g., by the
Feshbach resonance, density fluctuations grow to form various patterns such as
a shell structure.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, RevTeX, epsf.sty, corrected loss rate
Quadratic Bell inequalities as tests for multipartite entanglement
This letter presents quantum mechanical inequalities which distinguish, for
systems of spin-\half particles (), between fully entangled states
and states in which at most particles are entangled. These inequalities
are stronger than those obtained by Gisin and Bechmann-Pasquinucci [Phys.\
Lett. A {\bf 246}, 1 (1998)] and by Seevinck and Svetlichny [quant-ph/0201046].Comment: 4 pages, including 1 figure. Typo's removed and one proof simplified
in revised versio
Entangling many atomic ensembles through laser manipulation
We propose an experimentally feasible scheme to generate
Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) type of maximal entanglement between many
atomic ensembles based on laser manipulation and single-photon detection. The
scheme, with inherent fault tolerance to the dominant noise and efficient
scaling of the efficiency with the number of ensembles, allows to maximally
entangle many atomic ensemble within the reach of current technology. Such a
maximum entanglement of many ensembles has wide applications in demonstration
of quantum nonlocality, high-precision spectroscopy, and quantum information
processing.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur
Nonequilibrium steady states in a vibrated-rod monolayer: tetratic, nematic and smectic correlations
We study experimentally the nonequilibrium phase behaviour of a horizontal
monolayer of macroscopic rods. The motion of the rods in two dimensions is
driven by vibrations in the vertical direction. Aside from the control
variables of packing fraction and aspect ratio that are typically explored in
molecular liquid crystalline systems, due to the macroscopic size of the
particles we are also able to investigate the effect of the precise shape of
the particle on the steady states of this driven system. We find that the shape
plays an important role in determining the nature of the orientational ordering
at high packing fraction. Cylindrical particles show substantial tetratic
correlations over a range of aspect ratios where spherocylinders have
previously been shown by Bates et al (JCP 112, 10034 (2000)) to undergo
transitions between isotropic and nematic phases. Particles that are thinner at
the ends (rolling pins or bails) show nematic ordering over the same range of
aspect ratios, with a well-established nematic phase at large aspect ratio and
a defect-ridden nematic state with large-scale swirling motion at small aspect
ratios. Finally, long-grain, basmati rice, whose geometry is intermediate
between the two shapes above, shows phases with strong indications of smectic
order.Comment: 18 pages and 13 eps figures, references adde
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