On the transverse mode of an atom laser

The transverse mode of an atom laser beam that is outcoupled from a Bose-Einstein condensate is investigated and is found to be strongly determined by the mean--field interaction of the laser beam with the condensate. Since for repulsive interactions the geometry of the coupling scheme resembles an interferometer in momentum space, the beam is found show filamentation. Observation of this effect would prove the transverse coherence of an atom laser beam.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Motion Robust Magnetic Susceptibility and Field Inhomogeneity Estimation Using Regularized Image Restoration Techniques for fMRI

In functional MRI, head motion may cause dynamic nonlinear field-inhomogeneity changes, especially with large out-of-plane rotations. This may lead to dynamic geometric distortion or blurring in the time series, which may reduce activation detection accuracy. The use of image registration to estimate dynamic field inhomogeneity maps from a static field map is not sufficient in the presence of such rotations. This paper introduces a retrospective approach to estimate magnetic susceptibility induced field maps of an object in motion, given a static susceptibility induced field map and the associated object motion parameters. It estimates a susceptibility map from a static field map using regularized image restoration techniques, and applies rigid body motion to the former. The dynamic field map is then computed using susceptibility voxel convolution. The method addresses field map changes due to out-of-plane rotations during time series acquisition and does not involve real time field map acquisitions.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/85944/1/Fessler233.pd

Efficient exploration of unknown indoor environments using a team of mobile robots

Whenever multiple robots have to solve a common task, they need to coordinate their actions to carry out the task efficiently and to avoid interferences between individual robots. This is especially the case when considering the problem of exploring an unknown environment with a team of mobile robots. To achieve efficient terrain coverage with the sensors of the robots, one first needs to identify unknown areas in the environment. Second, one has to assign target locations to the individual robots so that they gather new and relevant information about the environment with their sensors. This assignment should lead to a distribution of the robots over the environment in a way that they avoid redundant work and do not interfere with each other by, for example, blocking their paths. In this paper, we address the problem of efficiently coordinating a large team of mobile robots. To better distribute the robots over the environment and to avoid redundant work, we take into account the type of place a potential target is located in (e.g., a corridor or a room). This knowledge allows us to improve the distribution of robots over the environment compared to approaches lacking this capability. To autonomously determine the type of a place, we apply a classifier learned using the AdaBoost algorithm. The resulting classifier takes laser range data as input and is able to classify the current location with high accuracy. We additionally use a hidden Markov model to consider the spatial dependencies between nearby locations. Our approach to incorporate the information about the type of places in the assignment process has been implemented and tested in different environments. The experiments illustrate that our system effectively distributes the robots over the environment and allows them to accomplish their mission faster compared to approaches that ignore the place labels

Highly anisotropic Bose-Einstein condensates: crossover to lower dimensionality

We develop a simple analytical model based on a variational method to explain the properties of trapped cylindrically symmetric Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC) of varying degrees of anisotropy well into regimes of effective one dimension (1D) and effective two dimension (2D). Our results are accurate in regimes where the Thomas-Fermi approximation breaks down and they are shown to be in agreement with recent experimental data.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures; significantly more new material added; title and author-list changed due to changes in conten

Charge carrier dynamics and photocatalytic behavior of TiO2 nanopowders submitted to hydrothermal or conventional heat treatment

The sol–gel technique followed by conventional (TiO2-1) and hydrothermal (TiO2-2) thermal treatment was employed to prepare TiO2-based photocatalysts with distinct particle sizes and crystalline structures. The as prepared metal oxides were evaluated as photocatalysts for gaseous HCHO degradation, methanol, and dye oxidation reactions. Additionally, metallic platinum was deposited on the TiO2 surfaces and H2 evolution measurements were performed. The photocatalytic activities were rationalized in terms of morphologic parameters along with the electron/hole dynamics obtained from transient absorption spectroscopy (TAS). TiO2-2 exhibits smaller particle size, poorer crystallinity, and higher surface area than TiO2-1. Moreover the hydrothermal treatment leads to formation of the metastable brookite phase, while TiO2-1 exhibits only the anatase phase. TAS measurements show that the electron/hole recombination of TiO2-2 is faster than that of the latter. Despite that, TiO2-2 exhibits higher photonic efficiencies for photocatalytic oxidation reactions, which is attributed to its larger surface area that compensates for the decrease of the surface charge carrier concentration. For H2 evolution, it was found that the surface area has only a minor effect and the photocatalyst performance is controlled by the efficiency of the electron transfer to the platinum islands. This process is facilitated by the higher crystallinity of TiO2-1, which exhibits higher photonic efficiency for H2 evolution than that observed for TiO2-2. The results found here provide new insights into the correlations between thermal treatment conditions and photocatalytic activity and will be useful for the design of high performance photocatalysts.Fundac˜ao de Amparo `a Pesquisa do Estado de Minas GeraisConselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientif´ıco e Tecnolog´ıcoCoordenac˜ao de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de N´ıvel SuperiorDFG/BA 1137/8-

Theory of output coupling for trapped fermionic atoms

We develop a dynamic theory of output coupling, for fermionic atoms initially confined in a magnetic trap. We consider an exactly soluble one-dimensional model, with a spatially localized delta-type coupling between the atoms in the trap and a continuum of free-particle external modes. Two important special cases are considered for the confinement potential: the infinite box and the harmonic oscillator. We establish that in both cases a bound state of the coupled system appears for any value of the coupling constant, implying that the trap population does not vanish in the infinite-time limit. For weak coupling, the energy spectrum of the outgoing beam exhibits peaks corresponding to the initially occupied energy levels in the trap; the height of these peaks increases with the energy. As the coupling gets stronger, the energy spectrum is displaced towards dressed energies of the fermions in the trap. The corresponding dressed states result from the coupling between the unperturbed fermionic states in the trap, mediated by the coupling between these states and the continuum. In the strong-coupling limit, there is a reinforcement of the lowest-energy dressed mode, which contributes to the energy spectrum of the outgoing beam more strongly than the other modes. This effect is especially pronounced for the one-dimensional box, which indicates that the efficiency of the mode-reinforcement mechanism depends on the steepness of the confinement potential. In this case, a quasi-monochromatic anti-bunched atomic beam is obtained. Results for a bosonic sample are also shown for comparison.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figures, added discussion on time-dependent spectral distribution and corresponding figur

Digital Quantum Simulation with Rydberg Atoms

We discuss in detail the implementation of an open-system quantum simulator with Rydberg states of neutral atoms held in an optical lattice. Our scheme allows one to realize both coherent as well as dissipative dynamics of complex spin models involving many-body interactions and constraints. The central building block of the simulation scheme is constituted by a mesoscopic Rydberg gate that permits the entanglement of several atoms in an efficient, robust and quick protocol. In addition, optical pumping on ancillary atoms provides the dissipative ingredient for engineering the coupling between the system and a tailored environment. As an illustration, we discuss how the simulator enables the simulation of coherent evolution of quantum spin models such as the two-dimensional Heisenberg model and Kitaev's toric code, which involves four-body spin interactions. We moreover show that in principle also the simulation of lattice fermions can be achieved. As an example for controlled dissipative dynamics, we discuss ground state cooling of frustration-free spin Hamiltonians.Comment: submitted to special issue "Quantum Information with Neutral Particles" of "Quantum Information Processing

Antibiotic-induced accumulation of lipid II synergizes with antimicrobial fatty acids to eradicate bacterial populations

Antibiotic tolerance and antibiotic resistance are the two major obstacles to the efficient and reliable treatment of bacterial infections. Identifying antibiotic adjuvants that sensitize resistant and tolerant bacteria to antibiotic killing may lead to the development of superior treatments with improved outcomes. Vancomycin, a lipid II inhibitor, is a frontline antibiotic for treating methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and other Gram-positive bacterial infections. However, vancomycin use has led to the increasing prevalence of bacterial strains with reduced susceptibility to vancomycin. Here, we show that unsaturated fatty acids act as potent vancomycin adjuvants to rapidly kill a range of Gram-positive bacteria, including vancomycin-tolerant and resistant populations. The synergistic bactericidal activity relies on the accumulation of membrane-bound cell wall intermediates that generate large fluid patches in the membrane leading to protein delocalization, aberrant septal formation, and loss of membrane integrity. Our findings provide a natural therapeutic option that enhances vancomycin activity against difficult-to-treat pathogens, and the underlying mechanism may be further exploited to develop antimicrobials that target recalcitrant infection

Reaction Front in an A+B -> C Reaction-Subdiffusion Process

We study the reaction front for the process A+B -> C in which the reagents move subdiffusively. Our theoretical description is based on a fractional reaction-subdiffusion equation in which both the motion and the reaction terms are affected by the subdiffusive character of the process. We design numerical simulations to check our theoretical results, describing the simulations in some detail because the rules necessarily differ in important respects from those used in diffusive processes. Comparisons between theory and simulations are on the whole favorable, with the most difficult quantities to capture being those that involve very small numbers of particles. In particular, we analyze the total number of product particles, the width of the depletion zone, the production profile of product and its width, as well as the reactant concentrations at the center of the reaction zone, all as a function of time. We also analyze the shape of the product profile as a function of time, in particular its unusual behavior at the center of the reaction zone