Measurement of excited-state transitions in cold calcium atoms by direct femtosecond frequency-comb spectroscopy

We apply direct frequency-comb spectroscopy, in combination with precision cw spectroscopy, to measure the ${\rm 4s4p} ^3P_1 \to {\rm 4s5s} ^3S_1$ transition frequency in cold calcium atoms. A 657 nm ultrastable cw laser was used to excite atoms on the narrow ($\gamma \sim 400$ Hz) ${\rm 4s^2} ^1S_0 \to {\rm 4s4p} ^3P_1$ clock transition, and the direct output of the frequency comb was used to excite those atoms from the ${\rm 4s4p} ^3P_1$ state to the ${\rm 4s5s} ^3S_1$ state. The resonance of this second stage was detected by observing a decrease in population of the ground state as a result of atoms being optically pumped to the metastable ${\rm 4s4p} ^3P_{0,2}$ states. The ${\rm 4s4p} ^3P_1 \to {\rm 4s5s} ^3S_1$ transition frequency is measured to be $\nu = 489 544 285 713(56)$ kHz; which is an improvement by almost four orders of magnitude over the previously measured value. In addition, we demonstrate spectroscopy on magnetically trapped atoms in the ${\rm 4s4p} ^3P_2$ state.Comment: 4 pages 5 figure

Fuzzy PD-Type Iterative Learning Control of a Single Pneumatic Muscle Actuator

Pneumatic muscles actuator (PMA) is widely used in the field of rehabilitation robot for its good flexibility, light weight and high power/mass ratio as compared to traditional actuator. In this paper, a fuzzy logic-based PD-type iterative learning controller (ILC) is proposed to control the PMA to track a predefined trajectory more precisely during repetitive movements. In order to optimize the parameters of the learning law, fuzzy logic control is introduced into ILC to achieve smaller errors and faster convergence. A simulation experiment was first conducted by taking the PMA model fitted by support vector machine (SVM) as controlled target, which showed that the proposed method achieved a better tracking performance than traditional PD-type ILC. A satisfactory control effect was also obtained when fuzzy PD-type ILC was applied to actual PMA control experiment. Result showed that it takes 25 iterations for the maximum error of trajectory converges to a minimum of about 0.2

QCD equation of state at non-zero chemical potential

We present our new results for the QCD equation of state at nonzero chemical potential at N_t=6 and compare them with N_t=4. We use the Taylor expansion method with terms up to sixth order in simulations with 2+1 flavors of improved asqtad quarks along a line of constant physics with m_l=0.1 m_s and approximately physical strange quark mass m_s.Comment: 7 pages, 10 figures, presented at Lattice 2008 (Nonzero Temperature and Density), College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, V

Relativistic coupled-cluster studies of ionization potentials, lifetimes and polarizabilities in singly ionized calcium

Using the relativistic coupled-cluster method, we have calculated ionization potentials, E1 matrix elements and dipole polarizabilities of many low-lying states of Ca$^+$. Contributions from the Breit interaction are given explicitly for these properties. Polarizabilities of the ground and the first excited d-states are determined by evaluating the wave functions that are perturbed to first order by the electric dipole operator and the black-body radiation shifts are estimated from these results. We also report the results of branching ratios and lifetimes of the first excited p-states using both the calculated and experimental wavelengths and compare them with their measured values.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figur

Energy levels and lifetimes of Gd IV and enhancement of the electron dipole moment

We have calculated energy levels and lifetimes of 4f7 and 4f6 5d configurations of Gd IV using Hartree-Fock and configuration interaction methods. This allows us to reduce significantly the uncertainty of the theoretical determination of the electron electric dipole moment (EDM) enhancement factor in this ion and, correspondingly, in gadolinium-containing garnets for which such measurements were recently proposed. Our new value for the EDM enhancement factor of Gd+3 is -2.2 +- 0.5. Calculations of energy levels and lifetimes for Eu~III are used to control the accuracy.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev. A 6 pages, 0 figures, 3 table