A study of random laser modes in disordered photonic crystals

We studied lasing modes in a disordered photonic crystal. The scaling of the lasing threshold with the system size depends on the strength of disorder. For sufficiently large size, the minimum of the lasing threshold occurs at some finite value of disorder strength. The highest random cavity quality factor was comparable to that of an intentionally introduced single defect. At the minimum, the lasing threshold showed a super-exponential decrease with the size of the system. We explain it through a migration of the lasing mode frequencies toward the photonic bandgap center, where the localization length takes the minimum value. Random lasers with exponentially low thresholds are predicted.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

An Application of Kerr Blackhole Fly-Wheel Model to Statistical Properties of QSOs/AGNs

The aim of this work is to demonstrate the properties of the magnetospheric model around Kerr blackholes (BHs), so-called the fly-wheel (rotation driven) model. The fly-wheel engine of the BH-accretion disk system is applied to the statistics of QSOs/AGNs. In the model, the central BH is assumed to be formed at $z \sim 10^2$ and obtains nearly maximum but finite rotation energy ($\sim$ extreme Kerr BH) at the formation stage. The inherently obtained rotation energy of the Kerr BH is released through an magnetohydrodynamic process. This model naturally leads finite lifetime of AGN activity. Nitta et al. (1991) clarified individual evolution of Kerr BH fly-wheel engine which is parametrized by BH mass, initial Kerr parameter, magnetic field near the horizon and a dimension-less small parameter. We impose a statistical model for the initial mass function (IMF) of ensemble of BHs by the Press-Schechter formalism. By the help of additional assumptions, we can discuss the evolution of the luminosity function and the spatial number density of QSOs/AGNs.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures Fig.7 has been replace

All-angle left-handed negative refraction in Kagome and honeycomb lattice photonic crystals

Possibilities of all-angle left-handed negative refraction in 2D honeycomb and Kagome lattices made of dielectric rods in air are discussed for the refractive indices 3.1 and 3.6. In contrast to triangular lattice photonic crystals made of rods in air, both the honeycomb and Kagome lattices show all-angle left-handed negative refraction in the case of the TM2 band for low normalized frequencies. Certain advantages of the honeycomb and Kagome structures over the triangular lattice are emphasized. This specially concerns the honeycomb lattice with its circle-like equifrequency contours where the effective indices are close to -1 for a wide range of incident angles and frequencies.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figures, pd

Fast Large-Scale Reionization Simulations

We present an efficient method to generate large simulations of the Epoch of Reionization (EoR) without the need for a full 3-dimensional radiative transfer code. Large dark-matter-only simulations are post-processed to produce maps of the redshifted 21cm emission from neutral hydrogen. Dark matter haloes are embedded with sources of radiation whose properties are either based on semi-analytical prescriptions or derived from hydrodynamical simulations. These sources could either be stars or power-law sources with varying spectral indices. Assuming spherical symmetry, ionized bubbles are created around these sources, whose radial ionized fraction and temperature profiles are derived from a catalogue of 1-D radiative transfer experiments. In case of overlap of these spheres, photons are conserved by redistributing them around the connected ionized regions corresponding to the spheres. The efficiency with which these maps are created allows us to span the large parameter space typically encountered in reionization simulations. We compare our results with other, more accurate, 3-D radiative transfer simulations and find excellent agreement for the redshifts and the spatial scales of interest to upcoming 21cm experiments. We generate a contiguous observational cube spanning redshift 6 to 12 and use these simulations to study the differences in the reionization histories between stars and quasars. Finally, the signal is convolved with the LOFAR beam response and its effects are analyzed and quantified. Statistics performed on this mock data set shed light on possible observational strategies for LOFAR.Comment: 18 pages, 21 figures, submitted to MNRAS For high-resolution images follow "http://www.astro.rug.nl/~thomas/eormap.pdf