824 research outputs found
Stiff knots
We report on the geometry and mechanics of knotted stiff strings. We discuss
both closed and open knots. Our two main results are: (i) Their equilibrium
energy as well as the equilibrium tension for open knots depend on the type of
knot as the square of the bridge number; (ii) Braid localization is found to be
a general feature of stiff strings entanglements, while angles and knot
localization are forbidden. Moreover, we identify a family of knots for which
the equilibrium shape is a circular braid. Two other equilibrium shapes are
found from Monte Carlo simulations. These three shapes are confirmed by
rudimentary experiments. Our approach is also extended to the problem of the
minimization of the length of a knotted string with a maximum allowed
curvature.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev.
Very long storage times and evaporative cooling of cesium atoms in a quasi-electrostatic dipole trap
We have trapped cesium atoms over many minutes in the focus of a CO-laser
beam employing an extremely simple laser system. Collisional properties of the
unpolarized atoms in their electronic ground state are investigated. Inelastic
binary collisions changing the hyperfine state lead to trap loss which is
quantitatively analyzed. Elastic collisions result in evaporative cooling of
the trapped gas from 25 K to 10 K over a time scale of about 150 s.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
Prenatal Stress due to a Natural Disaster Predicts Adiposity in Childhood: The Iowa Flood Study
Prenatal stress can affect lifelong physical growth, including increased obesity risk. However, human studies remain limited. Natural disasters provide models of independent stressors unrelated to confounding maternal characteristics. We assessed degree of objective hardship and subjective distress in women pregnant during severe flooding. At ages 2.5 and 4 years we assessed body mass index (BMI), subscapular plus triceps skinfolds (SS + TR, an index of total adiposity), and SS: TR ratio (an index of central adiposity) in their children (n=106). Hierarchical regressions controlled first for several potential confounds. Controlling for these, flood exposure during early gestation predicted greater BMI increase from age 2.5 to 4, as well as total adiposity at 2.5. Greater maternal hardship and distress due to the floods, as well as other nonflood life events during pregnancy, independently predicted greater increase in total adiposity between 2.5 and 4 years. These results support the hypothesis that prenatal stress increases adiposity beginning in childhood and suggest that early gestation is a sensitive period. Results further highlight the additive effects of maternal objective and subjective stress, life events, and depression, emphasizing the importance of continued studies on multiple, detailed measures of maternal mental health and experience in pregnancy and child growth
Development of an apparatus for cooling 6Li-87Rb Fermi-Bose mixtures in a light-assisted magnetic trap
We describe an experimental setup designed to produce ultracold trapped gas
clouds of fermionic 6Li and bosonic 87Rb. This combination of alkali metals has
the potential to reach deeper Fermi degeneracy with respect to other mixtures
since it allows for improved heat capacity matching which optimizes sympathetic
cooling efficiency. Atomic beams of the two species are independently produced
and then decelerated by Zeeman slowers. The slowed atoms are collected into a
magneto-optical trap and then transferred into a quadrupole magnetic trap. An
ultracold Fermi gas with temperature in the 10^-3 T_F range should be
attainable through selective confinement of the two species via a properly
detuned laser beam focused in the center of the magnetic trap.Comment: Presented at LPHYS'06, 8 figure
All-optical formation of a Bose-Einstein condensate for applications in scanning electron microscopy
We report on the production of a F=1 spinor condensate of 87Rb atoms in a
single beam optical dipole trap formed by a focused CO2 laser. The condensate
is produced 13mm below the tip of a scanning electron microscope employing
standard all-optical techniques. The condensate fraction contains up to 100,000
atoms and we achieve a duty cycle of less than 10s.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
Four-Wave mixing in degenerate Fermi gases: Beyond the undepleted pump approximation
We analyze the full nonlinear dynamics of the four-wave mixing between an
incident beam of fermions and a fermionic density grating. We find that when
the number of atoms in the beam is comparable to the number of atoms forming
the grating, the dephasing of that grating, which normally leads to a decay of
its amplitude, is suppressed. Instead, the density grating and the beam density
exhibit large nonlinear coupled amplitude oscillations. In this case four-wave
mixing can persist for much longer times compared to the case of negligible
back-action. We also evaluate the efficiency of the four-wave mixing and show
that it can be enhanced by producing an initial density grating with an
amplitude that is less than the maximum value. These results indicate that
efficient four-wave mixing in fermionic alkali gases should be experimentally
observable.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figure
Dynamics of trapped two-component Fermi gas: temperature dependence of the transition from collisionless to collisional regime
We develop a numerical method to study the dynamics of a two-component atomic
Fermi gas trapped inside a harmonic potential at temperature T well below the
Fermi temperature Tf. We examine the transition from the collisionless to the
collisional regime down to T=0.2 Tf and find good qualitative agreement with
the experiments of B. DeMarco and D.S. Jin [Phys. Rev. Lett. vol. 88, 040405
(2002)]. We demonstrate a twofold role of temperature on the collision rate and
on the efficiency of collisions. In particular we observe an hitherto
unreported effect, namely that the transition to hydrodynamic behavior is
shifted towards lower collision rates as temperature decreases.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Quadratic fermionic interactions yield effective Hamiltonians for adiabatic quantum computing
Polynomially-large ground-state energy gaps are rare in many-body quantum
systems, but useful for adiabatic quantum computing. We show analytically that
the gap is generically polynomially-large for quadratic fermionic Hamiltonians.
We then prove that adiabatic quantum computing can realize the ground states of
Hamiltonians with certain random interactions, as well as the ground states of
one, two, and three-dimensional fermionic interaction lattices, in polynomial
time. Finally, we use the Jordan-Wigner transformation and a related
transformation for spin-3/2 particles to show that our results can be restated
using spin operators in a surprisingly simple manner. A direct consequence is
that the one-dimensional cluster state can be found in polynomial time using
adiabatic quantum computing.Comment: 14 page
Laser probing of Cooper-paired trapped atoms
We consider a gas of trapped Cooper-paired fermionic atoms which are
manipulated by laser light. The laser induces a transition from an internal
state with large negative scattering length (superfluid) to one with weaker
interactions (normal gas). We show that the process can be used to detect the
presence of the superconducting order parameter. Also, we propose a direct way
of measuring the size of the gap in the trap. The efficiency and feasibility of
this probing method is investigated in detail in different physical situations.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figure
Vortices in superfluid trapped Fermi gases at zero temperature
We discuss various aspects of the vortex state of a dilute superfluid atomic
Fermi gas at T=0. The energy of the vortex in a trapped gas is calculated and
we provide an expression for the thermodynamic critical rotation frequency of
the trap for its formation. Furthermore, we propose a method to detect the
presence of a vortex by calculating the effect of its associated velocity field
on the collective mode spectrum of the gas
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