Research on solar pumped liquid lasers

A solar pumped liquid laser that can be scaled up to high power (10Mw CW) for space applications was developed. Liquid lasers have the inherent advantage over gases in that they provide much higher lasant densities and thus high power densities. Liquids also have inherent advantages over solids in that they have much higher damage thresholds and are much cheaper to produce for large scale applications. Among the liquid laser media that are potential candidates for solar pumping, the POC13:Nd(3+):ZrC14 liquid was chosen for its high intrinsic efficiency as well as its relatively good stability against decomposition due to protic contamination. The development and testing of the laser liquid and the development of a large solar concentrator to pump the laser was emphasized. The procedure to manufacture the laser liquid must include diagnostic tests of the solvent purity (from protic contamination) at various stages in the production process

Research on solar pumped liquid lasers

A solar pumped liquid laser that can be scaled up to high power (10 mW CW) for space applications was developed. Liquid lasers have the advantage over gases in that they provide much higher lasant densities and thus high-power densities. Liquids also have advantages over solids in that they have much higher damage thresholds and are much cheaper to produce for large scale applications. Among the liquid laser media that are potential candidates for solar pumping, the POC13: Nd sup 3+:ZrC14 liquid was chosen for its high intrinsic efficiency and its relatively good stability against decomposition due to protic contamination. The development of a manufacturing procedure and performance testing of the laser, liquid and the development of an inexpensive large solar concentrator to pump the laser are examined

Theory of Nonlinear Dispersive Waves and Selection of the Ground State

A theory of time dependent nonlinear dispersive equations of the Schroedinger / Gross-Pitaevskii and Hartree type is developed. The short, intermediate and large time behavior is found, by deriving nonlinear Master equations (NLME), governing the evolution of the mode powers, and by a novel multi-time scale analysis of these equations. The scattering theory is developed and coherent resonance phenomena and associated lifetimes are derived. Applications include BEC large time dynamics and nonlinear optical systems. The theory reveals a nonlinear transition phenomenon, ``selection of the ground state'', and NLME predicts the decay of excited state, with half its energy transferred to the ground state and half to radiation modes. Our results predict the recent experimental observations of Mandelik et. al. in nonlinear optical waveguides

The Use of NVivo in the Different Stages of Qualitative Research

When researchers take their first steps in qualitative research, they face the great lack of models to follow regarding the method to use in the analysis of data, on some occasions falling into the temptation of coveting the high level of systematisation employed by researchers working with quantitative data. This article offers a basic theoretical contribution that allows researcher to approach qualitative data analysis and the use of the NVivo software, highlighting its advantages and describing the main functions at each moment of a qualitative investigation, placing particular emphasis on the analysis process

A note on the extension of the polar decomposition for the multidimensional Burgers equation

It is shown that the generalizations to more than one space dimension of the pole decomposition for the Burgers equation with finite viscosity and no force are of the form u = -2 viscosity grad log P, where the P's are explicitly known algebraic (or trigonometric) polynomials in the space variables with polynomial (or exponential) dependence on time. Such solutions have polar singularities on complex algebraic varieties.Comment: 3 pages; minor formatting and typos corrected. Submitted to Phys. Rev. E (Rapid Comm.

Photoproduction evidence for and against hidden-strangeness states near 2 GeV

Experimental evidence from coherent diffractive proton scattering has been reported for two narrow baryonic resonances which decay predominantly to strange particles. These states, with masses close to 2.0 GeV would, if confirmed, be candidates for hidden strangeness states with unusual internal structure. In this paper we examine the literature on strangeness photoproduction, to seek additional evidence for or against these states. We find that one state is not confirmed, while for the other state there is some mild supporting evidence favoring its existence. New experiments are called for, and the expected photoproduction lineshapes are calculated.Comment: 9 pages, RevTex, five postscript figures, submitted to PR

THE INTERPLAY OF THE K+K- ATOM AND THE f_0(975) RESONANCE

We predict that production of the K+K- atom in pd-3^HeX and similar reactions exhibits a drastic missing mass spectrum due to the interplay with f_0(975) resonance. We point out that high precision studies of the K+K- atom may shed a new light on the nature of f_0(975).Comment: 13 page

Slowing and cooling molecules and neutral atoms by time-varying electric field gradients

A method of slowing, accelerating, cooling, and bunching molecules and neutral atoms using time-varying electric field gradients is demonstrated with cesium atoms in a fountain. The effects are measured and found to be in agreement with calculation. Time-varying electric field gradient slowing and cooling is applicable to atoms that have large dipole polarizabilities, including atoms that are not amenable to laser slowing and cooling, to Rydberg atoms, and to molecules, especially polar molecules with large electric dipole moments. The possible applications of this method include slowing and cooling thermal beams of atoms and molecules, launching cold atoms from a trap into a fountain, and measuring atomic dipole polarizabilities.Comment: 13 pages, 10 figures. Scheduled for publication in Nov. 1 Phys. Rev.

Rotational cooling of heteronuclear molecular ions with ^1-Sigma, ^2-Sigma, ^3-Sigma and ^2-Pi electronic ground states

The translational motion of molecular ions can be effectively cooled sympathetically to translational temperatures below 100 mK in ion traps through Coulomb interactions with laser-cooled atomic ions. The ro-vibrational degrees of freedom, however, are expected to be largely unaffected during translational cooling. We have previously proposed schemes for cooling of the internal degrees of freedom of such translationally cold but internally hot heteronuclear diatomic ions in the simplest case of ^1-Sigma electronic ground state molecules. Here we present a significant simplification of these schemes and make a generalization to the most frequently encountered electronic ground states of heteronuclear molecular ions: ^1-Sigma, ^2-Sigma, ^3-Sigma and ^2-Pi. The schemes are relying on one or two laser driven transitions with the possible inclusion of a tailored incoherent far infrared radiation field.Comment: 16 pages, 13 figure

Status and Plans for the Array Control and Data Acquisition System of the Cherenkov Telescope Array

The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is the next-generation atmospheric Cherenkov gamma-ray observatory. CTA will consist of two installations, one in the northern, and the other in the southern hemisphere, containing tens of telescopes of different sizes. The CTA performance requirements and the inherent complexity associated with the operation, control and monitoring of such a large distributed multi-telescope array leads to new challenges in the field of the gamma-ray astronomy. The ACTL (array control and data acquisition) system will consist of the hardware and software that is necessary to control and monitor the CTA arrays, as well as to time-stamp, read-out, filter and store -at aggregated rates of few GB/s- the scientific data. The ACTL system must be flexible enough to permit the simultaneous automatic operation of multiple sub-arrays of telescopes with a minimum personnel effort on site. One of the challenges of the system is to provide a reliable integration of the control of a large and heterogeneous set of devices. Moreover, the system is required to be ready to adapt the observation schedule, on timescales of a few tens of seconds, to account for changing environmental conditions or to prioritize incoming scientific alerts from time-critical transient phenomena such as gamma ray bursts. This contribution provides a summary of the main design choices and plans for building the ACTL system.Comment: In Proceedings of the 34th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC2015), The Hague, The Netherlands. All CTA contributions at arXiv:1508.0589