Localized excited charge carriers generate ultrafast inhomogeneous strain in the multiferroic BiFeO3_3

We apply ultrafast X-ray diffraction with femtosecond temporal resolution to monitor the lattice dynamics in a thin film of multiferroic BiFeO$_3$ after above-bandgap photoexcitation. The sound-velocity limited evolution of the observed lattice strains indicates a quasi-instantaneous photoinduced stress which decays on a nanosecond time scale. This stress exhibits an inhomogeneous spatial profile evidenced by the broadening of the Bragg peak. These new data require substantial modification of existing models of photogenerated stresses in BiFeO$_3$: the relevant excited charge carriers must remain localized to be consistent with the data

Coherence measurements on Rydberg wave packets kicked by a half-cycle pulse

A kick from a unipolar half-cycle pulse (HCP) can redistribute population and shift the relative phase between states in a radial Rydberg wave packet. We have measured the quantum coherence properties following the kick, and show that selected coherences can be destroyed by applying an HCP at specific times. Quantum mechanical simulations show that this is due to redistribution of the angular momentum in the presence of noise. These results have implications for the storage and retrieval of quantum information in the wave packet.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures (5 figure files

Impulsive cylindrical gravitational wave: one possible radiative form emitted from cosmic strings and corresponding electromagnetic response

The cosmic strings(CSs) may be one important source of gravitational waves(GWs), and it has been intensively studied due to its special properties such as the cylindrical symmetry. The CSs would generate not only usual continuous GW, but also impulsive GW that brings more concentrated energy and consists of different GW components broadly covering low-, intermediate- and high-frequency bands simultaneously. These features might underlie interesting electromagnetic(EM) response to these GWs generated by the CSs. In this paper, with novel results and effects, we firstly calculate the analytical solutions of perturbed EM fields caused by interaction between impulsive cylindrical GWs (would be one of possible forms emitted from CSs) and background celestial high magnetic fields or widespread cosmological background magnetic fields, by using rigorous Einstein - Rosen metric. Results show: perturbed EM fields are also in the impulsive form accordant to the GW pulse, and asymptotic behaviors of the perturbed EM fields are fully consistent with the asymptotic behaviors of the energy density, energy flux density and Riemann curvature tensor of corresponding impulsive cylindrical GWs. The analytical solutions naturally give rise to the accumulation effect which is proportional to the term of distance^1/2, and based on it, we for the first time predict potentially observable effects in region of the Earth caused by the EM response to GWs from the CSs.Comment: 34 pages, 12 figure