1,515 research outputs found
An all-optical trap for a gram-scale mirror
We report on a stable optical trap suitable for a macroscopic mirror, wherein
the dynamics of the mirror are fully dominated by radiation pressure. The
technique employs two frequency-offset laser fields to simultaneously create a
stiff optical restoring force and a viscous optical damping force. We show how
these forces may be used to optically trap a free mass without introducing
thermal noise; and we demonstrate the technique experimentally with a 1 gram
mirror. The observed optical spring has an inferred Young's modulus of 1.2 TPa,
20% stiffer than diamond. The trap is intrinsically cold and reaches an
effective temperature of 0.8 K, limited by technical noise in our apparatus.Comment: Major revision. Replacement is version that appears in Phy. Rev.
Lett. 98, 150802 (2007
Species composition and insecticide resistance in malaria vectors in Ellibou, southern Côte d'Ivoire and first finding of; Anopheles arabiensis; in Côte d'Ivoire
Background Knowing the species composition and insecticide resistance status of the target vector population is important to guide malaria vector control. The aim of this study was to characterize the malaria vector population in terms of species composition, insecticide susceptibility status and potential underlying resistance mechanisms in Ellibou, southern Côte d'Ivoire. Methods A 1-year longitudinal entomological survey was conducted using light traps and pyrethroid spray catches to sample adult mosquitoes in combination with larval sampling. The susceptibility status of Anopheles gambiae sensu lato (s.l.) to bendiocarb, deltamethrin, DDT and malathion was assessed using the World Health Organization insecticide susceptibility test. Additionally, An. gambiae specimens were screened for knockdown (kdr) and acetylcholineesterase (ace1) target site resistance alleles, and the expression levels of eight metabolic resistance genes, including seven cytochrome P450 monooxygenases (P450s) and one glutathione S-transferase (GST), measured with reverse transcription quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). Results Overall, 2383 adult mosquitoes from 12 different taxa were collected with Culex quinquefasciatus and An. gambiae being the predominant taxa. Molecular identification of An. gambiae s.l. revealed the presence of Anopheles arabiensis, Anopheles coluzzii, An. gambiae sensu stricto (s.s.) and Anopheles coluzzii/An. gambiae s.s. hybrids. Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes were resistant to all insecticides except malathion. PCR diagnostics revealed the presence of ace1-G280S and the kdr L995F, L995S and N1570Y target-site mutations. Additionally, several genes were upregulated, including five P450s (i.e., CYP6P3, CYP6M2, CYP9K1, CYP6Z1, CYP6P1) and GSTE2. Conclusion This is the first documented presence of An. arabiensis in Côte d'Ivoire. Its detection - together with a recent finding further north of the country - confirms its existence in the country, which is an early warning sign, as An. arabiensis shows a different biology than the currently documented malaria vectors. Because the local An. gambiae population was still susceptible to malathion, upregulation of P450s, conferring insecticide resistance to pyrethroids, together with the presence of ace1, suggest negative cross-resistance. Therefore, organophosphates could be an alternative insecticide class for indoor residual spraying in the Ellibou area, while additional tools against the outdoor biting An. arabiensis will have to be considered
Multi-insecticide resistant malaria vectors in the field remain susceptible to malathion, despite the presence of Ace1 point mutations
Insecticide resistance in Anopheles mosquitoes is seriously threatening the success of insecticide-based malaria vector control. Surveillance of insecticide resistance in mosquito populations and identifying the underlying mechanisms enables optimisation of vector control strategies. Here, we investigated the molecular mechanisms of insecticide resistance in three Anopheles coluzzii field populations from southern Cote d'Ivoire, including Agboville, Dabou and Tiassale. All three populations were resistant to bendiocarb, deltamethrin and DDT, but not or only very weakly resistant to malathion. The absence of malathion resistance is an unexpected result because we found the acetylcholinesterase mutation Ace1-G280S at high frequencies, which would typically confer cross-resistance to carbamates and organophosphates, including malathion. Notably, Tiassale was the most susceptible population to malathion while being the most resistant one to the pyrethroid deltamethrin. The resistance ratio to deltamethrin between Tiassale and the laboratory reference colony was 1,800 fold. By sequencing the transcriptome of individual mosquitoes, we found numerous cytochrome P450-dependent monooxygenases - including CYP6M2, CYP6P2, CYP6P3, CYP6P4 and CYP6P5 - overexpressed in all three field populations. This could be an indication for negative cross-resistance caused by overexpression of pyrethroid-detoxifying cytochrome P450s that may activate pro-insecticides, thereby increasing malathion susceptibility. In addition to the P450s, we found several overexpressed carboxylesterases, glutathione S-transferases and other candidates putatively involved in insecticide resistance
Achieving ground state and enhancing entanglement by recovering information
For cavity-assisted optomechanical cooling experiments, it has been shown in
the literature that the cavity bandwidth needs to be smaller than the
mechanical frequency in order to achieve the quantum ground state of the
mechanical oscillator, which is the so-called resolved-sideband or good-cavity
limit. We provide a new but physically equivalent insight into the origin of
such a limit: that is information loss due to a finite cavity bandwidth. With
an optimal feedback control to recover those information, we can surpass the
resolved-sideband limit and achieve the quantum ground state. Interestingly,
recovering those information can also significantly enhance the optomechanical
entanglement. Especially when the environmental temperature is high, the
entanglement will either exist or vanish critically depending on whether
information is recovered or not, which is a vivid example of a quantum eraser.Comment: 9 figures, 18 page
Pole structure of the Hamiltonian -function for a singular potential
We study the pole structure of the -function associated to the
Hamiltonian of a quantum mechanical particle living in the half-line
, subject to the singular potential . We show that
admits nontrivial self-adjoint extensions (SAE) in a given range of values
of the parameter . The -functions of these operators present poles
which depend on and, in general, do not coincide with half an integer (they
can even be irrational). The corresponding residues depend on the SAE
considered.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figure, RevTeX. References added. Version to appear in
Jour. Phys. A: Math. Ge
Sub-hertz optomechanically induced transparency with a kilogram-scale mechanical oscillator
Optical interferometers with suspended mirrors are the archetype of all current audio-frequency gravitational-wave detectors. The radiation pressure interaction between the motion of the mirrors and the circulating optical field in such interferometers represents a pristine form of light-matter coupling, largely due to 30 years of effort in developing high-quality optical materials with low mechanical dissipation. However, in all current suspended interferometers, the radiation pressure interaction is too weak to be useful as a resource, and too strong to be neglected. Here, we demonstrate a meter-long interferometer with suspended mirrors, of effective mass
125 g, where the radiation pressure interaction is enhanced by strong optical pumping to realize a cooperativity of 50. In conjunction with modest resolved-sideband operation, this regime is efficiently probed via optomechanically induced transparency of a weak on-resonant probe. The low resonant frequency and high-Q of the mechanical oscillator allows us to demonstrate transparency windows barely 100 mHz wide at room temperature. Together with a near-unity (≈99.9%) out-coupling efficiency, our system saturates the theoretical delay-bandwidth product, rendering it an optical buffer capable of seconds-long storage times
On the chirality of quark modes
A model for the QCD vacuum based on a domainlike structured background gluon
field with definite duality attributed to the domains has been shown elsewhere
to give confinement of static quarks, a reasonable value for the topological
susceptibility and indications that chiral symmetry is spontaneously broken. In
this paper we study in detail the eigenvalue problem for the Dirac operator in
such a gluon mean field. A study of the local chirality parameter shows that
the lowest nonzero eigenmodes possess a definite mean chirality correlated with
the duality of a given domain. A probability distribution of the local
chirality qualitatively reproduces histograms seen in lattice simulations.Comment: RevTeX4, 5 figures, 14 page
Iterative algorithm versus analytic solutions of the parametrically driven dissipative quantum harmonic oscillator
We consider the Brownian motion of a quantum mechanical particle in a
one-dimensional parabolic potential with periodically modulated curvature under
the influence of a thermal heat bath. Analytic expressions for the
time-dependent position and momentum variances are compared with results of an
iterative algorithm, the so-called quasiadiabatic propagator path integral
algorithm (QUAPI). We obtain good agreement over an extended range of
parameters for this spatially continuous quantum system. These findings
indicate the reliability of the algorithm also in cases for which analytic
results may not be available a priori.Comment: 15 pages including 11 figures, one reference added, minor typos
correcte
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