Ultrafast and octave-spanning optical nonlinearities from strongly phase-mismatched cascaded interactions

Cascaded nonlinearities have attracted much interest, but ultrafast applications have been seriously hampered by the simultaneous requirements of being near phase-matching and having ultrafast femtosecond response times. Here we show that in strongly phase-mismatched nonlinear frequency conversion crystals the pump pulse can experience a large and extremely broadband self-defocusing cascaded Kerr-like nonlinearity. The large cascaded nonlinearity is ensured through interaction with the largest quadratic tensor element in the crystal, and the strong phase-mismatch ensures an ultrafast nonlinear response with an octave-spanning bandwidth. We verify this experimentally by showing few-cycle soliton compression with noncritical cascaded second-harmonic generation: Energetic 47 fs infrared pulses are compressed in a just 1-mm long bulk lithium niobate crystal to 17 fs (under 4 optical cycles) with 80% efficiency, and upon further propagation an octave-spanning supercontinuum is observed. Such ultrafast cascading is expected to occur for a broad range of pump wavelengths spanning the near- and mid-IR using standard nonlinear crystals.Comment: resubmitted, revised version, accepted for Phys. Rev. Let

Imprints of a Primordial Preferred Direction on the Microwave Background

Rotational invariance is a well-established feature of low-energy physics. Violations of this symmetry must be extremely small today, but could have been larger in earlier epochs. In this paper we examine the consequences of a small breaking of rotational invariance during the inflationary era when the primordial density fluctuations were generated. Assuming that a fixed-norm vector picked out a preferred direction during the inflationary era, we explore the imprint it would leave on the cosmic microwave background anisotropy, and provide explicit formulas for the expected amplitudes $$ of the spherical-harmonic coefficients. We suggest that it is natural to expect that the imprint on the primordial power spectrum of a preferred spatial direction is approximately scale-invariant, and examine a simple model in which this is true.Comment: 7 pages, no figures; v5: Corrections, as well as use of more standard convention, in section I

Investigation of atomic oxygen-surface interactions related to measurements with dual air density explorer satellites

For a number of candidate materials of construction for the dual air density explorer satellites the rate of oxygen atom loss by adsorption, surface reaction, and recombination was determined as a function of surface and temperature. Plain aluminum and anodized aluminum surfaces exhibit a collisional atom loss probability alpha .01 in the temperature range 140 - 360 K, and an initial sticking probability. For SiO coated aluminum in the same temperature range, alpha .001 and So .001. Atom-loss on gold is relatively rapid alpha .01. The So for gold varies between 0.25 and unity in the temperature range 360 - 140 K

Scalar Representations and Minimal Flavor Violation

We discuss the representations that new scalar degrees of freedom (beyond those in the minimal standard model) can have if they couple to quarks in a way that is consistent with minimal flavor violation. If the new scalars are singlets under the flavor group then they must be color singlets or color octets. In this paper we discuss the allowed representations and renormalizable couplings when the new scalars also transform under the flavor group. We find that color \bar{3} and 6 representations are also allowed. We focus on the cases where the new scalars can have renormalizable Yukawa couplings to the quarks without factors of the quark Yukawa matrices. The renormalizable couplings in the models we introduce automatically conserve baryon number.Comment: 18 pages, 2 figures V2: Lepton MFV protection of baryon number discusse

Dark Matter, Baryon Asymmetry, and Spontaneous B and L Breaking

We investigate the dark matter and the cosmological baryon asymmetry in a simple theory where baryon (B) and lepton (L) number are local gauge symmetries that are spontaneously broken. In this model, the cold dark matter candidate is the lightest new field with baryon number and its stability is an automatic consequence of the gauge symmetry. Dark matter annihilation is either through a leptophobic gauge boson whose mass must be below a TeV or through the Higgs boson. Since the mass of the leptophobic gauge boson has to be below the TeV scale one finds that in the first scenario there is a lower bound on the elastic cross section of about 5x10^{-46} cm^2. Even though baryon number is gauged and not spontaneously broken until the weak scale, a cosmologically acceptable baryon excess is possible. There is tension between achieving both the measured baryon excess and the dark matter density.Comment: 23 pages, 5 figures; revised version, typos removed, references added, discussion expande

Development of a simulator for studying simplified lunar escape systems

Design and development of lunar escape system simulator for investigation of lunar escape problems and simplified manual guidance and control for lunar escape vehicle

Trispectrum versus Bispectrum in Single-Field Inflation

In the standard slow-roll inflationary cosmology, quantum fluctuations in a single field, the inflaton, generate approximately Gaussian primordial density perturbations. At present, the bispectrum and trispectrum of the density perturbations have not been observed and the probability distribution for these perturbations is consistent with Gaussianity. However, Planck satellite data will bring a new level of precision to bear on this issue, and it is possible that evidence for non-Gaussian effects in the primordial distribution will be discovered. One possibility is that a trispectrum will be observed without evidence for a non-zero bispectrum. It is not difficult for this to occur in inflationary models where quantum fluctuations in a field other than the inflaton contribute to the density perturbations. A natural question to ask is whether such an observation would rule out the standard scenarios. We explore this issue and find that it is possible to construct single-field models in which inflaton-generated primordial density perturbations have an observable trispectrum, but a bispectrum that is too small to be observed by the Planck satellite. However, an awkward fine tuning seems to be unavoidable.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures; journal versio

Recent Progress in Heavy Quark Physics

Some of the recent progress in heavy quark physics is reviewed. Special attention is paid to inclusive methods for determining Vub and factorization in nonleptonic B decays. Theoretical predictions for top-antitop production near threshold are also discussed.Comment: talk given at 2001 Lepton Photon Meeting, 10 pages, 5 figure