14,713 research outputs found
Ancestor Worship
The Law of God, written in the hearts of men, was doubtless much more clear in the early days of the human race than now, and while there may be no particularly outstanding instances of filial piety recorded in the first chapters of the Scriptures depicting the history of the human race up to the days of Noah, we need not necessarily begin to assume the contrary. We do know that these early patriarchs begat sons and daughters. Their children were doubtless dear to them and they in turn were dear to their children. There is no doubt about there being families and even large families for they obeyed the command to be fruitful and. multiply and replenish the earth. Even as Cain\u27s conscience pricked him after he had slain his brother Abel, so doubtless those were conscience stricken who did not obey their parents and honor them
Ad- and desorption of Rb atoms on a gold nanofilm measured by surface plasmon polaritons
Hybrid quantum systems made of cold atoms near nanostructured surfaces are
expected to open up new opportunities for the construction of quantum sensors
and for quantum information. For the design of such tailored quantum systems
the interaction of alkali atoms with dielectric and metallic surfaces is
crucial and required to be understood in detail. Here, we present real-time
measurements of the adsorption and desorption of Rubidium atoms on gold
nanofilms. Surface plasmon polaritons (SPP) are excited at the gold surface and
detected in a phase sensitive way. From the temporal change of the SPP phase
the Rubidium coverage of the gold film is deduced with a sensitivity of better
than 0.3 % of a monolayer. By comparing the experimental data with a Langmuir
type adsorption model we obtain the thermal desorption rate and the sticking
probability. In addition, also laser-induced desorption is observed and
quantified.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figure
Direct Measurement of intermediate-range Casimir-Polder potentials
We present the first direct measurements of Casimir-Polder forces between
solid surfaces and atomic gases in the transition regime between the
electrostatic short-distance and the retarded long-distance limit. The
experimental method is based on ultracold ground-state Rb atoms that are
reflected from evanescent wave barriers at the surface of a dielectric glass
prism. Our novel approach does not require assumptions about the potential
shape. The experimental data confirm the theoretical prediction in the
transition regime.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Measuring nonadiabaticity of molecular quantum dynamics with quantum fidelity and with its efficient semiclassical approximation
We propose to measure nonadiabaticity of molecular quantum dynamics
rigorously with the quantum fidelity between the Born-Oppenheimer and fully
nonadiabatic dynamics. It is shown that this measure of nonadiabaticity applies
in situations where other criteria, such as the energy gap criterion or the
extent of population transfer, fail. We further propose to estimate this
quantum fidelity efficiently with a generalization of the dephasing
representation to multiple surfaces. Two variants of the multiple-surface
dephasing representation (MSDR) are introduced, in which the nuclei are
propagated either with the fewest-switches surface hopping (FSSH) or with the
locally mean field dynamics (LMFD). The LMFD can be interpreted as the
Ehrenfest dynamics of an ensemble of nuclear trajectories, and has been used
previously in the nonadiabatic semiclassical initial value representation. In
addition to propagating an ensemble of classical trajectories, the MSDR
requires evaluating nonadiabatic couplings and solving the Schr\"{o}dinger (or
more generally, the quantum Liouville-von Neumann) equation for a single
discrete degree of freedom. The MSDR can be also used to measure the importance
of other terms present in the molecular Hamiltonian, such as diabatic
couplings, spin-orbit couplings, or couplings to external fields, and to
evaluate the accuracy of quantum dynamics with an approximate nonadiabatic
Hamiltonian. The method is tested on three model problems introduced by Tully,
on a two-surface model of dissociation of NaI, and a three-surface model
including spin-orbit interactions. An example is presented that demonstrates
the importance of often-neglected second-order nonadiabatic couplings.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures, submitted to J. Chem. Phy
Perception during double-step saccades
How the visual system achieves perceptual stability across saccadic eye movements is a long-standing question in neuroscience. It has been proposed that an efference copy informs vision about upcoming saccades, and this might lead to shifting spatial coordinates and suppressing image motion. Here we ask whether these two aspects of visual stability are interdependent or may be dissociated under special conditions. We study a memory-guided double-step saccade task, where two saccades are executed in quick succession. Previous studies have led to the hypothesis that in this paradigm the two saccades are planned in parallel, with a single efference copy signal generated at the start of the double-step sequence, i.e. before the first saccade. In line with this hypothesis, we find that visual stability is impaired during the second saccade, which is consistent with (accurate) efference copy information being unavailable during the second saccade. However, we find that saccadic suppression is normal during the second saccade. Thus, the second saccade of a double-step sequence instantiates a dissociation between visual stability and saccadic suppression: stability is impaired even though suppression is strong
Visual motion distorts visual and motor space
Much evidence suggests that visual motion can cause severe distortions in the perception of spatial position. In this study, we show that visual motion also distorts saccadic eye movements. Landing positions of saccades performed to objects presented in the vicinity of visual motion were biased in the direction of motion. The targeting errors for both saccades and perceptual reports were maximum during motion onset and were of very similar magnitude under the two conditions. These results suggest that visual motion affects a representation of spatial position, or spatial map, in a similar fashion for visuomotor action as for perception
Characterizing flows with an instrumented particle measuring Lagrangian accelerations
We present in this article a novel Lagrangian measurement technique: an
instrumented particle which continuously transmits the force/acceleration
acting on it as it is advected in a flow. We develop signal processing methods
to extract information on the flow from the acceleration signal transmitted by
the particle. Notably, we are able to characterize the force acting on the
particle and to identify the presence of a permanent large-scale vortex
structure. Our technique provides a fast, robust and efficient tool to
characterize flows, and it is particularly suited to obtain Lagrangian
statistics along long trajectories or in cases where optical measurement
techniques are not or hardly applicable.Comment: submitted to New Journal of Physic
Cooperative Scattering by Cold Atoms
We have studied the interplay between disorder and cooperative scattering for
single scattering limit in the presence of a driving laser. Analytical results
have been derived and we have observed cooperative scattering effects in a
variety of experiments, ranging from thermal atoms in an optical dipole trap,
atoms released from a dark MOT and atoms in a BEC, consistent with our
theoretical predictions.Comment: submitted for special issue of PQE 201
The Frequency Dependence of Critical-velocity Behavior in Oscillatory Flow of Superfluid Helium-4 Through a 2-micrometer by 2-micrometer Aperture in a Thin Foil
The critical-velocity behavior of oscillatory superfluid Helium-4 flow
through a 2-micrometer by 2-micrometer aperture in a 0.1-micrometer-thick foil
has been studied from 0.36 K to 2.10 K at frequencies from less than 50 Hz up
to above 1880 Hz. The pressure remained less than 0.5 bar. In early runs during
which the frequency remained below 400 Hz, the critical velocity was a
nearly-linearly decreasing function of increasing temperature throughout the
region of temperature studied. In runs at the lowest frequencies, isolated 2 Pi
phase slips could be observed at the onset of dissipation. In runs with
frequencies higher than 400 Hz, downward curvature was observed in the decrease
of critical velocity with increasing temperature. In addition, above 500 Hz an
alteration in supercritical behavior was seen at the lower temperatures,
involving the appearance of large energy-loss events. These irregular events
typically lasted a few tens of half-cycles of oscillation and could involve
hundreds of times more energy loss than would have occurred in a single
complete 2 Pi phase slip at maximum flow. The temperatures at which this
altered behavior was observed rose with frequency, from ~ 0.6 K and below, at
500 Hz, to ~ 1.0 K and below, at 1880 Hz.Comment: 35 pages, 13 figures, prequel to cond-mat/050203
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