675 research outputs found
Phonon Bloch oscillations in acoustic-cavity structures
We describe a semiconductor multilayer structure based in acoustic phonon
cavities and achievable with MBE technology, designed to display acoustic
phonon Bloch oscillations. We show that forward and backscattering Raman
spectra give a direct measure of the created phononic Wannier-Stark ladder. We
also discuss the use of femtosecond laser impulsions for the generation and
direct probe of the induced phonon Bloch oscillations. We propose a gedanken
experiment based in an integrated phonon source-structure-detector device, and
we present calculations of pump and probe time dependent optical reflectivity
that evidence temporal beatings in agreement with the Wannier-Stark ladder
energy splitting.Comment: PDF file including 4 figure
Atom interferometry with trapped Fermi gases
We realize an interferometer with an atomic Fermi gas trapped in an optical
lattice under the influence of gravity. The single-particle interference
between the eigenstates of the lattice results in macroscopic Bloch
oscillations of the sample. The absence of interactions between fermions allows
a time-resolved study of many periods of the oscillations, leading to a
sensitive determination of the acceleration of gravity. The experiment proves
the superiorness of non interacting fermions with respect to bosons for
precision interferometry, and offers a way for the measurement of forces with
microscopic spatial resolution.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Conversion of an Atomic Fermi Gas to a Long-Lived Molecular Bose Gas
We have converted an ultracold Fermi gas of Li atoms into an ultracold
gas of Li molecules by adiabatic passage through a Feshbach resonance.
Approximately molecules in the least-bound, ,
vibrational level of the X singlet state are produced with an
efficiency of 50%. The molecules remain confined in an optical trap for times
of up to 1 s before we dissociate them by a reverse adiabatic sweep.Comment: Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Letter
Dynamics of a Quantum Phase Transition
We present two approaches to the dynamics of a quench-induced phase
transition in quantum Ising model. The first one retraces steps of the standard
approach to thermodynamic second order phase transitions in the quantum
setting. The second one is purely quantum, based on the Landau-Zener formula
for transition probabilities in avoided level crossings. We show that the two
approaches yield compatible results for the scaling of the defect density with
the quench rate. We exhibit similarities between them, and comment on the
insights they give into dynamics of quantum phase transitions.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures. Replaced by revised versio
Temperature-dependent magnetization in diluted magnetic semiconductors
We calculate magnetization in magnetically doped semiconductors assuming a
local exchange model of carrier-mediated ferromagnetic mechanism and using a
number of complementary theoretical approaches. In general, we find that the
results of our mean-field calculations, particularly the dynamical mean field
theory results, give excellent qualitative agreement with the experimentally
observed magnetization in systems with itinerant charge carriers, such as
Ga_{1-x}Mn_xAs with 0.03 < x < 0.07, whereas our percolation-theory-based
calculations agree well with the existing data in strongly insulating
materials, such as Ge_{1-x}Mn_x. We comment on the issue of non-mean-field like
magnetization curves and on the observed incomplete saturation magnetization
values in diluted magnetic semiconductors from our theoretical perspective. In
agreement with experimental observations, we find the carrier density to be the
crucial parameter determining the magnetization behavior. Our calculated
dependence of magnetization on external magnetic field is also in excellent
agreement with the existing experimental data.Comment: 17 pages, 15 figure
Spin Polarization at Semiconductor Point Contacts in Absence of Magnetic Field
Semiconductor point contacts can be a useful tool for producing
spin-polarized currents in the presence of spin-orbit (SO) interaction. Neither
magnetic fields nor magnetic materials are required. By numerical studies, we
show that (i) the conductance is quantized in units of 2e^2/h unless the SO
interaction is too strong, (ii) the current is spin-polarized in the transverse
direction, and (iii) a spin polarization of more than 50% can be realized with
experimentally accessible values of the SO interaction strength. The
spin-polarization ratio is determined by the adiabaticity of the transition
between subbands of different spins during the transport through the point
contacts.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures; minor changes, published in J. Phys. Soc. Jp
Improved Thermoelectric Cooling Based on the Thomson Effect
Traditional thermoelectric Peltier coolers exhibit a cooling limit which is
primarily determined by the figure of merit, zT. Rather than a fundamental
thermodynamic limit, this bound can be traced to the difficulty of maintaining
thermoelectric compatibility. Self-compatibility locally maximizes the cooler's
coefficient of performance for a given zT and can be achieved by adjusting the
relative ratio of the thermoelectric transport properties that make up zT. In
this study, we investigate the theoretical performance of thermoelectric
coolers that maintain self-compatibility across the device. We find such a
device behaves very differently from a Peltier cooler, and term self-compatible
coolers "Thomson coolers" when the Fourier heat divergence is dominated by the
Thomson, as opposed to the Joule, term. A Thomson cooler requires an
exponentially rising Seebeck coefficient with increasing temperature, while
traditional Peltier coolers, such as those used commercially, have
comparatively minimal change in Seebeck coefficient with temperature. When
reasonable material property bounds are placed on the thermoelectric leg, the
Thomson cooler is predicted to achieve approximately twice the maximum
temperature drop of a traditional Peltier cooler with equivalent figure of
merit (zT). We anticipate the development of Thomson coolers will ultimately
lead to solid state cooling to cryogenic temperatures.Comment: The Manuscript has been revised for publication in PR
Counting statistics in multiple path geometries and the fluctuations of the integrated current in a quantum stirring device
The amount of particles that are transported via a path of motion is
characterized by its expectation value and by its variance . We
analyze what happens if a particle has two optional paths available to get from
one site to another site, and in particular what is for the current
which is induced in a quantum stirring device. It turns out that coherent
splitting and the stirring effect are intimately related and cannot be
understood within the framework of the prevailing probabilistic theory.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures, published version, Latex Eq# correcte
Evidence of strong antiferromagnetic coupling between localized and itinerant electrons in ferromagnetic Sr2FeMoO6
Magnetic dc susceptibility () and electron spin resonance (ESR)
measurements in the paramagnetic regime, are presented. We found a Curie-Weiss
(CW) behavior for (T) with a ferromagnetic K and
, this being lower than that expected for
either or ions. The ESR g-factor , is associated with . We obtained an excellent description
of the experiments in terms of two interacting sublattices: the localized
() cores and the delocalized electrons. The coupled equations
were solved in a mean-field approximation, assuming for the itinerant electrons
a bare susceptibility independent on . We obtained
emu/mol. We show that the reduction of for
arises from the strong antiferromagnetic (AFM) interaction between the two
sublattices. At variance with classical ferrimagnets, we found that is
ferromagnetic. Within the same model, we show that the ESR spectrum can be
described by Bloch-Hasegawa type equations. Bottleneck is evidenced by the
absence of a -shift. Surprisingly, as observed in CMR manganites, no
narrowing effects of the ESR linewidth is detected in spite of the presence of
the strong magnetic coupling. These results provide evidence that the magnetic
order in does not originates in superexchange interactions,
but from a novel mechanism recently proposed for double perovskites
Robustness of adiabatic passage trough a quantum phase transition
We analyze the crossing of a quantum critical point based on exact results
for the transverse XY model. In dependence of the change rate of the driving
field, the evolution of the ground state is studied while the transverse
magnetic field is tuned through the critical point with a linear ramping. The
excitation probability is obtained exactly and is compared to previous studies
and to the Landau-Zener formula, a long time solution for non-adiabatic
transitions in two-level systems. The exact time dependence of the excitations
density in the system allows to identify the adiabatic and diabatic regions
during the sweep and to study the mesoscopic fluctuations of the excitations.
The effect of white noise is investigated, where the critical point transmutes
into a non-hermitian ``degenerate region''. Besides an overall increase of the
excitations during and at the end of the sweep, the most destructive effect of
the noise is the decay of the state purity that is enhanced by the passage
through the degenerate region.Comment: 16 pages, 15 figure
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