Generation of coherent two-color pulses at the two adjacent harmonics in a seeded free-electron laser

The growing requirements of pump-probe techniques and nonlinear optics experiments greatly promote the studies of two-color free-electron lasers (FELs). We propose a new method to generate coherent two-color pulses in a high-gain harmonic generation (HGHG) FEL. In this scheme, an initial tilted electron beam is sent though the modulator and dispersive section of an HGHG FEL to generate the bunching at harmonics of the seed laser. Then a transverse gradient undulator (TGU) is adopted as the radiator and in such radiator, only two separated fractions of the tilted beam will resonate at two adjacent harmonics of the seed laser and are enabled to emit the coherent two-color pulses simultaneously. The time separation between the two pulses are on the order of hundreds of femtoseconds, and can be precisely controlled by varying the tilted amplitude of the electron beam and/or the transverse gradient of the TGU radiator. Numerical simulations confirm the validity and feasibility of this scheme in the EUV waveband

Heterogeneity in structurally arrested hard spheres

When cooled or compressed sufficiently rapidly, a liquid vitrifies into a glassy amorphous state. Vitrification in a dense liquid is associated with jamming of the particles. For hard spheres, the density and degree of order in the final structure depend on the compression rate: simple intuition suggests, and previous computer simulation demonstrates, that slower compression results in states that are both denser and more ordered. In this work, we use the Lubachevsky-Stillinger algorithm to generate a sequence of structurally arrested hard-sphere states by varying the compression rate. We find that while the degree of order, as measured by both bond-orientation and translation order parameters, increases monotonically with decreasing compression rate, the density of the arrested state first increases, then decreases, then increases again, as the compression rate decreases, showing a minimum at an intermediate compression rate. Examination of the distribution of the local order parameters and the distribution of the root-mean-square fluctuation of the particle positions, as well as direct visual inspection of the arrested structures, reveal that they are structurally heterogeneous, consisting of disordered, amorphous regions and locally ordered crystal-like domains. In particular, the low-density arrested states correspond with many interconnected small crystal clusters that form a polycrystalline network interspersed in an amorphous background, suggesting that jamming by the domains may be an important mechanism for these states

Dynamics and correlation length scales of a glass-forming liquid in quiescent and sheared conditions

We numerically study dynamics and correlation length scales of a colloidal liquid in both quiescent and sheared conditions to further understand the origin of slow dynamics and dynamic heterogeneity in glass-forming systems. The simulation is performed in a weakly frustrated two-dimensional liquid, where locally preferred order is allowed to develop with increasing density. The four-point density correlations and bond-orientation correlations, which have been frequently used to capture dynamic and static length scales $\xi$ in a quiescent condition, can be readily extended to a system under steady shear in this case. In the absence of shear, we confirmed the previous findings that the dynamic slowing down accompanies the development of dynamic heterogeneity. The dynamic and static length scales increase with $\alpha$-relaxation time $\tau_{\alpha}$ as power-law $\xi\sim\tau_{\alpha}^{\mu}$ with $\mu>0$. In the presence of shear, both viscosity and $\tau_{\alpha}$ have power-law dependence on shear rate in the marked shear thinning regime. However, dependence of correlation lengths cannot be described by power laws in the same regime. Furthermore, the relation $\xi\sim\tau_{\alpha}^{\mu}$ between length scales and dynamics holds for not too strong shear where thermal fluctuations and external forces are both important in determining the properties of dense liquids. Thus, our results demonstrate a link between slow dynamics and structure in glass-forming liquids even under nonequilibrium conditions.Comment: 9 pages, 17 figures. Accepted by J. Phys.: Condens. Matte

Threshold Resummation Effects in Neutral Higgs Boson Production by Bottom Quark Fusion at the CERN Large Hadron Collider

We investigate the QCD effects in the production of neutral Higgs bosons via bottom quark fusion in both the standard model and the minimal supersymmetric standard model at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. We include the next-to-leading order (NLO) QCD corrections (including supersymmetric QCD) and the threshold resummation effects. We use the soft-collinear effective theory to resum the large logarithms near threshold from soft gluon emission. Our results show that the resummation effects can enhance the total cross sections by about 5% compared with the NLO results.Comment: 29pages, 14 figures, version to appear in Physical Review