It's OK not to be OK: Shared Reflections from two PhD Parents in a Time of Pandemic

Adopting an intersectional feminist lens, we explore our identities as single and co‐parents thrust into the new reality of the UK COVID‐19 lockdown. As two PhD students, we present shared reflections on our intersectional and divergent experiences of parenting and our attempts to protect our work and families during a pandemic. We reflect on the social constructions of ‘masculinities’ and ‘emphasized femininities’ as complicated influence on our roles as parents. Finally, we highlight the importance of time and self‐care as ways of managing our shared realities during this uncertain period. Through sharing reflections, we became closer friends in mutual appreciation and solidarity as we learned about each other’s struggles and vulnerabilities

Optical frequency measurement of the 1S-3S two-photon transition in hydrogen

This article reports the first optical frequency measurement of the $1\mathrm{S}-3\mathrm{S}$ transition in hydrogen. The excitation of this transition occurs at a wavelength of 205 nm which is obtained with two frequency doubling stages of a titanium sapphire laser at 820 nm. Its frequency is measured with an optical frequency comb. The second-order Doppler effect is evaluated from the observation of the motional Stark effect due to a transverse magnetic field perpendicular to the atomic beam. The measured value of the $1\mathrm{S}_{1/2}(F=1)-3\mathrm{S}_{1/2}(F=1)$ frequency splitting is $2 922 742 936.729 (13) \mathrm{MHz}$ with a relative uncertainty of $4.5\times10^{-12}$. After the measurement of the $1\mathrm{S}-2\mathrm{S}$ frequency, this result is the most precise of the optical frequencies in hydrogen

A constraint on antigravity of antimatter from precision spectroscopy of simple atoms

Consideration of antigravity for antiparticles is an attractive target for various experimental projects. There are a number of theoretical arguments against it but it is not quite clear what kind of experimental data and theoretical suggestions are involved. In this paper we present straightforward arguments against a possibility of antigravity based on a few simple theoretical suggestions and some experimental data. The data are: astrophysical data on rotation of the Solar System in respect to the center of our galaxy and precision spectroscopy data on hydrogen and positronium. The theoretical suggestions for the case of absence of the gravitational field are: equality of electron and positron mass and equality of proton and positron charge. We also assume that QED is correct at the level of accuracy where it is clearly confirmed experimentally

Call Me Caitlyn: Making and making over the 'authentic' transgender body in Anglo-American popular culture

A conception of transgender identity as an ‘authentic’ gendered core ‘trapped’ within a mismatched corporeality, and made tangible through corporeal transformations, has attained unprecedented legibility in contemporary Anglo-American media. Whilst pop-cultural articulations of this discourse have received some scholarly attention, the question of why this 'wrong body' paradigm has solidified as the normative explanation for gender transition within the popular media remains underexplored. This paper argues that this discourse has attained cultural pre-eminence through its convergence with a broader media and commercial zeitgeist, in which corporeal alteration and maintenance are perceived as means of accessing one’s ‘authentic’ self. I analyse the media representations of two transgender celebrities: Caitlyn Jenner and Nadia Almada, alongside the reality TV show TRANSform Me, exploring how these women’s gender transitions have been discursively aligned with a cultural imperative for all women, cisgender or trans, to display their authentic femininity through bodily work. This demonstrates how established tropes of authenticity-via-bodily transformation, have enabled transgender to become culturally legible through the wrong body trope. Problematically, I argue, this process has worked to demarcate ideals of ‘acceptable’ transgender subjectivity: self-sufficient, normatively feminine, and eager to embrace the possibilities for happiness and social integration provided by the commercial domain

Observation of coherent transients in ultrashort chirped excitation of an undamped two-level system

The effects of Coherent excitation of a two level system with a linearly chirped pulse are studied theoretically and experimentally (in Rb (5s - 5p)) in the low field regime. The Coherent Transients are measured directly on the excited state population on an ultrashort time scale. A sharp step corresponds to the passage through resonance. It is followed by oscillations resulting from interferences between off-resonant and resonant contributions. We finally show the equivalence between this experiment and Fresnel diffraction by a sharp edge.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, to appear in PR

‘RE/TRS’ is a Girl’s Subject: Talking about Gender and the Discourse of ‘Religion’ in UK Educational Spaces

This article addresses what appears to be a retrenchment into narrower forms of identification and an increased suspicion of difference in the context of educational policy in the UK – especially in relation to ‘Religious Education’. The adoption of standardized management protocols – ‘managerialism’ – across most if not all policy contexts including public educational spaces reduces spaces for encountering or addressing genuine difference and for discovering something new and different. A theory of the ‘feminization of religion’ associated historically with Barbara Welter, provides some useful insights as to why this might be, suggesting that those in British society who would prefer to see greater separation from ‘religion’ in ‘secular’ schools may well also be caught up in forms of gender stereotyping

Optical fibers with interferometric path length stability by controlled heating for transmission of optical signals and as components in frequency standards

We present a simple method to stabilize the optical path length of an optical fiber to an accuracy of about 1/100 of the laser wavelength. We study the dynamic response of the path length to modulation of an electrically conductive heater layer of the fiber. The path length is measured against the laser wavelength by use of the Pound-Drever-Hall method; negative feedback is applied via the heater. We apply the method in the context of a cryogenic resonator frequency standard.Comment: Expanded introduction and outlook. 9 pages, 5 figure

How is rape a weapon of war?: feminist international relations, modes of critical explanation and the study of wartime sexual violence

Rape is a weapon of war. Establishing this now common claim has been an achievement of feminist scholarship and activism and reveals wartime sexual violence as a social act marked by gendered power. But the consensus that rape is a weapon of war obscures important, and frequently unacknowledged, differences in ways of understanding and explaining it. This article opens these differences to analysis. Drawing on recent debates regarding the philosophy of social science in IR and social theory, it interprets feminist accounts of wartime sexual violence in terms of modes of critical explanation – expansive styles of reasoning that foreground particular actors, mechanisms, reasons and stories in the formulation of research. The idea of a mode of critical explanation is expanded upon through a discussion of the role of three elements (analytical wagers, narrative scripts and normative orientations) which accomplish the theoretical work of modes. Substantive feminist accounts of wartime sexual violence are then differentiated in terms of three modes – of instrumentality, unreason and mythology – which implicitly structure different understandings of how rape might be a weapon of war. These modes shape political and ethical projects and so impact not only on questions of scholarly content but also on the ways in which we attempt to mitigate and abolish war rape. Thinking in terms of feminist modes of critical explanation consequently encourages further work in an unfolding research agenda. It clarifes the ways in which an apparently commonality of position can conceal meaningful disagreements about human action. Exposing these disagreements opens up new possibilities for the analysis of war rape

Higher-Order Nuclear-Polarizability Corrections in Atomic Hydrogen

Nuclear-polarizability corrections that go beyond unretarded-dipole approximation are calculated analytically for hydrogenic (atomic) S-states. These retardation corrections are evaluated numerically for deuterium and contribute -0.68 kHz, for a total polarization correction of 18.58(7) kHz. Our results are in agreement with one previous numerical calculation, and the retardation corrections completely account for the difference between two previous calculations. The uncertainty in the deuterium polarizability correction is substantially reduced. At the level of 0.01 kHz for deuterium, only three primary nuclear observables contribute: the electric polarizability, $\alpha_E$, the paramagnetic susceptibility, $\beta_M$, and the third Zemach moment, $_{(2)}$. Cartesian multipole decomposition of the virtual Compton amplitude and its concomitant gauge sum rules are used in the analysis.Comment: 26 pages, latex, 1 figure -- Submitted to Phys. Rev. C -- epsfig.sty require

Can spacetime curvature induced corrections to Lamb shift be observable?

The Lamb shift results from the coupling of an atom to vacuum fluctuations of quantum fields, so corrections are expected to arise when the spacetime is curved since the vacuum fluctuations are modified by the presence of spacetime curvature. Here, we calculate the curvature-induced correction to the Lamb shift outside a spherically symmetric object and demonstrate that this correction can be remarkably significant outside a compact massive astrophysical body. For instance, for a neutron star or a stellar mass black hole, the correction is $\sim$ 25% at a radial distance of $4GM/c^2$, $\sim$ 16% at $10GM/c^2$ and as large as $\sim$ 1.6% even at $100GM/c^2$, where $M$ is the mass of the object, $G$ the Newtonian constant, and $c$ the speed of light. In principle, we can look at the spectra from a distant compact super-massive body to find such corrections. Therefore, our results suggest a possible way of detecting fundamental quantum effects in astronomical observations.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures, slight title change, clarifications and more discussions added, version to be published in JHE