10,573 research outputs found
Visibility Fringe Reduction Due to Noise-Induced Effects: Microscopic Approach to Interference Experiments
Decoherence is the main process behind the quantum to classical transition.
It is a purely quantum mechanical effect by which the system looses its ability
to exhibit coherent behavior. The recent experimental observation of
diffraction and interference patterns for large molecules raises some
interesting questions. In this context, we identify possible agents of
decoherence to take into account when modeling these experiments and study
theirs visible (or not) effects on the interference pattern. Thereby, we
present an analysis of matter wave interferometry in the presence of a dynamic
quantum environment and study how much the visibility fringe is reduced and in
which timescale the decoherence effects destroy the interference of massive
objects. Finally, we apply our results to the experimental data reported on
fullerenes and cold neutrons.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures. Version to appear in Mod. Phys.
Bifurcation analysis of the twist-Freedericksz transition in a nematic liquid-crystal cell with pre-twist boundary conditions
Motivated by a recent investigation of Millar and McKay [Mol. Cryst. Liq. Cryst., 435, 277/[937]-286/[946] (2005)], we study the magnetic field twist-FrÂŽeedericksz transition for a nematic liquid crystal of positive diamagnetic anisotropy with strong anchoring and pre- twist boundary conditions. Despite the pre-twist, the system still possesses Z2 symmetry and a symmetry-breaking pitchfork bifurcation, which occurs at a critical magnetic-field strength that, as we prove, is above the threshold for the classical twist-FrÂŽeedericksz tran- sition (which has no pre-twist). It was observed numerically by Millar and McKay that this instability occurs precisely at the point at which the ground-state solution loses its monotonicity (with respect to the position coordinate across the cell gap). We explain this surprising observation using a rigorous phase-space analysis
Decoherence in a Two Slit Diffraction Experiment with Massive Particles
Matter-wave interferometry has been largely studied in the last few years.
Usually, the main problem in the analysis of the diffraction experiments is to
establish the causes for the loss of coherence observed in the interference
pattern. In this work, we use different type of environmental couplings to
model a two slit diffraction experiment with massive particles. For each model,
we study the effects of decoherence on the interference pattern and define a
visibility function that measures the loss of contrast of the interference
fringes on a distant screen. Finally, we apply our results to the experimental
reported data on massive particles .Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure
Dephasing in matter-wave interferometry
We review different attempts to show the decoherence process in
double-slit-like experiments both for charged particles (electrons) and neutral
particles with permanent dipole moments. Interference is studied when electrons
or atomic systems are coupled to classical or quantum electromagnetic fields.
The interaction between the particles and time-dependent fields induces a
time-varying Aharonov phase. Averaging over the phase generates a suppression
of fringe visibility in the interference pattern. We show that, for suitable
experimental conditions, the loss of contrast for dipoles can be almost as
large as the corresponding one for coherent electrons and therefore, be
observed. We analyze different trajectories in order to show the dependence of
the decoherence factor with the velocity of the particles.Comment: 9 pages, 1 eps-figure. To appear in J. Phys. A: Math. Ge
Dynamics and Steady States in excitable mobile agent systems
We study the spreading of excitations in 2D systems of mobile agents where
the excitation is transmitted when a quiescent agent keeps contact with an
excited one during a non-vanishing time. We show that the steady states
strongly depend on the spatial agent dynamics. Moreover, the coupling between
exposition time () and agent-agent contact rate (CR) becomes crucial to
understand the excitation dynamics, which exhibits three regimes with CR: no
excitation for low CR, an excited regime in which the number of quiescent
agents (S) is inversely proportional to CR, and for high CR, a novel third
regime, model dependent, here S scales with an exponent , with
being the scaling exponent of with CR
Completion problems for real matrices, II
Thirty years ago, G.N. de Oliveira has proposed the following completion problems: Describe the possible characteristic polynomials of [C-ij], i,j is an element of {1, 2}, where C-1,C-1 and C-2,C-2 are square submatrices, when some of the blocks C-ij are fixed and the others vary. Several of these problems remain unsolved. This paper gives the solution, over the field of real numbers, of Oliveira's problem where the blocks C-1,C-1, C-2,C-2 are fixed and the others vary
Ab initio quantum Monte Carlo calculations of spin superexchange in cuprates: the benchmarking case of CaCuO
In view of the continuous theoretical efforts aimed at an accurate
microscopic description of the strongly correlated transition metal oxides and
related materials, we show that with continuum quantum Monte Carlo (QMC)
calculations it is possible to obtain the value of the spin superexchange
coupling constant of a copper oxide in a quantitatively excellent agreement
with experiment. The variational nature of the QMC total energy allows us to
identify the best trial wave function out of the available pool of wave
functions, which makes the approach essentially free from adjustable parameters
and thus truly ab initio. The present results on magnetic interactions suggest
that QMC is capable of accurately describing ground state properties of
strongly correlated materials.Comment: Published in Physical Review
Twenty-One Millisecond Pulsars in Terzan 5 Using the Green Bank Telescope
We have discovered 21 millisecond pulsars (MSPs) in the globular cluster
Terzan 5 using the Green Bank Telescope, bringing the total of known MSPs in
Terzan 5 to 24. These discoveries confirm fundamental predictions of globular
cluster and binary system evolution. Thirteen of the new MSPs are in binaries,
of which two show eclipses and two have highly eccentric orbits. The
relativistic periastron advance for the two eccentric systems indicates that at
least one of these pulsars has a mass >1.68 Msun at 95% confidence. Such large
neutron star masses constrain the equation of state of matter at or beyond the
nuclear equilibrium density.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures. Accepted by Science. Published electronically
via Science Express 13 Jan 200
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