Creating long-lived neutral-atom traps in a cryogenic environment

We describe techniques for creating long-lived magneto-optical and magnetostatic traps for neutral atoms. These traps exist in a sealed cryogenic environment with a temperature near 4 K, where the background gas pressure can be extremely low. To date we have observed cesium magneto-optical traps with background-limited lifetimes in excess of 1 h, and magnetostatic traps with lifetimes of nearly 10 min. From these observations we use the known He-Cs van der Waals collision cross section to infer typical background gas pressures in our apparatus below 4×10^(-12) Torr. With hardware improvements we expect this pressure can be made much lower, extending the magnetostatic-trap lifetimes one to two orders of magnitude. Furthermore, with a cryogenic system one can use superconducting magnets and SQUID detectors to trap and to nondestructively sense spin-polarized atoms. With superconducting microstructures one can achieve very large magnetic-field gradients and curvatures, as high as ∼10^6 G/cm and ∼10^9 G/cm^2, respectively, for use in magnetic and magneto-optical traps

Bit-interleaved coded modulation in the wideband regime

The wideband regime of bit-interleaved coded modulation (BICM) in Gaussian channels is studied. The Taylor expansion of the coded modulation capacity for generic signal constellations at low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is derived and used to determine the corresponding expansion for the BICM capacity. Simple formulas for the minimum energy per bit and the wideband slope are given. BICM is found to be suboptimal in the sense that its minimum energy per bit can be larger than the corresponding value for coded modulation schemes. The minimum energy per bit using standard Gray mapping on M-PAM or M^2-QAM is given by a simple formula and shown to approach -0.34 dB as M increases. Using the low SNR expansion, a general trade-off between power and bandwidth in the wideband regime is used to show how a power loss can be traded off against a bandwidth gain.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Transactions on Information Theor

Bit-Interleaved Coded Modulation Revisited: A Mismatched Decoding Perspective

We revisit the information-theoretic analysis of bit-interleaved coded modulation (BICM) by modeling the BICM decoder as a mismatched decoder. The mismatched decoding model is well-defined for finite, yet arbitrary, block lengths, and naturally captures the channel memory among the bits belonging to the same symbol. We give two independent proofs of the achievability of the BICM capacity calculated by Caire et al. where BICM was modeled as a set of independent parallel binary-input channels whose output is the bitwise log-likelihood ratio. Our first achievability proof uses typical sequences, and shows that due to the random coding construction, the interleaver is not required. The second proof is based on the random coding error exponents with mismatched decoding, where the largest achievable rate is the generalized mutual information. We show that the generalized mutual information of the mismatched decoder coincides with the infinite-interleaver BICM capacity. We also show that the error exponent -and hence the cutoff rate- of the BICM mismatched decoder is upper bounded by that of coded modulation and may thus be lower than in the infinite-interleaved model. We also consider the mutual information appearing in the analysis of iterative decoding of BICM with EXIT charts. We show that the corresponding symbol metric has knowledge of the transmitted symbol and the EXIT mutual information admits a representation as a pseudo-generalized mutual information, which is in general not achievable. A different symbol decoding metric, for which the extrinsic side information refers to the hypothesized symbol, induces a generalized mutual information lower than the coded modulation capacity.Comment: submitted to the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory. Conference version in 2008 IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory, Toronto, Canada, July 200

Stability of Magneto-optical Traps with Large Field Gradients: Limits on the Tight Confinement of Single Atoms

We report measurements of the stability of magneto-optical traps (MOTs) for neutral atoms in the limit of tight confinement of a single atom. For quadrupole magnetic field gradients at the trap center greater than ∼1 kG/cm, we find that stochastic diffusion of atoms out of the trapping volume becomes the dominant particle loss mechanism, ultimately limiting the MOT size to greater than ∼5 μm. We measured and modeled the diffusive loss rate as a function of laser power, detuning, and field gradient for trapped cesium atoms. In addition, for as few as two atoms, the collisional loss rates become very high for tightly confined traps, allowing the direct observation of isolated two-body atomic collisions in a MOT

Dynamics of Human Walking

The problem of biped locomotion at steady speeds is discussed through a Lagrangian formulation developed for velocity-dependent, body driving forces. Human walking on a level surface is analyzed in terms of the data on the resultant ground-reaction force and the external work. It is shown that the trajectory of the center of mass is due to a superposition of its rectilinear motion with a given speed and a backward rotation along a shortened hypocycloid. A stiff-to-compliant crossover between walking gaits is described and the maximum speed for human walking, given by an instability of the trajectory, is predicted. Key words: locomotion, integrative biology, muscles, bipedalism, human walking, biomechanics.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure

Diversity of phototrophic genes suggests multiple bacteria may be able to exploit sunlight in exposed soils from the Sør Rondane Mountains, East Antarctica

Microbial life in exposed terrestrial surface layers in continental Antarctica is faced with extreme environmental conditions, including scarcity of organic matter. Bacteria in these exposed settings can therefore be expected to use alternative energy sources such as solar energy, abundant during the austral summer. Using Illumina MiSeq sequencing, we assessed the diversity and abundance of four conserved protein encoding genes involved in different key steps of light-harvesting pathways dependent on (bacterio)chlorophyll (pufM, bchL/chlL, and bchX genes) and rhodopsins (actinorhodopsin genes), in exposed soils from the Sør Rondane Mountains, East Antarctica. Analysis of pufM genes, encoding a subunit of the type 2 photochemical reaction center found in anoxygenic phototrophic bacteria, revealed a broad diversity, dominated by Roseobacter- and Loktanella-like sequences. The bchL and chlL, involved in (bacterio)chlorophyll synthesis, on the other hand, showed a high relative abundance of either cyanobacterial or green algal trebouxiophyceael chlL reads, depending on the sample, while most bchX sequences belonged mostly to previously unidentified phylotypes. Rhodopsin-containing phototrophic bacteria could not be detected in the samples. Our results, while suggesting that Cyanobacteria and green algae are the main phototrophic groups, show that light-harvesting bacteria are nevertheless very diverse in microbial communities in Antarctic soils

Coherent electrical rotations of valley states in Si quantum dots using the phase of the valley-orbit coupling

A gate electric field has a small but non-negligible effect on the phase of the valley-orbit coupling in Si quantum dots. Finite interdot tunneling between valley eigenstates in a double quantum dot is enabled by a small difference in the phase of the valley-orbit coupling between the two dots, and it in turn allows controllable rotations of two-dot valley eigenstates at a level anticrossing. We present a comprehensive analytical discussion of this process, with estimates for realistic structures.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figure

Digital terrain modelling using triangulated irregular networks (poster)

Many marine scientists and users of the sea consider knowledge of the sea bottom as basic data, a mere context to carry out research or deploy activities. Some disciplines do need more accurate bathymetric data than others, depending on depth values being background information or crucial information for their research or activities. In bathymetry, the representation of the sea bottom surface is the main objective and hence, this discipline will try to render the sea bottom relief as accurate as possible. The latest bathymetric sounding equipment that is available nowadays, especially the multibeam echosounder, yield a very dense bottom sampling. When compared to the common singlebeam echosounder, an enormous amount of data is produced that needs to be processed in a correct and fast way. Grid-overlay (by local linear or more sophisticated interpolation and attributing values to individual grid cells) is not an option here as this method uses an interpolation of the measured values and hence will either cause accuracy loss or generate a still larger amount of data. A triangular irregular network (TIN for short), especially the Delaunay triangulation (Dt), does respect the actual measurements and will not generate new data. In literature, a number of algorithms have been developed that determine the Dt of a set of points (vertices) given in the plane.A performant divide-and-conquer algorithm for Delaunay triangulations was implemented to triangulate large quantities of data in minimum time. Comparison with other implemented algorithms demonstrates its excellent performance.In some cases, it will be necessary to adapt the terrain model. Theoretical terrain models (for instance design models for marine contractors) require manual interventions, while new surveys partially overlapping old data will have to replace the latter. Therefore, the incremental algorithm has been adapted to allow insertion of individual points. When eliminating individual vertices, the hole thus created has to be retriangulated. Vertices belonging to a triangulation that is (partially) covered by a new surveyed area can be eliminated and using a very keen adaptation of the divide-and-conquer principle, the overlapping triangulations can be stitched together. This is a novel technique with the big advantage of quickly and seamlessly joining two large triangulations, without the need for retriangulation of the entire area.Part of the immense amount of data generated by a multibeam echosounder will unavoidably be redundant. An important issue therefore will be: filtering these data, keeping those points that still assure an optimal accuracy. This accuracy can be expressed as a function of the topography or as a function of the volume. For the latter, not the height difference determines whether or not a vertex is allowed in the triangulation, the criterion is rather the change in volume caused by this one vertex. For marine contractors, it is mainly the latter that is important. A hybrid model would be most adequate