Lock acquisition studies for advanced interferometers

This document describes some results of time domain simulation for a Fabry-Perot cavity with Advanced LIGO parameters. Future interferometer will employ a high power laser and high finesse cavities. Lock acquisition of arm cavity will be more difficult due to the optical instabilities which are caused by very high power inside the cavity. According to this simulation, the arm cavity should be locked with very low power, and additional hard/software techniques will be needed to establish the first fringe lock. In this paper, possibility of using a new algorithm called 'Guidelock' and a suspension point interferometer are discussed. After lock is acquired, alignment controls must be engaged before increasing the power. This simulation predicts that alignment optical instabilities show up due to a shift of high power beam axis, and they can be stabilized by proper alignment controls

Deployment mechanisms on Pioneer Venus probes

Deployment mechanisms were developed to position scientific instruments during probe descent into the Venus atmosphere. Each mechanism includes a provision for pyrotechnic release of the enclosure door, negator springs for positive deployment torque, and an active damper using a shunted dc motor. The deployment time requirement is under 2 seconds, and the deployment shock must be less than 100 g's. The mechanism is completely dry lubricated and constructed mainly of titanium for high strength and high temperature stability. The mechanism was qualified for descent decelerations up to 565 g's and for instrument alignment up to 940 F. The mechanism requirements, the hardware design details, the analytical simulations, and the qualification testing are described

Fluctuations in the formation time of ultracold dimers from fermionic atoms

We investigate the temporal fluctuations characteristic of the formation of molecular dimers from ultracold fermionic atoms via Raman photoassociation. The quantum fluctuations inherent to the initial atomic state result in large fluctuations in the passage time from atoms to molecules. Assuming degeneracy of kinetic energies of atoms in the strong coupling limit we find that a heuristic classical stochastic model yields qualitative agreement with the full quantum treatment in the initial stages of the dynamics. We also show that in contrast to the association of atoms into dimers, the reverse process of dissociation from a condensate of bosonic dimers exhibits little passage time fluctuations. Finally we explore effects due to the non-degeneracy of atomic kinetic energies.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure

Dynamical properties of dipolar Fermi gases

We investigate dynamical properties of a one-component Fermi gas with dipole-dipole interaction between particles. Using a variational function based on the Thomas-Fermi density distribution in phase space representation, the total energy is described by a function of deformation parameters in both real and momentum space. Various thermodynamic quantities of a uniform dipolar Fermi gas are derived, and then instability of this system is discussed. For a trapped dipolar Fermi gas, the collective oscillation frequencies are derived with the energy-weighted sum rule method. The frequencies for the monopole and quadrupole modes are calculated, and softening against collapse is shown as the dipolar strength approaches the critical value. Finally, we investigate the effects of the dipolar interaction on the expansion dynamics of the Fermi gas and show how the dipolar effects manifest in an expanded cloud.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures, submitted to New J. Phy

Phase separation in a boson-fermion mixture of Lithium atoms

We use a semiclassical three-fluid model to analyze the conditions for spatial phase separation in a mixture of fermionic Li-6 and a (stable) Bose-Einstein condensate of Li-7 atoms under cylindrical harmonic confinement, both at zero and finite temperature. We show that with the parameters of the Paris experiment [F. Schrek et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 87 080403 (2001)] an increase of the boson-fermion scattering length by a factor five would be sufficient to enter the phase-separated regime. We give examples of configurations for the density profiles in phase separation and estimate that the transition should persist at temperatures typical of current experiments. For higher values of the boson-fermion coupling we also find a new phase separation between the fermions and the bosonic thermal cloud at finite temperature.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, new version of Fig. 4 and typos correcte

Bose-Fermi Mixtures in One Dimension

We analyze the phase stability and the response of a mixture of bosons and spin-polarized fermions in one dimension (1D). Unlike in 3D, phase separation happens for low fermion densities. The dynamics of the mixture at low energy is independent of the spin-statistics of the components, and zero-sound-like modes exist that are essentially undamped.Comment: 5 pages; 1 figur