Excited states of beryllium atom from explicitly correlated wave functions

A study of the first excited states of beryllium atom starting from explicitly correlated wave functions is carried out. Several properties are obtained and discussed focusing on the analysis of the Hund's rules in terms of the single--particle and electron pair intracule and extracule densities. A systematic study of the differences on the electronic distributions of the singlet and triplet states is carried out. The trial wave function used to describe the different bound states consists of a generalized Jastrow-type correlation factor times a configuration interaction model wave function. This model wave function has been fixed by using a generalization of the optimized effective potential method to deal with multiconfiguration wave functions. The optimization of the wave function and the calculation of the different quantities is carried out by means of the Variational Monte Carlo method.Comment: 28 pages, 6 figure

Photon Entanglement Through Brain Tissue.

Photon entanglement, the cornerstone of quantum correlations, provides a level of coherence that is not present in classical correlations. Harnessing it by study of its passage through organic matter may offer new possibilities for medical diagnosis technique. In this work, we study the preservation of photon entanglement in polarization, created by spontaneous parametric down-conversion, after one entangled photon propagates through multiphoton-scattering brain tissue slices with different thickness. The Tangle-Entropy (TS) plots show the strong preservation of entanglement of photons propagating in brain tissue. By spatially filtering the ballistic scattering of an entangled photon, we find that its polarization entanglement is preserved and non-locally correlated with its twin in the TS plots. The degree of entanglement correlates better with structure and water content than with sample thickness

A sensitivity analysis of soil moisture retrieval from the t-w microwave emission model

The potential of the τ-ω model for retrieving the volumetric moisture content of bare and vegetated soil from dual polarisation passive microwave data acquired at single and multiple angles is tested. Measurement error and several additional sources of uncertainty will affect the theoretical retrieval accuracy. These include uncertainty in the soil temperature, the vegetation structure and consequently its microwave singlescattering albedo, and uncertainty in soil microwave emissivity based on its roughness. To test the effects of these uncertainties for simple homogeneous scenes, we attempt to retrieve soil moisture from a number of simulated microwave brightness temperature datasets generated using the τ-ω model. The uncertainties for each influence are estimated and applied to curves generated for typical scenarios, and an inverse model used to retrieve the soil moisture content, vegetation optical depth and soil temperature. The effect of each influence on the theoretical soil moisture retrieval limit is explored, the likelihood of each sensor configuration meeting user requirements is assessed, and the most effective means of improving moisture retrieval indicated

An Easier-To-Align Hong-Ou-Mandel Interference Demonstration

The Hong-Ou-Mandel interference experiment is a fundamental demonstration of nonclassical interference and a basis for many investigations of quantum information. This experiment involves the interference of two photons reaching a symmetric beamsplitter. When the photons are made indistinguishable in all possible ways, an interference of quantum amplitudes results in both photons always leaving the same beamsplitter output port. Thus, a scan of distinguishable parameters, such as the arrival time difference of the photons reaching the beamsplitter, produces a dip in the coincidences measured at the outputs of the beamsplitter. The main challenge for its implementation as an undergraduate laboratory is the alignment of the photon paths at the beamsplitter. We overcome this difficulty by using a pre-aligned commercial fiber-coupled beamsplitter. In addition, we use waveplates to vary the distinguishability of the photons by their state of polarization. We present a theoretical description at the introductory quantum mechanics level of the two types of experiments, plus a discussion of the apparatus alignment and list of parts needed