Measurement of excited-state transitions in cold calcium atoms by direct femtosecond frequency-comb spectroscopy

We apply direct frequency-comb spectroscopy, in combination with precision cw spectroscopy, to measure the ${\rm 4s4p} ^3P_1 \to {\rm 4s5s} ^3S_1$ transition frequency in cold calcium atoms. A 657 nm ultrastable cw laser was used to excite atoms on the narrow ($\gamma \sim 400$ Hz) ${\rm 4s^2} ^1S_0 \to {\rm 4s4p} ^3P_1$ clock transition, and the direct output of the frequency comb was used to excite those atoms from the ${\rm 4s4p} ^3P_1$ state to the ${\rm 4s5s} ^3S_1$ state. The resonance of this second stage was detected by observing a decrease in population of the ground state as a result of atoms being optically pumped to the metastable ${\rm 4s4p} ^3P_{0,2}$ states. The ${\rm 4s4p} ^3P_1 \to {\rm 4s5s} ^3S_1$ transition frequency is measured to be $\nu = 489 544 285 713(56)$ kHz; which is an improvement by almost four orders of magnitude over the previously measured value. In addition, we demonstrate spectroscopy on magnetically trapped atoms in the ${\rm 4s4p} ^3P_2$ state.Comment: 4 pages 5 figure

The equation of state with nonzero chemical potential for 2+1 flavors

We present results for the QCD equation of state with nonzero chemical potential using the Taylor expansion method with terms up to sixth order in the expansion. Our calculations are performed on asqtad 2+1 quark flavor lattices at $N_t=4$.Comment: Talk given at the XXV International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory, July 30-4 August 2007, Regensburg, German

Characterization of Capacitive Comb-finger MEMS Accelerometers

This paper discusses various methods for testing the performance of MEMS capacitive comb-finger accelerometers manufactured by Sandia National Laboratories. The use of Capacitive MEMS devices requires complex circuits for measurement of capacitance. Sandia MEMS accelerometer\u27s capacitance changes in a very small femto-farad (fF) range. The performance of accelerometer is tested using Analog Devices AD7747 sigma-delta capacitance to digital converter. The response of a MEMS capacitive accelerometer to various tests is useful for testing and characterization and investigate it\u27s suitability for various application

Semileptonic Decays of Heavy Mesons with the Fat Clover Action

We are studying a variety of semileptonic decays of heavy-light mesons in an effort to improve the determination of the heavy-quark Standard-Model CKM matrix elements. Our fermion action is a novel, improved ``fat'' clover action that promises to reduce problems with exceptional configurations. Dynamical sea quarks are included in a mixed approach, i.e. we use staggered sea quarks and fat-clover valence quarks. Here we report preliminary results.Comment: LATTICE99(heavyqk) - 3p, 4 Postscript fig

Variants of fattening and flavor symmetry restoration

We study the effects of different "fat link" actions for Kogut-Susskind quarks on flavor symmetry breaking. Our method is mostly empirical - we compute the pion spectrum with different valence quark actions on common sets of sample lattices. Different actions are compared, as best we can, at equivalent physical points. We find significant reductions in flavor symmetry breaking relative to the conventional or to the "link plus staple" actions, with a reasonable cost in computer time. We also develop and test a scheme for approximate unitarization of the fat links. While our tests have concentrated on the valence quark action, our results will be useful in designing simulations with dynamical quarks.Comment: 16 pages, LaTeX, PostScript figures include

The QCD equation of state with asqtad staggered fermions

We report on our result for the equation of state (EOS) with a Symanzik improved gauge action and the asqtad improved staggered fermion action at $N_t=4$ and 6. In our dynamical simulations with 2+1 flavors we use the inexact R algorithm and here we estimate the finite step-size systematic error on the EOS. Finally we discuss the non-zero chemical potential extension of the EOS and give some preliminary results.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, presented at Lattice2006(High Temperature and Density), to appear in Proceedings of Scienc