Plasmon resonance shift during grazing incidence ion sputtering on Ag(001)

Grazing incidence ion sputtering was used to create shallow ripple patterns on a Ag(001) surface. The anisotropic plasmon resonance associated with this ripple pattern can be sensitively measured with Reflection Anisotropy Spectroscopy. A slight red shift of the resonance energy is observed with increasing ion fluence. The observed resonance feature is described well with a skewed Lorentzian line shape. This line shape is the small roughness length scale limit of the Rayleigh Rice perturbation approach. The width of this line shape is directly related to imaginary part of the dielectric function, which shows a roughness induced reduction of the electron mean free path. The observed change in resonance energy and strength with ion fluence is discussed

Optical characterization of the evolution of ion-induced anisotropic nanopatterns on Ag(001)

Reflection anisotropy spectroscopy is used as an in situ probe for the emergence and evolution of surface patterns on Ag(001) during oblique incidence ion bombardment. The information is extracted from plasmon resonances induced by the nanoscale patterns, utilizing the fact that smooth Ag(001) is optically isotropic. The Rayleigh-Rice perturbation approach delivers the temporal development of the average periodicity and amplitude of the surface patterns. For ion bombardment at a polar angle of incidence of 70∘ along a ⟨110⟩ azimuth, strongly anisotropic surface features develop, giving rise to a single plasmon resonance, which is described well with a one-dimensional power spectral density function. For a smaller polar angle of incidence of 61.5∘ multiple plasmon resonances are observed, which demand a two-dimensional power spectral density function for a perfect description. These result compare well with high-resolution low-energy electron diffraction data, taken after ion bombardment at both angles of incidence. The optical data, obtained at 61.5∘, show coarsening and seem to suggest scaling of the periodicity and roughness, with critical exponents 0.27 and 0.40, respectively

The Kohn mode for trapped Bose gases within the dielectric formalism

The presence of undamped harmonic center of mass oscillations of a weakly interacting Bose gas in a harmonic trap is demonstrated within the dielectric formalism for a previously introduced finite temperature approximation including exchange. The consistency of the approximation with the Kohn theorem is thereby demonstrated. The Kohn modes are found explicitly, generalizing an earlier zero-temperature result found in the literature. It is shown how the Kohn mode disappears from the single-particle spectrum, while remaining in the density oscillation spectrum, when the temperature increases from below to above the condensation temperature.Comment: 6 pages revte

A two-qubit Bell inequality for which POVM measurements are relevant

A bipartite Bell inequality is derived which is maximally violated on the two-qubit state space if measurements describable by positive operator valued measure (POVM) elements are allowed rather than restricting the possible measurements to projective ones. In particular, the presented Bell inequality requires POVMs in order to be maximally violated by a maximally entangled two-qubit state. This answers a question raised by N. Gisin.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figur

Bound entangled singlet-like states for quantum metrology

Bipartite entangled quantum states with a positive partial transpose (PPT), i.e., PPT entangled states, are usually considered very weakly entangled. Since no pure entanglement can be distilled from them, they are also called bound entangled. In this paper we present two classes of ($2d\times 2d$)-dimensional PPT entangled states for any $d\ge 2$ which outperform all separable states in metrology significantly. We present strong evidence that our states provide the maximal metrological gain achievable by PPT states for a given system size. When the dimension $d$ goes to infinity, the metrological gain of these states becomes maximal and equals the metrological gain of a pair of maximally entangled qubits. Thus, we argue that our states could be called "PPT singlets."Comment: 17 pages including 3 figures, revtex4.2; v2: presentation improved, some further results added, links to MATLAB programs generating the bound entangled states added; v3: published versio

Monitoring PD-L1 positive circulating tumor cells in non-small cell lung cancer patients treated with the PD-1 inhibitor Nivolumab

Controversial results on the predictive value of programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) status in lung tumor tissue for response to immune checkpoint inhibitors do not allow for any conclusive consideration. Liquid biopsy might allow real-time sampling of patients for PD-L1 through the course of the disease. Twenty-four stage IV NSCLC patients included in the Expanded Access Program with Nivolumab were enrolled. Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) were analyzed by CellSearch with anti-human B7-H1/PD-L1 PE-conjugated antibody. PD-L1 expressing CTCs were assessed at baseline, at 3 and 6 months after starting therapy, and correlated with outcome. At baseline and at 3 months of treatment, the presence of CTCs and the expression of PD-L1 on their surface were found associated to poor patients outcome. Nevertheless, the high frequency of PD-L1 expressing CTCs hampered to discriminate the role of PD-L1 in defining prognosis. Conversely although CTCs were found in all patients 6 months after treatment, at this time patients could be dichotomized into two groups based PD-L1 expression on CTCs. Patients with PD-L1 negative CTCs all obtained a clinical benefit, while patients with PD-L1 (+) CTCs all experienced progressive disease. This suggests that the persistence of PD-L1(+) CTCs might mirror a mechanism of therapy escape

Stationary Properties of a Randomly Driven Ising Ferromagnet

We consider the behavior of an Ising ferromagnet obeying the Glauber dynamics under the influence of a fast switching, random external field. Analytic results for the stationary state are presented in mean-field approximation, exhibiting a novel type of first order phase transition related to dynamic freezing. Monte Carlo simulations performed on a quadratic lattice indicate that many features of the mean field theory may survive the presence of fluctuations.Comment: 5 pages in RevTex format, 7 eps/ps figures, send comments to "mailto:[email protected]", submitted to PR