846 research outputs found
Nonlinear Analysis of Irregular Variables
The Fourier spectral techniques that are common in Astronomy for analyzing
periodic or multi-periodic light-curves lose their usefulness when they are
applied to unsteady light-curves. We review some of the novel techniques that
have been developed for analyzing irregular stellar light or radial velocity
variations, and we describe what useful physical and astronomical information
can be gained from their use.Comment: 31 pages, to appear as a chapter in `Nonlinear Stellar Pulsation' in
the Astrophysics and Space Science Library (ASSL), Editors: M. Takeuti & D.
Sasselo
Evidence for Low-Dimensional Chaos in Semiregular Variable Stars
An analysis of the photometric observations of the light curves of the five
large amplitude, irregularly pulsating stars R UMi, RS Cyg, V CVn, UX Dra and
SX Her is presented. First, multi-periodicity is eliminated for these
pulsations, i.e. they are not caused by the excitation of a small number of
pulsation modes with constant amplitudes. Next, on the basis of energetics we
also eliminate stochasticity as a cause, leaving low dimensional chaos as the
only alternative. We then use a global flow reconstruction technique in an
attempt to extract quantitative information from the light curves, and to
uncover common physical features in this class of irregular variable stars that
straddle the RV Tau to the Mira variables. Evidence is presented that the
pulsational behavior of R UMi, RS Cyg, V CVn and UX Dra takes place in a
4-dimensional dynamical phase space, suggesting that two vibrational modes are
involved in the pulsation. A linear stability analysis of the fixed points of
the maps further indicates the existence of a two-mode resonance, similar to
the one we had uncovered earlier in R Sct: The irregular pulsations are the
result of a continual energy exchange between two strongly nonadiabatic modes,
a lower frequency pulsation mode and an overtone that are in a close 2:1
resonance. The evidence is particularly convincing for R UMi, RS Cyg and V CVn,
but much weaker for UX Dra. In contrast, the pulsations of SX Her appear to be
more complex and may require a 6D space.Comment: 20 pages, 14 figures, accepted in ApJ - paper with clearer figures is
available at http://www.phys.ufl.edu/~buchler/publications/u12.ps.gz (1Mb
Configurable unitary transformations and linear logic gates using quantum memories
We show that a set of optical memories can act as a configurable linear
optical network operating on frequency-multiplexed optical states. Our protocol
is applicable to any quantum memories that employ off-resonant Raman
transitions to store optical information in atomic spins. In addition to the
configurability, the protocol also offers favourable scaling with an increasing
number of modes where N memories can be configured to implement an arbitrary
N-mode unitary operations during storage and readout. We demonstrate the
versatility of this protocol by showing an example where cascaded memories are
used to implement a conditional CZ gate.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure
Storage and Manipulation of Light Using a Raman Gradient Echo Process
The Gradient Echo Memory (GEM) scheme has potential to be a suitable protocol
for storage and retrieval of optical quantum information. In this paper, we
review the properties of the -GEM method that stores information in
the ground states of three-level atomic ensembles via Raman coupling. The
scheme is versatile in that it can store and re-sequence multiple pulses of
light. To date, this scheme has been implemented using warm rubidium gas cells.
There are different phenomena that can influence the performance of these
atomic systems. We investigate the impact of atomic motion and four-wave mixing
and present experiments that show how parasitic four-wave mixing can be
mitigated. We also use the memory to demonstrate preservation of pulse shape
and the backward retrieval of pulses.Comment: 26 pages, 13 figure
Near-field imaging and frequency tuning of a high-Q photonic crystal membrane microcavity
We discuss experimental studies of the interaction between a nanoscopic
object and a photonic crystal membrane resonator of quality factor Q=55000. By
controlled actuation of a glass fiber tip in the near-field of a photonic
crystal, we constructed a complete spatio-spectral map of the resonator mode
and its coupling with the fiber-tip. On the one hand, our findings demonstrate
that scanning probes can profoundly influence the optical characteristics and
the near-field images of photonic devices. On the other hand, we show that the
introduction of a nanoscopic object provides a low-loss method for on-command
tuning of a photonic crystal resonator frequency. Our results are in a very
good agreement with the predictions of a combined numerical/analytical theory.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure
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