Approximate Theoretical Calculation of Continuum Opacities

An approxhnate procedure is described for the theoretical calculation of the spectral absorption coefficient produced by bound-free and free-free transitions in plasmas containing polyelectronic atoms and ions. Our method of calculation is based on the assumption that only two ionized species make important contributions to the opacity and that these two ionic constituents are present in equal concentrations. The approximate formulas are shown to yield results that are in good accord with estimates based on detailed numerical computations for nitrogen

On the efficient computation of high-order derivatives for implicitly defined functions

Scientific studies often require the precise calculation of derivatives. In many cases an analytical calculation is not feasible and one resorts to evaluating derivatives numerically. These are error-prone, especially for higher-order derivatives. A technique based on algorithmic differentiation is presented which allows for a precise calculation of higher-order derivatives. The method can be widely applied even for the case of only numerically solvable, implicit dependencies which totally hamper a semi-analytical calculation of the derivatives. As a demonstration the method is applied to a quantum field theoretical physical model. The results are compared with standard numerical derivative methods.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures, to appear in Comput. Phys. Commu

Polarization in relativistic heavy ion collisions: a theoretical perspective

We review the theoretical framework for the calculation of particle polarization in relativistic heavy ion collisions within the hydrodynamical model. The covariant decomposition of the mean spin vector is presented and open theoretical issues addressed.Comment: 6 pages, talk given at Strangeness in Quark Matter conference, Utrecht, July 10-15 201

Precision measurement of the 5 2S1/2 - 4 2D5/2 quadrupole transition isotope shift between 88Sr+ and 86Sr+

We have measured the isotope shift of the narrow quadrupole-allowed 5 2S1/2 - 4 2D5/2 transition in 86Sr+ relative to the most abundant isotope 88Sr+. This was accomplished using high-resolution laser spectroscopy of individual trapped ions, and the measured shift is Delta-nu_meas^(88,86) = 570.281(4) MHz. We have also tested a recently developed and successful method for ab-initio calculation of isotope shifts in alkali-like atomic systems against this measurement, and our initial result of Delta-nu_calc^(88,86) = 457(28) MHz is also presented. To our knowledge, this is the first high precision measurement and calculation of that isotope shift. While the measurement and the calculation are in broad agreement, there is a clear discrepancy between them, and we believe that the specific mass shift was underestimated in our calculation. Our measurement provides a stringent test for further refinements of theoretical isotope shift calculation methods for atomic systems with a single valence electron

Diamagnetic response of Aharonov-Bohm rings: Impurity backward scatterings

We report a theoretical calculation on the persistent currents of disordered normal-metal rings. It is shown that the diamagnetic responses of the rings in the vicinity of the zero magnetic field are attributed to multiple backward scatterings off the impurities. We observe the transition from the paramagnetic response to the diamagnetic one as the strength of disorder grows using both the analytic calculation and the numerical exact diagonalization.Comment: final versio

Hyperfine structure of S states in Li and Be^+

A large-scale configuration-interaction (CI) calculation is reported for the hyperfine splitting of the 2^2S and 3^2S states of ^7Li and ^9Be^+. The CI calculation based on the Dirac-Coulomb-Breit Hamiltonian is supplemented with a separate treatment of the QED, nuclear-size, nuclear-magnetization distribution, and recoil corrections. The nonrelativistic limit of the CI results is in excellent agreement with variational calculations. The theoretical values obtained for the hyperfine splitting are complete to the relative order of \alpha^2 and improve upon results of previous studies.Comment: 4 pages, 2 table