High harmonic generation in a gas-filled hollow-core photonic crystal fiber

High harmonic generation (HHG) of intense infrared laser radiation (Ferray et al., J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. 21:L31, 1988; McPherson et al., J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 4:595, 1987) enables coherent vacuum-UV (VUV) to soft-X-ray sources. In the usual setup, energetic femtosecond laser pulses are strongly focused into a gas jet, restricting the interaction length to the Rayleigh range of the focus. The average photon flux is limited by the low conversion efficiency and the low average power of the complex laser amplifier systems (Keller, Nature 424:831, 2003; Südmeyer et al., Nat. Photonics 2:599, 2008; Röser et al., Opt. Lett. 30:2754, 2005; Eidam et al., IEEE J. Sel. Top. Quantum Electron. 15:187, 2009) which typically operate at kilohertz repetition rates. This represents a severe limitation for many experiments using the harmonic radiation in fields such as metrology or high-resolution imaging. Driving HHG with novel high-power diode-pumped multi-megahertz laser systems has the potential to significantly increase the average photon flux. However, the higher average power comes at the expense of lower pulse energies because the repetition rate is increased by more than a thousand times, and efficient HHG is not possible in the usual geometry. So far, two promising techniques for HHG at lower pulse energies were developed: external build-up cavities (Gohle et al., Nature 436:234, 2005; Jones et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 94:193, 2005) and resonant field enhancement in nanostructured targets (Kim et al., Nature 453:757, 2008). Here we present a third technique, which has advantages in terms of ease of HHG light extraction, transverse beam quality, and the possibility to substantially increase conversion efficiency by phase-matching (Paul et al., Nature 421:51, 2003; Ren et al., Opt. Express 16:17052, 2008; Serebryannikov et al., Phys. Rev. E (Stat. Nonlinear Soft Matter Phys.) 70:66611, 2004; Serebryannikov et al., Opt. Lett. 33:977, 2008; Zhang et al., Nat. Phys. 3:270, 2007). The interaction between the laser pulses and the gas occurs in a Kagome-type Hollow-Core Photonic Crystal Fiber (HC-PCF) (Benabid et al., Science 298:399, 2002), which reduces the detection threshold for HHG to only 200 nJ. This novel type of fiber guides nearly all of the light in the hollow core (Couny et al., Science 318:1118, 2007), preventing damage even at intensities required for HHG. Our fiber guided 30-fs pulses with a pulse energy of more than 10 μJ, which is more than five times higher than for any other photonic crystal fiber (Hensley et al., Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO), IEEE Press, New York, 2008).     

A response to ‘Comments on the effect of liquid layering on the thermal conductivity of nanofluids’, E. Doroodchi, T. M. Evans & B. Moghtaderi, 2009. J Nanopart Res 11(6):1501–1507

This article provides a response to a recent brief communication ‘Comments on the effect of liquid layering on the thermal conductivity of nanofluids’ by Doroodchi et al. in J Nanopart Res 11(6):1501–1507, 2009. It provides an opportunity for us to clarify the fundamental differences between the models of Yu and Choi (2003) and Leong et al. (2006) mentioned in the communication, followed by an explanation of the development of Leong et al.’s model. While we re-affirm that the model of Leong et al. (2006) was developed based on the right methodology, appropriate boundary conditions and mathematical basis and is therefore valid, there are at least three incorrect equations in Doroodchi et al.’s communication which raise serious doubts on their results calculated from the above models. Hence, the comments by Doroodchi et al. (2009) about the model of Leong et al. (2006) are not well-justified.     

The νMSM and muon to electron conversion experiments

We review briefly the different constraints on the three right-handed neutrinos of the νMSM, an extension of the Standard Model that can explain baryon asymmetry, dark matter and neutrino masses. We include in the discussion the proposed experiments on muon to electron conversion Mu2e (Carey et al., Mu2e Collaboration, 2012), COMET and PRISM (Hungerford, COMET Collaboration, AIP Conf Proc 1182:694, 2009; Cui et al., COMET Collaboration, 2012). We find that the expected sensitivity of these experiments is weaker by about two orders of magnitude than the constraints coming from successful baryogenesis.     

An Alternative Approach to Understanding the Observed Positron Fraction

Space-based observations by PAMELA (Adriani et al., Nature 458, 607, 2009), Fermi-LAT (Ackerman et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 01103, 2012), and AMS (Aguilar et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 141102, 2013) have demonstrated that the positron fraction (e+/total-e) increases with increasing energy above about 10 GeV. According to the propagation model for Galactic cosmic rays in widespread use (Moskalenko & Strong, Astrophys. J. 493, 693, 1998), the production of secondary positrons from interaction of cosmic-ray protons and heavier nuclei with the interstellar medium gives a generally falling positron fraction between 10 and 100 GeV, with secondary positrons accounting for only ～20 % of the observed positron fraction at 100 GeV; so some other physical phenomena have been proposed to explain the data. An alternative approach to interpreting the positron observations is to consider these data as presenting an opportunity for re-examining models of Galactic cosmic-ray propagation. Following release of the PAMELA data, three groups published propagation models (Shaviv, et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 111302, 2009, Cowsik and Burch, Phys. Rev. D. 82, 023009, 2010, Katz et al., Mon. Not. R. Aston. Soc. 405, 1458 2010) in which the observed positron fraction is explained entirely by secondary positrons produced in the interstellar medium. In May of this year, stimulated by the AMS extension of the positron data to higher energy with excellent statistics, two of those groups presented further development of their calculations (Cowsik et al. 2013, Blum et al. 2013), again concluding that the observed positrons can be understood as secondaries. None of the authors of these five papers was registered for the 33rd International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC). Although I am not an author of any of these papers, I have some close familiarity with one of these recent papers, so the conference organizers invited me to bring this alternative approach to the attention of the conference. The present paper is a summary of the material I presented, along with a brief comment about reaction at the conference to this approach.     

A note on the area spectrum of d-dimensional pure de Sitter Space-time

Consistent supercurrent multiplets are naturally associated with linearized off-shell supergravity models. In S.M. Kuzenko, J. High Energy Phys. 1004, 022 (2010) we presented the hierarchy of such supercurrents which correspond to all the models for linearized 4D $\mathcal{N}=1$ supergravity classified a few years ago. Here we analyze the correspondence between the most general supercurrent given in S.M. Kuzenko, J. High Energy Phys. 1004, 022 (2010) and the one obtained eight years ago in M. Magro et al., Ann. Phys. 298, 123 (2002) using the superfield Noether procedure. We apply the Noether procedure to the general $\mathcal{N}=1$ supersymmetric nonlinear sigma-model and show that it naturally leads to the so-called $\mathcal{S}$ -multiplet, revitalized in Z. Komargodski, N. Seiberg, J. High Energy Phys. 1007, 017 (2010).     

Solution to Information Leakage in a Quantum Network System of QSS-QDC Using χ-Type Entangled States

Recently, Hong et al. (Chin. Phys. Lett. 29:050303, 2012) put forward two quantum secret sharing (QSS) protocols of quantum direct communication (QDC) by using χ-type entangled states. Later, some studies (Gao et al. in Chin. Phys. Lett. 29:110305, 2012; Chin. Phys. Lett. 30:079904, 2013; Liu et al. in Chin. Phys. Lett. 30:039901, 2013; Hong and Yang in Chin. Phys. Lett. 30:069901, 2013; Liu and Chen in Chin. Phys. Lett. 30:079903, 2013) made up for the drawbacks of Hong et al.’s two protocols to some extent. However, the information leakage weakness is still not thoroughly solved. In this Letter, the author analyzes the inner reason of information leakage weakness in detail at first. And then he suggests an effective encoding rule to avoid this weakness.     

Study of the polarization degree for the p ⃗ p → ppη measurement with WASA

Understanding of the production processes of the η meson will strongly rely on the precise determination of spin observables. So far these observables have been determined only for few excess energies and with low statistics (Winter et al. Eur. Phys. J. A18, 355 2003; Czyzykiewicz et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 122003 2007; Balestra et al. Phys. Rev. C69, 064003 2004). In the year 2010 WASA detector was used for the measurement of the \(\overrightarrow {p}p\rightarrow pp\eta \) reaction with the polarized proton beam of COSY (Moskal and Hodana J. Phys. Conf. Ser 295, 012080 2011). The measurement was done for the excess energy of Q = 15 MeV and Q = 72 MeV. In total about 10⁶ events corresponding to the \(\overrightarrow {p}p\rightarrow pp\eta \) reaction have been collected.     

Predicting leptonic CP violation in the light of the Daya Bay result on θ 13

In the light of the recent Daya Bay result $\theta_{13}^{\mathrm{DB}}=8.8^{\circ}\pm0.8^{\circ}$ , we reconsider the model presented in Meloni et?al. (J. Phys.?G 38:015003, 2011), showing that, when all neutrino oscillation parameters are taken at their best fit values of Schwetz et?al. (New J. Phys. 10:113011,?2008) and where $\theta_{13}=\theta_{13}^{\mathrm{DB}}$ , the predicted values of the CP phase are ????±??/4.     

Universe Filled with a Binary Mixture of Perfect Fluid and Dark Energy

We consider a self consistent system of Bianchi type-V gravitational field and a binary mixture of perfect fluid and dark energy. The perfect fluid is taken to be the one obeying the usual equation of state, i.e., p=γρ, with γ∈[0,1] whereas, the dark energy is considered to be either the quintessence like equation of state or Chaplygin gas. The equation of state parameter for dark energy ω is found to be consistent with the recent observations of SNe I_a data (Knop et al., Astrophys. J. 598:102, 2003), SNe I_a data with CMBR anisotropy and galaxy clustering statistics (Tegmark et al., Astrophys. J. 606:702, 2004) and latest a combination of cosmological datasets coming from CMB anisotropies, luminosity distances of high redshift type I_a supernovae and galaxy clustering (Hinshaw et al., Astrophys. J. Suppl. 180:225, 2009; Komatsu et al., Astrophys. J. Suppl. Ser. 180:330, 2009). The physical and geometrical aspects of the models are also discussed in detail.     

Improvement of Efficient Multiparty Quantum Secret Sharing Based on Bell States and Continuous Variable Operations

Yuan et al. (Int. J. Theor. Phys. 51:3443, 2012) proposed a multiparty quantum secret sharing protocol using Bell states and continuous variable operations. Zhang and Qin (Int. J. Theor. Phys. 52:3953, 2013) showed that their protocol is not secure. In this paper, we will give an improvement of Yuan et al. protocol. Our improved protocol can stand against not only Zhang et al. attack strategies, but also the other ones efficiently.     

Modeling and simulation of the agglomeration of carbonaceous dust in a radio frequency discharge using the Monte Carlo technique

The dust particle growth in plasmas is of major concern for safety issues in fusion reactors, and conversely has important industrial impacts. Dusty plasmas produced in laboratory, fusion, and in astrophysical environments have been therefore widely studied for many years to better understand the involved physical phenomena. In this work, we have investigated modeling and simulation (Ghabbouri et al. in Int Rev Phys 4(3):104–109, 2010; Samir et al. in Chin J Phys 46(2), 2008; Louafi et al. in Int Rev Phys 6(3):297–302, 2012) a new dust-growing mechanism in capacitive radio-frequency plasma of argon/acetylene mixture (Ariskin et al. in Appl Phys 105:063305, 2009). Principally we studied the Brownian agglomeration in the plasma sheath by Monte Carlo simulation. We have developed a FORTRAN code enabling complex numeric investigations of dust particles levitating above the electrode in RF sheath. Charges, forces, balancing radii and other quantities concerning dust particles are analyzed in dependence on plasma state, position within the sheath and applied mathematical models. Commentaries and analysis of numerical results have been made.     

Thermodynamics and holography of tachyon cosmology

Recently, we have investigated the dynamics of the universe in tachyon cosmology with non-minimal coupling to matter (Farajollahi et al. in Mod Phys Lett A 26(15):1125–1135, 2011; Phys Lett B 711(3–4)15:225–231,2012; Phys Rev D 83:124042, 2011; JCAP 10:014, 20112011; JCAP 05:017, 2011). In particular, for the interacting holographic dark energy (IHDE), the model is studied in Farajollahi et al. (Astrophys Space Sci 336(2):461–467, 2011). In the current work, a significant observational program has been conducted to unveil the model’s thermodynamic properties. Our result shows that the IHDE version of our model better fits the observational data than $\Lambda $ CDM model. The first and generalized second thermodynamics laws for the universe enveloped by cosmological apparent and event horizon are revisited. From the results, both first and generalized second laws, constrained by the observational data, are satisfied on cosmological apparent horizon.In addition, the total entropy is verified with the observation only if the horizon of the universe is taken as apparent horizon. Then, due to validity of generalized second law, the current cosmic acceleration is also predicted.     

Frame-dragging fields and spin 1 gravitomagnetic radiation

Experimental results published in 2004 (Ciufolini and Pavlis in Nature 431:958–960, 2004) and 2011 (Everitt et al. in Phys Rev Lett 106:221101, 1–5, 2011) have confirmed the frame-dragging phenomenon for a spinning earth predicted by Einstein’s field equations. Since this is observed as a precession caused by the gravitomagnetic (GM) field of the rotating body, these experiments may be viewed as measurements of a GM field. The effect is encapsulated in the classic steady state solution for the vector potential field $\zeta $ of a spinning sphere–a solution applying to a sphere with angular momentum J and describing a field filling space for all time (Weinberg in Gravitation and Cosmology, Wiley, New York, 1972). In a laboratory setting one may visualise the case of a sphere at rest $(\zeta =0, \text{ t}<0)$ , being spun up by an external torque at $\text{ t}=0$ to the angular momentum J: the $\zeta $ field of the textbook solution cannot establish itself instantaneously over all space at $\text{ t}=0$ , but must propagate with the velocity c, implying the existence of a travelling GM wave field yielding the textbook $\zeta $ field for large enough t (Tolstoy in Int J Theor Phys 40(5):1021–1031, 2001). The linearized GM field equations of the post-Newtonian approximation being isomorphic with Maxwell’s equations (Braginsky et al. in Phys Rev D 15(6):2047–2060, 1977), such GM waves are dipole waves of spin 1. It is well known that in purely gravitating systems conservation of angular momentum forbids the existence of dipole radiation (Misner et al. in Gravitation, Freeman & Co., New York, 1997); but this rule does not prohibit the insertion of angular momentum into the system from an external source–e.g., by applying a torque to our laboratory sphere.     

Neutral kaon production in p+p and p+Nb collisions

The kaon nucleus (KN) interaction in dense nuclear matter is predicted to be repulsive and increasing with density. However, determined values for this potential are not yet consistent with each other (Benabderrahmane et al., Phys Rev Lett 102:182501, 2009; Agakishiev et?al., Phys Rev C 82:044907, 2010; Büscher et?al., Eur Phys J A 22:301–317, 2004). We analyze $K^0_S$ mesons identified with the HADES detector in p+p and p+?⁹³Nb reactions at 3.5?GeV kinetic beam energy. To determine the KN potential at normal nuclear density we propose to compare the $K^0_S$ differential distributions in p+?⁹³Nb and p+p collisions. High statistics of low p _t -kaons (p _t ?<?100?MeV/c) ensure the sensitivity of our measurements to the nuclear matter effects. We present the data analysis method and first results.     

Probing compositeness with Higgs Boson decays at the LHC

We study how massive ghost-free gravity \(f(R)\) -modified theories, MGFTs, can be encoded into generic off-diagonal Einstein spaces. Using “auxiliary” connections completely defined by the metric fields and adapted to nonholonomic frames with associated nonlinear connection structure, we decouple and integrate in certain general forms the field equations in MGFT. Imposing additional nonholonomic constraints, we can generate Levi-Civita, LC, configurations and mimic MGFT effects via off-diagonal interactions of effective Einstein and/or Einstein–Cartan gravity with nonholonomically induced torsion. We show that imposing nonholonomic constraints it is possible reproduce very specific models of massive \(f(R)\) gravity studied in Cai et al. (arXiv:1307.7150, 2013), Klusoňet al. (Phys Lett B 726:918, 2013), Nojiri and Odintov (Phys Lett B 716:377, 2012) and Nojiri et al. (JCAP 1305:020, 2013). The cosmological evolution of ghost-free off-diagonal Einstein spaces is investigated. Certain compatibility of MGFT cosmology to small off-diagonal deformations of \(\Lambda \) CDM models is established.     

Spin Squeezing of Superposition of Biaxial State and Two Qubit Bell State

In this study we investigate the spin squeezing in superposition of a Biaxial state (Mallesh et al. in J. Phys. A, Math. Gen. 33:779–789, 2000 and Sirsi in Theoretical studies on spin distributions in external electric and magnetic fields, 1995) and Bell state. Numerical and analytical solutions for the length of mean spin, mean spin direction and spin squeezing are given. It is shown that both the mean spin direction and spin squeezing parameter are determined by the coefficients of superposition and the relative phase.     

Asymptotic Expansion of β Matrix Models in the One-cut Regime

We prove the existence of a 1/N expansion to all orders in β matrix models with a confining, offcritical potential corresponding to an equilibrium measure with a connected support. Thus, the coefficients of the expansion can be obtained recursively by the “topological recursion” derived in Chekhov and Eynard (JHEP 0612:026, 2006). Our method relies on the combination of a priori bounds on the correlators and the study of Schwinger-Dyson equations, thanks to the uses of classical complex analysis techniques. These a priori bounds can be derived following (Boutet de Monvel et al. in J Stat Phys 79(3–4):585–611, 1995; Johansson in Duke Math J 91(1):151–204, 1998; Kriecherbauer and Shcherbina in Fluctuations of eigenvalues of matrix models and their applications, 2010) or for strictly convex potentials by using concentration of measure (Anderson et al. in An introduction to random matrices, Sect. 2.3, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2010). Doing so, we extend the strategy of Guionnet and Maurel-Segala (Ann Probab 35:2160–2212, 2007), from the hermitian models (β = 2) and perturbative potentials, to general β models. The existence of the first correction in 1/N was considered in Johansson (1998) and more recently in Kriecherbauer and Shcherbina (2010). Here, by taking similar hypotheses, we extend the result to all orders in 1/N.     

The Aggregation Potential of the 1–15- and 1–16-Fragments of the Amyloid β Peptide and Their Influence on the Aggregation of Aβ40

The aggregation of amyloid β (Aβ) peptide is important in Alzheimer’s disease. Shorter Aβ fragments may reduce Aβ’s cytotoxicity and are used in diagnostics. The aggregation of Aβ16 is controversial; Liu et al. (J. Neurosci. Res. 75:162–171, 2004) and Liao et al. (FEBS Lett. 581:1161–1165, 2007) find that Aβ16 does not aggregate and reduces Aβ’s cytotoxicity, Du et al. (J. Alzheimer’s Dis. 27:401–413, 2011) reports that Aβ16 aggregates and that Aβ16 oligomers are toxic to cells. Here the aggregation potential of two shorter fragments, Aβ15 and Aβ16, and their influence on Aβ40 is measured by electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy and the ThioT fluorescence assay (ThioT). Continuous-wave, 9 GHz EPR measurements and ThioT results reveal that neither Aβ15 nor Aβ16 aggregate by themselves and that they do not affect Aβ40 aggregation.     

The Parafermionic Observable in SLE

The parafermionic observable has recently been used by number of authors to study discrete models, believed to be conformally invariant and to prove convergence results for these processes to SLE (Beffara and Duminil-Copin in arXiv:1010.0526v2, 2011; Duminil-Copin and Smirnov in arXiv:1007.0575v2, 2011; Hongler and Smirnov in arXiv:1008.2645v3, 2011; Ikhlef and Cardy in J. Phys. A 42:102001, 2009; Lawler in preprint, 2011; Rajabpour and Cardy in J. Phys. A 40:14703, 2007; Riva and Cardy in J. Stat. Mech. Theory Exp., 2006; Smirnov in International Congress of Mathematicians, vol. II, pp. 1421?C1451, 2006; Smirnov in Ann. Math. 172(2):1435?C1467, 2010; Smirnov in Proceedings of the International Congress of Mathematicians, Hyderabad 2010, vol.?I, pp. 595?C621, 2010). We provide a definition for a one parameter family of continuum versions of the parafermionic observable for SLE, which takes the form of a normalized limit of expressions identical to the discrete definition. We then show the limit defining the observable exists, compute the value of the observable up to a finite multiplicative constant, and prove this constant is non-zero for a wide range of ??. Finally, we show our observable for SLE becomes a holomorphic function for a particular choice of the parameter, which provides a new point of view on a fundamental property of the discrete observable.     

Thick-film technology for ultra high vacuum interfaces of micro-structured traps

We adopt thick-film technology to produce ultra high vacuum compatible interfaces for electrical signals. These interfaces permit voltages of hundreds of volts and currents of several amperes and allow for very compact vacuum setups, useful in quantum optics in general, and in particular for quantum information science using miniaturized traps for ions (Kielpinski et al. in Nature 417:709, 2002) or neutral atoms (Folman et al. in Phys. Rev. Lett. 84:4749, 2000; Treutlein et?al. in Fortschr. Phys. 54:702, 2006; Hofferberth et al. in Nat. Phys. 2:710, 2006). Such printed circuits can also be useful as pure in-vacuum devices. We demonstrate a specific interface which provides 11 current feedthroughs, more than 70?dc feedthroughs and a feedthrough for radio frequencies. We achieve a pressure in the low 10^-11?mbar range and demonstrate the full functionality of the interface by trapping chains of cold ytterbium ions, which requires the presence of all of the above mentioned signals. In order to supply precise time-dependent voltages to the ion trap, a versatile multi-channel device has been developed.