Dynamics of scalar fields in an expanding/contracting cosmos at finite temperature

This study extends the investigation of quantum dissipative effects of a cosmological scalar field by taking into account cosmic expansion and contraction.Cheung,Drewes,Kang,and Kim calculated the effective action and quantum dissipative effects of a cosmological scalar field in a recent work,where analytical expressions for the effective potential and damping coefficient were presented using a simple scalar model with quartic interactions,and the work was conducted using Minkowski-space propagators in loop diagrams.In this work,we incorporate the Hubble expansion and contraction of the cosmic background and focus on the thermal dynamics of a scalar field in a regime where the effective potential changes slowly.Given that the Hubble parameter,H,attains a small but non-zero value,we carry out calculations to the first order in H.If we set H=0,all results match those in flat spacetime.Interestingly,we must integrate over the resonances,which in turn leads to an amplification of the effects of a non-zero H.This is an intriguing phenomenon,which cannot be uncovered in flat spacetime.The implications on particle creations in the early universe will be studied in a forthcoming study.     

Unravelling the Role of Water in Ultrafast Excited-State Relaxation Dynamics within Nano-Architectures of Chlorophyll a

Water plays a pivotal role in structural stability of supramolecular pigment assemblies designed for natural light harvesting (for example, chlorosome antenna complex) as well as their artificial analogs. However, the dynamic role of water in the context of excite-state relaxation has not been explored till date, which we report here. Using femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy, we investigate the excited-state dynamics of two types of nano-scale assemblies of chlorophyll a with different structural motifs, rod-shaped and micellar assemblies, that depend on the water content. We show how water participates in excess energy dissipation by vibrational cooling of the non-thermally populated Q_y band at different rates in different types of clusters but exhibits no polar solvation dynamics. For the micelles, we observe a bifurcation of stimulated emission line shape, whereas a positive-to-negative switching of differential absorption is observed for the rods; both these observations are correlated with their specific structural aspects. Density functional theory calculations reveal two possible stable ground state geometries of dimers, accounting for the bifurcation of line shape in micelles. Thus, our study elucidates water-mediated structure–function relationship within these pigment assemblies.     

Complementarity between micro-micro and micro-macro entanglement in a Bose–Einstein condensate with two Rydberg impurities

We theoretically study complementarity between micro-micro and micro-macro entanglement in a Bose–Einstein condensate with two Rydberg impurities. We investigate quantum dynamics of micro-micro and micro-macro entanglement in the micro-macro system. It is found that strong micro-macro entanglement between Rydberg impurities and the BEC can be generated by the use of initial micro-micro entanglement between two Rydberg impurities, which acts as the seed entanglement to create micro-macro entanglement. We demonstrate a curious complementarity relation between micro-micro and micro-macro entanglement, and find that the complementarity property can be sustained to some extent even though in the presence of the BEC decoherence.     

Analysis,design and simulation of MIM plasmonic filters with different geometries for technical parameters improvement

In this paper, four optical filter topologies based on metal–insulator–metal waveguides are proposed and the designed structures are investigated numerically using finite-difference timedomain method. Triangular-shaped adjunctions have been added to the filter structures to improve their transmission spectrum. These improved structures consist of air as the insulator and silver as the metal. The relative permittivity of metal has been described via the Drude,Drude–Lorentz, and Palik models. The first filter's transmission spectrum shows an acceptable transmittance. In the second optimized filter, the transmission spectrum has been improved. The transmittance spectrum can be tuned through adjusting the edge of the triangle in these four optimized filters. As a result, the bandwidths of resonance spectra can be adjusted. The theory of such tapered structures will be investigated by the tapered transmission line and will be solved with the transfer matrix method. This method shows a better performance and higher transmission efficiency in comparison with the basic structures. On the other hand, the final filter has been chosen as the best one because of its hexagonal resonator. The main reason for having a better result is due to a longer interaction length in comparison with the circular resonator. This in turn creates much better energy coupling and results in higher transmission.     

Variability in the noise-induced modes of climate dynamics

New features of noise-induced climate variability are revealed on the basis of the three-dimensional model derived by Saltzman and Maasch. It is shown that the climate system can be highly noise excitable and it possesses the large-amplitude fluctuations even in those regions where its akin deterministic model does not contain any self-sustained oscillations. Intermittency in small- and large amplitude climate fluctuations between different basins of attraction of a limit cycle and stable equilibria substantially influencing the climate state (from warm to cold and vice versa) are found at various noise intensities. Suddenly occurring jumps between the basins of attraction of two stable equilibria corresponding to the warm and cold climate states are statistically confirmed under a certain diapason of noise intensities. The climate system undergoes transitions between its equilibria in the presence of noise in its prognostic variables. In addition, such transitions become more likely with increasing the noise intensity.     

Tensile properties of microtubules: A study by nonlinear molecular structural mechanics modelling

A nonlinear molecular structural mechanics (MSM) model is proposed in this paper for studying the tensile properties of microtubules (MTs). In the nonlinear MSM models, the interactions between tubulin monomers in MTs are treated as nonlinear axial and torsional springs, whose stiffness coefficients are extracted from all-atom molecular dynamics simulations. The Young's modulus and fracture properties of MTs under tension extracted from the present nonlinear MSM models are found to agree well with the existing simulation and experiment results, which shows the efficiency and accuracy of the proposed nonlinear MSM models. In addition, the nonlinear MSM models are also extended to investigate the tensile properties including Young's modulus and fracture strain of MTs possessing lattice defects. The results obtained from nonlinear MSM models are utilized to develop a predictive equation for quickly predicting the tensile properties of MTs with different lattice defect levels.     

利用电磁法研究HMX与TATB混合钝感炸药的冲击起爆特性

为研究含有少量奥克托金(HMX)且以三氨基三硝基苯(TATB)为基的高能钝感炸药PBX-3的冲击起爆反应增长规律,采用火炮驱动蓝宝石飞片的方法和铝基组合式电磁粒子速度计技术进行了一维平面冲击实验。通过实验测量撞击表面及内部不同深度处的冲击波后粒子速度,得到PBX-3炸药的Hugoniot关系。根据冲击波示踪器所测数据绘制了炸药到爆轰的时间-距离(x-t)图,获得了反映炸药冲击起爆性能的Pop关系。将入射压力为12.964 GPa时达到爆轰的6条速度曲线修整成相同零点,通过读取6条曲线的分离点即反应区末端的C-J点,计算出化学反应区时间和宽度。     

第三族金属氧化物离子对二氧化碳转化的红外光谱研究

本文利用红外光解离光谱研究了第三族金属氧化物离子对二氧化碳分子的转化机制. 研究表明，对于[ScO(CO₂)_n]⁺体系，在n≤4时，形成了溶剂化结构；在n=5时，形成了碳酸盐结构，实现了二氧化碳的转化. 对于[YO(CO₂)_n]⁺体系，需要4个二氧化碳分子就可以实现二氧化碳的转化. 而在[YO(CO₂)_n]⁺体系中，只发现了溶剂化结构，没有观察到碳酸盐结构. 理论计算表明，[YO(CO₂)_n]⁺体系拥有最小的溶剂化结构向碳酸盐结构转化能垒，[LaO(CO₂)_n]⁺体系拥有最大的溶剂化结构向碳酸盐结构转化能垒. 本文从分子水平揭示了不同金属氧化物离子对二氧化碳分子转化的影响规律.     

On-chip multiphoton Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger state based on integrated frequency combs

One of the most important multipartite entangled states, Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger state (GHZ), serves as a fundamental resource for quantum foundation test, quantum communication and quantum computation. To increase the number of entangled particles, significant experimental efforts should been invested due to the complexity of optical setup and the difficulty in maintaining the coherence condition for high-fidelity GHZ state. Here, we propose an ultra-integrated scalable on-chip GHZ state generation scheme based on frequency combs. By designing several microrings pumped by different lasers, multiple partially overlapped quantum frequency combs are generated to supply as the basis for on-chip polarization-encoded GHZ state with each qubit occupying a certain spectral mode. Both even and odd numbers of GHZ states can be engineered with constant small number of integrated components and easily scaled up on the same chip by only adjusting one of the pump wavelengths. In addition, we give the on-chip design of projection measurement for characterizing GHZ states and show the reconfigurability of the state. Our proposal is rather simple and feasible within the existing fabrication technologies and we believe it will boost the development of multiphoton technologies.