Carrier envelope phase effects in photofragmentation: Orientation versus alignment

The optically induced fragmentation of deuterium chloride ions (DCl⁺) has been investigated by means of computer simulation within the Schrödinger wave-function formalism for three lowest ²gV electronic states coupled by IR-laser pulse with 34.6 fs duration. We demonstrate that the dependence of dissociation yields as function of the carrier envelope phase (CEP) of few-cycle laser pulses can be fundamentally different (2π or π periodicity) for oriented and aligned ions. To achieve a deep insight in mutual electronic nuclear dynamics we investigate the time dependence of fragmentation yields and vibrational populations as well as the space-time representation of electronic wave function probability dynamics for few selected cases. Ultimately we suggest an approach for distinguishing oriented from aligned molecular ensembles. Further-more the current concept provides access to directional product ion beams (D⁺ or/and Cl⁺) by proper selection of the CEP.     

Within- and across-channel gap detection in cochlear implant listeners

This study examined within- and across-electrode-channel processing of temporal gaps in successful users of MED-EL COMBI 40+ cochlear implants. The first experiment tested across-ear gap duration discrimination (GDD) in four listeners with bilateral implants. The results demonstrated that across-ear GDD thresholds are elevated relative to monaural, within-electrode-channel thresholds; the size of the threshold shift was approximately the same as for monaural, across-electrode-channel configurations. Experiment 1 also demonstrated a decline in GDD performance for channel-asymmetric markers. The second experiment tested the effect of envelope fluctuation on gap detection (GD) for monaural markers carried on a single electrode channel. Results from five cochlear implant listeners indicated that envelopes associated with 50-Hz wide bands of noise resulted in poorer GD thresholds than envelopes associated with 300-Hz wide bands of noise. In both cases GD thresholds improved when envelope fluctuations were compressed by an exponent of 0.2. The results of both experiments parallel those found for acoustic hearing, therefore suggesting that temporal processing of gaps is largely limited by factors central to the cochlea.     

The case of the missing delay lines: synthetic delays obtained by cross-channel phase interaction

Temporal models of pitch and harmonic segregation call for delays of up to 30 ms to cover the full range of existence of musical pitch. To date there is little anatomical or physiological evidence for delays that long. We propose a mechanism by which delays may be synthesized from cross-channel phase interaction. Phases of adjacent cochlear filter channels are shifted by an amount proportional to frequency and then combined as a weighted sum to approximate a delay. Synthetic delays may be used by pitch perception models such as autocorrelation, segregation models such as harmonic cancellation, and binaural processing models to explain sensitivity to large interaural delays. The maximum duration of synthetic delays is limited by the duration of the impulse responses of cochlear filters, itself inversely proportional to cochlear filter bandwidth. Maximum delay is thus frequency dependent. This may explain the fact, puzzling for temporal pitch models such as autocorrelation, that pitch is more salient and easy to discriminate for complex tones that contain resolved partials.     

Elastic instabilities of polymer solutions in cross-channel flow

When polymer molecules pass near the hyperbolic point of a microchannel cross flow, they are strongly stretched. As the strain rate is varied at low Reynolds number (< 10(-2)), tracer and particle-tracking experiments show that molecular stretching produces two flow instabilities: one in which the velocity field becomes strongly asymmetric, and a second in which it fluctuates nonperiodically in time. The flow is strongly perturbed even far from the region of instability, and this phenomenon can be used to produce mixing.     

Carrier envelope phase noise in stabilized amplifier systems

At present most laser systems for generating phase-stabilized high-energy pulses are chirped pulse amplifier systems that involve the selection and subsequent amplification of pulses from a phase-stabilized seed oscillator. We investigate the effect of the picking process on the carrier envelope phase stability and how the phase noise of the picked pulse sequence can be estimated from the phase noise properties of the seed oscillator. All noise components from the original pulse train above the picking frequency are aliased into the picked pulse train and therefore cannot be neglected.     

Discrimination of starting phase with sinusoidal envelope modulation

Modulation-filterbank models discard phase information above very low rates of amplitude modulation (AM). The present work evaluated this restriction by measuring thresholds for discriminating the starting phase of sinusoidal modulators of wideband-noise carriers. Results showed a low-pass characteristic with some listeners unable to perform the task once the modulation rate was greater than 12.5 Hz. For others, however, thresholds were obtained with AM rates of up to one to two octaves higher. Intersubject variability may in part relate to the presence of multiple discrimination cues, with only some based on comparison of the ongoing pattern of envelope fluctuation.     

Domino mechanisms in photoinduced phase transitions

Photoinduced structural phase transitions via excited electronic states are discussed theoretically using a one-dimensional model composed of localized electrons and lattices under the adiabatic or diabatic approximation. We show that the global structural change by photoexcitation only at a site is possible, and we clarify conditions for the occurrence of such phenomena. Spatiotemporal dynamics of nonequilibrium first-order phase transitions is also investigated in detail in terms of photoinduced nucleations and domino processes of the domain boundaries (domain walls), which are in striking contrast to the mean-field dynamics. In the adiabatic regime, after the spontaneous emission of a photon, an initial local structural change (i) remains locally, (ii) induces cooperatively a global structural change, or (iii) disappears and returns to the initial phase. Dynamical features of the case (ii) are characterized by the deterministic (semichaotic) domino process; domain walls between the two phases move determinis-tically at a constant velocity (with changing speed) without further spontaneous emissions in the case of strong (weak) dissipation. In the diabatic regime, similar three types of structural change exist. The domain-wall dynamics is described as the stochastic domino process, which is accompanied by the successive radiative transitions. A new theoretical treatment is also proposed to study crossover between the adiabatic and diabatic regimes.     

Few-cycle carrier envelope phase-dependent stereo detection of electrons

The spatial distribution of electrons emitted from atoms by few-cycle optical fields is known to be dependent on the carrier envelope phase, i.e., the phase of the field with respect to the pulse envelope. With respect to Paulus et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett.91, 253004 (2003)] we propose a greatly simplified device to measure and control the carrier envelope phase of few-cycle pulses with an accuracy of better than pi/10 based on this principle. We compared different schemes to control the carrier envelope phase of our pulses.     

Carrier envelope phase of few cycle pulsed Hermite-Gaussian beam

The complex q parameter method is used to analyze the propagation of the few cycle pulsed Hermite-Gaussian beam in the free space within the paraxial condition, and an approximate formula for the carrier envelope phase (CEP) is deduced by using the zero-order approximation in the amplitude and first-order approximation in the phase. The validity of the approximate formula is verified by the numerical simulation methods, which shows that they fit very well with each other on condition that the pulse duration is more than 5 fs or the propagation distance is longer than about 3 Rayleigh length. The order of the Hermite function, the beam waist and the position of the axis play important roles in the CEP of the few cycle pulsed Hermite-Gaussian beam; the conclusion is as follows: the CEP trends to −(m+n+1)π/2 in the far field and their variety are in inverse proportion to the beam waist on the axis. The beam waist is larger, the CEP is smaller and its variation changes slowly along the propagation distance. The variation of the CEP is in direct proportion to r² on any z-plane, and the maximal values all occur at the position .     

多频带联合包络调制谱检测

随着降噪消声技术的发展,如何有效被动检测低噪声目标,成为声纳研发者面临的主要问题之一。本文基于频谱感知、多频带联合检测及信息融合技术,提出了具有环境噪声利用和背景噪声抑制功能的多频带联合包络调制谱检测技术。此技术侧重基频调制谱检测,将可用带宽分为多个子频带,动态感知子频带内强频谱区域,将其峰值频率作为解调载波频率。并通过降采样和时间积累,提高调制谱频率分辨率和信噪比,通过联合检测和信息融合,提高调制谱检测率。仿真和海试数据分析验证了方法的有效性。此方法具有一定的应用价值和实际意义,将来还需要对方法理论和机理进行深入研究。     

调相光栅的正交相干相位检测

本文提出了一种解调调相光栅相位的新方法.将一幅相位调制光栅图输入计算机,通过正交相干相位解调算法处理,能够高精度、快速地获得光栅的相位分布.本文详细论述了正交相干相位解调原理,并给出实验系统和处理结果,最后与其他类似的相位解调方法进行了比较.     

On the role of shot noise in carrier‐envelope phase stabilization

This paper represents a systematic investigation of detection shot noise in carrier‐envelope phase (CEP) stabilization. Numerical simulations are conducted to calculate the influence of shot noise in laser oscillators. These results are compared with experimental results for Ti:sapphire lasers. It is found that shot noise imposes a limitation for obtaining sub‐100 mrad CEP jitters. Careful interferometer design is necessary to push this limit toward 10 mrad. In contrast to oscillator stabilization, shot noise appears to play a much more restrictive role in amplifier stabilization. Using spectral interferometry together with spectral broadening in sapphire, it already appears practically challenging to reach sub‐100 mrad jitters. Adaption of the optical nonlinearity in the broadening step appears key to further improvements of the CEP jitter of amplified systems. We believe that these improvements open a perspective for currently unfeasible applications of CEP stabilized pulses. Moreover, our considerations can be easily adapted to CEP stabilization of other laser types beyond Ti:sapphire.     

On the mechanisms involved in the recovery of envelope information from temporal fine structure

Three experiments were designed to provide psychophysical evidence for the existence of envelope information in the temporal fine structure (TFS) of stimuli that were originally amplitude modulated (AM). The original stimuli typically consisted of the sum of a sinusoidally AM tone and two unmodulated tones so that the envelope and TFS could be determined a priori. Experiment 1 showed that normal-hearing listeners not only perceive AM when presented with the Hilbert fine structure alone but AM detection thresholds are lower than those observed when presenting the original stimuli. Based on our analysis, envelope recovery resulted from the failure of the decomposition process to remove the spectral components related to the original envelope from the TFS and the introduction of spectral components related to the original envelope, suggesting that frequency- to amplitude-modulation conversion is not necessary to recover envelope information from TFS. Experiment 2 suggested that these spectral components interact in such a way that envelope fluctuations are minimized in the broadband TFS. Experiment 3 demonstrated that the modulation depth at the original carrier frequency is only slightly reduced compared to the depth of the original modulator. It also indicated that envelope recovery is not specific to the Hilbert decomposition.     

Carrier envelope phase stabilization of a Yb:KGW laser amplifier

In this paper we report on the active stabilization of the carrier envelope phase (CEP) of a Yb:KGW chirped pulse amplifier laser system seeded by a Yb-doped solid-state Kerr-lens mode-locked oscillator. The regenerative amplifier delivers 180 fs CEP stable pulses of 30 μJ-1 mJ energy at a repetition rate tunable from 1 to 200 kHz. The bandwidth of the feedback loop was extended by a factor of 5 using a specially designed high-pass filter, which resulted in a dramatic decrease of CEP jitter below 0.45 rad after the amplifier.     

Photopyroelectric detection of phase transitions in solids

The recently developed photopyroelectric spectroscopy (P²ES) has been used to investigate phase transitions in solids. In our variable temperature experiments, specific heat curves for Rochelle Salt and V₂O₄ powders were obtained and found in good agreement with results obtained previously via more experimentally involved methods.     

Two-point versus multipartite entanglement in quantum phase transitions

We analyze correlations between subsystems for an extended Hubbard model exactly solvable in one dimension, which exhibits a rich structure of quantum phase transitions (QPTs). The T = 0 phase diagram is exactly reproduced by studying singularities of single-site entanglement. It is shown how comparison of the latter quantity and quantum mutual information allows one to recognize whether two-point or shared quantum correlations are responsible for each of the occurring QPTs. The method works in principle for any number D of degrees of freedom per site. As a by-product, we are providing a benchmark for direct measures of bipartite entanglement; in particular, here we discuss the role of negativity at the transition.     

Supersolids versus phase separation in two-dimensional lattice bosons

We study the nature of the ground state of the two-dimensional extended boson Hubbard model on a square lattice by quantum Monte Carlo methods. We demonstrate that strong but finite on-site interaction U along with a comparable nearest-neighbor repulsion V result in a thermodynamically stable supersolid ground state for densities larger than 1/2, in contrast to fillings less than 1/2 or for very large U, where the checkerboard supersolid is unstable towards phase separation. We discuss the relevance of our results to realizations of supersolids using cold bosonic atoms in optical lattices.