Coherent scattering with pulsed matter beams

We present a quantum theory for the interaction of a quantum target with a time dependent matter beam. When several pulses in the incident beam arrive with a period tau, transitions between levels with an energy difference h/tau can be enhanced. Unlike all previous studies, we find that transitions in passive targets can distinguish between an incoherent beam and a beam with a coherent wave packet structure. As an example, we calculate the transition probability of Rb Rydberg atoms interacting with a pulsed electron beam.     

Interfacial pattern formation far from equilibrium

Over the past few years diffusion-controlled systems have been shown to share a common set of interfacial morphologies. The singular nature of the microscopic dynamics of surface tension and kinetic growth far from equilibrium are critical to morphology selection, with special importance attributed to the anisotropy of these effects. The morphologies which develop can be organized via a morphology diagram according to the driving force and the effective anisotropy. We focus on the properties of the dense-branching morphology (DBM) which appears for sufficiently weak effective anisotropy, and the nature of morphology transitions between the DBM and dendritic growth stabilized by either surface tension or kinetic effects. The DBM is studied in the Hele-Shaw cell, and its structure analyzed by linear stability analysis. A comparison is made between the power spectrum of the structure and the stability analysis. We then provide a detailed account of the morphology diagram and morphology transitions in an anisotropic Hele-Shaw cell. Theoretically the question of morphology transitions is addressed within the boundary-layer model by computing selected velocities as a function of the undercooling for different values of the surface tension and the kinetic term. We argue that the fastest growing morphology is selected whether it is the DBM, surface tension dendrites, or kinetic dendrites. A comparison is made with our experimental results in electrochemical deposition for the correspondence between growth velocities and morphology transitions.     

Spectroscopy of electron subband levels in an inversion layer on InSb

We report the observation of resonant transitions between electron subbands in an inversion layer on the surface of p-InSb. The transitions are excited with IR-radiation polarized parallel to the sample surface. This is possible because of the non-parabolicity of the surface subband structure. We compare the measured resonance positions with the results of a recent calculation by Arai et al. and find satisfactory agreement. In the light of both present experiments and theory we conclude that previously published photoconductivity work from Katayama et al. did not detect intersubband transitions.     

Triple point of nuclear deformations

We show that the second-order phase transition between spherical and deformed shapes of atomic nuclei is an isolated point following from the Landau theory of phase transitions. This point can occur only at the junction of two or more first-order phase transitions which explains why it is associated with one special type of structure and requires the recently proposed first-order phase transition between prolate and oblate nuclear shapes. Finally, we suggest the first empirical example of a nucleus located at the isolated triple-point.     

Polarization dependence of two-photon transitions in quantum wells

Summary We give explicitly the polarization dependence of two-photon subband-subband transitions in semiconductor quantum wells. We consider transitions from heavy-hole subbands as well as from light-hole subbands. We study the polarization dependence in the case of absorption of one photon having an energy of the order of the band gap and one having an energy of the order of the subband separation. We show that the absorption structure depends on the polarization of the low-energy photon. We also give, in the case of equal photons with in-plane linear polarizations, the dependence of the transition rate on the angle between the polarizations.     

Non-ergodicity transition and multiple glasses in binary mixtures: on the accuracy of the input static structure in the mode coupling theory

We examine the question of the accuracy of the static correlation functions used as input in the mode coupling theory (MCT) of non-ergodic states in binary mixtures. We first consider hard-sphere mixtures and compute the static pair structure from the Ornstein-Zernike equations with the Percus-Yevick closure and more accurate ones that use bridge functions deduced from Rosenfeld's fundamental measures functional. The corresponding MCT predictions for the non-ergodicity lines and the transitions between multiple glassy states are determined from the long-time limit of the density autocorrelation functions. We find that while the non-ergodicity transition line is not very sensitive to the input static structure, up to diameter ratios D(2)/D(1)?=?10, quantitative differences exist for the transitions between different glasses. The discrepancies with the more accurate closures become even qualitative for sufficiently asymmetric mixtures. They are correlated with the incorrect behavior of the PY structure at high size asymmetry. From the example of ultra-soft potential it is argued that this issue is of general relevance beyond the hard-sphere model.     

Structural phase transitions in ZnS

X-ray diffraction techniques have been used to investigate structural phase transitions in ZnS between 20 and 1200°C. These measurements imply that the transition from the cubic 3C structure to the hexagonal 2H structure is a first-order phase transition while transitions between the 2H, 4H, and the 6H(33) hexagonal structures were found to obey the symmetry rules of second-order phase transitions. Direct transitions from the cubic 3C structure to the 4 or 6H hexagonal structures are not observed.     

Quantum transport in an H shaped wire and a ring structure

We have numerically studied the transport properties of an H shaped quantum wire structure and a circular quantum ring structure by using the mode matching technique. We have observed that for the H structure, anomalous Hall resistance plateaus exist in relatively low magnetic fields as precursors of integer Hall plateaus. We have found that the resonance patterns of the nonlocal resistance are mainly caused by inter-mode transitions between two highest modes in the system, yielding large oscillations with a mixing frequency in the resistance curve with respect to the width of the bridge-like part of the H structure. For the ring structure, we have found that two oppositely circulating internal waves contribute to the Aharonov-Bohm oscillations, producing beating in the transmission amplitudes.     

Bulk,surface and thermal effects in inverse photoemission spectra from Cu(100), Cu(110) and Cu(111)

We have performed a study of empty electronic bulk and surface states on the three low indexed copper surfaces employing momentum resolved inverse photoemission. The bulk electronic features may be well understood in the frame work of the bulk direct transition model using state of the art band structure calculations. Surface states of both, the crystal derived and the image potential induced type have been identified and were found to agree with previous work. Several radiative transitions into unoccupied bands were also investigated at elevated temperatures. Characteristic temperatures of an exponential attenuation law are distinctly different between surface and bulk transitions. However, no systematic behaviour of bulk transitions at different points of the Brillouin zone could be established.     

Effect of interlayer tunneling on the electronic structure of bilayer cuprates and quantum phase transitions in carrier concentration and high magnetic field

We present a theoretical study of the electronic structure of bilayer HTSC cuprates and its evolution under doping and in a high magnetic field. Analysis is based on the t-t′-t″-J* model in the generalized Hartree-Fock approximation. Possibility of tunneling between CuO2 layers is taken into account in the form of a nonzero integral of hopping between the orbitals of adjacent planes and is included in the scheme of the cluster form of perturbation theory. The main effect of the coupling between two CuO₂ layers in a unit cell is the bilayer splitting manifested in the presence of antibonding and bonding bands formed by a combination of identical bands of the layers themselves. A change in the doping level induces reconstruction of the band structure and the Fermi surface, which gives rise to a number of quantum phase transitions. A high external magnetic field leads to a fundamentally different form of electronic structure. Quantum phase transitions in the field are observed not only under doping, but also upon a variation of the field magnitude. Because of tunneling between the layers, quantum transitions are also split; as a result, a more complex sequence of the Lifshitz transitions than in single-layer structures is observed.     

Intersubband transitions from the second subband in a coupled quantum wells structure

Asymmetrical coupled quantum wells structures with energy separation between the first two subbands of the order of 10–50 meV are key structures in the design of optically pumped intersubband lasers. In these structures the population of the second subband is not negligible and intersubband transitions from the second to higher excited subbands can be observed. In this work we investigate the temperature dependency of the intersubband transitions from the second subband in an asymmetrical coupled quantum wells structure. We show that this approach provides a direct way to measure the energy separation between the second subband and the Fermi energy which is a crucial parameter in the design of optically pumped intersubband lasers.     

Quantum entanglement and squeezing in coupled harmonic and anharmonic oscillator systems

We investigate the fundamental connection between quadrature squeezing and continuous variable entanglement within a general class of two-coupled oscillator systems. We determine the quantitative relationship between them through the squeezing parameter and the entanglement entropy of the lowest energy eigenstate of the coupled oscillator systems numerically. Unlike the relation between entanglement and uncertainty product, we found that this relationship is, by no means, the same for the whole class of coupled oscillator systems: to a large extent it depends on the order and strength of the anharmonic potential, which implies that knowledge of the anharmonic potential of the coupled oscillator system is required before one can characterize the degree of entanglement through the squeezing parameter. Our results reveal that a more effective approach to enhance squeezing is to adjust the anharmonicity of the system potential, instead of increasing the quantum correlations between the oscillators. In addition, by probing into a quantum catastrophe model, we uncover transitions in the entanglement entropy and squeezing relation as the potential changes from a single well to a triple well, and then a double-well structure. The transitions appear through distinct entropy–squeezing relation, with a multi-well structure displaying a larger change in the antisqueezing behavior of the position quadrature than the single-well structure, for the same change in the entanglement entropy.     

Coherent ultrafast core-hole correlation spectroscopy: x-ray analogues of multidimensional NMR

We propose two-dimensional x-ray coherent correlation spectroscopy for the study of interactions between core-electron and valence transitions. This technique may find experimental applications in the future when very high intensity x-ray sources become available. Spectra obtained by varying two delay periods between pulses show off-diagonal crosspeaks induced by coupling of core transitions of two different types. Calculations of the N1s and O1s signals of aminophenol isomers illustrate how novel information about many-body effects in electronic structure and excitations of molecules can be extracted from these spectra.     

All-optical switching and passive mode-locking based on non-linear polarization rotation in a semiconductor quantum well amplifier

Owing to differences in the selection rules of electron transitions between TE and TM modes in a quantum well structure, and optical amplifier with such a structure manifests linear birefringence and anisotropy of gain-absorption saturation. The anisotropy leads to the evolution of power-dependent polarization in the optical amplifier. We demonstrate experimentally efficient non-linear self-switching based on this phenomenon in an InGaAs/GaAs single quantum well amplifier. Also, by utilizing the non-linear polarization evolution, we show numerically passive mode-locking of a semiconductor laser with a ring cavity.     

Competition between ferroelectric and flexoelectric polarization in freely suspended smectic films

We report a detailed ellipsometric study of freely suspended films of chiral liquid-crystal compounds possessing smectic-A and smectic-C phases. In the temperature region between the smectic-A - smectic-C bulk and surface transitions, a discontinuous reconstruction of the tilt profile across the film is observed in the presence of a constant d.c. electric field. Comparison of the measured ellipsometric quantities with values calculated from model tilt profiles reveals a competition between a structure possessing a homogeneous tilt direction and large ferroelectric polarization and a structure with opposite tilt direction in the two film halfs and large flexoelectric polarization. Received 21 October 1998     

Changes in quantum states of atoms in a markovian thermostat

We solve the nonlinear Schrödinger equation, taking into account self-interaction through the surrounding medium. We have found that such atoms have a countable set of stable equilibrium states, coinciding with the wave eigenfunctions of an individual atom. We show that transitions of an atom from equilibrium quantum states corresponding to less excited levels to more excited levels occur in jumps, while transitions from equilibrium states corresponding to upper levels to lower levels may occur either as radiationless transitions or be accompanied by spontaneous emission at the eigenfrequency of the quantum transition. We have found the conditions for which a change in the topological structure of the atomic wavefunction is possible.     

Explosive phenomena in complex networks

The emergence of large-scale connectivity and synchronization are crucial to the structure, function and failure of many complex socio-technical networks. Thus, there is great interest in analyzing phase transitions to large-scale connectivity and to global synchronization, including how to enhance or delay the onset. These phenomena are traditionally studied as second-order phase transitions where, at the critical threshold, the order parameter increases rapidly but continuously. In 2009, an extremely abrupt transition was found for a network growth process where links compete for addition in an attempt to delay percolation. This observation of ‘explosive percolation’ was ultimately revealed to be a continuous transition in the thermodynamic limit, yet with very atypical finite-size scaling, and it started a surge of work on explosive phenomena and their consequences. Many related models are now shown to yield discontinuous percolation transitions and even hybrid transitions. Explosive percolation enables many other features such as multiple giant components, modular structures, discrete scale invariance and non-self-averaging, relating to properties found in many real phenomena such as explosive epidemics, electric breakdowns and the emergence of molecular life. Models of explosive synchronization provide an analytic framework for the dynamics of abrupt transitions and reveal the interplay between the distribution in natural frequencies and the network structure, with applications ranging from epileptic seizures to waking from anesthesia. Here we review the vast literature on explosive phenomena in networked systems and synthesize the fundamental connections between models and survey the application areas. We attempt to classify explosive phenomena based on underlying mechanisms and to provide a coherent overview and perspective for future research to address the many vital questions that remained unanswered.     

Possible generation of electric multipole radiation from solid state quantum rings

The self-organized crystal growth of semiconductor quantum rings has opened a new possibility to study and exploit optical transitions between ring-shaped quantum states. In such states, orbital angular momenta of particle envelope functions are well-defined. We investigate theoretically the intraband interlevel transitions between such states and examine the possibility of electrical multipole radiations (EMRs). Selections rules due to envelope function quantum numbers are deduced. To enhance the EMR efficiency, we propose a novel coupled dot–ring structure, by which the lowest allowed EMR can be selected and manipulated, allowing the efficient radiation of multipole photons.     

Transitions in spatial networks

Networks embedded in space can display all sorts of transitions when their structure is modified. The nature of these transitions (and in some cases crossovers) can differ from the usual appearance of a giant component as observed for the Erdös–Rényi graph, and spatial networks display a large variety of behaviors. We will discuss here some (mostly recent) results about topological transitions, ‘localization’ transitions seen in the shortest paths pattern, and also about the effect of congestion and fluctuations on the structure of optimal networks. The importance of spatial networks in real-world applications makes these transitions very relevant, and this review is meant as a step towards a deeper understanding of the effect of space on network structures.     

Internal transitions of two-dimensional charged magneto-excitons X: theory and experiment

Internal spin-singlet and spin-triplet transitions of charged excitons X⁻ in magnetic fields in quantum wells have been studied experimentally and theoretically. The allowed X⁻ transitions are photoionizing and exhibit a characteristic double-peak structure, which reflects the rich structure of the magnetoexciton continua in higher Landau levels (LLs). We discuss a novel exact selection rule, a hidden manifestation of translational invariance, that governs transitions of charged mobile complexes in a magnetic field.