Separation of particles in time-dependent focusing billiards

We consider a family of stadium-like billiards with time-dependent boundaries. Two different cases of time dependence are studied: (i) the fixed boundary approximation and (ii) the exact model which takes into account the motion of the boundary. It is shown that when the billiards possess strong chaotic properties, the sequence of their boundary perturbations is the Fermi acceleration phenomenon which is three times larger than in the case of the fixed boundary approximation. However, weak mixing in such billiards leads to particle separation. Depending on the initial velocity three different things occur: (i) the particle ensemble may accelerate; (ii) the average velocity may stay constant or (iii) it may even decrease.     

Experimental study of the stability and optimization of multipulse passive mode locking

We present an experimental study of the stability of passively mode-locked pulses against noise in multipulse operation of an erbium-doped fiber laser. The laser properties are determined by two dimensionless combinations of the laser parameters. Measurements of the pulses' destabilization threshold as a function of those laser parameters show the optimal regions that maximize the mode-locked pulse stability. We find good agreement between the experimental observations and the theoretical predictions.     

Observation of a centrality-dependent dijet asymmetry in lead-lead collisions at sqrt[S(NN)] =2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

By using the ATLAS detector, observations have been made of a centrality-dependent dijet asymmetry in the collisions of lead ions at the Large Hadron Collider. In a sample of lead-lead events with a per-nucleon center of mass energy of 2.76 TeV, selected with a minimum bias trigger, jets are reconstructed in fine-grained, longitudinally segmented electromagnetic and hadronic calorimeters. The transverse energies of dijets in opposite hemispheres are observed to become systematically more unbalanced with increasing event centrality leading to a large number of events which contain highly asymmetric dijets. This is the first observation of an enhancement of events with such large dijet asymmetries, not observed in proton-proton collisions, which may point to an interpretation in terms of strong jet energy loss in a hot, dense medium.     

Light diffraction on acoustophotorefractive holographic gratings

The intermediate regime of light diffraction on acoustophotorefractive holographic gratings written in cubic photorefractive crystals according to the synchronous-detection mechanism is studied. It is shown that the diffraction efficiency in sillenite-type gyrotropic crystals only slightly depends on the incident light polarization and the external electric field. The highest diffraction efficiency in nongyrotropic crystals was achieved for p-polarized writing and reading light and at a considerable external electric field strength.     

A Preisach-based hysteresis model for magnetic and ferroelectric hysteresis

In this paper we present a model for hysteretic nonlinearities with non-local memories. This model can be applied to describe hysteretic material behavior. Common applications are ferromagnetic or ferroelectric materials. Our model consists of an analytic function and a Preisach operator. We define a continuous Preisach weight function and introduce a method for the identification of the model parameters. The model parameters are customized to a set of symmetric hysteresis curves. We verify our model for a soft magnetic material, a hard magnetic material and the ferroelectric behavior of some piezoelectric material. After that, non-symmetric curves like the virgin curve are predicted very well by the model. It is especially useful, if forced magnetization or polarization, that appears beyond technical saturation, come into account.     

The photon-ion merged-beams experiment PIPE at PETRA III—The first five years

The Photon-Ion Spectrometer at PETRA III—in short, PIPE—is a permanently installed user facility at the "Variable Polarization XUV Beamline" P04 of the synchrotron light source PETRA III operated by DESY in Hamburg, Germany. The careful design of the PIPE ion-optics in combination with the record-high photon flux at P04 has lead to a breakthrough in experimental studies of photon interactions with ionized small quantum systems. This short review provides an overview over the published scientific results from photon-ion merged-beams experiments at PIPE that were obtained since the start of P04 operations in 2013. The topics covered comprise photoionization of ions of astrophysical relevance, quantitative studies of multi-electron processes upon inner-shell photoexcitation and photoionization of negative and positive atomic ions, precision spectroscopy of photoionization resonances, photoionization and photofragmentation of molecular ions, and of endohedral fullerene ions.     

Optical vortex solitons in parametric wave mixing

We analyze two-component spatial optical vortex solitons supported by parametric wave mixing processes in a nonlinear bulk medium. We study two distinct cases of such localized waves, namely, parametric vortex solitons due to phase-matched second-harmonic generation in an optical medium with competing quadratic and cubic nonlinear response, and vortex solitons in the presence of third-harmonic generation in a cubic medium. We find, analytically and numerically, the structure of two-component vortex solitons, and also investigate modulational instability of their plane-wave background. In particular, we predict and analyze in detail novel types of vortex solitons, a "halo-vortex," consisting of a two-component vortex core surrounded by a bright ring of its harmonic field, and a "ring-vortex" soliton which is a vortex in a harmonic field that guides a ring-like localized mode of the fundamental-frequency field.