Finite size effects in stimulated laser pair production

We consider stimulated pair production employing strong-field QED in a high-intensity laser background. In an infinite plane wave, we show that light-cone quasi-momentum can only be transferred to the created pair as a multiple of the laser frequency, i.e. by a higher harmonic. This translates into discrete resonance conditions providing the support of the pair creation probability which becomes a delta-comb. These findings corroborate the usual interpretation of multi-photon production of pairs with an effective mass. In a pulse, the momentum transfer is continuous, leading to broadening of the resonances and sub-threshold behaviour. The peaks remain visible as long as the number of cycles per pulse exceeds unity. The resonance patterns in pulses are analogous to those of a diffraction process based on interference of the produced pairs. We finally comment on the dependence of the peak positions, and in turn the effective mass, on the pulse shape.     

Straight-Line Rectangular Drawings of Clustered Graphs

We show that every c-planar clustered graph has a straight-line c-planar drawing in which each cluster is represented by an axis-parallel rectangle, thus solving a problem posed by Eades, Feng, Lin, and Nagamochi (Algorithmica 44(1):1–32, 2006).     

Holomorphic torsion and closed geodesics

Extending the rank-one case by David Fried, the holomorphic torsion of a compact locally symmetric manifold is expressed as a special value of a zeta function built on geometric data (closed geodesics and their monodromy) of the manifold.     

Asynchronous sampling for ultrafast experiments with low momentum compaction at the ANKA ring

A high‐repetition‐rate pump–probe experiment is presented, based on the asynchronous sampling approach. The low‐α mode at the synchrotron ANKA can be used for a time resolution down to the picosecond limit for the time‐domain sampling of the coherent THz emission as well as for hard X‐ray pump–probe experiments, which probe structural dynamics in the condensed phase. It is shown that a synchronization of better than 1 ps is achieved, and examples of phonon dynamics of semiconductors are presented.     

Evaluation of the piezoelectric behaviour produced by a thick-film transducer using digital speckle pattern interferometry

This paper presents an interferometric measurement of the out-of-plane deflections produced by a piezoelectric transducer, manufactured by thick-film deposition of a ceramic paste over an alumina substrate, when is subjected to a DC electric voltage. It is shown that a digital speckle pattern interferometer with an incorporated phase-shifting facility allows the measurement of nanometer displacements generated by the piezoelectric device. These measurements are used to evaluate the effective piezoelectric charge constant along the polarization direction (d₃₃)_eff that characterizes the thick-film transducer.     

Blow-up of semilinear pde's at the critical dimension. A probabilistic approach

We present a probabilistic approach which proves blow-up of solutions of the Fujita equation in the critical dimension . By using the Feynman-Kac representation twice, we construct a subsolution which locally grows to infinity as . In this way, we cover results proved earlier by analytic methods. Our method also applies to extend a blow-up result for systems proved for the Laplacian case by Escobedo and Levine (1995) to the case of -Laplacians with possibly different parameters .

     

Experimental two-photon,three-dimensional entanglement for quantum communication

Orbital angular momentum entangled photons emitted by a down-conversion source are in higher dimensional entangled states. Here we report the experimental confirmation by demonstrating a violation of a generalized Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt-type Bell inequality in three dimensions by more than 18 standard deviations. Higher dimensional entangled states allow the realization of new types of quantum communication protocols. They also provide a more secure quantum cryptography scheme. Therefore our experimental results are likely to have applications in future quantum communication technology.     

Matter-wave interferometer for large molecules

We demonstrate a near-field Talbot-Lau interferometer for C70 fullerene molecules. Such interferometers are particularly suitable for larger masses. Using three free-standing gold gratings of 1 microm period and a transversally incoherent but velocity-selected molecular beam, we achieve an interference fringe visibility of 40% with high count rate. Both the high visibility and its velocity dependence are in good agreement with a quantum simulation that takes into account the van der Waals interaction of the molecules with the gratings and are in striking contrast to a classical moiré model.