Acoustic attenuation probe for Fermion superfluidity in ultracold-atom gases

Dilute gas Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC's), currently used to cool fermionic atoms in atom traps, can also probe the superfluidity of these fermions. The damping rate of BEC-acoustic excitations (phonon modes), measured in the middle of the trap as a function of the phonon momentum, yields an unambiguous signature of BCS-like superfluidity, provides a measurement of the superfluid gap parameter, and gives an estimate of the size of the Cooper pairs in the BEC-BCS crossover regime. We also predict kinks in the momentum dependence of the damping rate which can reveal detailed information about the fermion quasiparticle dispersion relation.     

Photon time-interval statistics of laser light scattered by brownian particles

Measurements are reported and some theoretical expressions are given for half-open photon time-interval statistics of laser light scattered by particles in brownian motion. Expressions in terms of cumulants are shown not to be valid in general.     

Observation of the B meson in K−p interactions at 4.2 GeVc

A πω enhancement at 1245 MeV is observed in the reaction K^?p → Σ⁺π^?ω. Its properties agree with those of a B meson produced by natural-parity exchange thus establishing a coupling of the B to a $\text{K}\text{K}{}^1$ system.     

SHAH: SHape-Adaptive Haar Wavelets for Image Processing

We propose the shape-adaptive Haar (SHAH) transform for images, which results in an orthonormal, adaptive decomposition of the image into Haar-wavelet-like components, arranged hierarchically according to decreasing importance, whose shapes reflect the features present in the image. The decomposition is as sparse as it can be for piecewise-constant images. It is performed via a stepwise bottom-up algorithm with quadratic computational complexity; however, nearly linear variants also exist. SHAH is rapidly invertible. We show how to use SHAH for image denoising. Having performed the SHAH transform, the coefficients are hard- or soft-thresholded, and the inverse transform taken. The SHAH image denoising algorithm compares favorably to the state of the art for piecewise-constant images. A clear asset of the methodology is its very general scope: it can be used with any images or more generally with any data that can be represented as graphs or networks.     

Electrospray ionization quadrupole time-of-flight tandem mass spectrometric analysis of hexamethylenediamine-modified maltodextrin and dextran

A combined methodology for obtaining at the preparative scale and characterization by nanoelectrospray ionization (nanoESI) quadrupole time-of-flight (QTOF) mass spectrometry (MS) and tandem MS (MS/MS) of linear polysaccharides modified at the reducing end is presented. Two polydisperse maltodextrins (1000 and 3000 Da) and a high molecular weight polydisperse dextran (6000 Da) were coupled with hexamethylenediamine (HMD). The coupling products were analyzed by nanoESI-QTOF-MS in the positive ion mode and MS/MS using collision-induced dissociation (CID) at low energies. In the HMD-M1000 mixture, the polysaccharide chains containing from 2 to 8 Glc residues were detected, while in HMD-M3000 we identified a complete series of chains containing from 8 to 21 Glc moieties. The employed ESI conditions enhanced the detection of chains with up to 46 Glc residues in the HMD-D6000 sample. By optimized MS/MS, HMD-modified polysaccharides of 3, 4, 5, 12 and 46 degrees of polymerization yielded product ion spectra exhibiting the whole set of Y- and B-fragment ions. The MS structural data were obtained within a few minutes of signal acquisition, with a sample consumption situating the analysis sensitivity in the picomolar range.     

Ra+ ion trapping: toward an atomic parity violation measurement and an optical clock

A single Ra⁺ ion stored in a Paul radio frequency ion trap has excellent potential for a precision measurement of the electroweak mixing angle at low momentum transfer and as the most stable optical clock. The effective transport and cooling of singly charged ions of the isotopes ²⁰⁹Ra to ²¹⁴Ra in a gas filled radio frequency quadrupole device is reported. The absolute frequencies of the transition 7s²S_1/2–7d²D_3/2 at wavelength 828 nm have been determined in ^212–214Ra⁺ with ≤19 MHz uncertainty using laser spectroscopy on small samples of ions trapped in a linear Paul trap at the online facility Trapped Radioactive Isotopes: µicrolaboratories for fundamental Physics (TRIµP) of the Kernfysisch Versneller Instituut.     

The crystal and molecular structure of copper(I) trifluoromethanesulphonate cyclohexene complex

The first crystal structure of a copper(I) trifluoromethanesulphonate (cyclo)olefin complex, viz. copper(I) triflate-cyclohexene, CuOSO₂CF₃ · C₆H₁₀, is presented. The compound crystallises in the space group P$\text{1}$ with a 10.288(1), b 10.412(1), c 11.059(1) Å, α 65.81(1), β 81.25(1), γ 70.45(1)° and Z = 4. The structure has been solved by Patterson and Fourier methods and refined to a final R = 0.062. The compound consists of tetrameric units which are interconnected by CuOCu bridges to give an infinite chain. The tetramer has S_i symmetry. Both Cu ions are four-coordinated with a geometry that is intermediate between trigonal pyramidal and tetrahedral. The copper ions in the tetramer are joined together by oxygen—sulphur—oxygen bridges of the triflate anion.