Analysis of retroreflector-introduced spectrum distortion in birefringent crystal-based interleaver filters

Spectrum distortion in a birefringent crystal-based interleaver filter introduced by the right-angle total internal reflection retroreflector is studied. The phase shift between two perpendicularly polarized components of the polarized light incident onto the retroreflector is calculated. The sensitivity of the phase shift to the incident angle for different materials from which the retroreflector is made is also considered. This study indicates that the phase shift is less sensitive to the incident angle for retroreflectors having a higher index of refraction, suggesting a fixed-phase compensator that can be used to cancel out the phase shift introduced by the retroreflector to recover the interleaver filter's spectrum. The fold-back 50 GHz channel spacing birefringent crystal interleaver filter is fabricated to demonstrate that the spectrum distortion due to the phase shift introduced by retroreflector can be eliminated by a phase compensator.     

Highly sensitive miniature photonic crystal fiber refractive index sensor based on mode field excitation

A highly sensitive miniature photonic crystal fiber refractive index sensor based on field mode excitation is presented. The sensor is fabricated by melting one end of a photonic crystal fiber into a rounded tip and splicing and collapsing the other end with a single-mode fiber. The rounded tip is able to induce cladding mode excitation, which resulted in an additional phase delay. Linear response of 262.28 nm/refractive index unit in the refractive index range of 1.337 to 1.395 is obtained for the physical length of a 953 μm sensor. The sensor is also shown to be insensitive to environmental temperature.     

Learning a novel phonological contrast depends on interactions between individual differences and training paradigm design

Studies evaluating phonological contrast learning typically investigate either the predictiveness of specific pretraining aptitude measures or the efficacy of different instructional paradigms. However, little research considers how these factors interact--whether different students learn better from different types of instruction--and what the psychological basis for any interaction might be. The present study demonstrates that successfully learning a foreign-language phonological contrast for pitch depends on an interaction between individual differences in perceptual abilities and the design of the training paradigm. Training from stimuli with high acoustic-phonetic variability is generally thought to improve learning; however, we found high-variability training enhanced learning only for individuals with strong perceptual abilities. Learners with weaker perceptual abilities were actually impaired by high-variability training relative to a low-variability condition. A second experiment assessing variations on the high-variability training design determined that the property of this learning environment most detrimental to perceptually weak learners is the amount of trial-by-trial variability. Learners' perceptual limitations can thus override the benefits of high-variability training where trial-by-trial variability in other irrelevant acoustic-phonetic features obfuscates access to the target feature. These results demonstrate the importance of considering individual differences in pretraining aptitudes when evaluating the efficacy of any speech training paradigm.     

Entanglement generated by dissipation and steady state entanglement of two macroscopic objects

Entanglement is a striking feature of quantum mechanics and an essential ingredient in most applications in quantum information. Typically, coupling of a system to an environment inhibits entanglement, particularly in macroscopic systems. Here we report on an experiment where dissipation continuously generates entanglement between two macroscopic objects. This is achieved by engineering the dissipation using laser and magnetic fields, and leads to robust event-ready entanglement maintained for 0.04 s at room temperature. Our system consists of two ensembles containing about 10(12) atoms and separated by 0.5 m coupled to the environment composed of the vacuum modes of the electromagnetic field. By combining the dissipative mechanism with a continuous measurement, steady state entanglement is continuously generated and observed for up to 1 h.     

Matroid intersection algorithms

LetM ₁ = (E, 9₁),M ₂ = (E, 9₂) be two matroids over the same set of elementsE, and with families of independent sets 9₁, 9₂. A setI 9₁ 9₂ is said to be anintersection of the matroidsM ₁,M ₂. An important problem of combinatorial optimization is that of finding an optimal intersection ofM ₁,M ₂. In this paper three matroid intersection algorithms are presented. One algorithm computes an intersection containing a maximum number of elements. The other two algorithms compute intersections which are of maximum total weight, for a given weighting of the elements inE. One of these algorithms is primal-dual, being based on duality considerations of linear programming, and the other is primal. All three algorithms are based on the computation of an augmenting sequence of elements, a generalization of the notion of an augmenting path from network flow theory and matching theory. The running time of each algorithm is polynomial inm, the number of elements inE, and in the running times of subroutines for independence testing inM ₁,M ₂. The algorithms provide constructive proofs of various important theorems of matroid theory, such as the Matroid Intersection Duality Theorem and Edmonds' Matroid Polyhedral Intersection Theorem.Research sponsored by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research Grant 71-2076.     

Low-temperature Mössbauer studies of FeNb2O6

Fe⁵⁷ Mössbauer spectra of FeNb₂O₆ were obtained from 15.0K down to 1.9 K. The isomer shift, 1.42±0.01 mm sec^?1 relative to Cr, was found to be temperature independent, whereas the magnitude of the quadrupole splitting was observed to decrease slightly with temperature. The quadrupole splitting and the hyperfine field at 1.9 K are -2.41±0.01 mm sec^?1 and 34.6±0.3 kOe respectively. The directions of the hyperfine fields experienced by the Fe nuclei are in the a-c plane symmetrically displaced with respect to the crystallographic axes.     

On free quadratic extensions of rings

The quaternion algebraB[j] over a commutative ringB with 1 defined byS. Parimala andR. Sridharan is generalized in two directions: (1) the ringB may be non-commutative with 1, and (2)j ² may be any invertible element (not necessarily –1). LetG={} be an automorphism group ofB of order 2, andA={b inB| (b)=b}. LetB[j] be a generalized quaternion algebra such thataj (a) for eacha inB. It will be shown thatB is Galois (for non-commutative ring extensions) overA which is contained in the center ofB if and only ifB[j] is Azumaya overA. Also,A[j] is a splitting ring forB[j] such thatA[j] is Galois overA. Moreover, we shall determine which automorphism group ofA[j] is a Galois group.     

两种可溶性聚乙炔衍生物的飞秒发光动力学研究

采用飞秒频率上转换技术测量了两种可溶聚乙炔衍射生物ｐｏｌｙ（ｐｈｅｎｙｌａｃｅｔｙｌｅｎｅ（ＰＰＡ）和ｐｏｌｙ（１－ｐｈｅｎｙｌ－１－ｂｕｔｙ１）ＰＰＢ）的发光动力学过程。采用非均匀展宽态密我规行走理论对上述结果进行了分析。     

Lp-spectra of strongly Carleman pseudo-differential operators

The spectrum and essential spectrum in L^p($\text{R}$ⁿ) of a strongly Carleman pseudo-differential operator with symbol of class S_?,0^m, 0 ? p ? 1, are shown to coincide with the range of the symbol for some (but need not be all) p different from 2. The absolutely continuous spectra of perturbations of operators with strongly Carleman symbols (but without the assumption of being in S_?,0^m) are also investigated.