Parametric processes in microstructured and highly nonlinear optical fibres

Optical parametric amplification is an important nonlinear process in photonic crystal fibres driven by the small effective area and the special dispersion characteristics of these fibres. Aside from its role in supercontinuum generation, parametric amplification can lead to efficient wavelength conversion, limited primarily by the uniformity of the diameter of currently available fibres. The related Bragg scattering process can be used for both wavelength conversion and optical switching, again limited by the physical characteristics of the fibres used.     

Synchrony between orientation-selective neurons is modulated during adaptation-induced plasticity in cat visual cortex

Background  

Visual neurons respond essentially to luminance variations occurring within their receptive fields. In primary visual cortex, each neuron is a filter for stimulus features such as orientation, motion direction and velocity, with the appropriate combination of features eliciting maximal firing rate. Temporal correlation of spike trains was proposed as a potential code for linking the neuronal responses evoked by various features of a same object. In the present study, synchrony strength was measured between cells following an adaptation protocol (prolonged exposure to a non-preferred stimulus) which induce plasticity of neurons' orientation preference.     

A portable positron accumulator for antihydrogen formation

A pulsed source of positrons has been developed which may be useful for antihydrogen ( ) formation because it is portable when compared to accelerator-based sources. This positron accumulator uses a Penning-style trap to collect moderated positrons from a radioactive source. The positron pulses may be emitted with repetition rates in the range of 50–1000 Hz, which is appropriate for production schemes involving laser-induced recombination. Bunching techniques may be used to vary the width of the positron pulses over the range 30–120 ns (FWHM) to match the width of the antiproton and/or laser pulses. The efficiency of the accumulator increases from ∼ 10% at 100 Hz to ∼ 50% at 1000 Hz. 250 Hz the efficiency is ∼ 25% and the accumulator has delivered up to 8 e⁺/pulse per mCi of positron activity. This translates into ∼ 1.2 × 10⁵ e⁺/pulse for a 100 Ci⁵⁸Co source.     

Monte carlo estimates of domain-deformation sensitivities

It is shown that, when a Monte Carlo algorithm is used for estimation of any physical quantity A, a simple and fast additional procedure can be implemented that simultaneously estimates the sensitivity of A to any problem parameter. The proposed approach is general and systematic in the sense that: (i) it includes domain-deformation sensitivities, i.e., cases where a change in the parameter modifies the domain over which the sampled random variables are defined and (ii) a simple generic procedure is presented to address all remaining free choices in terms of variance minimization.     

Programming scale-free optics in disordered ferroelectrics

Using the history dependence of a dipolar glass hosted in a compositionally disordered lithium-enriched potassium tantalate niobate (KTN:Li) crystal, we demonstrate scale-free optical propagation at tunable temperatures. The operating equilibration temperature is determined by previous crystal spiralling in the temperature/cooling-rate phase space.     

Complex dynamics and configurational entropy of spatial optical solitons in nonlocal media

Intense light propagating in a nonlinear medium can generate an ensemble of interacting filaments of light, or spatial solitons. Using nematic liquid crystals, we demonstrate that the filaments exhibit collective behavior typical of complex systems, including the formation of clusters and soundlike vibrations, as well as the reduction of the configurational entropy, controlled by the degree of nonlocality of the medium.     

Cohomogeneity One Einstein-Sasaki 5-Manifolds

We consider hypersurfaces in Einstein-Sasaki 5-manifolds which are tangent to the characteristic vector field. We introduce evolution equations that can be used to reconstruct the 5-dimensional metric from such a hypersurface, analogous to the (nearly) hypo and half-flat evolution equations in higher dimensions. We use these equations to classify Einstein-Sasaki 5-manifolds of cohomogeneity one.