Picosecond laser ablation of thin copper films

The ablation process of thin copper films on fused silica by picosecond laser pulses is investigated. The ablation area is characterized using optical and scanning electron microscopy. The single-shot ablation threshold fluence for 40 ps laser pulses at 1053 nm has been determinated toF _thres = 172 mJ/cm². The ablation rate per pulse is measured as a function of intensity in the range of 5 × 10⁹ to 2 × 10¹¹ W/cm² and changes from 80 to 250 nm with increasing intensity. The experimental ablation rate per pulse is compared to heat-flow calculations based on the two-temperature model for ultrafast laser heating. Possible applications of picosecond laser radiation for microstructuring of different materials are discussed.     

Free differential algebras: Their use in field theory and dual formulation

The gauging of free differential algebras (FDA's) produces gauge field theories containing antisymmetric tensors. The FDA's extend the Cartan-Maurer equations of ordinary Lie algebras by incorporating p-form potentials (p>1). We study here the algebra of FDA transformations. To every p-form in the FDA, we associate an extended Lie derivative l generating a corresponding gauge transformation. The field theory based on the FDA is invariant under these new transformations. This gives geometrical meaning to the antisymmetric tensors. The algebra of Lie derivatives is shown to close and provides the dual formulation of FDA's.     

Compact tunable mid-infrared laser source by difference frequency generation of two diode-lasers

Two continuous-wave single mode diode-lasers (Hitachi HL 7851G and Toshiba TOLD 9150) are applied as signal and pump sources for difference frequency generation (DFG) in an AgGaS2 crystal with a length of 30 mm. For 90° type I phase matching tunable mid-infrared laser radiation around 5 µm is obtained with an output power of up toP _DFG = 0.2 µW while the diode lasers are operated with powers of 30 and 50 mW at the center wavelengths 682 and 791 nm, respectively. The performance of the diode-laser-DFG system is shown as the absorption spectrum of CO for the P(28) rotational line around 2023 cm^–1 is probed in a 10cm long cell and in the exhaust of an engine.This research was supported by the Technologiestiftung Schleswig-Holstein under contract 94-35i.     

Graph-directed systems and self-similar measures on limit spaces of self-similar groups

Let G be a group and ?:H→G be a contracting homomorphism from a subgroup H<G of finite index. V. Nekrashevych (2005) [25] associated with the pair (G,?) the limit dynamical system (JG,s) and the limit G-space XG together with the covering _?g∈GT⋅g by the tile T. We develop the theory of self-similar measures m on these limit spaces. It is shown that (JG,s,m) is conjugated to the one-sided Bernoulli shift. Using sofic subshifts we prove that the tile T has integer measure and we give an algorithmic way to compute it. In addition we give an algorithm to find the measure of the intersection of tiles T∩(T⋅g) for g∈G. We present applications to the invariant measures for the rational functions on the Riemann sphere and to the evaluation of the Lebesgue measure of integral self-affine tiles.     

Extended Deligne–Lusztig varieties for general and special linear groups

We give a generalisation of Deligne–Lusztig varieties for general and special linear groups over finite quotients of the ring of integers in a non-archimedean local field. Previously, a generalisation was given by Lusztig by attaching certain varieties to unramified maximal tori inside Borel subgroups. In this paper we associate a family of so-called extended Deligne–Lusztig varieties to all tamely ramified maximal tori of the group.Moreover, we analyse the structure of various generalised Deligne–Lusztig varieties, and show that the “unramified” varieties, including a certain natural generalisation, do not produce all the irreducible representations in general. On the other hand, we prove results which together with some computations of Lusztig show that for SL₂(Fq???/(?²)), with odd q, the extended Deligne–Lusztig varieties do indeed afford all the irreducible representations.     

Clifford structures on Riemannian manifolds

We introduce the notion of even Clifford structures on Riemannian manifolds, which for rank r=2 and r=3 reduce to almost Hermitian and quaternion-Hermitian structures respectively. We give the complete classification of manifolds carrying parallel rank r even Clifford structures: Kähler, quaternion-Kähler and Riemannian products of quaternion-Kähler manifolds for r=2,3 and 4 respectively, several classes of 8-dimensional manifolds (for 5?r?8), families of real, complex and quaternionic Grassmannians (for r=8,6 and 5 respectively), and Rosenfeld?s elliptic projective planes OP², (C⊗O)P², (H⊗O)P² and (O⊗O)P², which are symmetric spaces associated to the exceptional simple Lie groups F₄, E₆, E₇ and E₈ (for r=9,10,12 and 16 respectively). As an application, we classify all Riemannian manifolds whose metric is bundle-like along the curvature constancy distribution, generalizing well-known results in Sasakian and 3-Sasakian geometry.     

On coderivatives and Lipschitzian properties of the dual pair in optimization

In this paper, we apply the concept of coderivative and other tools from the generalized differentiation theory for set-valued mappings to study the stability of the feasible sets of both the primal and the dual problem in infinite-dimensional linear optimization with infinitely many explicit constraints and an additional conic constraint. After providing some specific duality results for our dual pair, we study the Lipschitz-like property of both mappings and also give bounds for the associated Lipschitz moduli. The situation for the dual shows much more involved than the case of the primal problem.     

Pulsating type entire solutions of monostable reaction-advection-diffusion equations in periodic excitable media

We establish the existence of pulsating type entire solutions of reaction-advection-diffusion equations with monostable nonlinearities in a periodic framework. Here the nonlinearities include the classic KPP case. The pulsating type entire solutions are defined in the whole space and for all time t∈R. By studying a pulsating traveling front connecting a constant unstable stationary state to a stable stationary state which is allowed to be a positive function, we proved that there exist pulsating type entire solutions behaving as two pulsating traveling fronts coming from both directions, and approaching each other. The key techniques are to characterize the asymptotic behavior of the solutions as t→−∞ in terms of appropriate subsolutions and supersolutions.     

Periodic solutions for a nonautonomous ordinary differential equation

We consider the nonautonomous differential equation of second order x^″+a(t)x−b(t)x²+c(t)x³=0, where a(t),b(t),c(t) are T-periodic functions. This is a biomathematical model of an aneurysm in the circle of Willis. We prove the existence of at least two positive T-periodic solutions for this equation, using coincidence degree theories.     

Numerical enclosure for each eigenvalue in generalized eigenvalue problem

An algorithm for enclosing all eigenvalues in generalized eigenvalue problem Ax=λBx is proposed. This algorithm is applicable even if A∈C^n×n is not Hermitian and/or B∈C^n×n is not Hermitian positive definite, and supplies nerror bounds while the algorithm previously developed by the author supplies a single error bound. It is proved that the error bounds obtained by the proposed algorithm are equal or smaller than that by the previous algorithm. Computational cost for the proposed algorithm is similar to that for the previous algorithm. Numerical results show the property of the proposed algorithm.