Dynamic phases and the peak effect in dirty type II superconductors

We study numerically and experimentally the dynamics of driven vortex matter. Our London-Langevin simulations find that the critical current exhibits a peak both across the Bragg glass to vortex glass transition and across the melting line. The peak is accompanied by a clear crossing of the I-V curves. We report transport measurements on untwinned YBCO crystals, in complete accordance with these findings. At higher drives disorder is averaged to reduced values, and in three dimensions the vortices reorder into a "moving solid." The effect of the disorder can be well represented with a "shaking temperature" which is inversely proportional to the velocity.     

Symmetry breaking and measurement theory

For studying the problem of measurement we accept the statistical interpretation of quantum mechanics, but we take into account, that in a sequence of measurements, offdiagonal terms arise which cannot obviously be interpreted as the probability of a sequence of macroscopic events. We demonstrate, however, their vanishing for ordinary measurement processes by observing that the measurement apparatus undergoes a symmetry breaking transition during the measurement.1. On leave from the Central Research Institute for Physics, Budapest, Hungary.     

Unified treatment of coherent and incoherent electronic energy transfer dynamics using classical electrodynamics

Recent experiments on resonance energy transfer (RET) in photosynthetic systems have found evidence of quantum coherence between the donor and the acceptor. Under these conditions, Fo?rster's theory of RET is no longer applicable and no theory of coherent RET advanced to date rivals the intuitive simplicity of Fo?rster's theory. Here, we develop a framework for understanding RET that is based on classical electrodynamics but still captures the essence of the quantum coherence between the molecules. Our theory requires only a knowledge of the complex polarizabilities of the two molecules participating in the transfer as well as the distance between them. We compare our results to quantum mechanical calculations and show that the results agree quantitatively.     

A simple analytic hydrodynamic model for expanding fireballs

A simple analytic solution is presented for the non-linear hydrodynamic equations describing a free isentropic expansion into vacuum. A “break-up” concept is introduced yielding a well-defined break-up time, density, temperature and final state inclusive particle spectrum.     

Quantum decay of supercurrent in thin superconducting wires

Quantum fluctuations cause a decay of the supercurrent in thin superconducting wires making them resistive even at very low temperatures. We derive a microscopic effective action formalism that goes beyond the usual TDGL approach and study quantum fluctuations of the superconducting order parameter at all temperatures belowT _C . We calculate the quantum phase slip rate in thin superconducting wires, demonstrate the importance of dissipation in a quantum phase slip process, and evaluate the resistanceR(T) of the wire. In very thin wires the effect is well observable, even at zero temperature.