Table of contents

We study a quantum phase transition in a system of dipoles confined in a stack of N identical one-dimensional lattices (tubes) polarized perpendicularly to the lattices. In this arrangement, the intra-lattice interaction is purely repulsive, preventing system collapse, and the inter-lattice interaction is attractive. The dipoles may represent polar molecules or indirect excitons. The transition separates two phases; in one of them, superfluidity (understood as algebraic decay of the corresponding correlation functions) takes place in each individual lattice, and in the other (chain superfluid) the order parameter is the product of bosonic operators from all lattices. We argue that in the presence of finite inter-lattice tunneling the transition belongs to the universality class of the q = N two-dimensional classical Potts model. For N = 2,3,4 the corresponding low-energy field theory is the model of Z_N parafermions perturbed by the thermal operator. The results of Monte Carlo simulations are consistent with these predictions. The detection scheme for the chain superfluid is outlined.

We present a data analysis procedure that provides the solution to a long-standing issue in microrheology studies, i.e. the evaluation of the fluids' linear viscoelastic properties from the analysis of a finite set of experimental data, describing (for instance) the time-dependent mean-square displacement of suspended probe particles experiencing Brownian fluctuations. We report, for the first time in the literature, the linear viscoelastic response of an optically trapped bead suspended in a Newtonian fluid, over the entire range of experimentally accessible frequencies. The general validity of the proposed method makes it transferable to the majority of microrheology and rheology techniques.

We perform a first-principles band calculation for a group of quasi-two-dimensional organic conductors β-(BDA-TTP)₂MF₆ (M = P, As, Sb and Ta). The ab-initio calculation shows that the density of states is correlated with the bandwidth of the singly occupied (highest) molecular orbital, while it is not necessarily correlated with the unit-cell volume. The direction of the major axis of the cross section of the Fermi surface lies in the Γ–B-direction, which differs from that obtained by the extended Hückel calculation. Then, we construct a tight-binding model which accurately reproduces the ab-initio band structure. The obtained transfer energies give a smaller dimerization than in the extended Hückel band. As to the difference in the anisotropy of the Fermi surface, the transfer energies along the inter-stacking direction are smaller than those obtained in the extended Hückel calculation. Assuming spin-fluctuation-mediated superconductivity, we apply random phase approximation to a two-band Hubbard model. This two-band Hubbard model is composed of the tight-binding model derived from the first-principles band structure and an on-site (intra-molecule) repulsive interaction taken as a variable parameter. The obtained superconducting gap changes sign four times along the Fermi surface like in a d-wave gap, and the nodal direction is different from that obtained in the extended Hückel model. Anion dependence of T_c is qualitatively consistent with the experimental observation.

The prospects of atomic structure imaging with the continuous spherical wavelet transform (CSWT) as applied to white beam x-ray fluorescence holograms (XFH) are discussed. Recording of XFH with a white x-ray beam eliminates holographic twin images and minimizes extinction effects. However, the lack of these parasitic effects is accompanied by a limited radial resolution. In this work, by introducing an approximation of the white x-ray spectrum based on the Gumbel distribution, we propose an improvement both in generation of white beam XFH and in data analysis. Using approximate analytical models and realistic numerical simulations, we give a detailed description of the properties and resolution of local structure projections directly obtained from XFH by using wavelet analysis. It is demonstrated that the CSWT and, in particular, its windowed inversion can be effectively used to enhance and speed up reliability factor (R-factor) analysis of the data, which enables precise fully three-dimensional localization of multiple lattice sites of dopants. For this, an exact analytic formula for the inversion is given, enabling its fast calculation in a single step. As an example system, we consider magnetic ions in wurtzite GaN.

Resistivity and magnetic susceptibility measurements under external pressure were performed on NaFe_1−xCo_xAs (x = 0, 0.01, 0.028, 0.075 and 0.109) single crystals. For both underdoped and optimally doped NaFe_1−xCo_xAs, the maximum T_c reached as high as 31 K under certain pressures. Meanwhile the overdoped sample with x = 0.075 also exhibits a positive pressure effect on T_c, and an enhancement of T_c by 13 K is achieved under a pressure of 2.3 GPa. All of these superconducting samples show large positive pressure coefficients on superconductivity, being distinct from those of Ba(Fe_1−xCo_x)₂As₂. However, the superconductivity cannot be induced by pressure in heavily overdoped non-superconducting NaFe_0.891Co_0.109As. These studies reveal that the electronic structure is very different between superconducting and heavily overdoped non-superconducting NaFe_1−xCo_xAs, consistent with the observation of angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy.

In this study different influences on the bactericidal effect of cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) were investigated intensively. In detail, different initial densities of Escherichia coli cells and different treatment times of up to 8 min were studied. The results show that up to densities of 10⁵ cells per 20 μl high reduction rates of up to 5 log can be achieved in less than 3 min of CAP application. In contrast, for higher cell densities almost no reduction was measured for CAP treatment times of up to 8 min. To understand this data in detail, a theoretical model was developed. This model starts from the premise that bacteria are able to some degree to neutralize reactive species and that accordingly the bactericidal effect depends on the bacterial concentration. A further purpose of this study was to analyze the contribution of reactive oxygen and also reactive nitrogen species—produced by the CAP—to the bactericidal effect. We therefore measured nitrites, nitrates and hydrogen peroxide—products of chemical reactions between the species produced by the CAP and the liquid. The evidence of nitric oxide (NO) uptake in bacteria and the corresponding reference experiments with hydrogen peroxide and a chemical NO donor clearly show that the bactericidal effect of CAP is related to a combination of oxidative and nitrosative effects.

We investigate the problem of optimally reversing the action of an arbitrary quantum channel C which acts independently on each component of an ensemble of n identically prepared d-dimensional quantum systems. In the limit of large ensembles, we construct the optimal reversing channel R^☆_n which has to be applied at the output ensemble state, to retrieve a smaller ensemble of m systems prepared in the input state, with the highest possible rate m/n. The solution is found by mapping the problem into the optimal reversal of Gaussian channels on multimode quantum-classical continuous variable systems, which is solved here as well. Our general results can be readily applied to improve the implementation of robust long-distance quantum communication. As an example, we investigate the optimal reversal rate of phase flip channels acting on a multi-qubit register.

In this paper, we do a complete classification of valence-bond crystals (VBCs) on the kagomé lattice based on general arguments of symmetry only and thus identify many new VBCs for different unit cell sizes. For the spin-1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet, we study the relative energetics of competing gapless spin liquids (SLs) and VBC phases within the class of Gutzwiller-projected fermionic wave functions using variational Monte Carlo techniques, hence implementing exactly the constraint of one fermion per site. By using a state-of-the-art optimization method, we conclusively show that the U(1) Dirac SL is remarkably stable towards dimerizing into all 6-, 12- and 36-site unit cell VBCs. This stability is also preserved on addition of a next-nearest-neighbor super-exchange coupling of both antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic (FM) type. However, we find that a 36-site unit cell VBC is stabilized on addition of a very small next-nearest-neighbor FM super-exchange coupling, i.e. |J₂| ≈ 0.045, and this VBC is the same in terms of space-group symmetry as that obtained in an effective quantum dimer model study. It breaks reflection symmetry, has a nontrivial flux pattern and is a strong dimerization of the uniform RVB SL.

We consider quantum phase transitions out of topological Mott insulators in which the ground state of the fractionalized excitations (fermionic spinons) is topologically non-trivial. The spinons in topological Mott insulators are coupled to an emergent compact U(1) gauge field with a so-called 'axion' term. We study the confinement transitions from the topological Mott insulator to broken symmetry phases, which may occur via the condensation of dyons. Dyons carry both 'electric' and 'magnetic' charges, and arise naturally in this system because the monopoles of the emergent U(1) gauge theory acquire gauge charge due to the axion term. It is shown that the dyon condensate, in general, induces simultaneous current and bond orders. To demonstrate this, we study the confined phase of the topological Mott insulator on the cubic lattice. When the magnetic transition is driven by dyon condensation, we identify the bond order as valence bond solid order and the current order as scalar spin chirality order. Hence, the confined phase of the topological Mott insulator is an exotic phase where the scalar spin chirality and the valence bond order coexist and appear via a single transition. We discuss the implications of our results for generic models of topological Mott insulators.

We theoretically studied an exactly solvable gamma matrix generalization of the Kitaev spin model on the ruby lattice, which is a honeycomb lattice with 'expanded' vertices and links. We find that this model displays an exceptionally rich phase diagram that includes (i) gapless phases with stable spin Fermi surfaces, (ii) gapless phases with low-energy Dirac cones and quadratic band touching points and (iii) gapped phases with finite Chern numbers possessing the values ±4,±3,±2 and ±1. The model is then generalized to include Ising-like interactions that break the exact solvability of the model in a controlled manner. When these terms are dominant, they lead to a trivial Ising ordered phase which is shown to be adiabatically connected to a large coupling limit of the exactly solvable phase. In the limit where these interactions are weak, we treat them within mean-field theory and present the resulting phase diagrams. We discuss the nature of the transitions between various phases. Our results show the richness of possible ground states in closely related magnetic systems.

Using exact diagonalization calculations, we investigate the ground-state phase diagram of the hard-core Bose–Hubbard–Haldane model on the honeycomb lattice. This allows us to probe the stability of the Bose-metal phase proposed in Varney et al (2011 Phys. Rev. Lett.107 077201), against various changes in the originally studied Hamiltonian.

Motivated by the recent discovery of a spin-liquid phase for the Hubbard model on the honeycomb lattice at half-filling (Meng et al 2010 Nature88 487), we apply both perturbative and non-perturbative techniques to derive effective spin Hamiltonians describing the low-energy physics of the Mott-insulating phase of the system. Exact diagonalizations of the so-derived models on small clusters are performed, in order to assess the quality of the effective low-energy theory in the spin-liquid regime. We show that six-spin interactions on the elementary loop of the honeycomb lattice are the dominant sub-leading effective couplings. A minimal spin model is shown to reproduce most of the energetic properties of the Hubbard model on the honeycomb lattice in its spin-liquid phase. Surprisingly, a more elaborate effective low-energy spin model obtained by a systematic graph expansion rather disagrees beyond a certain point with the numerical results for the Hubbard model at intermediate couplings.

We present results from a study of the nonlinear inter-modal coupling between different flexural vibrational modes of a single high-stress, doubly-clamped silicon nitride nanomechanical beam. Using the magnetomotive technique and working at 100 mK we explored the nonlinear behaviour and modal couplings of the first, third and fifth modes of a 25.5 μm long beam. We find very good agreement between our results and a simple analytical model which assumes that the different modes of the resonator are coupled to each other by displacement induced tension in the beam. The small size of our resonator leads to relatively strong nonlinear couplings, for example we find a shift of about 7 Hz in the third mode for a 1 nm displacement in the first mode and frequency shifts ∼ 20 times larger than the linewidth (130 Hz) are readily observed.

We show that laser-assisted hopping of hard-core bosons in a square optical lattice can be described by an antiferromagnetic J₁–J₂XY model with a tunable ratio of J₂/J₁. We numerically investigated the phase diagram of the J₁–J₂XY model using both the tensor network algorithm for infinite systems and the exact diagonalization for small clusters and found strong evidence that in the intermediate region around J₂/J₁ ∼ 0.5, there is a spin liquid phase with vanishing magnetization and valence bond orders, which interconnects the Néel state on the J₂ ≪ J₁ side and the stripe antiferromagnetic phase on the J₂ ≫ J₁ side. This finding opens up the possibility of studying the exotic spin liquid phase in a realistic experimental system using ultracold atoms in an optical lattice.

We numerically calculate the forms and frequencies of mechanical whispering-gallery modes in silica shells. Such modes were recently experimentally observed in water-filled optomechanical resonators, which constitute a bridge between optomechanics and microfluidics. We consider the three acoustic mode families of Rayleigh–Lamb waves, longitudinal waves and Love waves. Our study shows that these acoustic modes have rich velocity dispersion characteristics and can create considerable deformation of the inner surface of the shells. In this manner, a novel optomechanical interaction may be facilitated between fluids and light.

Recently, there has been much interest in optomechanical devices for the production of macroscopic quantum states. Here we focus on a proposed scheme for achieving macroscopic superpositions via nested interferometry. We consider the effects of finite temperature on the superposition produced. We also investigate in detail the scheme's feasibility for probing various novel decoherence mechanisms.

In contrast to semiconductor structures, the experimentally observed plasma resonances in graphene show an asymmetrical and rather broad linewidth. We show that this can be explained by the linear electron energy dispersion in this material and is related to the violation of the generalized Kohn theorem in graphene.

Quantum computers can in principle simulate quantum physics exponentially faster than their classical counterparts, but some technical hurdles remain. We propose methods which substantially improve the performance of a particular form of simulation, ab initio quantum chemistry, on fault-tolerant quantum computers; these methods generalize readily to other quantum simulation problems. Quantum teleportation plays a key role in these improvements and is used extensively as a computing resource. To improve execution time, we examine techniques for constructing arbitrary gates which perform substantially faster than circuits based on the conventional Solovay–Kitaev algorithm (Dawson and Nielsen 2006 Quantum Inform. Comput.6 81). For a given approximation error , arbitrary single-qubit gates can be produced fault-tolerantly and using a restricted set of gates in time which is O(log ) or O(log log ); with sufficient parallel preparation of ancillas, constant average depth is possible using a method we call programmable ancilla rotations. Moreover, we construct and analyze efficient implementations of first- and second-quantized simulation algorithms using the fault-tolerant arbitrary gates and other techniques, such as implementing various subroutines in constant time. A specific example we analyze is the ground-state energy calculation for lithium hydride.

The dynamics of networks of interacting systems depends intricately on the interaction topology. When the dynamics is explored, generally the whole topology has to be considered. However, here we show that there are certain mesoscale subgraphs that have precise and distinct consequences for the system-level dynamics. In particular, if mesoscale symmetries are present then eigenvectors of the Jacobian localize on the symmetric subgraph and the corresponding eigenvalues become insensitive to the topology outside the subgraph. Hence, dynamical instabilities associated with these eigenvalues can be analysed without considering the topology of the embedding network. While such instabilities are thus generated entirely in small subgraphs, they generally do not remain confined to the subgraph once the instability sets in and thus have system-level consequences. Here we illustrate the analytical investigation of such instabilities in an ecological metapopulation model consisting of a network of delay-coupled delay oscillators.

Resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) is a spectroscopic technique that has been widely used to study various elementary excitations in correlated and other condensed matter systems. For strongly correlated materials, besides boosting the overall signal the dependence of the resonant profile on incident photon energy is still not fully understood. Previous endeavors in connecting indirect RIXS, such as Cu K-edge where scattering takes place only via the core–hole created as an intermediate state, with the charge dynamical structure factor S(q,ω) neglected complicated dependence on the intermediate state configuration. To resolve this issue, we performed an exact diagonalization study of the RIXS cross-section using the single-band Hubbard model by fully addressing the intermediate state contribution. Our results are relevant to indirect RIXS in correlated materials, such as high-T_c cuprates. We demonstrate that RIXS spectra can be reduced to S(q,ω) when there is no screening channel for the core–hole potential in the intermediate state. We also show that two-magnon excitations are highlighted at the resonant photon energy when the core–hole potential in the corresponding intermediate state is poorly screened. Our results demonstrate that different elementary excitations can be emphasized at different intermediate states, such that selecting the exact incident energy is critical when trying to capture a particular elementary excitation.

In order to analyze an information theoretical derivation of Tsirelson's bound based on information causality, we introduce a generalized mutual information (GMI), defined as the optimal coding rate of a channel with classical inputs and general probabilistic outputs. In the case where the outputs are quantum, the GMI coincides with the quantum mutual information. In general, the GMI does not necessarily satisfy the chain rule. We prove that Tsirelson's bound can be derived by imposing the chain rule on the GMI. We formulate a principle, which we call the no-supersignaling condition, which states that the assistance of nonlocal correlations does not increase the capability of classical communication. We prove that this condition is equivalent to the no-signaling condition. As a result, we show that Tsirelson's bound is implied by the nonpositivity of the quantitative difference between information causality and no-supersignaling.

We introduce a one-dimensional system of fermionic atoms in an optical lattice whose phase diagram includes topological states of different symmetry classes with a simple possibility to switch between them. The states and topological phase transitions between them can be identified by looking at their zero-energy edge modes which are Majorana fermions. We propose several universal methods of detecting the Majorana edge states, based on their genuine features: the zero-energy, localized character of the wave functions and the induced non-local fermionic correlations.

We describe a cryogenic cavity-optomechanical system that combines Si₃N₄ membranes with a mechanically rigid Fabry–Perot cavity. The extremely high products of quality factor and frequency of the membranes allow us to cool a MHz mechanical mode to a phonon occupation of $\bar {n} < 10$, starting at a bath temperature of 5 K. We show that even at cold temperatures thermally occupied mechanical modes of the cavity elements can be a limitation, and we discuss methods to reduce these effects sufficiently for achieving ground state cooling. This promising new platform should have versatile uses for hybrid devices and searches for radiation pressure shot noise.

Extreme responses of a droplet ensemble during an entrainment and mixing process as present at the edge of a cloud are investigated by means of three-dimensional direct numerical simulations in the Euler–Lagrangian framework. We find that the Damköhler number Da, a dimensionless parameter which relates the fluid time scale to the typical evaporation time scale, can capture all aspects of the initial mixing process within the range of parameters accessible in this study. The mixing process is characterized by the limits of strongly homogeneous (Da ≪ 1) and strongly inhomogeneous (Da ≫ 1) regimes. We explore these two extreme regimes and study the response of the droplet size distribution to the corresponding parameter settings through an enhancement and reduction of the response constant K in the droplet growth equation. Thus, Da is varied while Reynolds and Schmidt numbers are held fixed, and initial microphysical properties are held constant. In the homogeneous limit minimal broadening of the size distribution is observed as the new steady state is reached, whereas in the inhomogeneous limit the size distribution develops strong negative skewness, with the appearance of a pronounced exponential tail. The analysis in the Lagrangian framework allows us to relate the pronounced negative tail of the supersaturation distribution to that of the size distribution.

We study a frustrated two-dimensional array of dipoles forming an artificial rectangular spin ice with horizontal and vertical lattice parameters given by a and b respectively. We show that the ice regime could be stabilized by appropriate choices for the ratio γ ≡ a/b. Our results show that for $\gamma \approx \sqrt {3}$, i.e. when the centers of the islands form a triangular lattice, the ground state becomes degenerate. Therefore, while the magnetic charges (monopoles) are excitations connected by an energetic string for general rectangular lattices (including the particular case of a square lattice), they are practically free to move for a special rectangular lattice with $\gamma \approx \sqrt {3}$. Besides that, our results show that for $\gamma > \sqrt {3}$ the system is highly anisotropic in such a way that, even for this range out of the ice regime, the string tension almost vanishes along a particular direction of the array. We also discuss the ground state transition and some thermodynamic properties of the system.

Supercooled liquids are characterized by relaxation times that increase dramatically by cooling or compression. From a single assumption follows a scaling law according to which the relaxation time is a function of h(ρ) over temperature, where ρ is the density and the function h(ρ) depends on the liquid in question. This scaling is demonstrated to work well for simulations of the Kob–Andersen binary Lennard-Jones mixture and two molecular models, as well as for the experimental results for two van der Waals liquids, dibutyl phthalate and decahydroisoquinoline. The often used power-law density scaling, h(ρ)∝ρ^γ, is an approximation to the more general form of scaling discussed here. A thermodynamic derivation was previously given for an explicit expression for h(ρ) for liquids of particles interacting via the generalized Lennard-Jones potential. Here a statistical mechanics derivation is given, and the prediction is shown to agree very well with simulations over large density changes. Our findings effectively reduce the problem of understanding the viscous slowing down from being a quest for a function of two variables to a search for a single-variable function.

We demonstrate a cryogenic optomechanical system comprising a flexible Si₃N₄ membrane placed at the center of a free-space optical cavity in a 400 mK cryogenic environment. We observe a mechanical quality factor Q > 4 × 10⁶ for the 261 kHz fundamental drum-head mode of the membrane, and a cavity resonance halfwidth of 60 kHz. The optomechanical system therefore operates in the resolved sideband limit. We monitor the membrane's thermal motion using a heterodyne optical circuit capable of simultaneously measuring both of the mechanical sidebands, and find that the observed optical spring and damping quantitatively agree with theory. The mechanical sidebands exhibit a Fano lineshape, and to explain this we develop a theory describing heterodyne measurements in the presence of correlated classical laser noise. Finally, we discuss the use of a passive filter cavity to remove classical laser noise, and consider the future requirements for laser cooling this relatively large and low-frequency mechanical element to very near its quantum mechanical ground state.

We have performed numerical simulations of inertial particles in random model flows in the white-noise limit (at zero Kubo number, Ku = 0) and at finite Kubo numbers. Our results for the moments of relative inertial-particle velocities are in good agreement with recent theoretical results (Gustavsson and Mehlig 2011a) based on the formation of phase-space singularities in the inertial-particle dynamics (caustics). We discuss the relation between three recent approaches describing the dynamics and spatial distribution of inertial particles suspended in turbulent flows: caustic formation, real-space singularities of the deformation tensor and random uncorrelated motion. We discuss how the phase- and real-space singularities are related. Their formation is well understood in terms of a local theory. We summarise the implications for random uncorrelated motion.

We investigate the equilibration and thermalization properties of quantum systems interacting with a finite-dimensional environment. By exploiting the concept of time-averaged states, we introduce a completely positive map which allows us to describe in a quantitative way the dependence of the equilibrium state on the initial condition. Our results show that the thermalization of quantum systems is favored if the dynamics induces small system–environment correlations, as well as small changes in the environment, as measured by the trace distance.

We study a passively mode-locked semiconductor ring laser subject to optical feedback from an external mirror. Using a delay differential equation model for the mode-locked laser, we are able to systematically investigate the resonance effects of the inter-spike interval time of the laser and the roundtrip time of the light in the external cavity (delay time) for intermediate and long delay times. We observe synchronization plateaus following the ordering of the well-known Farey sequence. Our results show that in agreement with the experimental results a reduction of the timing jitter is possible if the delay time is chosen close to an integer multiple of the inter-spike interval time of the laser without external feedback. Outside the main resonant regimes the timing jitter is drastically increased by the feedback.

We report on the engineering of the phonon dispersion diagram in monodomain anodic porous alumina (APA) films through the porosity and physical state of the material residing in the nanopores. Lattice symmetry and inclusion materials are theoretically identified to be the main factors which control the hypersonic acoustic wave propagation. This involves the interaction between the longitudinal and the transverse modes in the effective medium and a flat band characteristic of the material residing in the cavities. Air and filled nanopores, therefore, display markedly different dispersion relations and the inclusion materials lead to a locally resonant structural behavior uniquely determining their properties under confinement. APA films emerge as a new platform to investigate the rich acoustic phenomena of structured composite matter.

We systematically study the presence of narrow spectral features in a wide variety of random laser samples. Less gain or stronger scattering are shown to lead to a crossover from spiky to smooth spectra. A decomposition of random laser spectra into a set of Lorentzians provides unprecedented detail in the analysis of random laser spectra. We suggest an interpretation in terms of mode competition that enables an understanding of the observed experimental trends. In this interpretation, smooth random laser spectra are a consequence of competing modes for which the loss and gain are proportional. Spectral spikes are associated with modes that are uncoupled from the mode competition in the bulk of the sample.

On the basis of relativistic ab initio calculations, we show that an expansion of van der Waal's (vdW) spacings in layered topological insulators caused by intercalation of deposited atoms, leads to the simultaneous emergence of parabolic and M-shaped two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) bands as well as Rashba-splitting of the former states. The expansion of vdW spacings and the emergence of the 2DEG states localized in the (sub)surface region are also accompanied by a relocation of the topological surface state to the lower quintuple layers, that can explain the absence of inter-band scattering found experimentally.

We have studied the geometries, formation energies, migration barriers and diffusion of a copper interstitial with different charge states with and without an external electric field in the α-cristobalite crystalline form of SiO₂ using ab initio computer simulation. The most stable state almost throughout the band gap is charge q = + 1. The height of the migration barrier depends slightly on the charge state and varies between 0.11 and 0.18 eV. However, the charge has a strong influence on the shape of the barrier, as metastable states exist in the middle of the diffusion path for Cu with q = + 1. The heights and shapes of barriers also depend on the density of SiO₂, because volume expansion has a similar effect to increase the positive charge on Cu. Furthermore, diffusion coefficients have been deduced from our calculations according to transition-state theory and these calculations confirm the experimental result that oxidation of Cu is a necessary condition for diffusion. Our molecular dynamics simulations show a similar ion diffusion, and dependence on charge state. These simulations also confirm the fact that diffusion of ions can be directly simulated using ab initio molecular dynamics.

Electron beam-induced deposition with tungsten hexacarbonyl W(CO)₆ as precursors leads to granular deposits with varying compositions of tungsten, carbon and oxygen. Depending on the deposition conditions, the deposits are insulating or metallic. We employ an evolutionary algorithm to predict the crystal structures starting from a series of chemical compositions that were determined experimentally. We show that this method leads to better structures than structural relaxation based on estimated initial structures. We approximate the expected amorphous structures by reasonably large unit cells that can accommodate local structural environments that resemble the true amorphous structure. Our predicted structures show an insulator-to-metal transition close to the experimental composition at which this transition is actually observed and they also allow comparison with experimental electron diffraction patterns.

A careful analysis of the magneto-transport properties of epitaxial nanostructured Nb thin films in the normal and the mixed state is performed. The nanopatterns were prepared by focused ion beam (FIB) milling. They provide a washboard-like pinning potential landscape for vortices in the mixed state and simultaneously cause a resistivity anisotropy in the normal state. Two matching magnetic fields for the vortex lattice with the underlying nanostructures have been observed. By applying these fields, the most likely pinning sites along which the flux lines move through the samples have been selected. By this, either the background isotropic pinning of the pristine film or the enhanced isotropic pinning originating from the nanoprocessing have been probed. Via an Arrhenius analysis of the resistivity data the pinning activation energies for three vortex lattice parameters have been quantified. The changes in the electrical transport and the pinning properties have been correlated with the results of the microstructural and topographical characterization of the FIB-patterned samples. Accordingly, along with the surface processing, FIB milling has been found to alter the material composition and the degree of disorder in as-grown films. The obtained results provide further insight into the pinning mechanisms at work in FIB-nanopatterned superconductors, e.g. for fluxonic applications.

We study experimentally and theoretically the controlled field evaporation of single atoms from a semiconductor surface by ultrafast laser-assisted atom probe tomography. The conventional physical mechanisms of field evaporation cannot explain the experimental results recently reported for such materials. A new model is presented in which the positive dc field leads to band bending with a high density of laser-generated holes near the surface of the sample. The laser energy absorption by these holes and the subsequent energy transfer to the lattice considerably increase the tip temperature. We show that this heating plays an important role in the field ion emission process. In addition, experiments are carried out for germanium and silicon tips to check the role of the dc field in the absorption processes, as well as the heating of the tip and the following evaporation. Good agreement between the predictions of our model and the experimental data is found.

The Born rule is at the foundation of quantum mechanics and transforms the classical understanding of probabilities by predicting that interference occurs between pairs of independent paths of a single object. One consequence of the Born rule is that three-way (or three-path) quantum interference does not exist. In order to test the consistency of the Born rule, we examine detection probabilities in three-path interference using an ensemble of spin-1/2 quantum registers in liquid state nuclear magnetic resonance. As a measure of the consistency, we evaluate the ratio of three-way interference to two-way interference. Our experiment bounded the ratio to the order of 10⁻³ ± 10⁻³, and hence it is consistent with Born's rule.

The coercive field statistics in FePt nanostructures reveals the existence of multiple switching probability sub-distributions that can be asymmetric with respect to the field orientation. Each sub-distribution is correlated with an individual magnetization reversal path whose selection cannot happen at the magnetization reversal in negative (positive) field but rather at the moment of applying the initial positive (negative) magnetic field. This serves to determine the reference magnetic state from which reversal in negative (positive) field will develop. The disappearance of the asymmetric sub-distributions upon increasing the initial magnetic field μ₀H_max supports this model. However, the sub-distributions remaining at high μ₀H_max are not necessarily those characterized by the highest coercive field. This is attributed to the fact that the initial magnetization state hierarchy and the coercive field hierarchy are essentially decorrelated.

Collective excitations in nano-plasmas are described by dynamical bi-local auto-correlation functions. These excitations, which are related to the plasmon excitations in bulk plasmas, arise in the classical as well as the quantum regime. Instead of the wave-vector-dependent dynamical structure factor, which is not well defined in finite systems, two different signatures are considered to characterize collective excitations: the bi-local particle density correlation function and the bi-local current density correlation function. The relation between both signatures is not as trivial as in the homogeneous case and is given here. Exemplary calculations are performed for expanding nearly spherical clusters of sodium atoms after excitation by a high-intensity short pulse laser beam. The lowest collective excitations obtained in the classical regime using molecular dynamics simulations agree well with the lowest collective excitations obtained from quantum calculations using fluid dynamics. The energy, damping and structure of the lowest collective modes are given. The dynamical bi-local correlation functions are of relevance for the optical properties, in particular the determination of photo absorption coefficients of nano-plasmas.

During the coherent diffraction imaging (CDI) of a single object with an intense x-ray free-electron laser (FEL) pulse, the structure of the object changes due to the progressing radiation damage. Electrons are released from atoms and ions during photo-, Auger- and collisional ionization processes. More and more ions appear in the sample. The repulsive force between ions makes them move apart. Form factors of the created ions are reduced when compared with the atomic form factors. Additional scattering of energetic photons from the free electrons confined within the beam focus deteriorates the obtained diffractive signal. Here, we consider pulses short enough to neglect ionic movement and investigate how (i) the decrease of atomic form factors due to the progressing ionization of the sample and (ii) the scattering from the free electrons influence the signal obtained during the CDI. We quantify the loss of structural information about the object due to these effects with hydrodynamic simulations. Our study has implications for the experiments planned on high-resolution three-dimensional imaging of single reproducible particles with x-ray FELs.

We present a complete polarization characterization of any quantum state of two orthogonal polarization modes and give a systematic measurement procedure to collect the necessary data. Full characterization requires measurements of the photon number in both modes and linear optics. In the case where only the photon-number difference can be determined, a limited but useful characterization is obtained. The characteristic Stokes moment profiles are given for several common quantum states.

We present a double-ring-chain metamaterial that enables efficient polarization conversion of terahertz waves. The experimental results and numerical simulations reveal that the linear-to-linear polarization rotation and linear-to-elliptic polarization transformation are simply accomplished by altering the dimensional parameters of the metamaterial unit cells. The polarization state conversion is found to be critically related to the resonant properties of the long bars and the rings in the unit geometries and is well described by the Jones matrix. This approach promises both passive and active polarization conversion of terahertz radiation using planar metamaterials.

Collective cell migration is an important feature of wound healing, as well as embryonic and tumor development. The origin of collective cell migration is mainly intercellular interactions through effects such as a line tension preventing cells from detaching from the boundary. In contrast, in this study, we show for the first time that the formation of a constant cell front of a monolayer can also be maintained by the dynamics of the underlying migrating single cells. Ballistic motion enables the maintenance of the integrity of the sheet, while a slowed down dynamics and glass-like behavior cause jamming of cells at the front when two monolayers—even of the same cell type—meet. By employing a velocity autocorrelation function to investigate the cell dynamics in detail, we found a compressed exponential decay as described by the Kohlrausch–William–Watts function of the form $C(\delta x)_{t} \sim \exp {(-(x/x_{0}(t))^{\beta (t)})}$, with 1.5 ⩽ β(t) ⩽ 1.8. This clearly shows that although migrating cells are an active, non-equilibrium system, the cell monolayer behaves in a glass-like way, which requires jamming as a part of intercellular interactions. Since it is the dynamics which determine the integrity of the cell sheet and its front for weakly interacting cells, it becomes evident why changes of the migratory behavior during epithelial to mesenchymal transition can result in the escape of single cells and metastasis.

Cross-linked polymer networks with orientational order constitute a wide class of soft materials and are relevant to biological systems (e.g., F-actin bundles). We analytically study the nonlinear force–extension relation of an array of parallel-aligned, strongly stretched semiflexible polymers with random cross-links. In the strong stretching limit, the effect of the cross-links is purely entropic, independent of the bending rigidity of the chains. Cross-links enhance the differential stretching stiffness of the bundle. For hard cross-links, the cross-link contribution to the force–extension relation scales inversely proportional to the force. Its dependence on the cross-link density, close to the gelation transition, is the same as that of the shear modulus. The qualitative behaviour is captured by a toy model of two chains with a single cross-link in the middle.

We present a theoretical quasi-classical study of the formation, during Coulomb explosion, of two highly excited neutral H atoms (double H*) of strongly driven H₂. In this process, after the laser field is turned off each electron occupies a Rydberg state of an H atom. We identify the route for forming two H* atoms and show that two-electron effects are important. We also find that both ionization steps are 'frustrated' in double H* formation, whereas only one ionization step is 'frustrated' for both the routes leading to single H* formation, as was shown by Emmanouilidou et al (2012 Phys. Rev. A 85 011402). Moreover, we compute the screened nuclear charge that drives the explosion of the nuclei during double H* formation.

The loss of coherence is one of the main obstacles for the implementation of quantum information processing. The efficiency of dynamical decoupling schemes, which have been introduced to address this problem, is limited itself by the fluctuations in the driving fields which will themselves introduce noise. We address this challenge by introducing the concept of concatenated continuous dynamical decoupling, which can overcome not only external magnetic noise but also noise due to fluctuations in driving fields. We show theoretically that this approach can achieve relaxation limited coherence times, and demonstrate experimentally that already the most basic implementation of this concept yields an order of magnitude improvement to the decoherence time for the electron spin of nitrogen vacancy centers in diamond. The proposed scheme can be applied to a wide variety of other physical systems, including trapped atoms and ions and quantum dots, and may be combined with other quantum technologies challenges such as quantum sensing and quantum information processing.

Frequency discrimination is a fundamental task of the auditory system. The mammalian inner ear, or cochlea, provides a place code in which different frequencies are detected at different spatial locations. However, a temporal code based on spike timing is also available: action potentials evoked in an auditory-nerve fiber by a low-frequency tone occur at a preferred phase of the stimulus—they exhibit phase locking—and thus provide temporal information about the tone's frequency. Humans employ this temporal information for discrimination of low frequencies. How might such temporal information be read out in the brain? Here we employ statistical and numerical methods to demonstrate that recurrent random neural networks in which connections between neurons introduce characteristic time delays, and in which neurons require temporally coinciding inputs for spike initiation, can perform sharp frequency discrimination when stimulated with phase-locked inputs. Although the frequency resolution achieved by such networks is limited by the noise in phase locking, the resolution for realistic values reaches the tiny frequency difference of 0.2% that has been measured in humans.

Strongly correlated quantum fluids are phases of matter that are intrinsically quantum mechanical and that do not have a simple description in terms of weakly interacting quasiparticles. Two systems that have recently attracted a great deal of interest are the quark–gluon plasma, a plasma of strongly interacting quarks and gluons produced in relativistic heavy ion collisions, and ultracold atomic Fermi gases, very dilute clouds of atomic gases confined in optical or magnetic traps. These systems differ by 19 orders of magnitude in temperature, but were shown to exhibit very similar hydrodynamic flows. In particular, both fluids exhibit a robustly low shear viscosity to entropy density ratio, which is characteristic of quantum fluids described by holographic duality, a mapping from strongly correlated quantum field theories to weakly curved higher dimensional classical gravity. This review explores the connection between these fields, and also serves as an introduction to the focus issue of New Journal of Physics on 'Strongly Correlated Quantum Fluids: From Ultracold Quantum Gases to Quantum Chromodynamic Plasmas'. The presentation is accessible to the general physics reader and includes discussions of the latest research developments in all three areas.

The heterostructures of (zinc-blende)–CdTe/(rock-salt)–PbTe are typically found to have their common cubic axes aligned to each other, as in the case of PbTe quantum dots embedded in a CdTe matrix. In this work, we perform both theoretical and experimental studies on the CdTe/PbTe heterostructure in a different geometry: a planar CdTe/PbTe (111) heterostructure. We simulate the epitaxial growth of CdTe (PbTe) on the (111) PbTe (CdTe) substrate, using a density-functional theory. A twisted CdTe/PbTe (111) interface structure has been predicted in the layer-by-layer epitaxial growth on the (111) substrate, in contrast to the non-twisted CdTe/PbTe (111) interface reported in the literature. This predicted structure has been confirmed experimentally in the heterostructure grown by molecular beam epitaxy, using a high-resolution transmission electron microscope. The twisted interface has a lower binding energy than the non-twisted one, indicating that the twisted structure is a metastable phase formed in the non-equilibrium growth process. Additionally, the interface reconstructions of the CdTe/PbTe (111) heterostructure observed by reflection high-energy electron diffraction are explained using the twisted interface model.

We investigate the complexity cost of demonstrating the key types of nonclassical correlations—Bell inequality violation, Einstein, Podolsky, Rosen (EPR)-steering, and entanglement—with independent agents, theoretically and in a photonic experiment. We show that the complexity cost exhibits a hierarchy among these three tasks, mirroring the recently discovered hierarchy for how robust they are to noise. For Bell inequality violations, the simplest test is the well-known Clauser–Horne–Shimony–Holt test, but for EPR-steering and entanglement the tests that involve the fewest number of detection patterns require nonprojective measurements. The simplest EPR-steering test requires a choice of projective measurement for one agent and a single nonprojective measurement for the other, while the simplest entanglement test uses just a single nonprojective measurement for each agent. In both of these cases, we derive our inequalities using the concept of circular two-designs. This leads to the interesting feature that in our photonic demonstrations, the correlation of interest is independent of the angle between the linear polarizers used by the two parties, which thus require no alignment.

The thermal noise associated with mechanical dissipation is a ubiquitous limitation to the sensitivity of precision experiments ranging from frequency stabilization to gravitational wave interferometry. We report on the thermal noise limits to the performance of 1 gm mirror oscillators that are part of a cavity optomechanics experiment to observe quantum radiation pressure noise. Thermal noise limits the observed cavity displacement spectrum from 80 Hz to 5 kHz. We present a calculation of the thermal noise, based on finite element analysis of the dissipation due to structural damping, and find it to be in excellent agreement with the experimental result. We conclude with the predicted thermal noise for an improved oscillator design, which should be capable of revealing the noise that arises from quantum backaction in this system.

The dynamics of the medium within a collapsing and rebounding cavitation bubble is investigated by means of molecular dynamics (MD) simulations adopting a hard sphere model for the species inside the bubble. The dynamics of the surrounding liquid (water) is modelled using a Rayleigh–Plesset (RP)-type equation coupled to the bubble interior by the gas pressure at the wall obtained from the MD calculations. Water vapour and vapour chemistry are included in the RP-MD model as well as mass and energy transfer through the bubble wall. The calculations reveal the evolution of temperature, density and pressure within a bubble at conditions typical of single-bubble sonoluminescence and predict how the particle numbers and densities of different vapour dissociation and reaction products in the bubble develop in space and time. Among the parameters varied are the sound pressure amplitude of a sonoluminescence bubble in water, the noble gas mixture in the bubble and the accommodation coefficients for mass and energy exchange through the bubble wall. Simulation particle numbers up to 10 million are used; most calculations, however, are performed with one million particles to save computer run time. Validation of the MD code was done by comparing MD results with solutions obtained by continuum mechanics calculations for the Euler equations.

Born–Oppenheimer and Franck–Condon approximations are two major concepts in the interpretation of electronic excitations and modeling of spectroscopic data in the gas and condensed phases. We report large variations of the anisotropy parameter (β) for the fully resolved vibrational sub-states of the X²Π_g electronic ground state of O⁺₂ populated by participator resonant Auger decay following excitations of K-shell electrons into the σ^☆ resonance by monochromatic x-rays. Decay spectra for light polarization directions parallel and perpendicular to the electron detection axis recorded at four different excitation energies in the vicinity of the O 1s → σ^☆ transition are presented. Breakdown of the Born–Oppenheimer approximation is for the first time selectively observed for the lower vibrational sub-states, where two quantum paths—resonant and direct—leading to the same final cationic state exist. The higher vibrational sub-states can only be populated by resonant photoemission; hence no interference between these channels can occur.

We show that topological frequency band structures emerge in two-dimensional electromagnetic lattices of metamaterial components without the application of an external magnetic field. The topological nature of the band structure manifests itself by the occurrence of exceptional points in the band structure or by the emergence of one-way guided modes. Based on an electromagnetic network with nearly flat frequency bands of nontrivial topology, we propose a coupled-cavity lattice made of superconducting transmission lines and cavity QED components, which is described by the Jaynes–Cummings–Hubbard model and can serve as a simulator of the fractional quantum Hall effect.

We present a method for reconstructing the average evolution of the photon number distribution of a field decaying in a high-Q cavity. It applies an iterative maximum likelihood state reconstruction algorithm to the diagonal elements of the field density operator. It is based on quantum non-demolition measurements carried out with atoms crossing the cavity one by one. A small set of successively detected atoms defines a positive operator valued measure (POVM). The reconstruction is performed by applying this POVM to a large ensemble of field realizations. An optimal POVM based on the detection of a minimal number of atoms is shown to be sufficient to ensure an unambiguous convergence of the reconstruction. The cavity crossing time of this minimal number of atoms must be much shorter than the lifetime of the largest photon number present in the field. We apply the method to monitor the evolution of number states prepared by quantum feedback in a recent experiment. The method could also be useful in circuit QED experiments.

The two-dimensional cluster state, a universal resource for measurement-based quantum computation, is also the gapped ground state of a short-ranged Hamiltonian. Here, we examine the effect of perturbations to this Hamiltonian. We prove that, provided the perturbation is sufficiently small and respects a certain symmetry, the perturbed ground state remains a universal resource. We do this by characterizing the operation of an adaptive measurement protocol throughout a suitable symmetry-protected quantum phase, relying on generic properties of the phase rather than any analytic control over the ground state.

Coherence simplices are generic topological correlation-function defects supported by a hierarchy of coherence functions. We classify coherence simplices based on their topology and discuss their structure and dynamics, together with their relevance to several physical systems.

We consider the four-dimensional (4D) abelian topological BF theory with a planar boundary, following Symanzik's method. We find the most general boundary conditions compatible with the field equations broken by the boundary. The residual gauge invariance is described by means of two Ward identities which generate a current algebra. We interpret this algebra as canonical commutation relations of fields, which we use to construct a 3D Lagrangian. As a remarkable by-product, we find a (unique) boundary condition which can be read as a duality relation between 3D dynamical variables.

The chiral component of the Casimir–Polder potential is derived within the framework of macroscopic quantum electrodynamics. It is shown to exist only if the particle and the medium are both chiral. Furthermore, the chiral component of the Casimir–Polder potential can be attractive or repulsive, depending on the chirality of the molecule and the medium. The theory is applied to a cavity geometry in the non-retarded limit with the intention of enantiomer separation. For a ground state molecule the chiral component is dominated by the electric component and thus no explicit separation will happen. If the molecule is initially in an excited state the electric component of the Casimir–Polder force can be suppressed by an appropriate choice of material and the chiral component can select the molecule based on its chirality, allowing enantiomeric separation to occur.

We study stationary states for the nonlinear Schrödinger equation on Fibonacci lattices, which are expected to be realized by Bose–Einstein condensates loaded into an optical lattice. When the model does not have a nonlinear term, the wavefunctions and the spectrum are known to show fractal structures. Such wavefunctions are termed critical. We present a phase diagram of the energy spectrum for varying the nonlinearity. It consists of three portions: a forbidden region, the spectrum of critical states and the spectrum of stationary solitons. We show that the energy spectrum of critical states remains intact, irrespective of the nonlinearity in the large number of stationary solitons.

A central problem in quantum information is to determine the minimal physical resources that are required for quantum computational speed-up and, in particular, for fault-tolerant quantum computation. We establish a remarkable connection between the potential for quantum speed-up and the onset of negative values in a distinguished quasi-probability representation, a discrete analogue of the Wigner function for quantum systems of odd dimension. This connection allows us to resolve an open question on the existence of bound states for magic state distillation: we prove that there exist mixed states outside the convex hull of stabilizer states that cannot be distilled to non-stabilizer target states using stabilizer operations. We also provide an efficient simulation protocol for Clifford circuits that extends to a large class of mixed states, including bound universal states.

Our recent paper (Tamburini et al 2012 New J. Phys.14 033001), which presented results from outdoor experiments that demonstrate that it is physically feasible to simultaneously transmit different states of the newly recognized electromagnetic (EM) quantity orbital angular momentum (OAM) at radio frequencies into the far zone and to identify these states there, has led to a comment (Tamagnone et al 2012 New J. Phys.14 118001). These authors discuss whether our investigations can be regarded as a particular implementation of the multiple-input–multiple-output (MIMO) technique. Clearly, our experimental confirmation of a theoretical prediction, first made almost a century ago (Abraham 1914 Phys. Z.XV 914–8), that the total EM angular momentum (a pseudovector of dimension length × mass × velocity) can propagate over huge distances, is essentially different from—and conceptually incompatible with—the fact that there exist engineering techniques that can enhance the spectral capacity of EM linear momentum (an ordinary vector of dimension mass × velocity). Our OAM experiments (Tamburini et al 2012 New J. Phys.14 033001; Tamburini et al 2011 Appl. Phys. Lett.99 204102–3) confirm the availability of a new physical layer for real-world radio communications based on EM rotational degrees of freedom. The next step is to develop new protocols and techniques for high spectral density on this new physical layer. This includes MIMO-like and other, more efficient, techniques.

We show that the public experiment held in Venice by Tamburini et al and reported in 2012 New J. Phys.14 033001 can be regarded as a particular implementation of multiple-input–multiple-output (MIMO) communications and, therefore, has no advantages over established techniques. Moreover, we explain that the use of a 'vortex' mode (orbital angular momentum ℓ = 1) at one of the transmit antennas is not necessary to encode different channels since only different patterns—or similarly different pointing angles—of the transmit antennas are required. Finally, we identify why this MIMO transmission allowed the decoding of two signals, despite being line-of-sight. This is due to the large separation between the receiving antennas, which places the transmit antennas in the near-field Fresnel region of the receiving 'array'. This severely limits the application of this technique in practice, since, for a fixed separation between receiving antennas, the detectable signal power from any additional vortex mode decays at least as 1/r⁴.

We study theoretically the effects of disorder on Bose–Einstein condensates (BEC) of bosonic triplon quasiparticles in doped dimerized quantum magnets. The condensation occurs in a magnetic field, where the concentration of bosons in the random potential is sufficient to form the condensate. The effect of doping is partly modeled by a δ-correlated distribution of impurities, which (i) leads to a uniform renormalization of the system parameters and (ii) produces disorder in the system with renormalized parameters. This approach can explain qualitatively the available magnetization data on the Tl_1−xK_xCuCl₃ compound taken as an example. In addition to the magnetization, we found that the speed of the Bogoliubov mode has a maximum as a function of x. No evidence of the pure Bose glass phase has been found in the BEC regime.

FERMI@Elettra is a free electron-laser (FEL)-based user facility that, after two years of commissioning, started preliminary users' dedicated runs in 2011. At variance with other FEL user facilities, FERMI@Elettra has been designed to deliver improved spectral stability and longitudinal coherence. The adopted scheme, which uses an external laser to initiate the FEL process, has been demonstrated to be capable of generating FEL pulses close to the Fourier transform limit. We report on the first instance of FEL wavelength tuning, both in a narrow and in a large spectral range (fine- and coarse-tuning). We also report on two different experiments that have been performed exploiting such FEL tuning. We used fine-tuning to scan across the 1s–4p resonance in He atoms, at ≈23.74 eV (52.2 nm), detecting both UV–visible fluorescence (4p–2s, 400 nm) and EUV fluorescence (4p–1s, 52.2 nm). We used coarse-tuning to scan the M_4,5 absorption edge of Ge (∼29.5 eV) in the wavelength region 30–60 nm, measured in transmission geometry with a thermopile positioned on the rear side of a Ge thin foil.

Graphene's peculiar electronic band structure makes it of interest for new electronic and spintronic approaches. However, potential applications suffer from quantization effects when the spatial extension reaches the nanoscale. We show by photoelectron spectroscopy on nanoscaled model systems (disc-shaped, planar polyacenes) that the two-dimensional band structure is transformed into discrete states which follow the momentum dependence of the graphene Bloch states. Based on a simple model of quantum wells, we show how the band structure of graphene emerges from localized states, and we compare this result with ab initio calculations which describe the orbital structure.

A π-electronic tight-binding (TB) model with, at most, three independent parameters is found to well fit the density functional theory results about the dispersions of the conduction and valence bands of α-, β-, γ- and (6,6,12)-graphyne. By means of such a toy model, the electron–hole symmetry in these graphynes is demonstrated. An explicit expression of the dispersion relation of α-graphyne is obtained. The position of the Dirac point on a particular Γ–M line in the Brillouin zone of β-graphyne is analytically determined. The absence of Dirac cones in γ-graphyne is intuitively explained. Based on these interesting results, it is believed that this TB model provides a simple but effective theoretical approach for further study of the electronic and transport properties of these typical graphynes.

We use a quantum Monte Carlo method to investigate various classes of two-dimensional spin models with long-range interactions at low temperatures. In particular, we study a dipolar XXZ model with U(1) symmetry that appears as a hard-core boson limit of an extended Hubbard model describing polarized dipolar atoms or molecules in an optical lattice. Tunneling, in such a model, is short-range, whereas density–density couplings decay with distance following a cubic power law. We also investigate an XXZ model with long-range couplings of all three spin components—such a model describes a system of ultracold ions in a lattice of microtraps. We describe an approximate phase diagram for such systems at zero and at finite temperature, and compare their properties. In particular, we compare the extent of crystalline, superfluid and supersolid phases. Our predictions apply directly to current experiments with mesoscopic numbers of polar molecules and trapped ions.

We show that electric-dipole-allowed surface second-harmonic (SH) generation with focused Gaussian beams can be described in terms of Mie-type multipolar contributions to the SH signal. In contrast to the traditional case, where Mie multipoles arise from field retardation across nanoparticles, the multipoles here arise from the confined source volume and the tensorial properties of the SH response. We demonstrate this by measuring strongly asymmetric SH emission into reflected and transmitted directions from a nonlinear thin film with isotropic surface symmetry, where symmetric emission is expected using traditional formalisms based on plane-wave excitation. The proposed multipole approach provides a convenient way to explain the measured asymmetric emission. Our results suggest that the separation of surface and bulk responses, which have dipolar and higher-multipolar character, respectively, may be even more difficult than thought. On the other hand, the multipolar approach may allow tailoring of focal conditions in order to design confined and thin nonlinear sources with desired radiation patterns.

Reliable single photon sources constitute the basis of schemes for quantum communication and measurement based quantum computing. Solid state single photon sources based on quantum dots are convenient and versatile but the electronic transitions that generate the photons are subject to interactions with lattice vibrations. Using a microscopic model of electron–phonon interactions and a quantum master equation, we here examine phonon-induced decoherence and assess its impact on the rate of production, and indistinguishability, of single photons emitted from an optically driven quantum dot system. We find that, above a certain threshold of desired indistinguishability, it is possible to mitigate the deleterious effects of phonons by exploiting a three-level Raman process for photon production.

We investigate adiabatic quantum pumping of ballistic Dirac fermions on the surface of a strong three-dimensional topological insulator. Two different geometries are studied in detail, a normal metal–ferromagnetic–normal metal (NFN) junction and a ferromagnetic–normal metal–ferromagnetic (FNF) junction. Using a scattering matrix approach, we show that each time a new resonant mode appears in the transport window the pumped current exhibits a maximum and provide a detailed analysis of the position of these maxima. We also predict a characteristic difference between the pumped current in NFN- and FNF-junctions: whereas the former vanishes for carriers at normal incidence, the latter is finite due to the different nature of wavefunction interference in the junctions. Finally, we predict an experimentally distinguishable difference between the pumped current and the conductance.

The advent of x-ray free electron lasers offers new opportunities for x-ray scattering (XRS) studies of ultrafast molecular dynamics in liquids, which have so far been limited to the 100 ps resolution of synchrotrons. In particular, anisotropic XRS induced by photoselection, using a linearly polarized pump pulse, can enhance the contrast of the signal from excited molecules against the diffuse background and allows the probing of their vibrational and rotational dynamics. Here, we present a computational approach for calculating transient scattering intensities, based on molecular dynamics simulations. This is applied to the study of the excited state dynamics of molecular iodine dissolved in n-hexane. We report that at short times the transient XRS patterns reflect the evolving vibrational and rotational dynamics of I₂, even when the disordered solvent environment is included. We then use these simulations to derive the anticipated signal-to-noise ratio for a large class of model diatomic systems in solution, indicating that an S/N ⩾1 will be possible from single-shot experiments in weakly scattering solvents.

In the plasmonic regime, an electromagnetic wave bounded to the surface of a conductor can be confined to a region much smaller than its wavelength in free space. A major problem of plasmonic technology, however, is associated with large losses that these surface modes exhibit, intimately linked to Ohmic resistance of metals. In this work, we show that due to their dominant kinetic inductance, superconductors are intriguing yet natural plasmonic media capable of supporting low-loss plasmon waves with extreme confinement and the potential to serve as information carriers in compact terahertz data processing circuits.

Conventional tomographic techniques are becoming increasingly infeasible for reconstructing the operators of quantum devices of growing sophistication. We describe a novel tomographic procedure using coherent states, which begins by reconstructing the diagonals of the operator and then each successive off-diagonal in a recursive manner. Each recursion is considerably more efficient than reconstructing the operator in its entirety, and each successive recursion involves fewer parameters. We apply our technique to reconstruct the positive-operator-valued measure corresponding to a recently developed coherent optical detector with phase sensitivity and number resolution. We discuss the effect of various parameters on the reconstruction accuracy. The results show the efficiency of the method and its robustness to experimental noise.

We study the implementation of quantum state transfer protocols in phonon networks, where, in analogy to optical networks, quantum information is transmitted through propagating phonons in extended mechanical resonator arrays or phonon waveguides. We describe how the problem of a non-vanishing thermal occupation of the phononic quantum channel can be overcome by implementing optomechanical multi- and continuous mode cooling schemes to create a 'cold' frequency window for transmitting quantum states. In addition, we discuss the implementation of phonon circulators and switchable phonon routers, which rely only on strong coherent optomechanical interactions and do not require strong magnetic fields or specific materials. Both techniques can be applied and adapted to various physical implementations, where phonons coupled to spin- or charge-based qubits are used for on-chip networking applications.

We propose a framework for inducing strong optomechanical effects in a suspended carbon nanotube based on deformation potential (DP) exciton–phonon coupling. The excitons are confined using an inhomogeneous axial electric field which generates optically active quantum dots with a level spacing in the milli-electronvolt range and a characteristic size in the 10 nm range. A transverse field induces a tunable parametric coupling between the quantum dot and the flexural modes of the nanotube mediated by electron–phonon interactions. We derive the corresponding excitonic DPs and show that this interaction enables efficient optical ground-state cooling of the fundamental mode and could allow us to realize the strong and ultra-strong coupling regimes of the Jaynes–Cummings and Rabi models.

Membrane waves propagating along the cell circumference in a top down view have been observed with several eukaryotic cells (Döbereiner et al 2006 Phys. Rev. Lett.97 10; Machacek and Danuser 2006 Biophys. J.90 1439–52). We present a mathematical model reproducing these traveling membrane undulations during lamellipodial motility of cells on flat substrates. The model describes the interplay of pushing forces exerted by actin polymerization on the membrane, pulling forces of attached actin filaments on the cell edge, contractile forces powered by molecular motors across the actin gel and resisting membrane tension. The actin filament network in the bulk of lamellipodia obeys gel flow equations. We investigated in particular the dependence of wave properties on gel parameters and found that inhibition of myosin motors abolishes waves in some cells but not in others in agreement with experimental observations. The model provides a unifying mechanism explaining the dynamics of actin-based motility in a variety of systems.

Inspired by recent experiments in cell biology, we elucidate the visco-elastic properties of an active gel by studying the dynamics of a small tracer particle inside it. In a stochastic hydrodynamic approach for an active gel of finite thickness L, we calculate the mean square displacement of a particle. These particle displacements are governed by fluctuations in the velocity field. We characterize the short-time behavior when the gel is a solid as well as the limit of long times when the gel becomes a fluid and the particle shows simple diffusion. Active stresses together with local polar order give rise to velocity fluctuations that lead to characteristic behaviors of the diffusion coefficient that differ fundamentally from those found in a passive system: the diffusion coefficient can depend on system size and diverges as L approaches an instability threshold. Furthermore, the diffusion coefficient becomes independent of the particle size in this case.

The magnetization reversal processes are discussed for exchange-coupled ferromagnetic hard/soft bilayers made from Co_0.66Cr_0.22Pt_0.12 (10 and 20 nm)/Ni (from 0 to 40 nm) films with out-of-plane and in-plane magnetic easy axes respectively, based on room temperature hysteresis loops and first-order reversal curve analysis. On increasing the Ni layer thicknesses, the easy axis of the bilayer reorients from out-of-plane to in-plane. An exchange bias effect, consisting of a shift of the in-plane minor hysteresis loops along the field axis, was observed at room temperature after in-plane saturation. This effect was associated with specific ferromagnetic domain configurations experimentally determined by polarized neutron reflectivity. On the other hand, perpendicular exchange bias effect was revealed from the out-of-plane hysteresis loops and it was attributed to residual domains in the magnetically hard layer.