Collisional decay of 87Rb Feshbach molecules at 1005.8 G

We present measurements of the loss-rate coefficients K_am and K_mm caused by inelastic atom-molecule and molecule-molecule collisions. A thermal cloud of atomic 87Rb is prepared in an optical dipole trap. A magnetic field is ramped across the Feshbach resonance at 1007.4 G. This associates atom pairs to molecules. A measurement of the molecule loss at 1005.8 G yields K_am=2 10^-10 cm^3/s. Additionally, the atoms can be removed with blast light. In this case, the measured molecule loss yields K_mm=3 10^-10 cm^3/s

0.5 keV soft X-ray attosecond continua

Attosecond light pulses in the extreme ultraviolet have drawn a great deal of attention due to their ability to interrogate electronic dynamics in real time. Nevertheless, to follow charge dynamics and excitations in materials, element selectivity is a prerequisite, which demands such pulses in the soft X-ray region, above 200 eV, to simultaneously cover several fundamental absorption edges of the constituents of the materials. Here, we experimentally demonstrate the exploitation of a transient phase matching regime to generate carrier envelope controlled soft X-ray supercontinua with pulse energies up to 2.9 +/- 0.1 pJ and a flux of (7.3 +/- 0.1)x10^7 photons/s across the entire water window and attosecond pulses with 13 as transform limit. Our results herald attosecond science at the fundamental absorption edges of matter by bridging the gap between ultrafast temporal resolution and element specific probing

Coherently controlled entanglement generation in a binary Bose-Einstein condensate

Considering a two-component Bose-Einstein condensate in a double-well potential, a method to generate a Bell state consisting of two spatially separated condensates is suggested. For repulsive interactions, the required tunnelling control is achieved numerically by varying the amplitude of a sinusoidal potential difference between the wells. Both numerical and analytical calculations reveal the emergence of a highly entangled mesoscopic state.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures, epl2.cl

Network growth models and genetic regulatory networks

We study a class of growth algorithms for directed graphs that are candidate models for the evolution of genetic regulatory networks. The algorithms involve partial duplication of nodes and their links, together with innovation of new links, allowing for the possibility that input and output links from a newly created node may have different probabilities of survival. We find some counterintuitive trends as parameters are varied, including the broadening of indegree distribution when the probability for retaining input links is decreased. We also find that both the scaling of transcription factors with genome size and the measured degree distributions for genes in yeast can be reproduced by the growth algorithm if and only if a special seed is used to initiate the process.Comment: 8 pages with 7 eps figures; uses revtex4. Added references, cleaner figure

Scaling property of the critical hopping parameters for the Bose-Hubbard model

Recently precise results for the boundary between the Mott insulator phase and the superfluid phase of the homogeneous Bose-Hubbard model have become available for arbitrary integer filling factor g and any lattice dimension d > 1. We use these data for demonstrating that the critical hopping parameters obey a scaling relationship which allows one to map results for different g onto each other. Unexpectedly, the mean-field result captures the dependence of the exact critical parameters on the filling factor almost fully. We also present an approximation formula which describes the critical parameters for d > 1 and any g with high accuracy.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures. to appear in EPJ

Strong coupling expansion for the Bose-Hubbard and the Jaynes-Cummings lattice model

A strong coupling expansion, based on the Kato-Bloch perturbation theory, which has recently been proposed by Eckardt et al. [Phys. Rev. B 79, 195131] and Teichmann et al. [Phys. Rev. B 79, 224515] is implemented in order to study various aspects of the Bose-Hubbard and the Jaynes-Cummings lattice model. The approach, which allows to generate numerically all diagrams up to a desired order in the interaction strength is generalized for disordered systems and for the Jaynes-Cummings lattice model. Results for the Bose-Hubbard and the Jaynes-Cummings lattice model will be presented and compared with results from VCA and DMRG. Our focus will be on the Mott insulator to superfluid transition.Comment: 29 pages, 21 figure

Collective Oscillations of an Imbalanced Fermi Gas: Axial Compression Modes and Polaron Effective Mass

We investigate the low-lying compression modes of a unitary Fermi gas with imbalanced spin populations. For low polarization, the strong coupling between the two spin components leads to a hydrodynamic behavior of the cloud. For large population imbalance we observe a decoupling of the oscillations of the two spin components, giving access to the effective mass of the Fermi polaron, a quasi-particle composed of an impurity dressed by particle-hole pair excitations in a surrounding Fermi sea. We find $m^*/m=1.17(10)$, in agreement with the most recent theoretical predictions.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, submitted to PR

High flux table-top soft X-ray source driven by sub-2-cycle, CEP stable, 1.85 μm 1 kHz pulses for carbon K-edge spectroscopy

We report on the first table-top high flux source of coherent soft X-ray radiation up to 400 eV, operating at 1 kHz. This source covers the carbon K-edge with a beam brilliance of (4.3 ± 1.2) × 1015 photons/s/mm2/strad/10% bandwidth and a photon flux of (1.9 ± 0.1) × 107 photons/s/1% bandwidth. We use this source to demonstrate table-top X-ray near edge fine structure spectroscopy at the carbon K-edge of a polyimide foil and retrieve the specific absorption features corresponding to the binding orbitals of the carbon atoms in the foil.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Ultrafast nonlinear optical response of Dirac fermions in graphene

The speed of solid-state electronic devices, determined by the temporal dynamics of charge carriers, could potentially reach unprecedented petahertz frequencies through direct manipulation by optical fields, consisting in a million-fold increase from state-of-the-art technology. In graphene, charge carrier manipulation is facilitated by exceptionally strong coupling to optical fields, from which stems an important back-action of photoexcited carriers. Here we investigate the instantaneous response of graphene to ultrafast optical fields, elucidating the role of hot carriers on sub-100 fs timescales. The measured nonlinear response and its dependence on interaction time and field polarization reveal the back-action of hot carriers over timescales commensurate with the optical field. An intuitive picture is given for the carrier trajectories in response to the optical-field polarization state. We note that the peculiar interplay between optical fields and charge carriers in graphene may also apply to surface states in topological insulators with similar Dirac cone dispersion relations.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Experimental Study of the BEC-BCS Crossover Region in Lithium 6

We report Bose-Einstein condensation of weakly bound $^6$Li$_2$molecules in a crossed optical trap near a Feshbach resonance. We measure a molecule-molecule scattering length of$170^{+100}_{-60}$ nm at 770 G, in good agreement with theory.We study the expansion of the cloud in the BEC-BCS crossoverregion.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, submitted to PR