HELIN Federated Search Task Force Final Report

Final report of the HELIN Federated Search Task Force, a group appointed by the HELIN Reference Committee at the request of the HELIN Directors to investigate and report on available federated search engines, which allow users simultaneously to search multiple databases. The task force was not asked to recommend a specific one for licensing by HELIN member libraries and did not do so

Bistable Spin Currents from Quantum Dots Embedded in a Microcavity

We examine the spin current generated by quantum dots embedded in an optical microcavity. The dots are connected to leads, which allow electrons to tunnel into and out of the dot. The spin current is generated by spin flip transitions induced by a quantized electromagnetic field inside the cavity with one of the Zeeman states lying below the Fermi level of the leads and the other above. In the limit of strong Coulomb blockade, this model is analogous to the Jaynes-Cummings model in quantum optics. We find that the cavity field amplitude and the spin current exhibit bistability as a function of the laser amplitude, which is driving the cavity mode. Even in the limit of a single dot, the spin current and the Q distribution of the cavity field have a bimodal structure.Comment: New version includes revised figures and discussion of result

Phase Coherence in a Driven Double-Well System

We analyze the dynamics of the molecular field incoherently pumped by the photoassociation of fermionic atoms and coupled by quantum tunnelling in a double-well potential. The relative phase distribution of the molecular modes in each well and their phase coherence are shown to build up owing to quantum mechanical fluctuations starting from the vacuum state. We identify three qualitatively different steady-state phase distributions, depending on the ratio of the molecule-molecule interaction strength to interwell tunnelling, and examine the crossover from a phase-coherent regime to a phase-incoherent regime as this ratio increases.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure

Bifurcations and bistability in cavity assisted photoassociation of Bose-Einstein condensed molecules

We study the photo-association of Bose-Einstein condensed atoms into molecules using an optical cavity field. The driven cavity field introduces a new dynamical degree of freedom into the photoassociation process, whose role in determining the stationary behavior has not previously been considered. The semiclassical stationary solutions for the atom and molecules as well as the intracavity field are found and their stability and scaling properties are determined in terms of experimentally controllable parameters including driving amplitude of the cavity and the nonlinear interactions between atoms and molecules. For weak cavity driving, we find a bifurcation in the atom and molecule number occurs that signals a transition from a stable steady state to nonlinear Rabi oscillations. For a strongly driven cavity, there exists bistability in the atom and molecule number

Suppression of Magnetic State Decoherence Using Ultrafast Optical Pulses

It is shown that the magnetic state decoherence produced by collisions in a thermal vapor can be suppressed by the application of a train of ultrafast optical pulses.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

A Molecular Matter-Wave Amplifier

We describe a matter-wave amplifier for vibrational ground state molecules, which uses a Feshbach resonance to first form quasi-bound molecules starting from an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate. The quasi-bound molecules are then driven into their stable vibrational ground state via a two-photon Raman transition inside an optical cavity. The transition from the quasi-bound state to the electronically excited state is driven by a classical field. Amplification of ground state molecules is then achieved by using a strongly damped cavity mode for the transition from the electronically excited molecules to the molecular ground state

Entrepreneurial Literary Theory: A Debate on Research and the Future of Academia

Across the world at present, researchers and teachers are being exhorted to become entrepreneurial. Universities are being restructured accordingly. The debate presented in this book considers what that involves and portends for academia. Literary studies are often regarded as the most resistant to – unfit for – entrepreneurial purposes. Literary research is therefore taken as a baseline for this debate. The uneasy place of literary research within profit-driven academia is revealing of the prevailing conditions for scholarship in all areas. Questions that are raised and discussed here include: What does doing research for the public good mean? What is the relationship between profits and benefits from research? What are applied and basic research? Are concepts of academic freedom and disinterestedness meaningful? What is the relationship between corporate and academic research? Are skills and knowledge different? Can pursuits like close reading and text interpretation be made profitable? What is literary value and how can it be measured? Can the literary system be modelled to profitable ends? Can university teaching be automatized? What are the differences between a standard publication agreement and a scholarly publication agreement? How can digital and open-access academic publication be made profitable? Does the academic monograph have a future? What sorts of knowledge and skills inform entrepreneurial leadership

Quantum Transport in Graphene Nanoribbons with Realistic Edges

Due to their unique electrical properties, graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) show great promise as the building blocks of novel electronic devices. However, these properties are strongly dependent on the geometry of the edges of the graphene devices. Thus far only zigzag and armchair edges have been extensively studied. However, several other self passivating edge reconstructions are possible, and were experimentally observed. Here we utilize the Nonequilibrium Green's Function (NEGF) technique in conjunction with tight binding methods to model quantum transport through armchair, zigzag, and several other self-passivated edge reconstructions. In addition we consider the experimentally relevant cases of mixed edges, where random combinations of possible terminations exist on a given GNR boundary. We find that transport through GNR's with self-passivating edge reconstructions is governed by the sublattice structure of the edges, in a manner similar to their parent zigzag or armchair configurations. Furthermore, we find that the reconstructed armchair GNR's have a larger band gap energy than pristine armchair edges and are more robust against edge disorder. These results offer novel insights into the transport in GNRs with realistic edges and are thus of paramount importance in the development of GNR based devices.Comment: J. Phys. Chem. C, 201

Optimal conversion of Bose condensed atoms into molecules via a Feshbach resonance

In many experiments involving conversion of quantum degenerate atomic gases into molecular dimers via a Feshbach resonance, an external magnetic field is linearly swept from above the resonance to below resonance. In the adiabatic limit, the fraction of atoms converted into molecules is independent of the functional form of the sweep and is predicted to be 100%. However, for non-adiabatic sweeps through resonance, Landau-Zener theory predicts that a linear sweep will result in a negligible production of molecules. Here we employ a genetic algorithm to determine the functional time dependence of the magnetic field that produces the maximum number of molecules for sweep times that are comparable to the period of resonant atom-molecule oscillations, $2\pi\Omega_{Rabi}^{-1}$. The optimal sweep through resonance indicates that more than 95% of the atoms can be converted into molecules for sweep times as short as $2\pi\Omega_{Rabi}^{-1}$ while the linear sweep results in a conversion of only a few percent. We also find that the qualitative form of the optimal sweep is independent of the strength of the two-body interactions between atoms and molecules and the width of the resonance