Optical Resonators in Current and Future Experiments of the ALPS Collaboration

The ALPS collaboration runs a "light shining through a wall" (LSW) experiment to search for weakly interacting sub-eV particles (WISPs). Its sensitivity is significantly enhanced by the incorporation of a large-scale production resonator and a small-scale high-power resonant second harmonic generator. Here we report on important experimental details and limitations of these resonators and derive recommendations for further experiments. A very promising improvement for a future ALPS experiment is the incorporation of an additional large-scale regeneration resonator. We present a rough sketch of how to combine a regeneration resonator with a single-photon counter (SPC) as detector for regenerated photons.Comment: 7 pages; Proceedings paper of the Axions 2010 workshop, Gainesville, FL, US

Techniques, based on extremal subspaces, for improved reconstruction of signals from samples

Extremal subspaces techniques for reconstruction of signal from sample

Electric field gradients from first-principles and point-ion calculations

Point-ion models have been extensively used to determine "hole numbers" at copper and oxygen sites in high-temperature superconducting cuprate compounds from measured nuclear quadrupole frequencies. The present study assesses the reliability of point-ion models to predict electric field gradients accurately and also the implicit assumption that the values can be calculated from the "holes" and not the total electronic structure. First-principles cluster calculations using basis sets centred on the nuclei have enabled the determination of the charge and spin density distribution in the CuO2-plane. The contributions to the electric field gradients and the magnetic hyperfine couplings are analysed in detail. In particular they are partitioned into regions in an attempt to find a correlation with the most commonly used point-ion model, the Sternheimer equation which depends on the two parameters R and gamma. Our most optimistic objective was to find expressions for these parameters, which would improve our understanding of them, but although estimates of the R parameter were encouraging the method used to obtain the gamma parameter indicate that the two parameters may not be independent. The problem seems to stem from the covalently bonded nature of the CuO2-planes in these structures which severely questions using the Sternheimer equation for such crystals, since its derivation is heavily reliant on the application of perturbation theory to predominantly ionic structures. Furthermore it is shown that the complementary contributions of electrons and holes in an isolated ion cannot be applied to estimates of electric field gradients at copper and oxygen nuclei in cuprates.Comment: 19 pages, 4 figure

Multispectral and geomorphic studies of processed Voyager 2 images of Europa

High resolution images of Europa taken by the Voyager 2 spacecraft were used to study a portion of Europa's dark lineations and the major white line feature Agenor Linea. Initial image processing of images 1195J2-001 (violet filter), 1198J2-001 (blue filter), 1201J2-001 (orange filter), and 1204J2-001 (ultraviolet filter) was performed at the U.S.G.S. Branch of Astrogeology in Flagstaff, Arizona. Processing was completed through the stages of image registration and color ratio image construction. Pixel printouts were used in a new technique of linear feature profiling to compensate for image misregistration through the mapping of features on the printouts. In all, 193 dark lineation segments were mapped and profiled. The more accurate multispectral data derived by this method was plotted using a new application of the ternary diagram, with orange, blue, and violet relative spectral reflectances serving as end members. Statistical techniques were then applied to the ternary diagram plots. The image products generated at LPI were used mainly to cross-check and verify the results of the ternary diagram analysis

Dynamics of dipoles and vortices in nonlinearly-coupled three-dimensional harmonic oscillators

The dynamics of a pair of three-dimensional matter-wave harmonic oscillators (HOs) coupled by a repulsive cubic nonlinearity is investigated through direct simulations of the respective GrossPitaevskii equations (GPEs) and with the help of the finite-mode Galerkin approximation (GA),which represents the two interacting wave functions by a superposition of 3 + 3 HO p -wave eigenfunctions with orbital and magnetic quantum numbers l = 1 and m = 1; 0; 1. First, the GA very accurately predicts a broadly degenerate set of the system's ground states in the p -wave manifold, in the form of complexes built of a dipole coaxial with another dipole or vortex, as well as complexes built of mutually orthogonal dipoles. Next, pairs of non-coaxial vortices and/or dipoles, including pairs of mutually perpendicular vortices, develop remarkably stable dynamical regimes, which feature periodic exchange of the angular momentum and periodic switching between dipoles and vortices. For a moderately strong nonlinearity, simulations of the coupled GPEs agree very well with results produced by the GA, demonstrating that the dynamics is accurately spanned by the set of six modes limited to l = 1.Comment: Physical Review E. In Pres

Coupled Airy breathers

The dynamics of two component coupled Airy beams is investigated. In the linear propagation regime a complete analytic solution describes breather like propagation of the two components featuring non-diffracting self-accelerating Airy behavior. The superposition of two beams with different input properties opens the possibility to design more complex non-diffracting propagation scenarios. In the strongly nonlinear regime the dynamics remains qualitatively robust as is revealed by direct numerical simulations. Due to the Kerr effect the two beams emit solitonic breathers, whose coupling period is compatible with the remaining Airy-like beams. The results of this study are relevant for the description of photonic and plasmonic beams propagating in coupled planar waveguides as well as for birefrigent or multi-wavelengths beams