The Gentlest Ascent Dynamics

Dynamical systems that describe the escape from the basins of attraction of stable invariant sets are presented and analyzed. It is shown that the stable fixed points of such dynamical systems are the index-1 saddle points. Generalizations to high index saddle points are discussed. Both gradient and non-gradient systems are considered. Preliminary results on the nature of the dynamical behavior are presented

The dissipation of the system and the atom in two-photon Jaynes-Cummings model with degenerate atomic levels

The method of perturbative expansion of master equation is employed to study the dissipative properties of system and of atom in the two-photon Jaynes-Cummings model (JCM) with degenerate atomic levels. The numerical results show that the degeneracy of atomic levels prolongs the period of entanglement between the atom and the field. The asymptotic value of atomic linear entropy is apparently increased by the degeneration. The amplitude of local entanglement and disentanglement is suppressed. The better the initial coherence property of the degenerate atom, the larger the coherence loss.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figure

Evolution of deformations in medium-mass nuclei

Evolution of quadrupole deformations in $sd$ and $pf$ shell nuclei with mass A= 18$\sim$56 is studied by using deformed Skyrme Hartree-Fock (HF) model with pairing correlations. We point out that the quadrupole deformations of the nuclei with the isospin T=0 and T=1 show strong mass number dependence as a clear manifestation of dynamical evolution of deformation in nuclear many-body systems. The competition between the deformation driving particle-vibration coupling and the closed shell structure is shown in a systematic study of the ratios between the proton and neutron deformations in nuclei with T=$|$T$_z|$=1. Calculated quadrupole and hexadecapole deformations are compared with shell model results and available experimental data. A relation between the skin thickness and the intrinsic Q$_2$ moments is also discussed.Comment: 26 pages, 8figure

Anchoring Bias in Online Voting

Voting online with explicit ratings could largely reflect people's preferences and objects' qualities, but ratings are always irrational, because they may be affected by many unpredictable factors like mood, weather, as well as other people's votes. By analyzing two real systems, this paper reveals a systematic bias embedding in the individual decision-making processes, namely people tend to give a low rating after a low rating, as well as a high rating following a high rating. This so-called \emph{anchoring bias} is validated via extensive comparisons with null models, and numerically speaking, the extent of bias decays with interval voting number in a logarithmic form. Our findings could be applied in the design of recommender systems and considered as important complementary materials to previous knowledge about anchoring effects on financial trades, performance judgements, auctions, and so on.Comment: 5 pages, 4 tables, 5 figure

Potential for ultrafast dynamic chemical imaging with few-cycle infrared lasers

We studied the photoelectron spectra generated by an intense few-cycle infrared laser pulse. By focusing on the angular distributions of the back rescattered high energy photoelectrons, we show that accurate differential elastic scattering cross sections of the target ion by free electrons can be extracted. Since the incident direction and the energy of the free electrons can be easily changed by manipulating the laser's polarization, intensity, and wavelength, these extracted elastic scattering cross sections, in combination with more advanced inversion algorithms, may be used to reconstruct the effective single-scattering potential of the molecule, thus opening up the possibility of using few-cycle infrared lasers as powerful table-top tools for imaging chemical and biological transformations, with the desired unprecedented temporal and spatial resolutions.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figure

Optical Photometry of Type II-P Supernova 2004dj in NGC 2403

We present photometric data of the type II-P supernova (SN) 2004dj in NGC 2403. The multicolor light curves cover the SN from $\sim$ 60 to 200 days after explosion, and are measured with a set of intermediate-band filters that have the advantage of tracing the strength variations of some spectral features. The light curves show a flat evolution in the middle of the plateau phase, then decline exponentially at the late times, with a rate of 0.10$\pm$0.03 mag (10 days)$^{-1}$ in most of the filters. In the nebular phase, the spectral energy distribution (SED) of SN 2004dj shows a steady increase in the flux near 6600 \AA and 8500 \AA, which may correspond to the emission lines of H$\alpha$ and Ca II near-IR triplet, respectively. The photometric behavior suggests that SN 2004dj is a normal SN II-P. Compared with the light curves of another typical SN II-P 1999em, we estimate the explosion date to be June 10$\pm$21 UT, 2004 (JD 2453167$\pm$21) for SN 2004dj. We also estimate the ejected nickel mass during the explosion to be $M(^{56}\rm{Ni})$ = 0.023 $\pm$ 0.005 $M_{\odot}$ from two different methods, which is typical for a SN II-P. We derive the explosion energy $E \approx 0.75^{+0.56}_{-0.38}\times10^{51}$ erg, the ejecta mass $M \approx 10.0^{+7.4}_{-5.2}$ $M_{\odot}$, and the initial radius $R \approx 282^{+253}_{-122}$ $R_{\odot}$ for the presupernova star of SN 2004dj, which are consistent with other typical SNe II-P.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in A

Berry's Phases of Ground States of Interacting Spin-One Bosons: Chains of Monopoles and Monosegments

We study Berry's connection potentials of many-body ground states of spin-one bosons with antiferromagnetic interactions in adiabatically varying magnetic fields. We find that Berry's connection potentials are generally determined by, instead of usual singular monopoles, linearly positioned monosegments each of which carries one unit of topological charge; in the absence of a magnetic field gradient this distribution of monosegments becomes a linear chain of monopoles. Consequently, Berry's phases consist of a series of step functions of magnetic fields; a magnetic field gradient causes rounding of these step-functions. We also calculate Berry's connection fields, profiles of monosegments and show that the total topological charge is conserved in a parameter space

Doping-dependent nodal Fermi velocity in Bi-2212 revealed by high-resolution ARPES

The improved resolution of laser-based angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) allows reliable access to fine structures in the spectrum. We present a systematic, doping-dependent study of a recently discovered low-energy kink in the nodal dispersion of Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+d (Bi-2212), which demonstrates the ubiquity and robustness of this kink in underdoped Bi-2212. The renormalization of the nodal velocity due to this kink becomes stronger with underdoping, revealing that the nodal Fermi velocity is non-universal, in contrast to assumed phenomenology. This is used together with laser-ARPES measurements of the gap velocity, v2, to resolve discrepancies with thermal conductivity measurements.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev. Let