A taste of dark matter: Flavour constraints on pseudoscalar mediators

DOE PAGES

Dolan, Matthew J.; Kahlhoefer, Felix; McCabe, Christopher; ...

2015-03-31

Dark matter interacting via the exchange of a light pseudoscalar can induce observable signals in indirect detection experiments and experience large self-interactions while evading the strong bounds from direct dark matter searches. The pseudoscalar mediator will however induce flavour-changing interactions in the Standard Model, providing a promising alternative way to test these models. We investigate in detail the constraints arising from rare meson decays and fixed target experiments for different coupling structures between the pseudoscalar and Standard Model fermions. The resulting bounds are highly complementary to the information inferred from the dark matter relic density and the constraints from primordialmore » nucleosynthesis. We discuss the implications of our findings for the dark matter self-interaction cross section and the prospects of probing dark matter coupled to a light pseudoscalar with direct or indirect detection experiments. In particular, we find that a pseudoscalar mediator can only explain the Galactic Centre excess if its mass is above that of the B mesons, and that it is impossible to obtain a sufficiently large direct detection cross section to account for the DAMA modulation.« less

Research on pre-scientific concept of light in children's cognitive activity

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lan, Zhigao; Yu, Yang; Yan, Dan; Yang, Shulin

2017-08-01

Based on the theory of Ausubel's meaningful learning and cognitive characteristic of childens pre-scientific concept, two students of Huang Gang Middle School have been interviewed continuously about cognition of interaction between light and matter. Comprehension degree of childens pre-scientific concept about interaction between light and matter has been deeply understood, formation of strategy of childens pre-scientific concept has been discussed. Several influence factors related to formation of childens pre-scientific concept have been analyzed, such as sex, family environment, and learning experience of kindergarten and primary school.

Strong Light-Matter Interactions in Single Open Plasmonic Nanocavities at the Quantum Optics Limit.

PubMed

Liu, Renming; Zhou, Zhang-Kai; Yu, Yi-Cong; Zhang, Tengwei; Wang, Hao; Liu, Guanghui; Wei, Yuming; Chen, Huanjun; Wang, Xue-Hua

2017-06-09

Reaching the quantum optics limit of strong light-matter interactions between a single exciton and a plasmon mode is highly desirable, because it opens up possibilities to explore room-temperature quantum devices operating at the single-photon level. However, two challenges severely hinder the realization of this limit: the integration of single-exciton emitters with plasmonic nanostructures and making the coupling strength at the single-exciton level overcome the large damping of the plasmon mode. Here, we demonstrate that these two hindrances can be overcome by attaching individual J aggregates to single cuboid Au@Ag nanorods. In such hybrid nanosystems, both the ultrasmall mode volume of ∼71  nm^{3} and the ultrashort interaction distance of less than 0.9 nm make the coupling coefficient between a single J-aggregate exciton and the cuboid nanorod as high as ∼41.6  meV, enabling strong light-matter interactions to be achieved at the quantum optics limit in single open plasmonic nanocavities.

Chiral Three-Nucleon Interactions in Light Nuclei, Neutron-α Scattering, and Neutron Matter

DOE PAGES

Lynn, J. E.; Tews, I.; Carlson, Joseph Allen; ...

2016-02-09

Here we present quantum Monte Carlo calculations of light nuclei, neutron- scattering, and neutron matter using local two- and three-nucleon (3N) interactions derived from chiral e effective fi eld theory up to next-to-next-to-leading order (N 2LO). The two undetermined 3N low-energy couplings are fi t to the 4He binding energy and, for the first time, to the spin-orbit splitting in the neutron- P-wave phase shifts. Furthermore, we investigate different choices of local 3N-operator structures and find that chiral interactions at N 2LO are able to simultaneously reproduce the properties of A = 3; 4; 5 systems and of neutron matter,more » in contrast to commonly used phenomenological 3N interactions.« less

Chiral Three-Nucleon Interactions in Light Nuclei, Neutron-α Scattering, and Neutron Matter

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Lynn, J. E.; Tews, I.; Carlson, Joseph Allen

Here we present quantum Monte Carlo calculations of light nuclei, neutron- scattering, and neutron matter using local two- and three-nucleon (3N) interactions derived from chiral e effective fi eld theory up to next-to-next-to-leading order (N 2LO). The two undetermined 3N low-energy couplings are fi t to the 4He binding energy and, for the first time, to the spin-orbit splitting in the neutron- P-wave phase shifts. Furthermore, we investigate different choices of local 3N-operator structures and find that chiral interactions at N 2LO are able to simultaneously reproduce the properties of A = 3; 4; 5 systems and of neutron matter,more » in contrast to commonly used phenomenological 3N interactions.« less

Light Matter Interaction on the Nanoscale

DTIC Science & Technology

2016-01-05

Light-Matter Interaction on the Nanoscale 5a. CONTRACT NUMBER 5b. GRANT NUMBER FA9550-10-1-0022 5c. PROGRAM ELEMENT NUMBER 6. AUTHOR( S ) Xiaoqin...ORGANIZATION NAME( S ) AND ADDRESS(ES) Physics Department University of Texas-Austin 2515 Speedway, Austin, TX, 78712 8. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION REPORT NUMBER...9. SPONSORING/MONITORING AGENCY NAME( S ) AND ADDRESS(ES) AFOSR 875 N RANDOLPH ST ARLINGTON VA 22203 10. SPONSOR/MONITOR’S ACRONYM( S ) 11. SPONSOR

Dynamics of entanglement and the Schmidt gap in a driven light-matter system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gómez-Ruiz, F. J.; Mendoza-Arenas, J. J.; Acevedo, O. L.; Rodríguez, F. J.; Quiroga, L.; Johnson, N. F.

2018-01-01

The ability to modify light-matter coupling in time (e.g. using external pulses) opens up the exciting possibility of generating and probing new aspects of quantum correlations in many-body light-matter systems. Here we study the impact of such a pulsed coupling on the light-matter entanglement in the Dicke model as well as the respective subsystem quantum dynamics. Our dynamical many-body analysis exploits the natural partition between the radiation and matter degrees of freedom, allowing us to explore time-dependent intra-subsystem quantum correlations by means of squeezing parameters, and the inter-subsystem Schmidt gap for different pulse duration (i.e. ramping velocity) regimes—from the near adiabatic to the sudden quench limits. Our results reveal that both types of quantities indicate the emergence of the superradiant phase when crossing the quantum critical point. In addition, at the end of the pulse light and matter remain entangled even though they become uncoupled, which could be exploited to generate entangled states in non-interacting systems.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Mitrofanov, Oleg; Han, Zhanghua; Ding, Fei

(THz) plasmonic double-metal resonators enable enhanced light-matter coupling by utilizing strong localization of the resonant field. The closed resonator design however restricts investigations of the light-matter interaction effects. We propose and demonstrate a method for spatial mapping and spectroscopic analysis of the internal resonant THz fields in plasmonic double-metal THz resonators. We use the aperture-type scanning near-field THz time-domain microscopy and the concept of image charges to probe the THz fields confined within the resonator. The experimental method opens doors to studies of light-matter coupling in deeply sub-wavelength volumes at THz frequencies.

Sculpting with light: Light/matter interactions in biocompatible polymers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Applegate, Matthew B.

When light interacts with matter either the light or the material can be changed. This dissertation focuses on light/matter interaction in silk fibroin and its utility for biomedical applications. Silk, a natural biocompatible, biodegradable polymer, has a large 3-photon absorption cross-section which allows modest peak intensity light to cause significant multiphoton absorption. This absorption allows voids to be formed with three dimensional control within soft, transparent silk hydrogels. A theoretical model of the void formation process is developed to allow the size of the voids to be predicted for a range of laser and sample parameters. Arbitrary 3D patterns are created in silk gels that allow cells to penetrate into the bulk of the gel both in vitro and in vivo. To explore how silk can be used to alter light, the creation of step-index optical waveguides, formed by encapsulating a silk film within a silk hydrogel, is described. These waveguides allow light to be delivered to targets through several centimeters of highly scattering biological tissue. Finally, the interaction of light with riboflavin is used to photocrosslink silk to form solid structures, rather than voids. The mechanism of crosslinking to be driven by radicalized tyrosine residues resulting in the formation of dityrosine bonds which lead to the gelation of a liquid silk solution. Riboflavin is a versatile photoinitiator and can be used to crosslink collagen as well as silk, which allows silk to be crosslinked directly to corneal collagen. When applied to the eye, an artificial corneal layer is formed which has the potential to treat various corneal diseases and allow for risk-free laser vision correction. These studies show the versatility of light-based processing of silk for a wide variety of medical applications.

Epsilon-near-zero modes for tailored light-matter interaction

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Campione, Salvatore; Liu, Sheng; Benz, Alexander

Epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) modes arising from condensed-matter excitations such as phonons and plasmons are a new path for tailoring light-matter interactions at the nanoscale. Complex spectral shaping can be achieved by creating such modes in nanoscale semiconductor layers and controlling their interaction with multiple, distinct, dipole resonant systems. Examples of this behavior are presented at midinfrared frequencies for ENZ modes that are strongly coupled to metamaterial resonators and simultaneously strongly coupled to semiconductor phonons or quantum-well intersubband transitions (ISTs), resulting in double- and triple-polariton branches in transmission spectra. For the double-polariton branch case, we find that the best strategy to maximizemore » the Rabi splitting is to use a combination of a doped layer supporting an ENZ feature and a layer supporting ISTs, with overlapping ENZ and IST frequencies. As a result, this design flexibility renders this platform attractive for low-voltage tunable filters, light-emitting diodes, and efficient nonlinear composite materials.« less

Epsilon-near-zero modes for tailored light-matter interaction

DOE PAGES

Campione, Salvatore; Liu, Sheng; Benz, Alexander; ...

2015-10-20

Epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) modes arising from condensed-matter excitations such as phonons and plasmons are a new path for tailoring light-matter interactions at the nanoscale. Complex spectral shaping can be achieved by creating such modes in nanoscale semiconductor layers and controlling their interaction with multiple, distinct, dipole resonant systems. Examples of this behavior are presented at midinfrared frequencies for ENZ modes that are strongly coupled to metamaterial resonators and simultaneously strongly coupled to semiconductor phonons or quantum-well intersubband transitions (ISTs), resulting in double- and triple-polariton branches in transmission spectra. For the double-polariton branch case, we find that the best strategy to maximizemore » the Rabi splitting is to use a combination of a doped layer supporting an ENZ feature and a layer supporting ISTs, with overlapping ENZ and IST frequencies. As a result, this design flexibility renders this platform attractive for low-voltage tunable filters, light-emitting diodes, and efficient nonlinear composite materials.« less

Structuring Light to Manipulate Multipolar Resonances for Metamaterial Applications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Das, Tanya

Multipolar electromagnetic phenomena in sub-wavelength resonators are at the heart of metamaterial science and technology. Typically, researchers engineer multipolar light-matter interactions by modifying the size, shape, and composition of the resonators. Here, we instead engineer multipolar interactions by modifying properties of the incident radiation. In this dissertation, we propose a new framework for determining the scattering response of resonators based on properties of the local excitation field. First, we derive an analytical theory to determine the scattering response of spherical nanoparticles under any type of illumination. Using this theory, we demonstrate the ability to drastically manipulate the scattering properties of a spherical nanoparticle by varying the illumination and demonstrate excitation of a longitudinal quadrupole mode that cannot be accessed with conventional illumination. Next, we investigate the response of dielectric dimer structures illuminated by cylindrical vector beams. Using finite-difference time-domain simulations, we demonstrate significant modification of the scattering spectra of dimer antennas and reveal how the illumination condition gives rise to these spectra through manipulation of electric and magnetic mode hybridization. Finally, we present a simple and efficient numerical simulation based on local field principles for extracting the multipolar response of any resonator under illumination by structured light. This dissertation enhances the understanding of fundamental light-matter interactions in metamaterials and lays the foundation for researchers to identify, quantify, and manipulate multipolar light-matter interactions through optical beam engineering.

Integral equation and discontinuous Galerkin methods for the analysis of light-matter interaction

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Baczewski, Andrew David

Light-matter interaction is among the most enduring interests of the physical sciences. The understanding and control of this physics is of paramount importance to the design of myriad technologies ranging from stained glass, to molecular sensing and characterization techniques, to quantum computers. The development of complex engineered systems that exploit this physics is predicated at least partially upon in silico design and optimization that properly capture the light-matter coupling. In this thesis, the details of computational frameworks that enable this type of analysis, based upon both Integral Equation and Discontinuous Galerkin formulations will be explored. There will be a primary focus on the development of efficient and accurate software, with results corroborating both. The secondary focus will be on the use of these tools in the analysis of a number of exemplary systems.

Experimentally simulating the dynamics of quantum light and matter at ultrastrong coupling using circuit QED (2) - light dynamics and light-matter entanglement -

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sagastizabal, R.; Langford, N. K.; Kounalakis, M.; Dickel, C.; Bruno, A.; Luthi, F.; Thoen, D. J.; Endo, A.; Dicarlo, L.

Light-matter interaction can lead to large photon build-up and hybrid atom-photon entanglement in the ultrastrong coupling (USC) regime, where the coupling strength becomes comparable to the eigenenergies of the system. Accessing the cavity degree of freedom, however, is an outstanding challenge in natural USC systems. In this talk, we directly probe light field dynamics in the USC regime using a digital simulation of the quantum Rabi model in a planar circuit QED chip with a transmon moderately coupled to a resonator. We produce high-accuracy USC light-matter dynamics, using second-order Trotterisation and up to 90 Trotter steps. We probe the average photon number, photon parity and perform Wigner tomography of the simulated field. Finally, we combine tomography of the resonator with qubit measurements to evidence the Schrödinger-cat-like atom-photon entanglement which is a key signature of light-matter dynamics in the USC regime. Funding from the EU FP7 Project ScaleQIT, the ERC Synergy Grant QC-lab, the Netherlands Organization of Scientic Research (NWO), and Microsoft Research.

Light dark matter in superfluid helium: Detection with multi-excitation production

DOE PAGES

Knapen, Simon; Lin, Tongyan; Zurek, Kathryn M.

2017-03-22

We examine in depth a recent proposal to utilize superfluid helium for direct detection of sub-MeV mass dark matter. For sub-keV recoil energies, nuclear scattering events in liquid helium primarily deposit energy into long-lived phonon and roton quasiparticle excitations. If the energy thresholds of the detector can be reduced to the meV scale, then dark matter as light as ~MeV can be reached with ordinary nuclear recoils. If, on the other hand, two or more quasiparticle excitations are directly produced in the dark matter interaction, the kinematics of the scattering allows sensitivity to dark matter as light as ~keV atmore » the same energy resolution. We present in detail the theoretical framework for describing excitations in superfluid helium, using it to calculate the rate for the leading dark matter scattering interaction, where an off-shell phonon splits into two or more higher-momentum excitations. Here, we validate our analytic results against the measured and simulated dynamic response of superfluid helium. Finally, we apply this formalism to the case of a kinetically mixed hidden photon in the superfluid, both with and without an external electric field to catalyze the processes.« less

A strongly interacting polaritonic quantum dot

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jia, Ningyuan; Schine, Nathan; Georgakopoulos, Alexandros; Ryou, Albert; Clark, Logan W.; Sommer, Ariel; Simon, Jonathan

2018-06-01

Polaritons are promising constituents of both synthetic quantum matter1 and quantum information processors2, whose properties emerge from their components: from light, polaritons draw fast dynamics and ease of transport; from matter, they inherit the ability to collide with one another. Cavity polaritons are particularly promising as they may be confined and subjected to synthetic magnetic fields controlled by cavity geometry3, and furthermore they benefit from increased robustness due to the cavity enhancement in light-matter coupling. Nonetheless, until now, cavity polaritons have operated only in a weakly interacting mean-field regime4,5. Here we demonstrate strong interactions between individual cavity polaritons enabled by employing highly excited Rydberg atoms as the matter component of the polaritons. We assemble a quantum dot composed of approximately 150 strongly interacting Rydberg-dressed 87Rb atoms in a cavity, and observe blockaded transport of photons through it. We further observe coherent photon tunnelling oscillations, demonstrating that the dot is zero-dimensional. This work establishes the cavity Rydberg polariton as a candidate qubit in a photonic information processor and, by employing multiple resonator modes as the spatial degrees of freedom of a photonic particle, the primary ingredient to form photonic quantum matter6.

Metasurface-Enabled Remote Quantum Interference.

PubMed

Jha, Pankaj K; Ni, Xingjie; Wu, Chihhui; Wang, Yuan; Zhang, Xiang

2015-07-10

An anisotropic quantum vacuum (AQV) opens novel pathways for controlling light-matter interaction in quantum optics, condensed matter physics, etc. Here, we theoretically demonstrate a strong AQV over macroscopic distances enabled by a judiciously designed array of subwavelength-scale nanoantennas-a metasurface. We harness the phase-control ability and the polarization-dependent response of the metasurface to achieve strong anisotropy in the decay rate of a quantum emitter located over distances of hundreds of wavelengths. Such an AQV induces quantum interference among radiative decay channels in an atom with orthogonal transitions. Quantum vacuum engineering with metasurfaces holds promise for exploring new paradigms of long-range light-matter interaction for atom optics, solid-state quantum optics, quantum information processing, etc.

Ultrastrong light-matter coupling in electrically doped microcavity organic light emitting diodes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mazzeo, M.; Genco, A.; Gambino, S.; Ballarini, D.; Mangione, F.; Di Stefano, O.; Patanè, S.; Savasta, S.; Sanvitto, D.; Gigli, G.

2014-06-01

The coupling of the electromagnetic field with an electronic transition gives rise, for strong enough light-matter interactions, to hybrid states called exciton-polaritons. When the energy exchanged between light and matter becomes a significant fraction of the material transition energy an extreme optical regime called ultrastrong coupling (USC) is achieved. We report a microcavity embedded p-i-n monolithic organic light emitting diode working in USC, employing a thin film of squaraine dye as active layer. A normalized coupling ratio of 30% has been achieved at room temperature. These USC devices exhibit a dispersion-less angle-resolved electroluminescence that can be exploited for the realization of innovative optoelectronic devices. Our results may open the way towards electrically pumped polariton lasers.

Detection of internal fields in double-metal terahertz resonators

DOE PAGES

Mitrofanov, Oleg; Han, Zhanghua; Ding, Fei; ...

2017-02-06

(THz) plasmonic double-metal resonators enable enhanced light-matter coupling by utilizing strong localization of the resonant field. The closed resonator design however restricts investigations of the light-matter interaction effects. We propose and demonstrate a method for spatial mapping and spectroscopic analysis of the internal resonant THz fields in plasmonic double-metal THz resonators. We use the aperture-type scanning near-field THz time-domain microscopy and the concept of image charges to probe the THz fields confined within the resonator. The experimental method opens doors to studies of light-matter coupling in deeply sub-wavelength volumes at THz frequencies.

Self-interacting spin-2 dark matter

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chu, Xiaoyong; Garcia-Cely, Camilo

2017-11-01

Recent developments in bigravity allow one to construct consistent theories of interacting spin-2 particles that are free of ghosts. In this framework, we propose an elementary spin-2 dark matter candidate with a mass well below the TeV scale. We show that, in a certain regime where the interactions induced by the spin-2 fields do not lead to large departures from the predictions of general relativity, such a light dark matter particle typically self-interacts and undergoes self-annihilations via 3-to-2 processes. We discuss its production mechanisms and also identify the regions of the parameter space where self-interactions can alleviate the discrepancies at small scales between the predictions of the collisionless dark matter paradigm and cosmological N-body simulations.

Perfect absorption of modified-molybdenum-disulfide-based Tamm plasmonic structures

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Xiaoyu; Wang, Jicheng; Hu, Zheng-Da; Sang, Tian; Feng, Yan

2018-06-01

The two-dimensional semiconductor materials of transition metal molybdenum disulfide display various special optical properties in the interaction of matter and light. In this work, we study the strong coupling between the two-dimensional materials’ excitons and Tamm plasmon polaritons (TPPs). To enhance the interaction between light and matter, we introduce the grating modulation in the traditional Tamm structure. By adjusting the structure parameters of the grating-modified Tamm system, we achieve perfect absorption in the visible region. Our research results will pave the way for the application of ultrathin polarization optical devices.

Towards manipulating relativistic laser pulses with micro-tube plasma lenses

PubMed Central

Ji, L. L.; Snyder, J.; Pukhov, A.; Freeman, R. R.; Akli, K. U.

2016-01-01

Efficient coupling of intense laser pulses to solid-density matter is critical to many applications including ion acceleration for cancer therapy. At relativistic intensities, the focus has been mainly on investigating various laser beams irradiating initially overdense flat interfaces with little or no control over the interaction. Here, we propose a novel approach that leverages recent advancements in 3D direct laser writing (DLW) of materials and high contrast lasers to manipulate the laser-matter interactions on the micro-scales. We demonstrate, via simulations, that usable intensities ≥1023 Wcm−2 could be achieved with current tabletop lasers coupled to micro-engineered plasma lenses. We show that these plasma optical elements act as a lens to focus laser light. These results open new paths to engineering light-matter interactions at ultra-relativistic intensities. PMID:26979657

Role of quantum correlations in light-matter quantum heat engines

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Barrios, G. Alvarado; Albarrán-Arriagada, F.; Cárdenas-López, F. A.; Romero, G.; Retamal, J. C.

2017-11-01

We study a quantum Otto engine embedding a working substance composed of a two-level system interacting with a harmonic mode. The physical properties of the substance are described by a generalized quantum Rabi model arising in superconducting circuit realizations. We show that light-matter quantum correlation reduction during the hot bath stage and adiabatic stages act as an indicator for enhanced work extraction and efficiency, respectively. Also, we demonstrate that the anharmonic spectrum of the working substance has a direct impact on the transition from heat engine into refrigerator as the light-matter coupling is increased. These results shed light on the search for optimal conditions in the performance of quantum heat engines.

Controllable vacuum-induced diffraction of matter-wave superradiance using an all-optical dispersive cavity

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Su, Shih-Wei; Lu, Zhen-Kai; Gou, Shih-Chuan; Liao, Wen-Te

2016-10-01

Cavity quantum electrodynamics (CQED) has played a central role in demonstrating the fundamental principles of the quantum world, and in particular those of atom-light interactions. Developing fast, dynamical and non-mechanical control over a CQED system is particularly desirable for controlling atomic dynamics and building future quantum networks at high speed. However conventional mirrors do not allow for such flexible and fast controls over their coupling to intracavity atoms mediated by photons. Here we theoretically investigate a novel all-optical CQED system composed of a binary Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) sandwiched by two atomic ensembles. The highly tunable atomic dispersion of the CQED system enables the medium to act as a versatile, all-optically controlled atomic mirror that can be employed to manipulate the vacuum-induced diffraction of matter-wave superradiance. Our study illustrates a innovative all-optical element of atomtroics and sheds new light on controlling light-matter interactions.

Influence of Surface Roughness on Strong Light-Matter Interaction of a Quantum Emitter-Metallic Nanoparticle System.

PubMed

Lu, Yu-Wei; Li, Ling-Yan; Liu, Jing-Feng

2018-05-08

We investigate the quantum optical properties of strong light-matter interaction between a quantum emitter and a metallic nanoparticle beyond idealized structures with a smooth surface. Based on the local coupling strength and macroscopic Green's function, we derived an exact quantum optics approach to obtain the field enhancement and light-emission spectrum of a quantum emitter. Numerical simulations show that the surface roughness has a greater effect on the near-field than on the far-field, and slightly increases the vacuum Rabi splitting on average. Further, we verified that the near-field enhancement is mainly determined by the surface features of hot-spot area.

Exciton-plasmon coupling interactions: from principle to applications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cao, En; Lin, Weihua; Sun, Mengtao; Liang, Wenjie; Song, Yuzhi

2018-01-01

The interaction of exciton-plasmon coupling and the conversion of exciton-plasmon-photon have been widely investigated experimentally and theoretically. In this review, we introduce the exciton-plasmon interaction from basic principle to applications. There are two kinds of exciton-plasmon coupling, which demonstrate different optical properties. The strong exciton-plasmon coupling results in two new mixed states of light and matter separated energetically by a Rabi splitting that exhibits a characteristic anticrossing behavior of the exciton-LSP energy tuning. Compared to strong coupling, such as surface-enhanced Raman scattering, surface plasmon (SP)-enhanced absorption, enhanced fluorescence, or fluorescence quenching, there is no perturbation between wave functions; the interaction here is called the weak coupling. SP resonance (SPR) arises from the collective oscillation induced by the electromagnetic field of light and can be used for investigating the interaction between light and matter beyond the diffraction limit. The study on the interaction between SPR and exaction has drawn wide attention since its discovery not only due to its contribution in deepening and broadening the understanding of SPR but also its contribution to its application in light-emitting diodes, solar cells, low threshold laser, biomedical detection, quantum information processing, and so on.

Light-driven dynamic Archimedes spirals and periodic oscillatory patterns of topological solitons in anisotropic soft matter

DOE PAGES

Martinez, Angel; Smalyukh, Ivan I.

2015-02-12

Oscillatory and excitable systems very commonly exhibit formation of dynamic non-equilibrium patterns. For example, rotating spiral patterns are observed in biological, chemical, and physical systems ranging from organization of slime mold cells to Belousov-Zhabotinsky reactions, and to crystal growth from nuclei with screw dislocations. Here we describe spontaneous formation of spiral waves and a large variety of other dynamic patterns in anisotropic soft matter driven by low-intensity light. The unstructured ambient or microscope light illumination of thin liquid crystal films in contact with a self-assembled azobenzene monolayer causes spontaneous formation, rich spatial organization, and dynamics of twisted domains and topologicalmore » solitons accompanied by the dynamic patterning of azobenzene group orientations within the monolayer. Linearly polarized incident light interacts with the twisted liquid crystalline domains, mimicking their dynamics and yielding patterns in the polarization state of transmitted light, which can be transformed to similar dynamic patterns in its intensity and interference color. This shows that the delicate light-soft-matter interaction can yield complex self-patterning of both. Finally, we uncover underpinning physical mechanisms and discuss potential uses.« less

Phase transition of light in cavity QED lattices.

PubMed

Schiró, M; Bordyuh, M; Oztop, B; Türeci, H E

2012-08-03

Systems of strongly interacting atoms and photons, which can be realized wiring up individual cavity QED systems into lattices, are perceived as a new platform for quantum simulation. While sharing important properties with other systems of interacting quantum particles, here we argue that the nature of light-matter interaction gives rise to unique features with no analogs in condensed matter or atomic physics setups. By discussing the physics of a lattice model of delocalized photons coupled locally with two-level systems through the elementary light-matter interaction described by the Rabi model, we argue that the inclusion of counterrotating terms, so far neglected, is crucial to stabilize finite-density quantum phases of correlated photons out of the vacuum, with no need for an artificially engineered chemical potential. We show that the competition between photon delocalization and Rabi nonlinearity drives the system across a novel Z(2) parity symmetry-breaking quantum criticality between two gapped phases that share similarities with the Dicke transition of quantum optics and the Ising critical point of quantum magnetism. We discuss the phase diagram as well as the low-energy excitation spectrum and present analytic estimates for critical quantities.

Dark matter maps reveal cosmic scaffolding.

PubMed

Massey, Richard; Rhodes, Jason; Ellis, Richard; Scoville, Nick; Leauthaud, Alexie; Finoguenov, Alexis; Capak, Peter; Bacon, David; Aussel, Hervé; Kneib, Jean-Paul; Koekemoer, Anton; McCracken, Henry; Mobasher, Bahram; Pires, Sandrine; Refregier, Alexandre; Sasaki, Shunji; Starck, Jean-Luc; Taniguchi, Yoshi; Taylor, Andy; Taylor, James

2007-01-18

Ordinary baryonic particles (such as protons and neutrons) account for only one-sixth of the total matter in the Universe. The remainder is a mysterious 'dark matter' component, which does not interact via electromagnetism and thus neither emits nor reflects light. As dark matter cannot be seen directly using traditional observations, very little is currently known about its properties. It does interact via gravity, and is most effectively probed through gravitational lensing: the deflection of light from distant galaxies by the gravitational attraction of foreground mass concentrations. This is a purely geometrical effect that is free of astrophysical assumptions and sensitive to all matter--whether baryonic or dark. Here we show high-fidelity maps of the large-scale distribution of dark matter, resolved in both angle and depth. We find a loose network of filaments, growing over time, which intersect in massive structures at the locations of clusters of galaxies. Our results are consistent with predictions of gravitationally induced structure formation, in which the initial, smooth distribution of dark matter collapses into filaments then into clusters, forming a gravitational scaffold into which gas can accumulate, and stars can be built.

Plasmonic nanofocusing of light in an integrated silicon photonics platform.

PubMed

Desiatov, Boris; Goykhman, Ilya; Levy, Uriel

2011-07-04

The capability to focus electromagnetic energy at the nanoscale plays an important role in nanoscinece and nanotechnology. It allows enhancing light matter interactions at the nanoscale with applications related to nonlinear optics, light emission and light detection. It may also be used for enhancing resolution in microscopy, lithography and optical storage systems. Hereby we propose and experimentally demonstrate the nanoscale focusing of surface plasmons by constructing an integrated plasmonic/photonic on chip nanofocusing device in silicon platform. The device was tested directly by measuring the optical intensity along it using a near-field microscope. We found an order of magnitude enhancement of the intensity at the tip's apex. The spot size is estimated to be 50 nm. The demonstrated device may be used as a building block for "lab on a chip" systems and for enhancing light matter interactions at the apex of the tip.

Constraints on light mediators: Confronting dark matter searches with B physics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schmidt-Hoberg, Kai; Staub, Florian; Winkler, Martin Wolfgang

2013-12-01

Light scalars appear in many well-motivated extensions of the Standard Model including supersymmetric models with additional gauge singlets. Such scalars could mediate the interactions between dark matter and nuclei, giving rise to the tentative signals observed by several dark matter direct detection experiments including CDMS-Si. In this Letter, we derive strong new limits on light scalar mediators by using the LHCb, Belle and BaBar searches for rare ϒ and B decays. These limits rule out significant parts of the parameter space favored by CDMS-Si. Nevertheless, as current searches are not optimized for investigating weakly coupled light scalars, a further increase in experimental sensitivity could be achieved by relaxing requirements in the event selection.

Nonlinear light-matter interactions in engineered optical media

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Litchinitser, Natalia

In this talk, we consider fundamental optical phenomena at the interface of nonlinear and singular optics in artificial media, including theoretical and experimental studies of linear and nonlinear light-matter interactions of vector and singular optical beams in metamaterials. We show that unique optical properties of metamaterials open unlimited prospects to ``engineer'' light itself. Thanks to their ability to manipulate both electric and magnetic field components, metamaterials open new degrees of freedom for tailoring complex polarization states and orbital angular momentum (OAM) of light. We will discuss several approaches to structured light manipulation on the nanoscale using metal-dielectric, all-dielectric and hyperbolic metamaterials. These new functionalities, including polarization and OAM conversion, beam magnification and de-magnification, and sub-wavelength imaging using novel non-resonant hyperlens are likely to enable a new generation of on-chip or all-fiber structured light applications. The emergence of metamaterials also has a strong potential to enable a plethora of novel nonlinear light-matter interactions and even new nonlinear materials. In particular, nonlinear focusing and defocusing effects are of paramount importance for manipulation of the minimum focusing spot size of structured light beams necessary for nanoscale trapping, manipulation, and fundamental spectroscopic studies. Colloidal suspensions offer as a promising platform for engineering polarizibilities and realization of large and tunable nonlinearities. We will present our recent studies of the phenomenon of spatial modulational instability leading to laser beam filamentation in an engineered soft-matter nonlinear medium. Finally, we introduce so-called virtual hyperbolic metamaterials formed by an array of plasma channels in air as a result of self-focusing of an intense laser pulse, and show that such structure can be used to manipulate microwave beams in a free space. This work was supported by the Army Research Office Awards (W911NF-15-1-0146, W911NF-11-1-0297).

Structured Light-Matter Interactions Enabled By Novel Photonic Materials

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Litchinitser, Natalia; Feng, Liang

The synergy of complex materials and complex light is expected to add a new dimension to the science of light and its applications [1]. The goal of this program is to investigate novel phenomena emerging at the interface of these two branches of modern optics. While metamaterials research was largely focused on relatively “simple” linearly or circularly polarized light propagation in “complex” nanostructured, carefully designed materials with properties not found in nature, many singular optics studies addressed “complex” structured light transmission in “simple” homogeneous, isotropic, nondispersive transparent media, where both spin and orbital angular momentum are independently conserved. However, ifmore » both light and medium are complex so that structured light interacts with a metamaterial whose optical materials properties can be designed at will, the spin or angular momentum can change, which leads to spin-orbit interaction and many novel optical phenomena that will be studied in the proposed project. Indeed, metamaterials enable unprecedented control over light propagation, opening new avenues for using spin and quantum optical phenomena, and design flexibility facilitating new linear and nonlinear optical properties and functionalities, including negative index of refraction, magnetism at optical frequencies, giant optical activity, subwavelength imaging, cloaking, dispersion engineering, and unique phase-matching conditions for nonlinear optical interactions. In this research program we focused on structured light-matter interactions in complex media with three particularly remarkable properties that were enabled only with the emergence of metamaterials: extreme anisotropy, extreme material parameters, and magneto-electric coupling–bi-anisotropy and chirality.« less

Introduction to light and optical theories

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Light scattering occurs as a result of the interaction of photons with matter, and it is dependent on the structure and chemical composition of the material. Over the past 15 years, significant progress and numerous applications in light scattering have been made for assessing properties, quality an...

Is dark matter with long-range interactions a solution to all small-scale problems of Λ cold dark matter cosmology?

PubMed

van den Aarssen, Laura G; Bringmann, Torsten; Pfrommer, Christoph

2012-12-07

The cold dark matter paradigm describes the large-scale structure of the Universe remarkably well. However, there exists some tension with the observed abundances and internal density structures of both field dwarf galaxies and galactic satellites. Here, we demonstrate that a simple class of dark matter models may offer a viable solution to all of these problems simultaneously. Their key phenomenological properties are velocity-dependent self-interactions mediated by a light vector messenger and thermal production with much later kinetic decoupling than in the standard case.

Direct detection signatures of self-interacting dark matter with a light mediator

DOE PAGES

Nobile, Eugenio Del; Kaplinghat, Manoj; Yu, Hai-Bo

2015-10-27

Self-interacting dark matter (SIDM) is a simple and well-motivated scenario that could explain long-standing puzzles in structure formation on small scales. If the required self-interaction arises through a light mediator (with mass ~ 10 MeV) in the dark sector, this new particle must be unstable to avoid overclosing the universe. The decay of the light mediator could happen due to a weak coupling of the hidden and visible sectors, providing new signatures for direct detection experiments. The SIDM nuclear recoil spectrum is more peaked towards low energies compared to the usual case of contact interactions, because the mediator mass ismore » comparable to the momentum transfer of nuclear recoils. We show that the SIDM signal could be distinguished from that of DM particles with contact interactions by considering the time-average energy spectrum in experiments employing different target materials, or the average and modulated spectra in a single experiment. Using current limits from LUX and SuperCDMS, we also derive strong bounds on the mixing parameter between hidden and visible sector.« less

DaMaSCUS: the impact of underground scatterings on direct detection of light dark matter

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Emken, Timon; Kouvaris, Chris

2017-10-01

Conventional dark matter direct detection experiments set stringent constraints on dark matter by looking for elastic scattering events between dark matter particles and nuclei in underground detectors. However these constraints weaken significantly in the sub-GeV mass region, simply because light dark matter does not have enough energy to trigger detectors regardless of the dark matter-nucleon scattering cross section. Even if future experiments lower their energy thresholds, they will still be blind to parameter space where dark matter particles interact with nuclei strongly enough that they lose enough energy and become unable to cause a signal above the experimental threshold by the time they reach the underground detector. Therefore in case dark matter is in the sub-GeV region and strongly interacting, possible underground scatterings of dark matter with terrestrial nuclei must be taken into account because they affect significantly the recoil spectra and event rates, regardless of whether the experiment probes DM via DM-nucleus or DM-electron interaction. To quantify this effect we present the publicly available Dark Matter Simulation Code for Underground Scatterings (DaMaSCUS), a Monte Carlo simulator of DM trajectories through the Earth taking underground scatterings into account. Our simulation allows the precise calculation of the density and velocity distribution of dark matter at any detector of given depth and location on Earth. The simulation can also provide the accurate recoil spectrum in underground detectors as well as the phase and amplitude of the diurnal modulation caused by this shadowing effect of the Earth, ultimately relating the modulations expected in different detectors, which is important to decisively conclude if a diurnal modulation is due to dark matter or an irrelevant background.

DaMaSCUS: the impact of underground scatterings on direct detection of light dark matter

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Emken, Timon; Kouvaris, Chris, E-mail: emken@cp3.sdu.dk, E-mail: kouvaris@cp3.sdu.dk

Conventional dark matter direct detection experiments set stringent constraints on dark matter by looking for elastic scattering events between dark matter particles and nuclei in underground detectors. However these constraints weaken significantly in the sub-GeV mass region, simply because light dark matter does not have enough energy to trigger detectors regardless of the dark matter-nucleon scattering cross section. Even if future experiments lower their energy thresholds, they will still be blind to parameter space where dark matter particles interact with nuclei strongly enough that they lose enough energy and become unable to cause a signal above the experimental threshold bymore » the time they reach the underground detector. Therefore in case dark matter is in the sub-GeV region and strongly interacting, possible underground scatterings of dark matter with terrestrial nuclei must be taken into account because they affect significantly the recoil spectra and event rates, regardless of whether the experiment probes DM via DM-nucleus or DM-electron interaction. To quantify this effect we present the publicly available Dark Matter Simulation Code for Underground Scatterings (DaMaSCUS), a Monte Carlo simulator of DM trajectories through the Earth taking underground scatterings into account. Our simulation allows the precise calculation of the density and velocity distribution of dark matter at any detector of given depth and location on Earth. The simulation can also provide the accurate recoil spectrum in underground detectors as well as the phase and amplitude of the diurnal modulation caused by this shadowing effect of the Earth, ultimately relating the modulations expected in different detectors, which is important to decisively conclude if a diurnal modulation is due to dark matter or an irrelevant background.« less

Magnetic Light-Matter Interactions in a Photonic Crystal Nanocavity

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Burresi, M.; Kampfrath, T.; van Oosten, D.; Prangsma, J. C.; Song, B. S.; Noda, S.; Kuipers, L.

2010-09-01

We study the magnetic coupling between a metal-coated near-field probe and a photonic crystal nanocavity. The resonance of the nanocavity shifts to shorter wavelengths when the ringlike apex of the probe is above an antinode of the magnetic field of the cavity. We show that this can be attributed to a magnetic light-matter interaction and is in fact a manifestation of Lenz’s law at optical frequencies. We use these measurements to determine the magnetic polarizability of the apex of the probe and find good agreement with theory. We discuss how this method could be applied to study the electric and magnetic polarizibilities of nano-objects.

Topological Quantum Phase Transition and Local Topological Order in a Strongly Interacting Light-Matter System.

PubMed

Sarkar, Sujit

2017-05-12

An attempt is made to understand the topological quantum phase transition, emergence of relativistic modes and local topological order of light in a strongly interacting light-matter system. We study this system, in a one dimensional array of nonlinear cavities. Topological quantum phase transition occurs with massless excitation only for the finite detuning process. We present a few results based on the exact analytical calculations along with the physical explanations. We observe the emergence of massive Majorana fermion mode at the topological state, massless Majorana-Weyl fermion mode during the topological quantum phase transition and Dirac fermion mode for the non-topological state. Finally, we study the quantized Berry phase (topological order) and its connection to the topological number (winding number).

Chiral effective theory of dark matter direct detection

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Bishara, Fady; Brod, Joachim; Grinstein, Benjamin

2017-02-01

We present the effective field theory for dark matter interactions with the visible sector that is valid at scales of O(1 GeV). Starting with an effective theory describing the interactions of fermionic and scalar dark matter with quarks, gluons and photons via higher dimension operators that would arise from dimension-five and dimension-six operators above electroweak scale, we perform a nonperturbative matching onto a heavy baryon chiral perturbation theory that describes dark matter interactions with light mesons and nucleons. This is then used to obtain the coefficients of the nuclear response functions using a chiral effective theory description of nuclear forces.more » Our results consistently keep the leading contributions in chiral counting for each of the initial Wilson coefficients.« less

Multipartite interacting scalar dark matter in the light of updated LUX data

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Bhattacharya, Subhaditya; Ghosh, Purusottam; Poulose, Poulose, E-mail: subhab@iitg.ernet.in, E-mail: p.ghosh@iitg.ernet.in, E-mail: poulose@iitg.ernet.in

2017-04-01

We explore constraints on multipartite dark matter (DM) framework composed of singlet scalar DM interacting with the Standard Model (SM) through Higgs portal coupling. We compute relic density and direct search constraints including the updated LUX bound for two component scenario with non-zero interactions between two DM components in Z{sub 2} × Z{sub 2}{sup '} framework in comparison with the one having O(2) symmetry. We point out availability of a significantly large region of parameter space of such a multipartite model with DM-DM interactions.

Search for Light Dark Matter Produced in a Proton Beam Dump

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Thornton, Remington Tyler

Cosmological observations indicate that our universe contains dark matter (DM), yet we have no measurements of its microscopic properties. Whereas the gravitational interaction of DM is well understood, its interaction with the Standard Model is not. Direct detection experiments, the current standard, search for a nuclear recoil interaction and have a low-mass sensitivity edge of order 1 GeV. A path to detect DM with mass below 1 GeV is the use of accelerators producing boosted low-mass DM. Using neutrino detectors to search for low-mass DM is logical due to the similarity of the DM and neutrino signatures in the detector.more » The MiniBooNE experiment, located at Fermilab on the Booster Neutrino Beamline, has produced the first proton beam-dump light DM search results. Using dark matter scattering from nucleons 90% confidence limits were set over a large parameter space and, to allow tests of other theories, a model independent DM rate was extracted.« less

Search for light dark matter produced in a proton beam dump

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Thornton, Remington Tyler

Cosmological observations indicate that our universe contains dark matter (DM), yet we have no measurements of its microscopic properties. Whereas the gravitational interaction of DM is well understood, its interaction with the Standard Model is not. Direct detection experiments, the current standard, search for a nuclear recoil interaction and have a low-mass sensitivity edge of order 1 GeV. A path to detect DM with mass below 1 GeV is the use of accelerators producing boosted low-mass DM. Using neutrino detectors to search for low-mass DM is logical due to the similarity of the DM and neutrino signatures in the detector. The MiniBooNE experiment, located at Fermilab on the Booster Neutrino Beamline, has produced the first proton beam-dump light DM search results. Using dark matter scattering from nucleons 90% confidence limits were set over a large parameter space and, to allow tests of other theories, a model independent DM rate was extracted.

Light Matters (A "Life at the Frontiers of Energy Research" contest entry from the 2011 Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRCs) Summit and Forum)

ScienceCinema

Atwater, Harry (Director, Light-Material Interactions in Energy Conversion (LMI), California Institute of Technology); LMI Staff

2017-12-09

'Light Matters' was submitted by the Center for Light-Material Interactions in Energy Conversion (LMI) to the 'Life at the Frontiers of Energy Research' video contest at the 2011 Science for Our Nation's Energy Future: Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRCs) Summit and Forum. Twenty-six EFRCs created short videos to highlight their mission and their work. This video was selected as one of five winners by a distinguished panel of judges for its 'striking photography and visual impact'. LMI, an EFRC directed by Harry Atwater at the California Institute of Technology is a partnership of scientists from three institutions: CalTech (lead), University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The Office of Basic Energy Sciences in the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science established the 46 Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRCs) in 2009. These collaboratively-organized centers conduct fundamental research focused on 'grand challenges' and use-inspired 'basic research needs' recently identified in major strategic planning efforts by the scientific community. The overall purpose is to accelerate scientific progress toward meeting the nation's critical energy challenges. The mission of Light-Material Interactions in Energy Conversion is 'to tailor the morphology, complex dielectric structure, and electronic properties of matter to sculpt the flow of sunlight, enabling light conversion to electrical and chemical energy with unprecedented efficiency.' Research topics are: catalysis (imines hydrocarbons), solar photovoltaic, solar fuels, photonic, solid state lighting, metamaterial, optics, phonons, thermal conductivity, solar electrodes, photsynthesis, CO{sub 2} (convert), greenhouse gas, and matter by design.

Light-Induced Transformations of the C60 Derivative, Fullerenol: Interactions with Natural Organic Matter

EPA Science Inventory

Recent studies have indicated that fullerenes, an important class of nanomaterials, are photodegraded by solar radiation and can sensitize the photoproduction of reactive oxygen species such as singlet oxygen. Because natural organic matter (NOM) can retard photoreactions that a...

The Whiteness of Things and Light Scattering

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gratton, L. M.; Lopez-Arias, T.; Calza, G.; Oss, S.

2009-01-01

We discuss some simple experiments dealing with intriguing properties of light and its interaction with matter. In particular, we show how to emphasize that light reflection, refraction and scattering can provide a proper, physical description of human perception of the "colour" white. These experiments can be used in the classroom with an enquiry…

Time-Gating Processes in Intra-Cavity Mode-Locking Devices Like Saturable Absorbers and Kerr Cells

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Prasad, Narasimha; Roychoudhuri, Chandrasekhar

2010-01-01

Photons are non-interacting entities. Light beams do not interfere by themselves. Light beams constituting different laser modes (frequencies) are not capable of re-arranging their energies from extended time-domain to ultra-short time-domain by themselves without the aid of light-matter interactions with suitable intra-cavity devices. In this paper we will discuss the time-gating properties of intra-cavity "mode-locking" devices that actually help generate a regular train of high energy wave packets.

Quarkonium-nucleus bound states from lattice QCD

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Beane, S.  R.; Chang, E.; Cohen, S.  D.

2015-06-11

Quarkonium-nucleus systems are composed of two interacting hadronic states without common valence quarks, which interact primarily through multi-gluon exchanges, realizing a color van der Waals force. We present lattice QCD calculations of the interactions of strange and charm quarkonia with light nuclei. Both the strangeonium-nucleus and charmonium-nucleus systems are found to be relatively deeply bound when the masses of the three light quarks are set equal to that of the physical strange quark. Extrapolation of these results to the physical light-quark masses suggests that the binding energy of charmonium to nuclear matter is B < 40 MeV.

Self-interacting inelastic dark matter: a viable solution to the small scale structure problems

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Blennow, Mattias; Clementz, Stefan; Herrero-Garcia, Juan, E-mail: emb@kth.se, E-mail: scl@kth.se, E-mail: juan.herrero-garcia@adelaide.edu.au

2017-03-01

Self-interacting dark matter has been proposed as a solution to the small-scale structure problems, such as the observed flat cores in dwarf and low surface brightness galaxies. If scattering takes place through light mediators, the scattering cross section relevant to solve these problems may fall into the non-perturbative regime leading to a non-trivial velocity dependence, which allows compatibility with limits stemming from cluster-size objects. However, these models are strongly constrained by different observations, in particular from the requirements that the decay of the light mediator is sufficiently rapid (before Big Bang Nucleosynthesis) and from direct detection. A natural solution tomore » reconcile both requirements are inelastic endothermic interactions, such that scatterings in direct detection experiments are suppressed or even kinematically forbidden if the mass splitting between the two-states is sufficiently large. Using an exact solution when numerically solving the Schrödinger equation, we study such scenarios and find regions in the parameter space of dark matter and mediator masses, and the mass splitting of the states, where the small scale structure problems can be solved, the dark matter has the correct relic abundance and direct detection limits can be evaded.« less

Light scalars on cosmological backgrounds

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Markkanen, Tommi

2018-01-01

We study the behaviour of a light quartically self-interacting scalar field ϕ on curved backgrounds that may be described with the cosmological equation state parameter w. At leading order in the non-perturbative 2PI expansion we find a general formula for the variance < {\\widehat{φ}}^2> and show for several previously unexplored cases, including matter domination and kination, that the curvature of space can induce a significant excitation of the field. We discuss how the generation of a non-zero variance for w ≠ -1 can be understood as a process of self-regulation of the infrared divergences very similarly to what is known to occur in de Sitter space. To conclude, the appearance of an effective mass due to self-interaction is generic for a light scalar in curved space and can have important implications for reheating, vacuum stability and dark matter generation.

Light in condensed matter in the upper atmosphere as the origin of homochirality: circularly polarized light from Rydberg matter.

PubMed

Holmlid, Leif

2009-01-01

Clouds of the condensed excited Rydberg matter (RM) exist in the atmospheres of comets and planetary bodies (most easily observed at Mercury and the Moon), where they surround the entire bodies. Vast such clouds are recently proposed to exist in the upper atmosphere of Earth (giving rise to the enormous features called noctilucent clouds, polar mesospheric clouds, and polar mesospheric summer radar echoes). It has been shown in experiments with RM that linearly polarized visible light scattered from an RM layer is transformed to circularly polarized light with a probability of approximately 50%. The circular Rydberg electrons in the magnetic field in the RM may be chiral scatterers. The magnetic and anisotropic RM medium acts as a circular polarizer probably by delaying one of the perpendicular components of the light wave. The delay process involved is called Rabi-flopping and gives delays of the order of femtoseconds. This strong effect thus gives intense circularly polarized visible and UV light within RM clouds. Amino acids and other chiral molecules will experience a strong interaction with this light field in the upper atmospheres of planets. The interaction will vary with the stereogenic conformation of the molecules and in all probability promote the survival of one enantiomer. Here, this strong effect is proposed to be the origin of homochirality. The formation of amino acids in the RM clouds is probably facilitated by the catalytic effect of RM.

Light in Condensed Matter in the Upper Atmosphere as the Origin of Homochirality: Circularly Polarized Light from Rydberg Matter

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Holmlid, Leif

2009-08-01

Clouds of the condensed excited Rydberg matter (RM) exist in the atmospheres of comets and planetary bodies (most easily observed at Mercury and the Moon), where they surround the entire bodies. Vast such clouds are recently proposed to exist in the upper atmosphere of Earth (giving rise to the enormous features called noctilucent clouds, polar mesospheric clouds, and polar mesospheric summer radar echoes). It has been shown in experiments with RM that linearly polarized visible light scattered from an RM layer is transformed to circularly polarized light with a probability of approximately 50%. The circular Rydberg electrons in the magnetic field in the RM may be chiral scatterers. The magnetic and anisotropic RM medium acts as a circular polarizer probably by delaying one of the perpendicular components of the light wave. The delay process involved is called Rabi-flopping and gives delays of the order of femtoseconds. This strong effect thus gives intense circularly polarized visible and UV light within RM clouds. Amino acids and other chiral molecules will experience a strong interaction with this light field in the upper atmospheres of planets. The interaction will vary with the stereogenic conformation of the molecules and in all probability promote the survival of one enantiomer. Here, this strong effect is proposed to be the origin of homochirality. The formation of amino acids in the RM clouds is probably facilitated by the catalytic effect of RM.

Dark matter self-interactions from a general spin-0 mediator

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Kahlhoefer, Felix; Schmidt-Hoberg, Kai; Wild, Sebastian, E-mail: felix.kahlhoefer@desy.de, E-mail: kai.schmidt-hoberg@desy.de, E-mail: sebastian.wild@desy.de

2017-08-01

Dark matter particles interacting via the exchange of very light spin-0 mediators can have large self-interaction rates and obtain their relic abundance from thermal freeze-out. At the same time, these models face strong bounds from direct and indirect probes of dark matter as well as a number of constraints on the properties of the mediator. We investigate whether these constraints can be consistent with having observable effects from dark matter self-interactions in astrophysical systems. For the case of a mediator with purely scalar couplings we point out the highly relevant impact of low-threshold direct detection experiments like CRESST-II, which essentiallymore » rule out the simplest realization of this model. These constraints can be significantly relaxed if the mediator has CP-violating couplings, but then the model faces strong constraints from CMB measurements, which can only be avoided in special regions of parameter space.« less

Probing the Wave Nature of Light-Matter Interaction

DOE PAGES

Boone, D. E.; Jackson, C. H.; Swecker, A. T.; ...

2018-05-30

Here, the wave-particle duality of light is a controversial topic in modern physics. In this context, this work highlights the ability of the wave-nature of light on its own to account for the conservation of energy in light-matter interaction. Two simple fundamental properties of light as wave are involved: its period and its power P. The power P depends only on the amplitude of the wave’s electric and magnetic fields (Poynting’s vector), and can easily be measured with a power sensor for visible and infrared lasers. The advantage of such a wave-based approach is that it unveils unexpected effects ofmore » light’s power P capable of explaining numerous results published in current scientific literature, of correlating phenomena otherwise considered as disjointed, and of making predictions on ways to employ the electromagnetic (EM) waves which so far are unexplored. In this framework, this work focuses on determining the magnitude of the time interval that, coupled with light’s power P, establishes the energy conserved in the exchange of energy between light and matter. To reach this goal, capacitors were excited with visible and IR lasers at variable average power P. As the result of combining experimental measurements and simulations based on the law of conservation of energy, it was found that the product of the period of the light by its power P fixes the magnitude of the energy conserved in light’s interaction with the capacitors. This finding highlights that the energy exchanged is defined in the time interval equal to the period of the light’s wave. The validity of the finding is shown to hold in light’s interaction with matter in general, e.g. in the photoelectric effect with x-rays, in the transfer of electrons between energy levels in semiconductingfield effect transistors, in the activation of photosynthetic reactions, and in the generation of action potentials in retinal ganglion cells to enable vision in vertebrates. Finally, the validity of the finding is investigated in the low frequency spectrum of the EM waves by exploring possible consequences in microwave technology, and in harvesting through capacitors the radio waves dispersed in the environment after being used in telecommunications as a source of usable electricity.« less

Probing the Wave Nature of Light-Matter Interaction

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Boone, D. E.; Jackson, C. H.; Swecker, A. T.

Here, the wave-particle duality of light is a controversial topic in modern physics. In this context, this work highlights the ability of the wave-nature of light on its own to account for the conservation of energy in light-matter interaction. Two simple fundamental properties of light as wave are involved: its period and its power P. The power P depends only on the amplitude of the wave’s electric and magnetic fields (Poynting’s vector), and can easily be measured with a power sensor for visible and infrared lasers. The advantage of such a wave-based approach is that it unveils unexpected effects ofmore » light’s power P capable of explaining numerous results published in current scientific literature, of correlating phenomena otherwise considered as disjointed, and of making predictions on ways to employ the electromagnetic (EM) waves which so far are unexplored. In this framework, this work focuses on determining the magnitude of the time interval that, coupled with light’s power P, establishes the energy conserved in the exchange of energy between light and matter. To reach this goal, capacitors were excited with visible and IR lasers at variable average power P. As the result of combining experimental measurements and simulations based on the law of conservation of energy, it was found that the product of the period of the light by its power P fixes the magnitude of the energy conserved in light’s interaction with the capacitors. This finding highlights that the energy exchanged is defined in the time interval equal to the period of the light’s wave. The validity of the finding is shown to hold in light’s interaction with matter in general, e.g. in the photoelectric effect with x-rays, in the transfer of electrons between energy levels in semiconductingfield effect transistors, in the activation of photosynthetic reactions, and in the generation of action potentials in retinal ganglion cells to enable vision in vertebrates. Finally, the validity of the finding is investigated in the low frequency spectrum of the EM waves by exploring possible consequences in microwave technology, and in harvesting through capacitors the radio waves dispersed in the environment after being used in telecommunications as a source of usable electricity.« less

Exciton-Polariton Dynamics of a Monolayer Semiconductor Coupled to a Microcavity

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chen, Yen-Jung; Stanev, Teodor K.; Stern, Nathaniel P.; Cain, Jeffrey D.; Dravid, Vinayak P.

Strong light-matter interactions, evidenced by exciton-polariton states, have been observed in the two-dimensional limit with monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) embedded in a microcavity. Because of the valley degree of freedom in monolayer TMDs, these hybrid light-matter states can exhibit valley polarization as in a bare monolayer, with strongly-coupled dynamics determined by the relative rates of exciton relaxation and intervalley scattering, which can be highly modified in on-resonant cavities. Here, we test this intuitive picture of the polarized exciton-polariton dynamics with monolayer MoS2 coupled to detuned cavities. Upper and lower polariton branches exhibit distinct decay rates indicative of different cavity dynamics. As with on-resonant, strongly-coupled exciton-polaritons, the weakly-coupled regime causes exciton-polariton valley polarization to persist at room temperature, demonstrating that dynamics of valley-polarized excitations can be controlled by engineering light-matter interactions. This work is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (BES DE-SC0012130) and the National Science Foundation MRSEC program (DMR-1121262). N.P.S. is an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow.

EFFECTS OF PHOTOCHEMICAL, MICROBIAL AND SORPTION PROCESSES ON THE OPTICAL PROPERTIES AND DEGRADATION OF DISSOLVED ORGANIC MATTER FROM COASTAL WETLANDS

EPA Science Inventory

The dissolved organic matter (DOM) exported from rivers and intertidal marshes to coastal oceans is rich in light-absorbing, fluorescent constituents, including humic substances and other polyphenolic moieties. Interactions between microbial and photochemical processes have impor...

Directional Sensitivity in Light-Mass Dark Matter Searches with Single-Electron-Resolution Ionization Detectors

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kadribasic, Fedja; Mirabolfathi, Nader; Nordlund, Kai; Sand, Andrea E.; Holmström, Eero; Djurabekova, Flyura

2018-03-01

We propose a method using solid state detectors with directional sensitivity to dark matter interactions to detect low-mass weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) originating from galactic sources. In spite of a large body of literature for high-mass WIMP detectors with directional sensitivity, no available technique exists to cover WIMPs in the mass range <1 GeV /c2 . We argue that single-electron-resolution semiconductor detectors allow for directional sensitivity once properly calibrated. We examine the commonly used semiconductor material response to these low-mass WIMP interactions.

Theoretical astrophysics in the 19th century (Homage to Radó von Kövesligethy)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Balázs, Lajos G.

The nature of astronomical information is determined mostly by the incoming light. Theoretical astrophysics means basically the theory of light emission and its relation to the physical constitution of the emitting celestial bodies. The necessary physical disciplines include theory of gravitation, theory of radiation, thermodynamics, matter--radiation interaction. The most significant theoretical achievement in the 17th - 18th century was the axiomatic foundation of mechanics and the law of gravitation. In the context of the nature of light, there were two conceptions: Newton contra Huygens, i.e. particle versus wave phenomenon. Using the theory of gravitation, first speculations appeared on black holes (Michell, Laplace), cosmogony (Kant-Laplace theory), the structure of the Milky Way (Kant), and the explanation of motion of the celestial bodies. The Olbers Paradox, formulated in the 19th century, is still one of the most significant constraints on observational cosmology. The development of thermodynamics, matter-radiation interaction, development of the theory of electromagnetism became important milestones. Maxwell's theory was the classical framework of the interaction between matter and radiation. Kirchhoff and Bunsen's revolutionary discovery of spectral analysis (1859) showed that observation of spectra makes it possible to study the chemical composition of emitting bodies. Thermodynamics predicted the existence of the black body radiation. It did not succeed, however, to determine the functional form of the wavelength dependence. A combination of the thermodynamic equation of state with the equation of hydrostatics resulted in the first stellar models (Lane, Ritter, Schuster). The first successful spectral equation of black body radiation was the theory of continuous spectra of celestial bodies by Radó von Kövesligethy (published 1885 in Hungarian, 1890 in German). Kövesligethy made several assumptions on the matter-radiation interaction: radiating matter consists of interacting particles, the form of interaction is an inverse power law, the radiation field is represented by the aether, aether is made also from interacting particles, light is the propagation of the oscillation of the aether particles, there is an equipartition between the oscillations energy of material and aetheric particles. Based on these assumptions, he derived a spectral equation with the following properties: the spectral distribution of radiation depends only on the temperature, the total irradiated energy is finite (15 years before Planck!), the wavelength of the intensity maximum is inversely proportional to the temperature (eight years before Wien!). Using his spectral equation, he estimated the temperature of several celestial bodies, including the Sun.

Heat meets light on the nanoscale

DOE PAGES

Boriskina, Svetlana V.; Tong, Jonathan K.; Hsu, Wei -Chun; ...

2016-06-11

We discuss the state-of-the-art and remaining challenges in the fundamental understanding and technology development for controlling light-matter interactions in nanophotonic environments in and away from thermal equilibrium. Furthermore, the topics covered range from the basics of the thermodynamics of light emission and absorption to applications in solar thermal energy generation, thermophotovoltaics, optical refrigeration, personalized cooling technologies, development of coherent incandescent light sources, and spinoptics.

Vector SIMP dark matter

DOE PAGES

Choi, Soo -Min; Hochberg, Yonit; Kuflik, Eric; ...

2017-10-24

Strongly Interacting Massive Particles (SIMPs) have recently been proposed as light thermal dark matter relics. Here we consider an explicit realization of the SIMP mechanism in the form of vector SIMPs arising from an SU(2) X hidden gauge theory, where the accidental custodial symmetry protects the stability of the dark matter. We propose several ways of equilibrating the dark and visible sectors in this setup. In particular, we show that a light dark Higgs portal can maintain thermal equilibrium between the two sectors, as can a massive dark vector portal with its generalized Chern-Simons couplings to the vector SIMPs, allmore » while remaining consistent with experimental constraints.« less

Light domain walls, massive neutrinos and the large scale structure of the Universe

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Massarotti, Alessandro

1991-01-01

Domain walls generated through a cosmological phase transition are considered, which interact nongravitationally with light neutrinos. At a redshift z greater than or equal to 10(exp 4), the network grows rapidly and is virtually decoupled from the matter. As the friction with the matter becomes dominant, a comoving network scale close to that of the comoving horizon scale at z of approximately 10(exp 4) gets frozen. During the later phases, the walls produce matter wakes of a thickness d of approximately 10h(exp -1)Mpc, that may become seeds for the formation of the large scale structure observed in the Universe.

Dark matter chaotic inflation in light of BICEP2

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Mukaida, Kyohei; Nakayama, Kazunori, E-mail: mukaida@hep-th.phys.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp, E-mail: kazunori@hep-th.phys.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp

2014-08-01

We propose an economical model in which a singlet {sub 2}-odd scalar field accounts for the primordial inflation and the present dark matter abundance simultaneously in the light of recent BICEP2 result. Interestingly, the reheating temperature and the thermal dark matter abundance are closely connected by the same interaction between the singlet scalar and the standard model Higgs. In addition, the reheating temperature turns out to be quite high, T{sub R} ∼> 10{sup 12} GeV, and hence the thermal leptogenesis is compatible with this model. Therefore, it can be one of the simplest cosmological scenarios.

Vector SIMP dark matter

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Choi, Soo-Min; Hochberg, Yonit; Kuflik, Eric; Lee, Hyun Min; Mambrini, Yann; Murayama, Hitoshi; Pierre, Mathias

2017-10-01

Strongly Interacting Massive Particles (SIMPs) have recently been proposed as light thermal dark matter relics. Here we consider an explicit realization of the SIMP mechanism in the form of vector SIMPs arising from an SU(2) X hidden gauge theory, where the accidental custodial symmetry protects the stability of the dark matter. We propose several ways of equilibrating the dark and visible sectors in this setup. In particular, we show that a light dark Higgs portal can maintain thermal equilibrium between the two sectors, as can a massive dark vector portal with its generalized Chern-Simons couplings to the vector SIMPs, all while remaining consistent with experimental constraints.

Vector SIMP dark matter

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Choi, Soo -Min; Hochberg, Yonit; Kuflik, Eric

Strongly Interacting Massive Particles (SIMPs) have recently been proposed as light thermal dark matter relics. Here we consider an explicit realization of the SIMP mechanism in the form of vector SIMPs arising from an SU(2) X hidden gauge theory, where the accidental custodial symmetry protects the stability of the dark matter. We propose several ways of equilibrating the dark and visible sectors in this setup. In particular, we show that a light dark Higgs portal can maintain thermal equilibrium between the two sectors, as can a massive dark vector portal with its generalized Chern-Simons couplings to the vector SIMPs, allmore » while remaining consistent with experimental constraints.« less

Questions Students Ask: Why Not Bend Light with an Electric Field?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Van Heuvelen, Alan

1983-01-01

In response to a question, "Why not use a magnetic or electric field to deflect light?," reviews the relation between electric charge and electric/magnetic fields. Discusses the Faraday effect, (describing matter as an intermediary in the rotation of the place of polarization) and other apparent interactions of light with electric/magnetic fields.…

Boosted dark matter signals uplifted with self-interaction

DOE PAGES

Kong, Kyoungchul; Mohlabeng, Gopolang; Park, Jong -Chul

2015-04-01

We explore detection prospects of a non-standard dark sector in the context of boosted dark matter. We focus on a scenario with two dark matter particles of a large mass difference, where the heavier candidate is secluded and interacts with the standard model particles only at loops, escaping existing direct and indirect detection bounds. Yet its pair annihilation in the galactic center or in the Sun may produce boosted stable particles, which could be detected as visible Cherenkov light in large volume neutrino detectors. In such models with multiple candidates, self-interaction of dark matter particles is naturally utilized in themore » assisted freeze-out mechanism and is corroborated by various cosmological studies such as N-body simulations of structure formation, observations of dwarf galaxies, and the small scale problem. We show that self-interaction of the secluded (heavier) dark matter greatly enhances the capture rate in the Sun and results in promising signals at current and future experiments. We perform a detailed analysis of the boosted dark matter events for Super-Kamiokande, Hyper-Kamiokande and PINGU, including notable effects such as evaporation due to self-interaction and energy loss in the Sun.« less

Boosted dark matter signals uplifted with self-interaction

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kong, Kyoungchul; Mohlabeng, Gopolang; Park, Jong-Chul

2015-04-01

We explore detection prospects of a non-standard dark sector in the context of boosted dark matter. We focus on a scenario with two dark matter particles of a large mass difference, where the heavier candidate is secluded and interacts with the standard model particles only at loops, escaping existing direct and indirect detection bounds. Yet its pair annihilation in the galactic center or in the Sun may produce boosted stable particles, which could be detected as visible Cherenkov light in large volume neutrino detectors. In such models with multiple candidates, self-interaction of dark matter particles is naturally utilized in the assisted freeze-out mechanism and is corroborated by various cosmological studies such as N-body simulations of structure formation, observations of dwarf galaxies, and the small scale problem. We show that self-interaction of the secluded (heavier) dark matter greatly enhances the capture rate in the Sun and results in promising signals at current and future experiments. We perform a detailed analysis of the boosted dark matter events for Super-Kamiokande, Hyper-Kamiokande and PINGU, including notable effects such as evaporation due to self-interaction and energy loss in the Sun.

Nanoscale light–matter interactions in atomic cladding waveguides

PubMed Central

Stern, Liron; Desiatov, Boris; Goykhman, Ilya; Levy, Uriel

2013-01-01

Alkali vapours, such as rubidium, are being used extensively in several important fields of research such as slow and stored light nonlinear optics quantum computation, atomic clocks and magnetometers. Recently, there is a growing effort towards miniaturizing traditional centimetre-size vapour cells. Owing to the significant reduction in device dimensions, light–matter interactions are greatly enhanced, enabling new functionalities due to the low power threshold needed for nonlinear interactions. Here, taking advantage of the mature platform of silicon photonics, we construct an efficient and flexible platform for tailored light–vapour interactions on a chip. Specifically, we demonstrate light–matter interactions in an atomic cladding waveguide, consisting of a silicon nitride nano-waveguide core with a rubidium vapour cladding. We observe the efficient interaction of the electromagnetic guided mode with the rubidium cladding and show that due to the high confinement of the optical mode, the rubidium absorption saturates at powers in the nanowatt regime. PMID:23462991

Flooded Dark Matter and S level rise

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Randall, Lisa; Scholtz, Jakub; Unwin, James

2016-03-01

Most dark matter models set the dark matter relic density by some interaction with Standard Model particles. Such models generally assume the existence of Standard Model particles early on, with the dark matter relic density a later consequence of those interactions. Perhaps a more compelling assumption is that dark matter is not part of the Standard Model sector and a population of dark matter too is generated at the end of inflation. This democratic assumption about initial conditions does not necessarily provide a natural value for the dark matter relic density, and furthermore superficially leads to too much entropy in the dark sector relative to ordinary matter. We address the latter issue by the late decay of heavy particles produced at early times, thereby associating the dark matter relic density with the lifetime of a long-lived state. This paper investigates what it would take for this scenario to be compatible with observations in what we call Flooded Dark Matter (FDM) models and discusses several interesting consequences. One is that dark matter can be very light and furthermore, light dark matter is in some sense the most natural scenario in FDM as it is compatible with larger couplings of the decaying particle. A related consequence is that the decay of the field with the smallest coupling and hence the longest lifetime dominates the entropy and possibly the matter content of the Universe, a principle we refer to as "Maximum Baroqueness". We also demonstrate that the dark sector should be colder than the ordinary sector, relaxing the most stringent free-streaming constraints on light dark matter candidates. We will discuss the potential implications for the core-cusp problem in a follow-up paper. The FDM framework will furthermore have interesting baryogenesis implications. One possibility is that dark matter is like the baryon asymmetry and both are simultaneously diluted by a late entropy dump. Alternatively, FDM is compatible with an elegant non-thermal leptogenesis implementation in which decays of a heavy right-handed neutrino lead to late time reheating of the Standard Model degrees of freedom and provide suitable conditions for creation of a lepton asymmetry.

Scattering attributes of one-dimensional semiconducting oxide nanomaterials individually probed for varying light-matter interaction angles

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Choi, Daniel S.; Singh, Manpreet; Zhou, Hebing

2015-10-12

We report the characteristic optical responses of one-dimensional semiconducting oxide nanomaterials by examining the individual nanorods (NRs) of ZnO, SnO{sub 2}, indium tin oxide, and zinc tin oxide under precisely controlled, light-matter interaction geometry. Scattering signals from a large set of NRs of the different types are evaluated spatially along the NR length while varying the NR tilt angle, incident light polarization, and analyzer rotation. Subsequently, we identify material-indiscriminate, NR tilt angle- and incident polarization-dependent scattering behaviors exhibiting continuous, intermittent, and discrete responses. The insight gained from this study can advance our fundamental understanding of the optical behaviors of themore » technologically useful nanomaterials and, at the same time, promote the development of highly miniaturized, photonic and bio-optical devices utilizing the spatially controllable, optical responses of the individual semiconducting oxide NRs.« less

Search for scalar dark matter via pseudoscalar portal interactions in light of the Galactic Center gamma-ray excess

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yang, Kwei-Chou

2018-01-01

In light of the observed Galactic center gamma-ray excess, we investigate a simplified model, for which the scalar dark matter interacts with quarks through a pseudoscalar mediator. The viable regions of the parameter space, that can also account for the relic density and evade the current searches, are identified, if the low-velocity dark matter annihilates through an s -channel off shell mediator mostly into b ¯b , and/or annihilates directly into two hidden on shell mediators, which subsequently decay into the quark pairs. These two kinds of annihilations are s wave. The projected monojet limit set by the high luminosity LHC sensitivity could constrain the favored parameter space, where the mediator's mass is larger than the dark matter mass by a factor of 2. We show that the projected sensitivity of 15-year Fermi-LAT observations of dwarf spheroidal galaxies can provide a stringent constraint on the most parameter space allowed in this model. If the on shell mediator channel contributes to the dark matter annihilation cross sections over 50%, this model with a lighter mediator can be probed in the projected PICO-500L experiment.

Probes for dark matter physics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Khlopov, Maxim Yu.

The existence of cosmological dark matter is in the bedrock of the modern cosmology. The dark matter is assumed to be nonbaryonic and consists of new stable particles. Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP) miracle appeals to search for neutral stable weakly interacting particles in underground experiments by their nuclear recoil and at colliders by missing energy and momentum, which they carry out. However, the lack of WIMP effects in their direct underground searches and at colliders can appeal to other forms of dark matter candidates. These candidates may be weakly interacting slim particles, superweakly interacting particles, or composite dark matter, in which new particles are bound. Their existence should lead to cosmological effects that can find probes in the astrophysical data. However, if composite dark matter contains stable electrically charged leptons and quarks bound by ordinary Coulomb interaction in elusive dark atoms, these charged constituents of dark atoms can be the subject of direct experimental test at the colliders. The models, predicting stable particles with charge ‑ 2 without stable particles with charges + 1 and ‑ 1 can avoid severe constraints on anomalous isotopes of light elements and provide solution for the puzzles of dark matter searches. In such models, the excessive ‑ 2 charged particles are bound with primordial helium in O-helium atoms, maintaining specific nuclear-interacting form of the dark matter. The successful development of composite dark matter scenarios appeals for experimental search for doubly charged constituents of dark atoms, making experimental search for exotic stable double charged particles experimentum crucis for dark atoms of composite dark matter.

Tunable photonic cavity coupled to a voltage-biased double quantum dot system: Diagrammatic nonequilibrium Green's function approach

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Agarwalla, Bijay Kumar; Kulkarni, Manas; Mukamel, Shaul; Segal, Dvira

2016-07-01

We investigate gain in microwave photonic cavities coupled to voltage-biased double quantum dot systems with an arbitrarily strong dot-lead coupling and with a Holstein-like light-matter interaction, by employing the diagrammatic Keldysh nonequilibrium Green's function approach. We compute out-of-equilibrium properties of the cavity: its transmission, phase response, mean photon number, power spectrum, and spectral function. We show that by the careful engineering of these hybrid light-matter systems, one can achieve a significant amplification of the optical signal with the voltage-biased electronic system serving as a gain medium. We also study the steady-state current across the device, identifying elastic and inelastic tunneling processes which involve the cavity mode. Our results show how recent advances in quantum electronics can be exploited to build hybrid light-matter systems that behave as microwave amplifiers and photon source devices. The diagrammatic Keldysh approach is primarily discussed for a cavity-coupled double quantum dot architecture, but it is generalizable to other hybrid light-matter systems.

Cogenerating and pre-annihilating dark matter by a new gauge interaction in a unified model

DOE PAGES

Barr, S. M.; Scherrer, Robert J.

2016-05-31

Here, grand unified theories based on large groups (with rank ≥ 6) are a natural context for dark matter models. They contain Standard-Model-singlet fermions that could be dark matter candidates, and can contain new non-abelian interactions whose sphalerons convert baryons, leptons, and dark matter into each other, ''cogenerating" a dark matter asymmetry comparable to the baryon asymmetry. In this paper it is shown that the same non-abelian interactions can ''pre-annihilate" the symmetric component of heavy dark matter particles χ, which then decay late into light stable dark matter particles ζ that inherit their asymmetry. We derive cosmological constraints on themore » parameters of such models. The mass of χ must be < 3000 TeV and their decays must happen when 2 × 10 –7 < T dec/mχ < 10 –4. It is shown that such decays can come from d=5 operators with coefficients of order 1/MGUT or 1/M Pℓ. We present a simple realization of our model based on the group SU(7).« less

Radiative mixing of the one Higgs boson and emergent self-interacting dark matter

DOE PAGES

Ma, Ernest

2016-03-01

In all scalar extensions of the standard model of particle interactions, the one Higgs boson responsible for electroweak symmetry breaking always mixes with other neutral scalars at tree level unless a symmetry prevents it. One unexplored important option is that the mixing may be radiative, and thus guaranteed to be small. Moreover, two first such examples are discussed. One is based on the soft breaking of the discrete symmetry Z3. The other starts with the non-Abelian discrete symmetry A4which is then softly broken to Z3, and results in the emergence of an interesting dark-matter candidate together with a light mediatormore » for the dark matter to have its own long-range interaction.« less

An Entertaining Method of Teaching Concepts of Linear Light Propagation, Reflection and Refraction Using a Simple Optical Mechanism

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yurumezoglu, K.

2009-01-01

An activity has been designed for the purpose of teaching how light is dispersed in a straight line and about the interaction between matter and light as well as the related concepts of shadows, partial shadows, reflection, refraction, primary colours and complementary (secondary) colours, and differentiating the relationship between colours, all…

Limits on light weakly interacting massive particles from the CDEX-1 experiment with a p -type point-contact germanium detector at the China Jinping Underground Laboratory

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yue, Q.; Zhao, W.; Kang, K. J.; Cheng, J. P.; Li, Y. J.; Lin, S. T.; Chang, J. P.; Chen, N.; Chen, Q. H.; Chen, Y. H.; Chuang, Y. C.; Deng, Z.; Du, Q.; Gong, H.; Hao, X. Q.; He, H. J.; He, Q. J.; Huang, H. X.; Huang, T. R.; Jiang, H.; Li, H. B.; Li, J. M.; Li, J.; Li, J.; Li, X.; Li, X. Y.; Li, Y. L.; Liao, H. Y.; Lin, F. K.; Liu, S. K.; Lü, L. C.; Ma, H.; Mao, S. J.; Qin, J. Q.; Ren, J.; Ren, J.; Ruan, X. C.; Shen, M. B.; Singh, L.; Singh, M. K.; Soma, A. K.; Su, J.; Tang, C. J.; Tseng, C. H.; Wang, J. M.; Wang, L.; Wang, Q.; Wong, H. T.; Wu, S. Y.; Wu, Y. C.; Wu, Y. C.; Xianyu, Z. Z.; Xiao, R. Q.; Xing, H. Y.; Xu, F. Z.; Xu, Y.; Xu, X. J.; Xue, T.; Yang, L. T.; Yang, S. W.; Yi, N.; Yu, C. X.; Yu, H.; Yu, X. Z.; Zeng, X. H.; Zeng, Z.; Zhang, L.; Zhang, Y. H.; Zhao, M. G.; Zhou, Z. Y.; Zhu, J. J.; Zhu, W. B.; Zhu, X. Z.; Zhu, Z. H.; CDEX Collaboration

2014-11-01

We report results of a search for light dark matter weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) with CDEX-1 experiment at the China Jinping Underground Laboratory, based on 53.9 kg-days of data from a p -type point-contact germanium detector enclosed by a NaI(Tl) crystal scintillator as anti-Compton detector. The event rate and spectrum above the analysis threshold of 475 eVee are consistent with the understood background model. Part of the allowed regions for WIMP-nucleus coherent elastic scattering at WIMP mass of 6-20 GeV are probed and excluded. Independent of interaction channels, this result contradicts the interpretation that the anomalous excesses of the CoGeNT experiment are induced by dark matter, since identical detector techniques are used in both experiments.

Radiative model of neutrino mass with neutrino interacting MeV dark matter

DOE PAGES

Arhrib, Abdesslam; Bohm, Celine; Ma, Ernest; ...

2016-04-26

We consider the radiative generation of neutrino mass through the interactions of neutrinos with MeV dark matter. We construct a realistic renormalizable model with one scalar doublet (in additional to the standard model doublet) and one complex singlet together with three light singlet Majorana fermions, all transforming under a dark U(1)(D) symmetry which breaks softly to Z(2). We study in detail the scalar sector which supports this specific scenario and its rich phenomenology.

Enhanced photoresponsivity in graphene-silicon slow-light photonic crystal waveguides

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Zhou, Hao, E-mail: zhoufirst@scu.edu.cn, E-mail: tg2342@columbia.edu, E-mail: cheewei.wong@ucla.edu; Optical Nanostructures Laboratory, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027; Gu, Tingyi, E-mail: zhoufirst@scu.edu.cn, E-mail: tg2342@columbia.edu, E-mail: cheewei.wong@ucla.edu

2016-03-14

We demonstrate the enhanced fast photoresponsivity in graphene hybrid structures by combining the ultrafast dynamics of graphene with improved light-matter interactions in slow-light photonic crystal waveguides. With a 200 μm interaction length, a 0.8 mA/W photoresponsivity is achieved in a graphene-silicon Schottky-like photodetector, with an operating bandwidth in excess of 5 GHz and wavelength range at least from 1480 nm to 1580 nm. Fourfold enhancement of the photocurrent is observed in the slow light region, compared to the wavelength far from the photonic crystal bandedge, for a chip-scale broadband fast photodetector.

Super-Kamiokande Solar Neutrino Results and NSI Analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Weatherly, Pierce; Super-Kamiokande Collaboration

2017-09-01

Super-Kamiokande (SK) detects the Cerenkov light from elastic scattering of solar 8B neutrinos with electrons in its ultra-pure water. The directionality, energy, and timing of the recoil electrons determines the interaction rate, the flight path, as well as the energy dependence of the 8B neutrinos’ electron-flavor survival probability P ee . While the P ee below 1 MeV is equivalent to averaged vacuum neutrino flavor oscillations, the P ee above 7 MeV is suppressed by the Mikheyev-Smirnov-Wolfenstein (MSW) resonance resulting from the interaction of the solar neutrinos with solar matter. In the same way, Earth matter effects influence Pee, leading to an apparent Day/Night effect. Non-standard interactions (NSI) extend the MSW model to include interactions between the quarks in matter and neutrinos, thereby modifying P ee . We present the signatures of matter effects on solar neutrinos in Super-Kamiokande and present limits on NSI parameters, in particular couplings to the down quark.

Perovskites keep on giving

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

2018-05-01

Whether you like exploring the mysteries of light-matter interactions, playing with a versatile chemical platform, or developing the most efficient devices, metal halide perovskites could be the materials for you.

TES-Based Light Detectors for the CRESST Direct Dark Matter Search

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rothe, J.; Angloher, G.; Bauer, P.; Bento, A.; Bucci, C.; Canonica, L.; D'Addabbo, A.; Defay, X.; Erb, A.; Feilitzsch, F. v.; Ferreiro Iachellini, N.; Gorla, P.; Gütlein, A.; Hauff, D.; Jochum, J.; Kiefer, M.; Kluck, H.; Kraus, H.; Lanfranchi, J.-C.; Langenkämper, A.; Loebell, J.; Mancuso, M.; Mondragon, E.; Münster, A.; Pagliarone, C.; Petricca, F.; Potzel, W.; Pröbst, F.; Puig, R.; Reindl, F.; Schäffner, K.; Schieck, J.; Schipperges, V.; Schönert, S.; Seidel, W.; Stahlberg, M.; Stodolsky, L.; Strandhagen, C.; Strauss, R.; Tanzke, A.; Trinh Thi, H. H.; Türkoğlu, C.; Ulrich, A.; Usherov, I.; Wawoczny, S.; Willers, M.; Wüstrich, M.

2018-05-01

The CRESST experiment uses cryogenic detectors based on transition-edge sensors to search for dark matter interactions. Each detector module consists of a scintillating CaWO_4 crystal and a silicon-on-sapphire (SOS) light detector which operate in coincidence (phonon-light technique). The 40-mm-diameter SOS disks (2 g mass) used in the data taking campaign of CRESST-II Phase 2 (2014-2016) reached absolute baseline resolutions of σ = 4-7 eV. This is the best performance reported for cryogenic light detectors of this size. Newly developed silicon beaker light detectors (4 cm height, 4 cm diameter, 6 g mass), which cover a large fraction of the target crystal surface, have achieved a baseline resolution of σ = 5.8 eV. First results of further improved light detectors developed for the ongoing low-threshold CRESST-III experiment are presented.

Big Questions: Dark Matter

ScienceCinema

Lincoln, Don

2018-01-16

Carl Sagan's oft-quoted statement that there are "billions and billions" of stars in the cosmos gives an idea of just how much "stuff" is in the universe. However scientists now think that in addition to the type of matter with which we are familiar, there is another kind of matter out there. This new kind of matter is called "dark matter" and there seems to be five times as much as ordinary matter. Dark matter interacts only with gravity, thus light simply zips right by it. Scientists are searching through their data, trying to prove that the dark matter idea is real. Fermilab's Dr. Don Lincoln tells us why we think this seemingly-crazy idea might not be so crazy after all.

VUV light reflectivity measurements from PTFE in Liquid Xenon for the LZ Dark Matter experiment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pushkin, Kirill; LZ Collaboration

2016-03-01

The LUX-Zeplin (LZ) collaboration is the next generation of the experiment to search for Dark Matter in the Universe with a dual-phase detector based on liquid xenon (LXe) with a target mass of 7 ton. LXe dual phase detectors are very sensitive probes to search for WIMP dark matter interactions. The LZ collaboration is conducting R&D to study VUV light reflectivity from PTFE (Teflon) in LXe. Teflon is used in dual phase detectors both as an electrical insulator and as reflector of VUV scintillation light (~175 nm) to improve photon detection with photomultiplier tubes (PMTs). However, experimental data for the reflectance of VUV light from PTFE in LXe is not sufficiently conclusive. We present a new technique of measuring the light reflectivity from PTFE by varying the fractional area of the PMT in the detector. PTFE reflectivity measurements were performed as a function of Teflon wall thickness in the range of 2 mm to 9.5 mm. The method, apparatus and experimental results will be presented.

Ultra Light Axionic Dark Matter: Galactic Halos and Implications for Observations with Pulsar Timing Arrays

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

de Martino, Ivan; Broadhurst, Tom; Tye, S.-H. Henry; Chiueh, Tzihong; Shive, Hsi-Yu; Lazkoz, Ruth

2018-01-01

The cold dark matter (CDM) paradigm successfully explains the cosmic structure over an enormous span of redshifts. However, it fails when probing the innermost regions of dark matter halos and the properties of the Milky Way's dwarf galaxy satellites. Moreover, the lack of experimental detection of Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP) favors alternative candidates such as light axionic dark matter that naturally arise in string theory. Cosmological N-body simulations have shown that axionic dark matter forms a solitonic core of size of ≃ 150 pc in the innermost region of the galactic halos. The oscillating scalar field associated to the axionic dark matter halo produces an oscillating gravitational potential that induces a time dilation of the pulse arrival time of ≃ 400 ns/(m_B/10^{-22} eV) for pulsar within such a solitonic core. Over the whole galaxy, the averaged predicted signal may be detectable with current and forthcoming pulsar timing array telescopes.

Room temperature strong light-matter coupling in three dimensional terahertz meta-atoms

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Paulillo, B., E-mail: bruno.paulillo@u-psud.fr; Manceau, J.-M., E-mail: jean-michel.manceau@u-psud.fr; Colombelli, R., E-mail: raffaele.colombelli@u-psud.fr

2016-03-07

We demonstrate strong light-matter coupling in three dimensional terahertz meta-atoms at room temperature. The intersubband transition of semiconductor quantum wells with a parabolic energy potential is strongly coupled to the confined circuital mode of three-dimensional split-ring metal-semiconductor-metal resonators that have an extreme sub-wavelength volume (λ/10). The frequency of these lumped-element resonators is controlled by the size and shape of the external antenna, while the interaction volume remains constant. This allows the resonance frequency to be swept across the intersubband transition and the anti-crossing characteristic of the strong light-matter coupling regime to be observed. The Rabi splitting, which is twice themore » Rabi frequency (2Ω{sub Rabi}), amounts to 20% of the bare transition at room temperature, and it increases to 28% at low-temperature.« less

Light-matter interaction in transition metal dichalcogenides and their heterostructures

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wurstbauer, Ursula; Miller, Bastian; Parzinger, Eric; Holleitner, Alexander W.

2017-05-01

The investigation of two-dimensional (2D) van der Waals materials is a vibrant, fast-moving and still growing interdisciplinary area of research. These materials are truly 2D crystals with strong covalent in-plane bonds and weak van der Waals interaction between the layers, and have a variety of different electronic, optical and mechanical properties. Transition metal dichalcogenides are a very prominent class of 2D materials, particularly the semiconducting subclass. Their properties include bandgaps in the near-infrared to the visible range, decent charge carrier mobility together with high (photo-) catalytic and mechanical stability, and exotic many-body phenomena. These characteristics make the materials highly attractive for both fundamental research as well as innovative device applications. Furthermore, the materials exhibit a strong light-matter interaction, providing a high sunlight absorbance of up to 15% in the monolayer limit, strong scattering cross section in Raman experiments, and access to excitonic phenomena in van der Waals heterostructures. This review focuses on the light-matter interaction in MoS2, WS2, MoSe2 and WSe2, which is dictated by the materials’ complex dielectric functions, and on the multiplicity of studying the first-order phonon modes by Raman spectroscopy to gain access to several material properties such as doping, strain, defects and temperature. 2D materials provide an interesting platform for stacking them into van der Waals heterostructures without the limitation of lattice mismatch, resulting in novel devices for applications but also to enable the study of exotic many-body interaction phenomena such as interlayer excitons. Future perspectives of semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides and their heterostructures for applications in optoelectronic devices will be examined, and routes to study emergent fundamental problems and many-body quantum phenomena under excitations with photons will be discussed.

Asymmetric thermal-relic dark matter: Sommerfeld-enhanced freeze-out, annihilation signals and unitarity bounds

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Baldes, Iason; Petraki, Kalliopi, E-mail: iason.baldes@desy.de, E-mail: kpetraki@lpthe.jussieu.fr

Dark matter that possesses a particle-antiparticle asymmetry and has thermalised in the early universe, requires a larger annihilation cross-section compared to symmetric dark matter, in order to deplete the dark antiparticles and account for the observed dark matter density. The annihilation cross-section determines the residual symmetric component of dark matter, which may give rise to annihilation signals during CMB and inside haloes today. We consider dark matter with long-range interactions, in particular dark matter coupled to a light vector or scalar force mediator. We compute the couplings required to attain a final antiparticle-to-particle ratio after the thermal freeze-out of themore » annihilation processes in the early universe, and then estimate the late-time annihilation signals. We show that, due to the Sommerfeld enhancement, highly asymmetric dark matter with long-range interactions can have a significant annihilation rate, potentially larger than symmetric dark matter of the same mass with contact interactions. We discuss caveats in this estimation, relating to the formation of stable bound states. Finally, we consider the non-relativistic partial-wave unitarity bound on the inelastic cross-section, we discuss why it can be realised only by long-range interactions, and showcase the importance of higher partial waves in this regime of large inelasticity. We derive upper bounds on the mass of symmetric and asymmetric thermal-relic dark matter for s -wave and p -wave annihilation, and exhibit how these bounds strengthen as the dark asymmetry increases.« less

Deterministic photon-emitter coupling in chiral photonic circuits.

PubMed

Söllner, Immo; Mahmoodian, Sahand; Hansen, Sofie Lindskov; Midolo, Leonardo; Javadi, Alisa; Kiršanskė, Gabija; Pregnolato, Tommaso; El-Ella, Haitham; Lee, Eun Hye; Song, Jin Dong; Stobbe, Søren; Lodahl, Peter

2015-09-01

Engineering photon emission and scattering is central to modern photonics applications ranging from light harvesting to quantum-information processing. To this end, nanophotonic waveguides are well suited as they confine photons to a one-dimensional geometry and thereby increase the light-matter interaction. In a regular waveguide, a quantum emitter interacts equally with photons in either of the two propagation directions. This symmetry is violated in nanophotonic structures in which non-transversal local electric-field components imply that photon emission and scattering may become directional. Here we show that the helicity of the optical transition of a quantum emitter determines the direction of single-photon emission in a specially engineered photonic-crystal waveguide. We observe single-photon emission into the waveguide with a directionality that exceeds 90% under conditions in which practically all the emitted photons are coupled to the waveguide. The chiral light-matter interaction enables deterministic and highly directional photon emission for experimentally achievable on-chip non-reciprocal photonic elements. These may serve as key building blocks for single-photon optical diodes, transistors and deterministic quantum gates. Furthermore, chiral photonic circuits allow the dissipative preparation of entangled states of multiple emitters for experimentally achievable parameters, may lead to novel topological photon states and could be applied for directional steering of light.

Deterministic photon-emitter coupling in chiral photonic circuits

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Söllner, Immo; Mahmoodian, Sahand; Hansen, Sofie Lindskov; Midolo, Leonardo; Javadi, Alisa; Kiršanskė, Gabija; Pregnolato, Tommaso; El-Ella, Haitham; Lee, Eun Hye; Song, Jin Dong; Stobbe, Søren; Lodahl, Peter

2015-09-01

Engineering photon emission and scattering is central to modern photonics applications ranging from light harvesting to quantum-information processing. To this end, nanophotonic waveguides are well suited as they confine photons to a one-dimensional geometry and thereby increase the light-matter interaction. In a regular waveguide, a quantum emitter interacts equally with photons in either of the two propagation directions. This symmetry is violated in nanophotonic structures in which non-transversal local electric-field components imply that photon emission and scattering may become directional. Here we show that the helicity of the optical transition of a quantum emitter determines the direction of single-photon emission in a specially engineered photonic-crystal waveguide. We observe single-photon emission into the waveguide with a directionality that exceeds 90% under conditions in which practically all the emitted photons are coupled to the waveguide. The chiral light-matter interaction enables deterministic and highly directional photon emission for experimentally achievable on-chip non-reciprocal photonic elements. These may serve as key building blocks for single-photon optical diodes, transistors and deterministic quantum gates. Furthermore, chiral photonic circuits allow the dissipative preparation of entangled states of multiple emitters for experimentally achievable parameters, may lead to novel topological photon states and could be applied for directional steering of light.

Neutrino Oscillations as a Probe of Light Scalar Dark Matter.

PubMed

Berlin, Asher

2016-12-02

We consider a class of models involving interactions between ultralight scalar dark matter and standard model neutrinos. Such couplings modify the neutrino mass splittings and mixing angles to include additional components that vary in time periodically with a frequency and amplitude set by the mass and energy density of the dark matter. Null results from recent searches for anomalous periodicities in the solar neutrino flux strongly constrain the dark matter-neutrino coupling to be orders of magnitude below current and projected limits derived from observations of the cosmic microwave background.

Bio-Optics and Bio-Inspired Optical Materials.

PubMed

Tadepalli, Sirimuvva; Slocik, Joseph M; Gupta, Maneesh K; Naik, Rajesh R; Singamaneni, Srikanth

2017-10-25

Through the use of the limited materials palette, optimally designed micro- and nanostructures, and tightly regulated processes, nature demonstrates exquisite control of light-matter interactions at various length scales. In fact, control of light-matter interactions is an important element in the evolutionary arms race and has led to highly engineered optical materials and systems. In this review, we present a detailed summary of various optical effects found in nature with a particular emphasis on the materials and optical design aspects responsible for their optical functionality. Using several representative examples, we discuss various optical phenomena, including absorption and transparency, diffraction, interference, reflection and antireflection, scattering, light harvesting, wave guiding and lensing, camouflage, and bioluminescence, that are responsible for the unique optical properties of materials and structures found in nature and biology. Great strides in understanding the design principles adapted by nature have led to a tremendous progress in realizing biomimetic and bioinspired optical materials and photonic devices. We discuss the various micro- and nanofabrication techniques that have been employed for realizing advanced biomimetic optical structures.

Collider study on the loop-induced dark matter mediation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tsai, Yuhsin

2016-06-01

Collider experiments are one of the most promising ways to constrain Dark Matter (DM) interactions. For DM couplings involving light mediators, especially for the loop-mediated interactions, a meaningful interpretation of the results requires to go beyond effective field theory. In this note we discuss the study of the magnetic dipole interacting DM, focusing on a model with anarchic dark flavor structure. By including the momentum-dependent form factors that mediate the coupling - given by the Dark Penguin - in collider processes, we study bounds from monophoton, diphoton, and non-pointing photon searches at the LHC. We also compare our results to constraints from the direct detection experiments.

Charmonium interaction in nuclear matter at FAIR

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pratim Bhaduri, Partha; Deveaux, Michael; Toia, Alberica

2018-05-01

We have studied the dissociation of J/ψ mesons in low energy proton-nucleus (p + A) collisions in the energy range of the future SIS100 accelerator at Facility for Anti-proton and Ion Research (FAIR). According to the results of our calculations, various scenarios of J/ψ absorption in nuclear matter show very distinct suppression patterns in the kinematic regime to be probed at FAIR. This suggests that the SIS100 energies are particularly suited to shed light on the issue of interaction of J/ψ resonance in nuclear medium.

Dark matter dynamics in Abell 3827: new data consistent with standard cold dark matter

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Massey, Richard; Harvey, David; Liesenborgs, Jori; Richard, Johan; Stach, Stuart; Swinbank, Mark; Taylor, Peter; Williams, Liliya; Clowe, Douglas; Courbin, Frédéric; Edge, Alastair; Israel, Holger; Jauzac, Mathilde; Joseph, Rémy; Jullo, Eric; Kitching, Thomas D.; Leonard, Adrienne; Merten, Julian; Nagai, Daisuke; Nightingale, James; Robertson, Andrew; Romualdez, Luis Javier; Saha, Prasenjit; Smit, Renske; Tam, Sut-Ieng; Tittley, Eric

2018-06-01

We present integral field spectroscopy of galaxy cluster Abell 3827, using Atacama Large Millimetre Array (ALMA) and Very Large Telescope/Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer. It reveals an unusual configuration of strong gravitational lensing in the cluster core, with at least seven lensed images of a single background spiral galaxy. Lens modelling based on Hubble Space Telescope imaging had suggested that the dark matter associated with one of the cluster's central galaxies may be offset. The new spectroscopic data enable better subtraction of foreground light, and better identification of multiple background images. The inferred distribution of dark matter is consistent with being centred on the galaxies, as expected by Λ cold dark matter. Each galaxy's dark matter also appears to be symmetric. Whilst, we do not find an offset between mass and light (suggestive of self-interacting dark matter) as previously reported, the numerical simulations that have been performed to calibrate Abell 3827 indicate that offsets and asymmetry are still worth looking for in collisions with particular geometries. Meanwhile, ALMA proves exceptionally useful for strong lens image identifications.

Quantum field theory of interacting dark matter and dark energy: Dark monodromies

DOE PAGES

D’Amico, Guido; Hamill, Teresa; Kaloper, Nemanja

2016-11-28

We discuss how to formulate a quantum field theory of dark energy interacting with dark matter. We show that the proposals based on the assumption that dark matter is made up of heavy particles with masses which are very sensitive to the value of dark energy are strongly constrained. Quintessence-generated long-range forces and radiative stability of the quintessence potential require that such dark matter and dark energy are completely decoupled. However, if dark energy and a fraction of dark matter are very light axions, they can have significant mixings which are radiatively stable and perfectly consistent with quantum field theory.more » Such models can naturally occur in multi-axion realizations of monodromies. The mixings yield interesting signatures which are observable and are within current cosmological limits but could be constrained further by future observations« less

Quantum field theory of interacting dark matter and dark energy: Dark monodromies

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

D’Amico, Guido; Hamill, Teresa; Kaloper, Nemanja

We discuss how to formulate a quantum field theory of dark energy interacting with dark matter. We show that the proposals based on the assumption that dark matter is made up of heavy particles with masses which are very sensitive to the value of dark energy are strongly constrained. Quintessence-generated long-range forces and radiative stability of the quintessence potential require that such dark matter and dark energy are completely decoupled. However, if dark energy and a fraction of dark matter are very light axions, they can have significant mixings which are radiatively stable and perfectly consistent with quantum field theory.more » Such models can naturally occur in multi-axion realizations of monodromies. The mixings yield interesting signatures which are observable and are within current cosmological limits but could be constrained further by future observations« less

Big Questions: Dark Matter

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Lincoln, Don

Carl Sagan's oft-quoted statement that there are "billions and billions" of stars in the cosmos gives an idea of just how much "stuff" is in the universe. However scientists now think that in addition to the type of matter with which we are familiar, there is another kind of matter out there. This new kind of matter is called "dark matter" and there seems to be five times as much as ordinary matter. Dark matter interacts only with gravity, thus light simply zips right by it. Scientists are searching through their data, trying to prove that the dark matter ideamore » is real. Fermilab's Dr. Don Lincoln tells us why we think this seemingly-crazy idea might not be so crazy after all.« less

Color of Minerals. Earth Science Curriculum Project Pamphlet Series PS-6.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rapp, George, Jr.

The causes for many of the colors exhibited by minerals are presented to students. Several theories of modern physics are introduced. The nature of light, the manner in which light interacts with matter, atomic theory, and crystal structure are all discussed in relation to the origin of color in minerals. Included are color pictures of many…

Phase-resolved two-dimensional terahertz spectroscopy - a probe of highly nonlinear light-matter interactions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Elsaesser, Thomas

Terahertz (THz) spectroscopy gives insight into low-frequency excitations and charge dynamics in condensed matter. So far, most experiments in a frequency range from 0.5 to 30 THz have focused on the linear THz response to determine linear absorption and disperion spectra, and/or electric conductivities. The generation of ultrashort THz transients with peak electric fields up to megavolts/cm has allowed for addressing nonlinear light-matter interactions and inducing excitations far from equilibrium. The novel method of two-dimensional THz (2D-THz) spectroscopy allows for mapping ultrafast dynamics and couplings of elementary excitations up to arbitrary nonlinear order in the electric field, both under resonant and nonresonant excitation conditions. In particular, different contributions to the overall nonlinear response are separated by dissecting it as a function of excitation and detection frequencies and for different waiting times after excitation. This talk gives an introduction in 2D-THz spectroscopy, including its recent extension to 3-pulse sequences and interaction schemes. To illustrate the potential of the method, recent results on two-phonon coherences and high-order interband excitations in the semiconductor InSb will be presented. Nonlinear THz excitation of two-phonon coherences exploits a resonance enhancement by the large electronic interband dipole of InSb and is, thus, far more efficient than linear excitation via resonant two-phonon absorption. As a second application, the nonlinear softmode response in a crystal consisting of aspirin molecules will be discussed. At moderate THz driving fields, the pronounced correlation of rotational modes of CH3 groups with collective oscillations of π-electrons drives the system into the regime of nonperturbative light-matter interaction. Nonlinear absorption around 1.1 THz leads to a blue-shifted coherent emission at 1.5 THz, revealing a dynamic breakup of the strong electron-phonon correlations.

A Photochemical Reactor for the Study of Kinetics and Adsorption Phenomena

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Poce-Fatou, J. A.; Gil, M. L. A.; Alcantara, R.; Botella, C.; Martin, J.

2004-01-01

The interaction between light and matter is examined with the help of a photochemical experiment. This experiment is useful for the investigation of heterogeneous catalysis, semiconductor properties and adsorption phenomena.

Light in diagnosis, therapy and surgery

PubMed Central

Yun, Seok Hyun; Kwok, Sheldon J. J.

2016-01-01

Light and optical techniques have made profound impacts on modern medicine, with numerous lasers and optical devices being currently used in clinical practice to assess health and treat disease. Recent advances in biomedical optics have enabled increasingly sophisticated technologies — in particular those that integrate photonics with nanotechnology, biomaterials and genetic engineering. In this Review, we revisit the fundamentals of light–matter interactions, describe the applications of light in imaging, diagnosis, therapy and surgery, overview their clinical use, and discuss the promise of emerging light-based technologies. PMID:28649464

Quantum limits to gravity estimation with optomechanics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Armata, F.; Latmiral, L.; Plato, A. D. K.; Kim, M. S.

2017-10-01

We present a table-top quantum estimation protocol to measure the gravitational acceleration g by using an optomechanical cavity. In particular, we exploit the nonlinear quantum light-matter interaction between an optical field and a massive mirror acting as mechanical oscillator. The gravitational field influences the system dynamics affecting the phase of the cavity field during the interaction. Reading out such a phase carried by the radiation leaking from the cavity, we provide an estimate of the gravitational acceleration through interference measurements. Contrary to previous studies, having adopted a fully quantum description, we are able to propose a quantum analysis proving the ultimate bound to the estimability of the gravitational acceleration and verifying optimality of homodyne detection. Noticeably, thanks to the light-matter decoupling at the measurement time, no initial cooling of the mechanical oscillator is demanded in principle.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Cardani, L.; Bellini, F.; Casali, N.

The development of background-free detectors is essential for experiments searching for rare events. Bolometers, that are among the most competitive devices for the study of neutrino-less double beta decay (0νDBD) and Dark Matter interactions, suffer from the absence of techniques that allow to identify the nature of the interacting particles. This limit can be overcome by coupling the bolometer to an independent device for the measurement of the light emitted by interactions, as the combined read-out of the bolometric and light signals allows to identify and reject particles different from those of interest. CUORE, the most advanced bolometric experiment formore » 0νDBD searches, could disentangle the electrons produced by 0νDBD from the dangerous background due to α particles, by measuring the (tiny) Cherenkov light emitted by electrons and not by α’s. LUCIFER, a project based on ZnSe scintillating bolometers for the study of {sup 82}Se 0νDBD, would be competitive also in the search of Dark Matter interactions if equipped with light detectors that allow to distinguish and reject the background due to electrons and γ’s. These advances require cryogenic detectors characterized by noise lower than 20 eV, large active area, wide temperature range of operation, high radio-purity and ease in fabricating hundreds of channels. The CALDER collaboration aims to develop such detectors by exploiting the superb energy resolution and natural multiplexed read-out provided by Kinetic Inductance Detectors.« less

Laser cooling and control of excitations in superfluid helium

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Harris, G. I.; McAuslan, D. L.; Sheridan, E.; Sachkou, Y.; Baker, C.; Bowen, W. P.

2016-08-01

Superfluidity is a quantum state of matter that exists macroscopically in helium at low temperatures. The elementary excitations in superfluid helium have been probed with great success using techniques such as neutron and light scattering. However, measurements of phonon excitations have so far been limited to average thermodynamic properties or the driven response far out of thermal equilibrium. Here, we use cavity optomechanics to probe the thermodynamics of phonon excitations in real time. Furthermore, strong light-matter interactions allow both laser cooling and amplification. This represents a new tool to observe and control superfluid excitations that may provide insight into phonon-phonon interactions, quantized vortices and two-dimensional phenomena such as the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition. The third sound modes studied here also offer a pathway towards quantum optomechanics with thin superfluid films, including the prospect of femtogram masses, high mechanical quality factors, strong phonon-phonon and phonon-vortex interactions, and self-assembly into complex geometries with sub-nanometre feature size.

Terahertz Light-Matter Interaction beyond Unity Coupling Strength.

PubMed

Bayer, Andreas; Pozimski, Marcel; Schambeck, Simon; Schuh, Dieter; Huber, Rupert; Bougeard, Dominique; Lange, Christoph

2017-10-11

Achieving control over light-matter interaction in custom-tailored nanostructures is at the core of modern quantum electrodynamics. In strongly and ultrastrongly coupled systems, the excitation is repeatedly exchanged between a resonator and an electronic transition at a rate known as the vacuum Rabi frequency Ω R . For Ω R approaching the resonance frequency ω c , novel quantum phenomena including squeezed states, Dicke superradiant phase transitions, the collapse of the Purcell effect, and a population of the ground state with virtual photon pairs are predicted. Yet, the experimental realization of optical systems with Ω R /ω c ≥ 1 has remained elusive. Here, we introduce a paradigm change in the design of light-matter coupling by treating the electronic and the photonic components of the system as an entity instead of optimizing them separately. Using the electronic excitation to not only boost the electronic polarization but furthermore tailor the shape of the vacuum mode, we push Ω R /ω c of cyclotron resonances ultrastrongly coupled to metamaterials far beyond unity. As one prominent illustration of the unfolding possibilities, we calculate a ground state population of 0.37 virtual photons for our best structure with Ω R /ω c = 1.43 and suggest a realistic experimental scenario for measuring vacuum radiation by cutting-edge terahertz quantum detection.

Manipulation of long-term dynamics in a colloidal active matter system using speckle light fields

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pince, Ercag; Velu, Sabareesh K. P.; Callegari, Agnese; Elahi, Parviz; Gigan, Sylvain; Volpe, Giovanni; Volpe, Giorgio

Particles undergoing a stochastic motion within a disordered medium is a ubiquitous physical and biological phenomena. Examples can be given from organelles performing tasks in the cytoplasm to large animals moving in patchy environment. Here, we use speckle light fields to study the anomalous diffusion in an active matter system consisting of micron-sized silica particles(diameter 5 μm) and motile bacterial cells (E. coli). The speckle light fields are generated by mode mixing inside a multimode optical fiber where a small amount of incident laser power is needed to obtain an effective disordered optical landscape for the purpose of optical manipulation. We experimentally show how complex potentials contribute to the long-term dynamics of the active matter system and observed an enhanced diffusion of particles interacting with the active bacterial bath in the speckle light fields. We showed that this effect can be tuned and controlled by varying the intensity and the statistical properties of the speckle pattern. Potentially, these results could be of interest for many technological applications, such as the manipulation of microparticles inside optically disordered media of biological interest.

Detecting superlight dark matter with Fermi-degenerate materials

DOE PAGES

Hochberg, Yonit; Pyle, Matt; Zhao, Yue; ...

2016-08-08

We examine in greater detail the recent proposal of using superconductors for detecting dark matter as light as the warm dark matter limit of O(keV). Detection of suc light dark matter is possible if the entire kinetic energy of the dark matter is extracted in the scattering, and if the experiment is sensitive to O(meV) energy depositions. This is the case for Fermi-degenerate materials in which the Fermi velocity exceeds the dark matter velocity dispersion in the Milky Way of ~10 –3. We focus on a concrete experimental proposal using a superconducting target with a transition edge sensor in ordermore » to detect the small energy deposits from the dark matter scatterings. Considering a wide variety of constraints, from dark matter self-interactions to the cosmic microwave background, we show that models consistent with cosmological/astrophysical and terrestrial constraints are observable with such detectors. A wider range of viable models with dark matter mass below an MeV is available if dark matter or mediator properties (such as couplings or masses) differ at BBN epoch or in stellar interiors from those in superconductors. We also show that metal targets pay a strong in-medium suppression for kinetically mixed mediators; this suppression is alleviated with insulating targets.« less

Numerical simulation studies for optical properties of biomaterials

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Krasnikov, I.; Seteikin, A.

2016-11-01

Biophotonics involves understanding how light interacts with biological matter, from molecules and cells, to tissues and even whole organisms. Light can be used to probe biomolecular events, such as gene expression and protein-protein interaction, with impressively high sensitivity and specificity. The spatial and temporal distribution of biochemical constituents can also be visualized with light and, thus, the corresponding physiological dynamics in living cells, tissues, and organisms in real time. Computer-based Monte Carlo (MC) models of light transport in turbid media take a different approach. In this paper, the optical and structural properties of biomaterials discussed. We explain the numerical simulationmethod used for studying the optical properties of biomaterials. Applications of the Monte-Carlo method in photodynamic therapy, skin tissue optics, and bioimaging described.

Collider study on the loop-induced dark matter mediation

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Tsai, Yuhsin, E-mail: yhtsai@umd.edu

2016-06-21

Collider experiments are one of the most promising ways to constrain Dark Matter (DM) interactions. For DM couplings involving light mediators, especially for the loop-mediated interactions, a meaningful interpretation of the results requires to go beyond effective field theory. In this note we discuss the study of the magnetic dipole interacting DM, focusing on a model with anarchic dark flavor structure. By including the momentum-dependent form factors that mediate the coupling – given by the Dark Penguin – in collider processes, we study bounds from monophoton, diphoton, and non-pointing photon searches at the LHC. We also compare our results tomore » constraints from the direct detection experiments.« less

Quantum ring with the Rashba spin-orbit interaction in the regime of strong light-matter coupling

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kozin, V. K.; Iorsh, I. V.; Kibis, O. V.; Shelykh, I. A.

2018-04-01

We developed the theory of electronic properties of semiconductor quantum rings with the Rashba spin-orbit interaction irradiated by an off-resonant high-frequency electromagnetic field (dressing field). Within the Floquet theory of periodically driven quantum systems, it is demonstrated that the dressing field drastically modifies all electronic characteristics of the rings, including spin-orbit coupling, effective electron mass, and optical response. In particular, the present effect paves the way to controlling the spin polarization of electrons with light in prospective ring-shaped spintronic devices.

Creation of Excitons Excited by Light with a Spatial Mode

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Syouji, Atsushi; Saito, Shingo; Otomo, Akira

2017-12-01

When light is absorbed into matter, its degrees of freedom (i.e., energy, polarization, and phase) are transferred to the matter and conserved. In this study, we demonstrate that elementary excitations in matter, which are one-photon-forbidden transition states, become allowed states because of the phase conservation across the entire cross section of excitation light. In particular, when 1S orthoexcitons of the yellow series in the semiconductor cuprous oxide (Cu2O) were resonantly excited by light with a spatial mode, an increase in the Γ 3 - -phonon-emission peak intensity of the excitons was detected depending on the spatial mode. Using group-theory-based analysis, we show that the irreducible representation of a one-photon-forbidden exciton, which is one of the orthoexcitons, can be transmuted to an allowed state by taking the direct product with the polar vector produced from the spatial mode of the light. Although the transition process of the exciton is locally characterized by the usual quadrupole interaction, the phase conservation at each position at which the sample is irradiated causes the exciton to be in the same spatial-mode state. That causes a change in the transition selection rule. The selection rule relaxation due to the spatial mode of the light was also applied for paraexciton creation.

Electromagnetic Field Enhancement on Axially Heterostructured NWs: The Role of the Heterojunctions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pura, J. L.; Souto, J.; Periwal, P.; Baron, T.; Jiménez, J.

2018-05-01

Semiconductor nanowires are the building blocks of future nanoelectronic devices. The study of the interaction between nanowires and visible light reveals resonances that promise light absorption/scattering engineering for photonic applications. We carried out experimental measurements through the micro-Raman spectroscopy of different group IV nanowires, both homogeneous Si nanowires and axially heterostructured SiGe/Si nanowires. These experimental measurements show an enhancement of the Raman signal in the vicinity of the heterojunction of SiGe/Si nanowires. The results are analysed in terms of the electromagnetic modelling of the light/nanowire interaction using finite element methods. The presence of axial heterostructures is shown to produce electromagnetic resonances, and the results are understood as a consequence of a finite change in the relative permittivity of the material at the SiGe/Si heterojunction. This effect opens a path to controlling interactions between light and matter at the nanoscale with direct applications in photonic nanodevices.

Manifestations of Dark matter and variation of the fundamental constants in atomic and astrophysical phenomena

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Flambaum, Victor

2016-05-01

Low-mass boson dark matter particles produced after Big Bang form classical field and/or topological defects. In contrast to traditional dark matter searches, effects produced by interaction of an ordinary matter with this field and defects may be first power in the underlying interaction strength rather than the second or fourth power (which appears in a traditional search for the dark matter). This may give a huge advantage since the dark matter interaction constant is extremely small. Interaction between the density of the dark matter particles and ordinary matter produces both `slow' cosmological evolution and oscillating variations of the fundamental constants including the fine structure constant alpha and particle masses. Recent atomic dysprosium spectroscopy measurements and the primordial helium abundance data allowed us to improve on existing constraints on the quadratic interactions of the scalar dark matter with the photon, electron and light quarks by up to 15 orders of magnitude. Limits on the linear and quadratic interactions of the dark matter with W and Z bosons have been obtained for the first time. In addition to traditional methods to search for the variation of the fundamental constants (atomic clocks, quasar spectra, Big Bang Nucleosynthesis, etc) we discuss variations in phase shifts produced in laser/maser interferometers (such as giant LIGO, Virgo, GEO600 and TAMA300, and the table-top silicon cavity and sapphire interferometers), changes in pulsar rotational frequencies (which may have been observed already in pulsar glitches), non-gravitational lensing of cosmic radiation and the time-delay of pulsar signals. Other effects of dark matter and dark energy include apparent violation of the fundamental symmetries: oscillating or transient atomic electric dipole moments, precession of electron and nuclear spins about the direction of Earth's motion through an axion condensate, and axion-mediated spin-gravity couplings, violation of Lorentz symmetry and Einstein equivalence principle. Finally, we explore a possibility to explain the DAMA collaboration claim of dark matter detection by the dark matter scattering on electrons. We have shown that the electron relativistic effects increase the ionization differential cross section up to 3 orders of magnitude [9].

Light-matter interaction in doped microcavities

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Averkiev, N. S.; Glazov, M. M.

2007-07-01

We discuss theoretically the light-matter coupling in a microcavity containing a quantum well with a two-dimensional electron gas. The high density limit where the bound exciton states are absent is considered. The matrix element of an interband optical absorption demonstrates the Mahan singularity [Phys. Rev. B153, 882 (1967); 163, 612 (1967)] due to strong Coulomb effect between the electrons and a photocreated hole. We extend the nonlocal dielectric response theory to calculate the quantum well reflection and transmission coefficients as well as the microcavity transmission spectra. The new eigenmodes of the system are discussed. Their implications for the steady state and time-resolved spectroscopy experiments are analyzed.

How Do Pre-Service Teachers Picture Various Electromagnetic Phenomenon? A Qualitative Study of Pre-Service Teachers' Conceptual Understanding of Fundamental Electromagnetic Interaction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Beer, Christopher P.

2010-01-01

This study analyzes the nature of pre-service teachers' conceptual models of various electromagnetic phenomena, specifically electrical current, electrical resistance, and light/matter interactions. This is achieved through the students answering the three questions on electromagnetism using a free response approach including both verbal and…

Matter under extreme conditions experiments at the Linac Coherent Light Source

DOE PAGES

Glenzer, S. H.; Fletcher, L. B.; Galtier, E.; ...

2015-12-10

The Matter in Extreme Conditions end station at the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) is a new tool enabling accurate pump-probe measurements for studying the physical properties of matter in the high-energy density physics regime. This instrument combines the world’s brightest x-ray source, the LCLS x-ray beam, with high-power lasers consisting of two nanosecond Nd:glass laser beams and one short-pulse Ti:sapphire laser. These lasers produce short-lived states of matter with high pressures, high temperatures or high densities with properties that are important for applications in nuclear fusion research, laboratory astrophysics and the development of intense radiation sources. In the firstmore » experiments, we have performed highly accurate x-ray diffraction and x-ray Thomson scattering techniques on shock-compressed matter resolving the transition from compressed solid matter to a co-existence regime and into the warm dense matter state. Furthermore, these complex charged-particle systems are dominated by strong correlations and quantum effects. They exist in planetary interiors and laboratory experiments, e.g., during high-power laser interactions with solids or the compression phase of inertial confinement fusion implosions. Applying record peak brightness X rays resolves the ionic interactions at atomic (Ångstrom) scale lengths and measure the static structure factor, which is a key quantity for determining equation of state data and important transport coefficients. Simultaneously, spectrally resolved measurements of plasmon features provide dynamic structure factor information that yield temperature and density with unprecedented precision at micron-scale resolution in dynamic compression experiments. This set of studies demonstrates our ability to measure fundamental thermodynamic properties that determine the state of matter in the high-energy density physics regime.« less

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Hochberg, Yonit; Pyle, Matt; Zhao, Yue

We examine in greater detail the recent proposal of using superconductors for detecting dark matter as light as the warm dark matter limit of O(keV). Detection of suc light dark matter is possible if the entire kinetic energy of the dark matter is extracted in the scattering, and if the experiment is sensitive to O(meV) energy depositions. This is the case for Fermi-degenerate materials in which the Fermi velocity exceeds the dark matter velocity dispersion in the Milky Way of ~10 –3. We focus on a concrete experimental proposal using a superconducting target with a transition edge sensor in ordermore » to detect the small energy deposits from the dark matter scatterings. Considering a wide variety of constraints, from dark matter self-interactions to the cosmic microwave background, we show that models consistent with cosmological/astrophysical and terrestrial constraints are observable with such detectors. A wider range of viable models with dark matter mass below an MeV is available if dark matter or mediator properties (such as couplings or masses) differ at BBN epoch or in stellar interiors from those in superconductors. We also show that metal targets pay a strong in-medium suppression for kinetically mixed mediators; this suppression is alleviated with insulating targets.« less

Room temperature current injection polariton light emitting diode with a hybrid microcavity.

PubMed

Lu, Tien-Chang; Chen, Jun-Rong; Lin, Shiang-Chi; Huang, Si-Wei; Wang, Shing-Chung; Yamamoto, Yoshihisa

2011-07-13

The strong light-matter interaction within a semiconductor high-Q microcavity has been used to produce half-matter/half-light quasiparticles, exciton-polaritons. The exciton-polaritons have very small effective mass and controllable energy-momentum dispersion relation. These unique properties of polaritons provide the possibility to investigate the fundamental physics including solid-state cavity quantum electrodynamics, and dynamical Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs). Thus far the polariton BEC has been demonstrated using optical excitation. However, from a practical viewpoint, the current injection polariton devices operating at room temperature would be most desirable. Here we report the first realization of a current injection microcavity GaN exciton-polariton light emitting diode (LED) operating under room temperature. The exciton-polariton emission from the LED at photon energy 3.02 eV under strong coupling condition is confirmed through temperature-dependent and angle-resolved electroluminescence spectra.

Three-dimensional orientation-unlimited polarization encryption by a single optically configured vectorial beam.

PubMed

Li, Xiangping; Lan, Tzu-Hsiang; Tien, Chung-Hao; Gu, Min

2012-01-01

The interplay between light polarization and matter is the basis of many fundamental physical processes and applications. However, the electromagnetic wave nature of light in free space sets a fundamental limit on the three-dimensional polarization orientation of a light beam. Although a high numerical aperture objective can be used to bend the wavefront of a radially polarized beam to generate the longitudinal polarization state in the focal volume, the arbitrary three-dimensional polarization orientation of a beam has not been achieved yet. Here we present a novel technique for generating arbitrary three-dimensional polarization orientation by a single optically configured vectorial beam. As a consequence, by applying this technique to gold nanorods, orientation-unlimited polarization encryption with ultra-security is demonstrated. These results represent a new landmark of the orientation-unlimited three-dimensional polarization control of the light-matter interaction.

Search for light gauge bosons of the dark sector at the Mainz Microtron.

PubMed

Merkel, H; Achenbach, P; Ayerbe Gayoso, C; Bernauer, J C; Böhm, R; Bosnar, D; Debenjak, L; Denig, A; Distler, M O; Esser, A; Fonvieille, H; Friščić, I; Middleton, D G; Müller, U; Nungesser, L; Pochodzalla, J; Rohrbeck, M; Sánchez Majos, S; Schlimme, B S; Schoth, M; Sirca, S; Weinriefer, M

2011-06-24

A new exclusion limit for the electromagnetic production of a light U(1) gauge boson γ' decaying to e + e- was determined by the A1 Collaboration at the Mainz Microtron. Such light gauge bosons appear in several extensions of the standard model and are also discussed as candidates for the interaction of dark matter with standard model matter. In electron scattering from a heavy nucleus, the existing limits for a narrow state coupling to e + e- were reduced by nearly an order of magnitude in the range of the lepton pair mass of 210 MeV/c2}

Coherent strong field interactions between a nanomagnet and a photonic cavity

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Soykal, Oney Orhunc

Strong coupling of light and matter is an essential element of cavity quantum electrodynamics (cavity-QED) and quantum optics, which may lead to novel mixed states of light and matter and to applications such as quantum computation. In the strong-coupling regime, where the coupling strength exceeds the dissipation, the light-matter interaction produces a characteristic vacuum Rabi splitting. Therefore, strong coupling can be utilized as an effective coherent interface between light and matter (in the form of electron charge, spin or superconducting Cooper pairs) to achieve components of quantum information technology including quantum memory, teleportation, and quantum repeaters. Semiconductor quantum dots, nuclear spins and paramagnetic spin systems are only some of the material systems under investigation for strong coupling in solid-state physics. Mixed states of light and matter coupled via electric dipole transitions often suffer from short coherence times (nanoseconds). Even though magnetic transitions appear to be intrinsically more quantum coherent than orbital transitions, their typical coupling strengths have been estimated to be much smaller. Hence, they have been neglected for the purposes of quantum information technology. However, we predict that strong coupling is feasible between photons and a ferromagnetic nanomagnet, due to exchange interactions that cause very large numbers of spins to coherently lock together with a significant increase in oscillator strength while still maintaining very long coherence times. In order to examine this new exciting possibility, the interaction of a ferromagnetic nanomagnet with a single photonic mode of a cavity is analyzed in a fully quantum-mechanical treatment. Exceptionally large quantum-coherent magnet-photon coupling with coupling terms in excess of several THz are predicted to be achievable in a spherical cavity of ˜ 1 mm radius with a nanomagnet of ˜ 100 nm radius and ferromagnet resonance frequency of ˜ 200 GHz. This should substantially exceed the coupling observed in solids between orbital transitions and light. Eigenstates of the nanomagnet-photon system correspond to entangled states of spin orientation and photon number over 105 values of each quantum number. Initial coherent state of definite spin and photon number evolve dynamically to produce large coherent oscillations in the microwave power with exceptionally long dephasing times of few seconds. In addition to dephasing, several decoherence mechanisms including elementary excitation of magnons and crystalline magnetic anisotropy are investigated and shown to not substantially affect coherence upto room temperature. For small nanomagnets the crystalline magnetic anisotropy of the magnet strongly localize the eigenstates in photon and spin number, quenching the potential for coherent states and for a sufficiently large nanomagnet the macrospin approximation breaks down and different domains of the nanomagnet may couple separately to the photonic mode. Thus the optimal nanomagnet size is predicted to be just below the threshold for failure of the macrospin approximation. Moreover, it is shown that initially unentangled coherent states of light (cavity field) and spin (nanomagnet spin orientation) can be phase-locked to evolve into a coherent entangled states of the system under the influence of strong coupling.

Reflectance measurements of PTFE, Kapton, and PEEK for xenon scintillation light for the LZ detector.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Arthurs, M.; Batista, E.; Haefner, J.; Lorenzon, W.; Morton, D.; Neff, A.; Okunawo, M.; Pushkin, K.; Sander, A.; Stephenson, S.; Wang, Y.; LZ Collaboration

2017-01-01

LZ (LUX-Zeplin) is an international collaboration that will look for dark matter candidates, WIMPs (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles), through direct detection by dual-phase time projection chamber (TPC) using liquid xenon. The LZ detector will be located nearly a mile underground at SURF, South Dakota, shielded from cosmic background radiation. Seven tons active mass of liquid xenon will be used for detecting the weak interaction of WIMPs with ordinary matter. Over three years of operation it is expected to reach the ultimate sensitivity of 2x10-48 cm2 for a WIMP mass of 50 GeV. As for many other rare event searches, high light collection efficiency is essential for LZ detector. Moreover, in order to achieve greater active volume for detection as well as reduce potential backgrounds, thinner detector walls without significant loss in reflectance are desired. Reflectance measurements of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), Kapton, and PEEK for xenon scintillation light (178 nm), conducted at the University of Michigan using the Michigan Xenon Detector (MiX) will be presented. The University of Michigan, LZ Collaboration, The US Department of Energy.

Asymmetric dark matter and the hadronic spectra of hidden QCD

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lonsdale, Stephen J.; Schroor, Martine; Volkas, Raymond R.

2017-09-01

The idea that dark matter may be a composite state of a hidden non-Abelian gauge sector has received great attention in recent years. Frameworks such as asymmetric dark matter motivate the idea that dark matter may have similar mass to the proton, while mirror matter and G ×G grand unified theories provide rationales for additional gauge sectors which may have minimal interactions with standard model particles. In this work we explore the hadronic spectra that these dark QCD models can allow. The effects of the number of light colored particles and the value of the confinement scale on the lightest stable state, the dark matter candidate, are examined in the hyperspherical constituent quark model for baryonic and mesonic states.

Dark matter with pseudoscalar-mediated interactions explains the DAMA signal and the galactic center excess.

PubMed

Arina, Chiara; Del Nobile, Eugenio; Panci, Paolo

2015-01-09

We study a Dirac dark matter particle interacting with ordinary matter via the exchange of a light pseudoscalar, and analyze its impact on both direct and indirect detection experiments. We show that this candidate can accommodate the long-standing DAMA modulated signal and yet be compatible with all exclusion limits at 99(S)% C.L. This result holds for natural choices of the pseudoscalar-quark couplings (e.g., flavor universal), which give rise to a significant enhancement of the dark matter-proton coupling with respect to the coupling to neutrons. We also find that this candidate can accommodate the observed 1-3 GeV gamma-ray excess at the Galactic center and at the same time have the correct relic density today. The model could be tested with measurements of rare meson decays, flavor changing processes, and searches for axionlike particles with mass in the MeV range.

In-plane optical anisotropy of layered gallium telluride

DOE PAGES

Huang, Shengxi; Tatsumi, Yuki; Ling, Xi; ...

2016-08-16

Layered gallium telluride (GaTe) has attracted much attention recently, due to its extremely high photoresponsivity, short response time, and promising thermoelectric performance. Different from most commonly studied two-dimensional (2D) materials, GaTe has in-plane anisotropy and a low symmetry with the C 2h 3 space group. Investigating the in-plane optical anisotropy, including the electron–photon and electron–phonon interactions of GaTe is essential in realizing its applications in optoelectronics and thermoelectrics. In this work, the anisotropic light-matter interactions in the low-symmetry material GaTe are studied using anisotropic optical extinction and Raman spectroscopies as probes. Our polarized optical extinction spectroscopy reveals the weak anisotropymore » in optical extinction spectra for visible light of multilayer GaTe. Polarized Raman spectroscopy proves to be sensitive to the crystalline orientation of GaTe, and shows the intricate dependences of Raman anisotropy on flake thickness, photon and phonon energies. Such intricate dependences can be explained by theoretical analyses employing first-principles calculations and group theory. Furthermore, these studies are a crucial step toward the applications of GaTe especially in optoelectronics and thermoelectrics, and provide a general methodology for the study of the anisotropy of light-matter interactions in 2D layered materials with in-plane anisotropy.« less

Incoherent light-induced self-organization of molecules.

PubMed

Kandjani, S Ahmadi; Barille, R; Dabos-Seignon, S; Nunzi, J M; Ortyl, E; Kucharski, S

2005-12-01

Although coherent light is usually required for the self-organization of regular spatial patterns from optical beams, we show that peculiar light-matter interaction can break this evidence. In the traditional method of recording laser-induced periodic surface structures, a light intensity distribution is produced at the surface of a polymer film by an interference between two coherent optical beams. We report on the self-organization followed by propagation of a surface relief pattern. It is induced in a polymer film by using a low-power and small-size coherent beam assisted by a high-power and large-size incoherent and unpolarized beam. We demonstrate that we can obtain large size and well-organized patterns starting from a dissipative interaction. Our experiments open new directions to improving optical processing systems.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Kaplan, David E.; Krnjaic, Gordan Z.; Rehermann, Keith R.

We present a simple UV completion of Atomic Dark Matter (aDM) in which heavy right-handed neutrinos decay to induce both dark and lepton number densities. This model addresses several outstanding cosmological problems: the matter/anti-matter asymmetry, the dark matter abundance, the number of light degrees of freedom in the early universe, and the smoothing of small-scale structure. Additionally, this realization of aDM may reconcile the CoGeNT excess with recently published null results and predicts a signal in the CRESST Oxygen band. We also find that, due to unscreened long-range interactions, the residual un recombined dark ions settle into a diffuse isothermalmore » halo.« less

Chirality and the angular momentum of light

PubMed Central

Götte, Jörg B.; Barnett, Stephen M.; Yao, Alison M.

2017-01-01

Chirality is exhibited by objects that cannot be rotated into their mirror images. It is far from obvious that this has anything to do with the angular momentum of light, which owes its existence to rotational symmetries. There is nevertheless a subtle connection between chirality and the angular momentum of light. We demonstrate this connection and, in particular, its significance in the context of chiral light–matter interactions. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Optical orbital angular momentum’. PMID:28069764

Search for an Annual Modulation in a p-Type Point Contact Germanium Dark Matter Detector

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Aalseth, Craig E.; Barbeau, Phil; Colaresi, J.

2011-09-01

Fifteen months of cumulative CoGeNT data are examined for indications of an annual modulation, a predicted signature of Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP) interactions. Presently available data support the presence of a modulated component of unknown origin, with parameters prima facie compatible with a galactic halo composed of light-mass WIMPs.

Probing different regimes of strong field light-matter interaction with semiconductor quantum dots and few cavity photons

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hargart, F.; Roy-Choudhury, K.; John, T.; Portalupi, S. L.; Schneider, C.; Höfling, S.; Kamp, M.; Hughes, S.; Michler, P.

2016-12-01

In this work we present an extensive experimental and theoretical investigation of different regimes of strong field light-matter interaction for cavity-driven quantum dot (QD) cavity systems. The electric field enhancement inside a high-Q micropillar cavity facilitates exceptionally strong interaction with few cavity photons, enabling the simultaneous investigation for a wide range of QD-laser detuning. In case of a resonant drive, the formation of dressed states and a Mollow triplet sideband splitting of up to 45 μeV is measured for a mean cavity photon number < {n}c> ≤slant 1. In the asymptotic limit of the linear AC Stark effect we systematically investigate the power and detuning dependence of more than 400 QDs. Some QD-cavity systems exhibit an unexpected anomalous Stark shift, which can be explained by an extended dressed 4-level QD model. We provide a detailed analysis of the QD-cavity systems properties enabling this novel effect. The experimental results are successfully reproduced using a polaron master equation approach for the QD-cavity system, which includes the driving laser field, exciton-cavity and exciton-phonon interactions.

New Models and Methods for the Electroweak Scale

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Carpenter, Linda

2017-09-26

This is the Final Technical Report to the US Department of Energy for grant DE-SC0013529, New Models and Methods for the Electroweak Scale, covering the time period April 1, 2015 to March 31, 2017. The goal of this project was to maximize the understanding of fundamental weak scale physics in light of current experiments, mainly the ongoing run of the Large Hadron Collider and the space based satellite experiements searching for signals Dark Matter annihilation or decay. This research program focused on the phenomenology of supersymmetry, Higgs physics, and Dark Matter. The properties of the Higgs boson are currently beingmore » measured by the Large Hadron collider, and could be a sensitive window into new physics at the weak scale. Supersymmetry is the leading theoretical candidate to explain the natural nessof the electroweak theory, however new model space must be explored as the Large Hadron collider has disfavored much minimal model parameter space. In addition the nature of Dark Matter, the mysterious particle that makes up 25% of the mass of the universe is still unknown. This project sought to address measurements of the Higgs boson couplings to the Standard Model particles, new LHC discovery scenarios for supersymmetric particles, and new measurements of Dark Matter interactions with the Standard Model both in collider production and annihilation in space. Accomplishments include new creating tools for analyses of Dark Matter models in Dark Matter which annihilates into multiple Standard Model particles, including new visualizations of bounds for models with various Dark Matter branching ratios; benchmark studies for new discovery scenarios of Dark Matter at the Large Hardon Collider for Higgs-Dark Matter and gauge boson-Dark Matter interactions; New target analyses to detect direct decays of the Higgs boson into challenging final states like pairs of light jets, and new phenomenological analysis of non-minimal supersymmetric models, namely the set of Dirac Gaugino Models.« less

Overview on the target fabrication facilities at ELI-NP and ongoing strategies

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gheorghiu, C. C.; Leca, V.; Popa, D.; Cernaianu, M. O.; Stutman, D.

2016-10-01

Along with the development of petawatt class laser systems, the interaction between high power lasers and matter flourished an extensive research, with high-interest applications like: laser nuclear physics, proton radiography or cancer therapy. The new ELI-NP (Extreme Light Infrastructure - Nuclear Physics) petawatt laser facility, with 10PW and ~ 1023W/cm2 beam intensity, is one of the innovative projects that will provide novel research of fundamental processes during light-matter interaction. As part of the ELI-NP facility, Targets Laboratory will provide the means for in-house manufacturing and characterization of the required targets (mainly solid ones) for the experiments, in addition to the research activity carried out in order to develop novel target designs with improved performances. A description of the Targets Laboratory with the main pieces of equipment and their specifications are presented. Moreover, in view of the latest progress in the target design, one of the proposed strategies for the forthcoming experiments at ELI-NP is also described, namely: ultra-thin patterned foil of diamond-like carbon (DLC) coated with a carbon-based ultra-low density layer. The carbon foam which behaves as a near-critical density plasma, will allow the controlled-shaping of the laser pulse before the main interaction with the solid foil. Particular emphasis will be directed towards the target's design optimization, by simulation tests and tuning the key-properties (thickness/length, spacing, density foam, depth, periodicity etc.) which are expected to have a crucial effect on the laser-matter interaction process.

Direct detection of light dark matter and solar neutrinos via color center production in crystals

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Budnik, Ranny; Cheshnovsky, Ori; Slone, Oren; Volansky, Tomer

2018-07-01

We propose a new low-threshold direct-detection concept for dark matter and for coherent nuclear scattering of solar neutrinos, based on the dissociation of atoms and subsequent creation of color center type defects within a lattice. The novelty in our approach lies in its ability to detect single defects in a macroscopic bulk of material. This class of experiments features ultra-low energy thresholds which allows for the probing of dark matter as light as O (10) MeV through nuclear scattering. Another feature of defect creation in crystals is directional information, which presents as a spectacular signal and a handle on background reduction in the form of daily modulation of the interaction rate. We discuss the envisioned setup and detection technique, as well as background reduction. We further calculate the expected rates for dark matter and solar neutrinos in two example crystals for which available data exists, demonstrating the prospective sensitivity of such experiments.

Quantum formulation for nanoscale optical and material chirality: symmetry issues, space and time parity, and observables

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Andrews, D. L.

2018-03-01

To properly represent the interplay and coupling of optical and material chirality at the photon-molecule or photon-nanoparticle level invites a recognition of quantum facets in the fundamental aspects and mechanisms of light-matter interaction. It is therefore appropriate to cast theory in a general quantum form, one that is applicable to both linear and nonlinear optics as well as various forms of chiroptical interaction including chiral optomechanics. Such a framework, fully accounting for both radiation and matter in quantum terms, facilitates the scrutiny and identification of key issues concerning spatial and temporal parity, scale, dissipation and measurement. Furthermore it fully provides for describing the interactions of structured or twisted light beams with a vortex character, and it leads to the complete identification of symmetry conditions for materials to provide for chiral discrimination. Quantum considerations also lend a distinctive perspective to the very different senses in which other aspects of chirality are recognized in metamaterials. Duly attending to the symmetry principles governing allowed or disallowed forms of chiral discrimination supports an objective appraisal of the experimental possibilities and developing applications.

Light Regimes Shape Utilization of Extracellular Organic C and N in a Cyanobacterial Biofilm

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Stuart, Rhona K.; Mayali, Xavier; Boaro, Amy A.

2016-06-28

Although it is becoming clear that many microbial primary producers can also play a role as organic consumers, we know very little about the metabolic regulation of photoautotroph organic matter consumption. Cyanobacteria in phototrophic biofilms can reuse extracellular organic carbon, but the metabolic drivers of extracellular processes are surprisingly complex. We investigated the metabolic foundations of organic matter reuse by comparing exoproteome composition and incorporation of 13C-labeled and 15N-labeled cyanobacterial extracellular organic matter (EOM) in a unicyanobacterial biofilm incubated using different light regimes. In the light and the dark, cyanobacterial direct organic C assimilation accounted for 32% and 43%, respectively,more » of all organic C assimilation in the community. Under photosynthesis conditions, we measured increased excretion of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) and proteins involved in micronutrient transport, suggesting that requirements for micronutrients may drive EOM assimilation during daylight hours. This interpretation was supported by photosynthesis inhibition experiments, in which cyanobacteria incorporated N-rich EOM-derived material. In contrast, under dark, C-starved conditions, cyanobacteria incorporated C-rich EOM-derived organic matter, decreased excretion of EPS, and showed an increased abundance of degradative exoproteins, demonstrating the use of the extracellular domain for C storage. Sequence-structure modeling of one of these exoproteins predicted a specific hydrolytic activity that was subsequently detected, confirming increased EOM degradation in the dark. Associated heterotrophic bacteria increased in abundance and upregulated transport proteins under dark relative to light conditions. Taken together, our results indicate that biofilm cyanobacteria are successful competitors for organic C and N and that cyanobacterial nutrient and energy requirements control the use of EOM. IMPORTANCECyanobacteria are globally distributed primary producers, and the fate of their fixed C influences microbial biogeochemical cycling. This fate is complicated by cyanobacterial degradation and assimilation of organic matter, but because cyanobacteria are assumed to be poor competitors for organic matter consumption, regulation of this process is not well tested. In mats and biofilms, this is especially relevant because cyanobacteria produce an extensive organic extracellular matrix, providing the community with a rich source of nutrients. Light is a well-known regulator of cyanobacterial metabolism, so we characterized the effects of light availability on the incorporation of organic matter. Using stable isotope tracing at the single-cell level, we quantified photoautotroph assimilation under different metabolic conditions and integrated the results with proteomics to elucidate metabolic status. We found that cyanobacteria effectively compete for organic matter in the light and the dark and that nutrient requirements and community interactions contribute to cycling of extracellular organic matter.« less

Semi-classical dynamics of superradiant Rayleigh scattering in a Bose-Einstein condensate

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Müller, J. H.; Witthaut, D.; le Targat, R.; Arlt, J. J.; Polzik, E. S.; Hilliard, A. J.

2016-10-01

Due to its coherence properties and high optical depth, a Bose-Einstein condensate [BEC] provides an ideal setting to investigate collective atom-light interactions. Superradiant light scattering [SLS] in a BEC is a fascinating example of such an interaction. It is an analogous process to Dicke superradiance, in which an electronically inverted sample decays collectively, leading to the emission of one or more light pulses in a well-defined direction. Through time-resolved measurements of the superradiant light pulses emitted by an end-pumped BEC, we study the close connection of SLS with Dicke superradiance. A 1D model of the system yields good agreement with the experimental data and shows that the dynamics result from the structures that build up in the light and matter-wave fields along the BEC. This paves the way for exploiting the atom-photon correlations generated by the superradiance.

Silicon Photomultiplier Performance in High ELectric Field

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Montoya, J.; Morad, J.

2016-12-01

Roughly 27% of the universe is thought to be composed of dark matter. The Large Underground Xenon (LUX) relies on the emission of light from xenon atoms after a collision with a dark matter particle. After a particle interaction in the detector, two things can happen: the xenon will emit light and charge. The charge (electrons), in the liquid xenon needs to be pulled into the gas section so that it can interact with gas and emit light. This allows LUX to convert a single electron into many photons. This is done by applying a high voltage across the liquid and gas regions, effectively ripping electrons out of the liquid xenon and into the gas. The current device used to detect photons is the photomultiplier tube (PMT). These devices are large and costly. In recent years, a new technology that is capable of detecting single photons has emerged, the silicon photomultiplier (SiPM). These devices are cheaper and smaller than PMTs. Their performance in a high electric fields, such as those found in LUX, are unknown. It is possible that a large electric field could introduce noise on the SiPM signal, drowning the single photon detection capability. My hypothesis is that SiPMs will not observe a significant increase is noise at an electric field of roughly 10kV/cm (an electric field within the range used in detectors like LUX). I plan to test this hypothesis by first rotating the SiPMs with no applied electric field between two metal plates roughly 2 cm apart, providing a control data set. Then using the same angles test the dark counts with the constant electric field applied. Possibly the most important aspect of LUX, is the photon detector because it's what detects the signals. Dark matter is detected in the experiment by looking at the ratio of photons to electrons emitted for a given interaction in the detector. Interactions with a low electron to photon ratio are more like to be dark matter events than those with a high electron to photon ratio. The ability to distinguish these ratios relies on the high sensitivity to single photons. To achieve a similar sensitivity to dark matter interactions as LUX, the new SiPM devices need to operate in the same conditions without any loss in sensitivity to single photons. Knowing that this new type of technology operates in high electric field without issues, could save hundreds of thousands of dollars and valuable space.

INTEGRAL and Light Dark Matter

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cassé, M.; Fayet, P.; Schanne, S.; Cordier, B.; Paul, J.

2004-10-01

The nature of Dark Matter remains one of the outstanding questions of modern astrophysics. The success of the Cold Dark Matter cosmological model argues strongly in favor of a major component of the dark matter being in the form of elementary particles, not yet discovered. Based on earlier theoretical considerations, a possible link between the recent SPI/INTEGRAL measurement of an intense and extended emission of 511 keV photons (the hallmark of positron annihilation) from the central Galaxy, and this mysterious component of the Universe, has been established advocating the existence of a light dark matter (LDM) particle (at variance with the neutralino, in general considered as very heavy). We show that it can explain the 511 keV emission mapped with SPI/INTEGRAL without overproducing undesirable signals like high energy gamma-rays arising from π? decays, and radio synchrotron photons emitted by high energy positrons circulating in magnetic fields. Combining the annihilation line constraint with the cosmological one (i.e. that the relic LDM energy density reaches about 23% of the density of the Universe), one can restrict the main properties of the light dark matter particle. Its mass should lie between ≈ 1 and 100 MeV, and the required annihilation cross section, velocity dependent, should be significantly larger than for weak interactions, and may be induced by the virtual production of a new light neutral spin 1 boson U. On astrophysical grounds, the best target to validate the LDM proposal seems to be the observation by SPI/INTEGRAL and future gamma ray telescopes of the annihilation line from the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy and the Palomar-13 globular cluster, thought to be dominated by dark matter. Key words: Galaxy center; dark matter; gamma rays. 0Corresponding author: m.casse@cea.fr 3 Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris, 98 bis Boulevard Arago, 75014 Paris, France 4 Fédération de Recherche Astroparticule et Cosmologie, Coll`ege de France, 11 Place Marcellin Berthelot, 75231 Paris, France

Analyzing the Discovery Potential for Light Dark Matter.

PubMed

Izaguirre, Eder; Krnjaic, Gordan; Schuster, Philip; Toro, Natalia

2015-12-18

In this Letter, we determine the present status of sub-GeV thermal dark matter annihilating through standard model mixing, with special emphasis on interactions through the vector portal. Within representative simple models, we carry out a complete and precise calculation of the dark matter abundance and of all available constraints. We also introduce a concise framework for comparing different experimental approaches, and use this comparison to identify important ranges of dark matter mass and couplings to better explore in future experiments. The requirement that dark matter be a thermal relic sets a sharp sensitivity target for terrestrial experiments, and so we highlight complementary experimental approaches that can decisively reach this milestone sensitivity over the entire sub-GeV mass range.

The Saga of Light-Matter Interaction and Magneto-optical Effects Applications to Atomic Magnetometry, Laser-cooled Atoms, Atomic Clocks, Geomagnetism, and Plant Bio-magnetism

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Corsini, Eric P.

The quest to expand the limited sensorial domain, in particular to bridge the inability to gauge magnetic fields near and far, has driven the fabrication of remedial tools. The interaction of ferromagnetic material with a magnetic field had been the only available technique to gauge that field for several millennium. The advent of electricity and associated classical phenomena captured in the four Maxwell equations, were a step forward. In the early 1900s, the model of quantum mechanics provided a two-way leap forward. One came from the newly understood interaction of light and matter, and more specifically the three-way coupling of photons, atoms' angular momenta, and magnetic field, which are the foundations of atomic magnetometry. The other came from magnetically sensitive quantum effects in a fabricated energy-ladder form of matter cooled to a temperature below that of the energy steps; these quantum effects gave rise to the superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID). Research using atomic magnetometers and SQUIDs has resulted in thousands of publications, text books, and conferences. The current status in each field is well described in Refs. [48,49,38,42] and all references therein. In this work we develop and investigate techniques and applications pertaining to atomic magnetometry. [Full text: eric.corsini gmail.com].

Solar neutrinos as a probe of dark matter-neutrino interactions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Capozzi, Francesco; Shoemaker, Ian M.; Vecchi, Luca

2017-07-01

Sterile neutrinos at the eV scale have long been studied in the context of anomalies in short baseline neutrino experiments. Their cosmology can be made compatible with our understanding of the early Universe provided the sterile neutrino sector enjoys a nontrivial dynamics with exotic interactions, possibly providing a link to the Dark Matter (DM) puzzle. Interactions between DM and neutrinos have also been proposed to address the long-standing "missing satellites" problem in the field of large scale structure formation. Motivated by these considerations, in this paper we discuss realistic scenarios with light steriles coupled to DM . We point out that within this framework active neutrinos acquire an effective coupling to DM that manifests itself as a new matter potential in the propagation within a medium of asymmetric DM . Assuming that at least a small fraction of asymmetric DM has been captured by the Sun, we show that a sizable region of the parameter space of these scenarios can be probed by solar neutrino experiments, especially in the regime of small couplings and light mediators where all other probes become inefficient. In the latter regime these scenarios behave as familiar 3+1 models in all channels except for solar data, where a Solar Dark MSW effect takes place. Solar Dark MSW is characterized by modifications of the most energetic 8B and CNO neutrinos, whereas the other fluxes remain largely unaffected.

Do Atoms Really "Emit" Absorption Lines?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brecher, Kenneth

1991-01-01

Presents three absorption line sources that enhance student understanding of the phenomena associated with the interaction of light with matter and help dispel the misconception that atoms "emit" absorption lines. Sources include neodymium, food coloring and other common household liquids, and fluorescent materials. (MDH)

Quantum memories: emerging applications and recent advances

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Heshami, Khabat; England, Duncan G.; Humphreys, Peter C.; Bustard, Philip J.; Acosta, Victor M.; Nunn, Joshua; Sussman, Benjamin J.

2016-11-01

Quantum light-matter interfaces are at the heart of photonic quantum technologies. Quantum memories for photons, where non-classical states of photons are mapped onto stationary matter states and preserved for subsequent retrieval, are technical realizations enabled by exquisite control over interactions between light and matter. The ability of quantum memories to synchronize probabilistic events makes them a key component in quantum repeaters and quantum computation based on linear optics. This critical feature has motivated many groups to dedicate theoretical and experimental research to develop quantum memory devices. In recent years, exciting new applications, and more advanced developments of quantum memories, have proliferated. In this review, we outline some of the emerging applications of quantum memories in optical signal processing, quantum computation and non-linear optics. We review recent experimental and theoretical developments, and their impacts on more advanced photonic quantum technologies based on quantum memories.

Correlated Light-Matter Interactions in Cavity QED

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Flick, Johannes; Pellegrini, Camilla; Ruggenthaler, Michael; Appel, Heiko; Tokatly, Ilya; Rubio, Angel

2015-03-01

In the last decade, time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) has been successfully applied to a large variety of problems, such as calculations of absorption spectra, excitation energies, or dynamics in strong laser fields. Recently, we have generalized TDDFT to also describe electron-photon systems (QED-TDDFT). Here, matter and light are treated on an equal quantized footing. In this work, we present the first numerical calculations in the framework of QED-TDDFT. We show exact solutions for fully quantized prototype systems consisting of atoms or molecules placed in optical high-Q cavities and coupled to quantized electromagnetic modes. We focus on the electron-photon exchange-correlation (xc) contribution by calculating exact Kohn-Sham potentials using fixed-point inversions and present the performance of the first approximated xc-potential based on an optimized effective potential (OEP) approach. Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter, Hamburg, and Fritz-Haber-Institut der MPG, Berlin

Quantum memories: emerging applications and recent advances.

PubMed

Heshami, Khabat; England, Duncan G; Humphreys, Peter C; Bustard, Philip J; Acosta, Victor M; Nunn, Joshua; Sussman, Benjamin J

2016-11-12

Quantum light-matter interfaces are at the heart of photonic quantum technologies. Quantum memories for photons, where non-classical states of photons are mapped onto stationary matter states and preserved for subsequent retrieval, are technical realizations enabled by exquisite control over interactions between light and matter. The ability of quantum memories to synchronize probabilistic events makes them a key component in quantum repeaters and quantum computation based on linear optics. This critical feature has motivated many groups to dedicate theoretical and experimental research to develop quantum memory devices. In recent years, exciting new applications, and more advanced developments of quantum memories, have proliferated. In this review, we outline some of the emerging applications of quantum memories in optical signal processing, quantum computation and non-linear optics. We review recent experimental and theoretical developments, and their impacts on more advanced photonic quantum technologies based on quantum memories.

Searching for topological defect dark matter via nongravitational signatures.

PubMed

Stadnik, Y V; Flambaum, V V

2014-10-10

We propose schemes for the detection of topological defect dark matter using pulsars and other luminous extraterrestrial systems via nongravitational signatures. The dark matter field, which makes up a defect, may interact with standard model particles, including quarks and the photon, resulting in the alteration of their masses. When a topological defect passes through a pulsar, its mass, radius, and internal structure may be altered, resulting in a pulsar "quake." A topological defect may also function as a cosmic dielectric material with a distinctive frequency-dependent index of refraction, which would give rise to the time delay of a periodic extraterrestrial light or radio signal, and the dispersion of a light or radio source in a manner distinct to a gravitational lens. A topological defect passing through Earth may alter Earth's period of rotation and give rise to temporary nonzero electric dipole moments for an electron, proton, neutron, nuclei and atoms.

A light Z' for the R K puzzle and nonstandard neutrino interactions

DOE PAGES

Datta, Alakabha; Liao, Jiajun; Marfatia, Danny

2017-03-01

We show that the R K puzzle in LHCb data and the discrepancy in the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon can be simultaneously explained if a 10 MeV mass Z' boson couples to the muon but not the electron, and that clear evidence of the nonstandard matter interactions of neutrinos induced by this coupling may be found at DUNE.

Seeing with the nano-eye: accessing structure, function, and dynamics of matter on its natural length and time scales

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Raschke, Markus

2015-03-01

To understand and ultimately control the properties of most functional materials, from molecular soft-matter to quantum materials, requires access to the structure, coupling, and dynamics on the elementary time and length scales that define the microscopic interactions in these materials. To gain the desired nanometer spatial resolution with simultaneous spectroscopic specificity we combine scanning probe microscopy with different optical, including coherent, nonlinear, and ultrafast spectroscopies. The underlying near-field interaction mediated by the atomic-force or scanning tunneling microscope tip provides the desired deep-sub wavelength nano-focusing enabling few-nm spatial resolution. I will introduce our generalization of the approach in terms of the near-field impedance matching to a quantum system based on special optical antenna-tip designs. The resulting enhanced and qualitatively new forms of light-matter interaction enable measurements of quantum dynamics in an interacting environment or to image the electromagnetic local density of states of thermal radiation. Other applications include the inter-molecular coupling and dynamics in soft-matter hetero-structures, surface plasmon interferometry as a probe of electronic structure and dynamics in graphene, and quantum phase transitions in correlated electron materials. These examples highlight the general applicability of the new near-field microscopy approach, complementing emergent X-ray and electron imaging tools, aiming towards the ultimate goal of probing matter on its most elementary spatio-temporal level.

Atomic-scale diffractive imaging of sub-cycle electron dynamics in condensed matter

PubMed Central

Yakovlev, Vladislav S.; Stockman, Mark I.; Krausz, Ferenc; Baum, Peter

2015-01-01

For interaction of light with condensed-matter systems, we show with simulations that ultrafast electron and X-ray diffraction can provide a time-dependent record of charge-density maps with sub-cycle and atomic-scale resolutions. Using graphene as an example material, we predict that diffraction can reveal localised atomic-scale origins of optical and electronic phenomena. In particular, we point out nontrivial relations between microscopic electric current and density in undoped graphene. PMID:26412407

Single molecules and single nanoparticles as windows to the nanoscale

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Caldarola, Martín; Orrit, Michel

2018-05-01

Since the first optical detection of single molecules, they have been used as nanometersized optical sensors to explore the physical properties of materials and light-matter interaction at the nanoscale. Understanding nanoscale properties of materials is fundamental for the development of new technology that requires precise control of atoms and molecules when the quantum nature of matter cannot be ignored. In the following lines, we illustrate this journey into nanoscience with some experiments from our group.

Atomic-scale diffractive imaging of sub-cycle electron dynamics in condensed matter

DOE PAGES

Yakovlev, Vladislav S.; Stockman, Mark I.; Krausz, Ferenc; ...

2015-09-28

For interaction of light with condensed-matter systems, we show with simulations that ultrafast electron and X-ray diffraction can provide a time-dependent record of charge-density maps with sub-cycle and atomic-scale resolutions. Using graphene as an example material, we predict that diffraction can reveal localised atomic-scale origins of optical and electronic phenomena. Here, we point out nontrivial relations between microscopic electric current and density in undoped graphene.

The role of nuclear physics in supernovae and the evolution of neutron stars Neutrino Opacities, Equation of State, Transport Coefficients, and Dark Matter Production

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rrapaj, Ermal

A massive star, of at least eight solar masses, end their life cycle in a sudden, catastrophic collapse under its own gravity. In a thousandth of a second, it can shrink from thousands of kilometers across to a ball of ultra-condensed matter just a few kilometers across. Ultimately, it all ends in a cataclysmic explosion known as a supernova, and for a few short weeks it burns as brightly as several billion suns, briefly outshining the star's entire home galaxy. The visible light of a supernova, though, represents only about 1% of the released energy, the vast majority being in the form of ultraviolet light, x-rays, gamma rays and, especially neutrinos. In the first chapter of work, I study neutrino - nucleon interactions and their role in the nucleosynthesis of heavy elements. Another key ingredient is the equation of state, which relates the thermodynamic properties of these extreme environments to the micro physics of nuclear interactions, explored in the second chapter. As a supernova cools, a new neutron star is born. The thermal, electric properties and the shear viscosity of this object are analyzed in terms of a newly discovered interaction, among electrons and neutrons, in the third chapter. Given the enormous amount of energy released during the explosion, I study the possibility of producing light massive particles, candidates for what is commonly called dark matter, in the last chapter of this work. I find that supernovae are ideal environments where the interplay of all forces in nature can be observed, nuclear forces playing a paramount role.

On the design of experiments for the study of extreme field limits in the ultra-relativistic interaction of electromagnetic waves with plasmas

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bulanov, Sergei V.; Esirkepov, Timur Z.; Hayashi, Yukio; Kando, Masaki; Kiriyama, Hiromitsu; Koga, James K.; Kondo, Kiminori; Kotaki, Hideyuki; Pirozhkov, Alexander S.; Bulanov, Stepan S.; Zhidkov, Alexei G.; Chen, Pisin; Neely, David; Kato, Yoshiaki; Narozhny, Nikolay B.; Korn, Georg

2011-06-01

The critical electric field of quantum electrodynamics, called also the Schwinger field, is so strong that it produces electron-positron pairs from vacuum, converting the energy of light into matter. Since the dawn of quantum electrodynamics, there has been a dream on how to reach it on Earth. With the rise of laser technology this field has become feasible through the construction of extremely high power lasers or/and with the sophisticated use of nonlinear processes in relativistic plasmas. This is one of the most attractive motivations for extremely high power laser development, i.e. producing matter from vacuum by pure light in fundamental process of quantum electrodynamics in the nonperturbative regime. Recently it has been realized that a laser with intensity well below the Schwinger limit can create an avalanche of electron-positron pairs similar to a discharge before attaining the Schwinger field. It has also been realized that the Schwinger limit can be reached using an appropriate configuration of laser beams. In experiments on the collision of laser light and high intensity electromagnetic pulses generated by relativistic flying mirrors, with electron bunches produced by a conventional accelerator and with laser wake field accelerated electrons the studying of extreme field limits in the nonlinear interaction of electromagnetic waves is proposed. The regimes of dominant radiation reaction, which completely changes the electromagnetic wave-matter interaction, will be revealed. This will result in a new powerful source of high brightness gamma-rays. A possibility of the demonstration of the electronpositron pair creation in vacuum via multi-photon processes can be realized. This will allow modeling under terrestrial laboratory conditions neutron star magnetospheres, cosmological gamma ray bursts and the Leptonic Era of the Universe.

On-chip synthesis of circularly polarized emission of light with integrated photonic circuits.

PubMed

He, Li; Li, Mo

2014-05-01

The helicity of circularly polarized (CP) light plays an important role in the light-matter interaction in magnetic and quantum material systems. Exploiting CP light in integrated photonic circuits could lead to on-chip integration of novel optical helicity-dependent devices for applications ranging from spintronics to quantum optics. In this Letter, we demonstrate a silicon photonic circuit coupled with a 2D grating emitter operating at a telecom wavelength to synthesize vertically emitting, CP light from a quasi-TE waveguide mode. Handedness of the emitted circular polarized light can be thermally controlled with an integrated microheater. The compact device footprint enables a small beam diameter, which is desirable for large-scale integration.

Quantum droplets of light in the presence of synthetic magnetic fields

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wilson, Kali; Westerberg, Niclas; Valiente, Manuel; Duncan, Callum; Wright, Ewan; Ohberg, Patrik; Faccio, Daniele

2017-04-01

Recently, quantum droplets have been demonstrated in dipolar Bose-Einstein condensates, where the long range (nonlocal) attractive interaction is counterbalanced by a local repulsive interaction. In this work, we investigate the formation of quantum droplets in a two-dimensional nonlocal fluid of light. Fluids of light allow us to control the geometry of the system, and thus introduce vorticity which in turn creates an artificial magnetic field for the quantum droplet. In a quantum fluid of light, the photons comprising the fluid are treated as a gas of interacting Bose-particles, where the nonlocal interaction comes from the nonlinearity inherent in the material, in our case an attractive third-order thermo-optical nonlinearity. In contrast to matter-wave droplets, photon fluid droplets are not stabilised by local particle-particle scattering, but from the quantum pressure itself, i.e., a balance between diffraction and the nonlocal nonlinearity. We will present a numerical and analytical investigation of the ground state of these droplets and of their subsequent dynamics under the influence of a self-induced artificial magnetic field, and discuss experimental work with the possibility to include artificial gauge interactions between droplets.

Phase-factor-dependent symmetries and quantum phases in a three-level cavity QED system.

PubMed

Fan, Jingtao; Yu, Lixian; Chen, Gang; Jia, Suotang

2016-05-03

Unlike conventional two-level particles, three-level particles may support some unitary-invariant phase factors when they interact coherently with a single-mode quantized light field. To gain a better understanding of light-matter interaction, it is thus necessary to explore the phase-factor-dependent physics in such a system. In this report, we consider the collective interaction between degenerate V-type three-level particles and a single-mode quantized light field, whose different components are labeled by different phase factors. We mainly establish an important relation between the phase factors and the symmetry or symmetry-broken physics. Specifically, we find that the phase factors affect dramatically the system symmetry. When these symmetries are breaking separately, rich quantum phases emerge. Finally, we propose a possible scheme to experimentally probe the predicted physics of our model. Our work provides a way to explore phase-factor-induced nontrivial physics by introducing additional particle levels.

Deterministic control of radiative processes by shaping the mode field

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pellegrino, D.; Pagliano, F.; Genco, A.; Petruzzella, M.; van Otten, F. W.; Fiore, A.

2018-04-01

Quantum dots (QDs) interacting with confined light fields in photonic crystal cavities represent a scalable light source for the generation of single photons and laser radiation in the solid-state platform. The complete control of light-matter interaction in these sources is needed to fully exploit their potential, but it has been challenging due to the small length scales involved. In this work, we experimentally demonstrate the control of the radiative interaction between InAs QDs and one mode of three coupled nanocavities. By non-locally moulding the mode field experienced by the QDs inside one of the cavities, we are able to deterministically tune, and even inhibit, the spontaneous emission into the mode. The presented method will enable the real-time switching of Rabi oscillations, the shaping of the temporal waveform of single photons, and the implementation of unexplored nanolaser modulation schemes.

Optimizing laser beam profiles using micro-lens arrays for efficient material processing: applications to solar cells

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hauschild, Dirk; Homburg, Oliver; Mitra, Thomas; Ivanenko, Mikhail; Jarczynski, Manfred; Meinschien, Jens; Bayer, Andreas; Lissotschenko, Vitalij

2009-02-01

High power laser sources are used in various production tools for microelectronic products and solar cells, including the applications annealing, lithography, edge isolation as well as dicing and patterning. Besides the right choice of the laser source suitable high performance optics for generating the appropriate beam profile and intensity distribution are of high importance for the right processing speed, quality and yield. For industrial applications equally important is an adequate understanding of the physics of the light-matter interaction behind the process. In advance simulations of the tool performance can minimize technical and financial risk as well as lead times for prototyping and introduction into series production. LIMO has developed its own software founded on the Maxwell equations taking into account all important physical aspects of the laser based process: the light source, the beam shaping optical system and the light-matter interaction. Based on this knowledge together with a unique free-form micro-lens array production technology and patented micro-optics beam shaping designs a number of novel solar cell production tool sub-systems have been built. The basic functionalities, design principles and performance results are presented with a special emphasis on resilience, cost reduction and process reliability.

Ultra-sensitive chemical and biological analysis via specialty fibers with built-in microstructured optofluidic channels.

PubMed

Zhang, Nan; Li, Kaiwei; Cui, Ying; Wu, Zhifang; Shum, Perry Ping; Auguste, Jean-Louis; Dinh, Xuan Quyen; Humbert, Georges; Wei, Lei

2018-02-13

All-in-fiber optofluidics is an analytical tool that provides enhanced sensing performance with simplified analyzing system design. Currently, its advance is limited either by complicated liquid manipulation and light injection configuration or by low sensitivity resulting from inadequate light-matter interaction. In this work, we design and fabricate a side-channel photonic crystal fiber (SC-PCF) and exploit its versatile sensing capabilities in in-line optofluidic configurations. The built-in microfluidic channel of the SC-PCF enables strong light-matter interaction and easy lateral access of liquid samples in these analytical systems. In addition, the sensing performance of the SC-PCF is demonstrated with methylene blue for absorptive molecular detection and with human cardiac troponin T protein by utilizing a Sagnac interferometry configuration for ultra-sensitive and specific biomolecular specimen detection. Owing to the features of great flexibility and compactness, high-sensitivity to the analyte variation, and efficient liquid manipulation/replacement, the demonstrated SC-PCF offers a generic solution to be adapted to various fiber-waveguide sensors to detect a wide range of analytes in real time, especially for applications from environmental monitoring to biological diagnosis.

Optical Chirality in Nonlinear Optics: Application to High Harmonic Generation.

PubMed

Neufeld, Ofer; Cohen, Oren

2018-03-30

Optical chirality (OC)-one of the fundamental quantities of electromagnetic fields-corresponds to the instantaneous chirality of light. It has been utilized for exploring chiral light-matter interactions in linear optics, but has not yet been applied to nonlinear processes. Motivated to explore the role of OC in the generation of helically polarized high-order harmonics and attosecond pulses, we first separate the OC of transversal and paraxial beams to polarization and orbital terms. We find that the polarization-associated OC of attosecond pulses corresponds approximately to that of the pump in the quasimonochromatic case, but not in the multichromatic pump cases. We associate this discrepancy with the fact that the polarization OC of multichromatic pumps vary rapidly in time along the optical cycle. Thus, we propose new quantities, noninstantaneous polarization-associated OC, and time-scale-weighted polarization-associated OC, and show that these quantities link the chirality of multichromatic pumps and their generated attosecond pulses. The presented extension to OC theory should be useful for exploring various nonlinear chiral light-matter interactions. For example, it stimulates us to propose a tricircular pump for generation of highly elliptical attosecond pulses with a tunable ellipticity.

Single-crystalline germanium nanomembrane photodetectors on foreign nanocavities

DOE PAGES

Xia, Zhenyang; Song, Haomin; Kim, Munho; ...

2017-07-07

Miniaturization of optoelectronic devices offers tremendous performance gain. As the volume of photoactive material decreases, optoelectronic performance improves, including the operation speed, the signal-to-noise ratio, and the internal quantum efficiency. Over the past decades, researchers have managed to reduce the volume of photoactive materials in solar cells and photodetectors by orders of magnitude. However, two issues arise when one continues to thin down the photoactive layers to the nanometer scale (for example, <50 nm). First, light-matter interaction becomes weak, resulting in incomplete photon absorption and low quantum efficiency. Second, it is difficult to obtain ultrathin materials with single-crystalline quality. Wemore » introduce a method to overcome these two challenges simultaneously. It uses conventional bulk semiconductor wafers, such as Si, Ge, and GaAs, to realize single-crystalline films on foreign substrates that are designed for enhanced light-matter interaction. We use a high-yield and high-throughput method to demonstrate nanometer-thin photodetectors with significantly enhanced light absorption based on nanocavity interference mechanism. As a result, these single-crystalline nanomembrane photodetectors also exhibit unique optoelectronic properties, such as the strong field effect and spectral selectivity.« less

Optical Chirality in Nonlinear Optics: Application to High Harmonic Generation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Neufeld, Ofer; Cohen, Oren

2018-03-01

Optical chirality (OC)—one of the fundamental quantities of electromagnetic fields—corresponds to the instantaneous chirality of light. It has been utilized for exploring chiral light-matter interactions in linear optics, but has not yet been applied to nonlinear processes. Motivated to explore the role of OC in the generation of helically polarized high-order harmonics and attosecond pulses, we first separate the OC of transversal and paraxial beams to polarization and orbital terms. We find that the polarization-associated OC of attosecond pulses corresponds approximately to that of the pump in the quasimonochromatic case, but not in the multichromatic pump cases. We associate this discrepancy with the fact that the polarization OC of multichromatic pumps vary rapidly in time along the optical cycle. Thus, we propose new quantities, noninstantaneous polarization-associated OC, and time-scale-weighted polarization-associated OC, and show that these quantities link the chirality of multichromatic pumps and their generated attosecond pulses. The presented extension to OC theory should be useful for exploring various nonlinear chiral light-matter interactions. For example, it stimulates us to propose a tricircular pump for generation of highly elliptical attosecond pulses with a tunable ellipticity.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Binder, Tobias; Covi, Laura; Kamada, Ayuki

Dark Matter (DM) models providing possible alternative solutions to the small-scale crisis of the standard cosmology are nowadays of growing interest. We consider DM interacting with light hidden fermions via well-motivated fundamental operators showing the resultant matter power spectrum is suppressed on subgalactic scales within a plausible parameter region. Our basic description of the evolution of cosmological perturbations relies on a fully consistent first principles derivation of a perturbed Fokker-Planck type equation, generalizing existing literature. The cosmological perturbation of the Fokker-Planck equation is presented for the first time in two different gauges, where the results transform into each other accordingmore » to the rules of gauge transformation. Furthermore, our focus lies on a derivation of a broadly applicable and easily computable collision term showing important phenomenological differences to other existing approximations. As one of the main results and concerning the small-scale crisis, we show the equal importance of vector and scalar boson mediated interactions between the DM and the light fermions.« less

Tunable VO2/Au Hyperbolic Metamaterial

DTIC Science & Technology

2016-02-12

phenomenon having a potential of advancing the control of light-matter interaction . Metamaterials are engineered composite materials containing sub...ellipsoids15 – the phenomenon known as hyperbolic dispersion. Hyperbolic metamaterials can propagate light waves with very large wave vectors and have a...incidence angles equal to 15°, 45° and 65°. The spectra measured at 45o are depicted in Fig. 6(a). The wavy pattern in the spectra is due to the parasitic

DARWIN: towards the ultimate dark matter detector

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Aalbers, J.; Agostini, F.; Alfonsi, M.; Amaro, F. D.; Amsler, C.; Aprile, E.; Arazi, L.; Arneodo, F.; Barrow, P.; Baudis, L.; Benabderrahmane, M. L.; Berger, T.; Beskers, B.; Breskin, A.; Breur, P. A.; Brown, A.; Brown, E.; Bruenner, S.; Bruno, G.; Budnik, R.; Bütikofer, L.; Calvén, J.; Cardoso, J. M. R.; Cichon, D.; Coderre, D.; Colijn, A. P.; Conrad, J.; Cussonneau, J. P.; Decowski, M. P.; Diglio, S.; Drexlin, G.; Duchovni, E.; Erdal, E.; Eurin, G.; Ferella, A.; Fieguth, A.; Fulgione, W.; Gallo Rosso, A.; Di Gangi, P.; Di Giovanni, A.; Galloway, M.; Garbini, M.; Geis, C.; Glueck, F.; Grandi, L.; Greene, Z.; Grignon, C.; Hasterok, C.; Hannen, V.; Hogenbirk, E.; Howlett, J.; Hilk, D.; Hils, C.; James, A.; Kaminsky, B.; Kazama, S.; Kilminster, B.; Kish, A.; Krauss, L. M.; Landsman, H.; Lang, R. F.; Lin, Q.; Linde, F. L.; Lindemann, S.; Lindner, M.; Lopes, J. A. M.; Marrodán Undagoitia, T.; Masbou, J.; Massoli, F. V.; Mayani, D.; Messina, M.; Micheneau, K.; Molinario, A.; Morå, K. D.; Morteau, E.; Murra, M.; Naganoma, J.; Newstead, J. L.; Ni, K.; Oberlack, U.; Pakarha, P.; Pelssers, B.; de Perio, P.; Persiani, R.; Piastra, F.; Piro, M. C.; Plante, G.; Rauch, L.; Reichard, S.; Rizzo, A.; Rupp, N.; Dos Santos, J. M. F.; Sartorelli, G.; Scheibelhut, M.; Schindler, S.; Schumann, M.; Schreiner, J.; Scotto Lavina, L.; Selvi, M.; Shagin, P.; Silva, M. C.; Simgen, H.; Sissol, P.; von Sivers, M.; Thers, D.; Thurn, J.; Tiseni, A.; Trotta, R.; Tunnell, C. D.; Valerius, K.; Vargas, M. A.; Wang, H.; Wei, Y.; Weinheimer, C.; Wester, T.; Wulf, J.; Zhang, Y.; Zhu, T.; Zuber, K.

2016-11-01

DARk matter WImp search with liquid xenoN (DARWIN) will be an experiment for the direct detection of dark matter using a multi-ton liquid xenon time projection chamber at its core. Its primary goal will be to explore the experimentally accessible parameter space for Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) in a wide mass-range, until neutrino interactions with the target become an irreducible background. The prompt scintillation light and the charge signals induced by particle interactions in the xenon will be observed by VUV sensitive, ultra-low background photosensors. Besides its excellent sensitivity to WIMPs above a mass of 5 GeV/c2, such a detector with its large mass, low-energy threshold and ultra-low background level will also be sensitive to other rare interactions. It will search for solar axions, galactic axion-like particles and the neutrinoless double-beta decay of 136Xe, as well as measure the low-energy solar neutrino flux with < 1% precision, observe coherent neutrino-nucleus interactions, and detect galactic supernovae. We present the concept of the DARWIN detector and discuss its physics reach, the main sources of backgrounds and the ongoing detector design and R&D efforts.

DARWIN: towards the ultimate dark matter detector

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Aalbers, J.; Breur, P.A.; Brown, A.

2016-11-01

DARk matter WImp search with liquid xenoN (DARWIN) will be an experiment for the direct detection of dark matter using a multi-ton liquid xenon time projection chamber at its core. Its primary goal will be to explore the experimentally accessible parameter space for Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) in a wide mass-range, until neutrino interactions with the target become an irreducible background. The prompt scintillation light and the charge signals induced by particle interactions in the xenon will be observed by VUV sensitive, ultra-low background photosensors. Besides its excellent sensitivity to WIMPs above a mass of 5 GeV/ c {supmore » 2}, such a detector with its large mass, low-energy threshold and ultra-low background level will also be sensitive to other rare interactions. It will search for solar axions, galactic axion-like particles and the neutrinoless double-beta decay of {sup 136}Xe, as well as measure the low-energy solar neutrino flux with < 1% precision, observe coherent neutrino-nucleus interactions, and detect galactic supernovae. We present the concept of the DARWIN detector and discuss its physics reach, the main sources of backgrounds and the ongoing detector design and R and D efforts.« less

Searching for a dark photon with DarkLight

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Corliss, R.; DarkLight Collaboration

2017-09-01

Despite compelling astrophysical evidence for the existence of dark matter in the universe, we have yet to positively identify it in any terrestrial experiment. If such matter is indeed particle in nature, it may have a new interaction as well, carried by a dark counterpart to the photon. The DarkLight experiment proposes to search for such a beyond-the-standard-model dark photon through complete reconstruction of the final states of electron-proton collisions. In order to accomplish this, the experiment requires a moderate-density target and a very high intensity, low energy electron beam. I describe DarkLight's approach and focus on the implications this has for the design of the experiment, which centers on the use of an internal gas target in Jefferson Lab's Low Energy Recirculating Facility. I also discuss upcoming beam tests, where we will place our target and solenoidal magnet in the beam for the first time.

Power-controlled transition from standard to negative refraction in reorientational soft matter.

PubMed

Piccardi, Armando; Alberucci, Alessandro; Kravets, Nina; Buchnev, Oleksandr; Assanto, Gaetano

2014-11-25

Refraction at a dielectric interface can take an anomalous character in anisotropic crystals, when light is negatively refracted with incident and refracted beams emerging on the same side of the interface normal. In soft matter subject to reorientation, such as nematic liquid crystals, the nonlinear interaction with light allows tuning of the optical properties. We demonstrate that in such material a beam of light can experience either positive or negative refraction depending on input power, as it can alter the spatial distribution of the optic axis and, in turn, the direction of the energy flow when traveling across an interface. Moreover, the nonlinear optical response yields beam self-focusing and spatial localization into a self-confined solitary wave through the formation of a graded-index waveguide, linking the refractive transition to power-driven readdressing of copolarized guided-wave signals, with a number of output ports not limited by diffraction.

Direct detection of light ''Ge-phobic'' exothermic dark matter

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Gelmini, Graciela B.; Georgescu, Andreea; Huh, Ji-Haeng, E-mail: gelmini@physics.ucla.edu, E-mail: a.georgescu@physics.ucla.edu, E-mail: jhhuh@physics.ucla.edu

2014-07-01

We present comparisons of direct dark matter (DM) detection data for light WIMPs with exothermic scattering with nuclei (exoDM), both assuming the Standard Halo Model (SHM) and in a halo model–independent manner. Exothermic interactions favor light targets, thus reducing the importance of upper limits derived from xenon targets, the most restrictive of which is at present the LUX limit. In our SHM analysis the CDMS-II-Si and CoGeNT regions become allowed by these bounds, however the recent SuperCDMS limit rejects both regions for exoDM with isospin-conserving couplings. An isospin-violating coupling of the exoDM, in particular one with a neutron to protonmore » coupling ratio of -0.8 (which we call ''Ge-phobic''), maximally reduces the DM coupling to germanium and allows the CDMS-II-Si region to become compatible with all bounds. This is also clearly shown in our halo-independent analysis.« less

Probing velocity dependent self-interacting dark matter with neutrino telescopes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Robertson, Denis S.; Albuquerque, Ivone F. M.

2018-02-01

Self-interacting dark matter models constitute an attractive solution to problems in structure formation on small scales. A simple realization of these models considers the dark force mediated by a light particle which can couple to the Standard Model through mixings with the photon or the Z boson. Within this scenario we investigate the sensitivity of the IceCube-DeepCore and PINGU neutrino telescopes to the associated muon neutrino flux produced by dark matter annihilations in the Sun. Despite the model's simplicity, several effects naturally appear: momentum suppressed capture by nuclei, velocity dependent dark matter self-capture, Sommerfeld enhanced annihilation, as well as the enhancement on the neutrino flux due to mediator late decays. Taking all these effects into account, we find that most of the model relevant parameter space can be tested by the three years of data already collected by the IceCube-DeepCore. We show that indirect detection through neutrinos can compete with the strong existing limits from direct detection experiments, specially in the case of isospin violation.

Primordial 4He constraints on inelastic macro dark matter revisited

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jacobs, David M.; Allwright, Gwyneth; Mafune, Mpho; Manikumar, Samyukta; Weltman, Amanda

2016-11-01

At present, the best model for the evolution of the cosmos requires that dark matter make up approximately 25% of the energy content of the Universe. Most approaches to explain the microscopic nature of dark matter, to date, have assumed its composition to be of intrinsically weakly interacting particles; however, this need not be the case to have consistency with all extant observations. Given decades of inconclusive evidence to support any dark matter candidate, there is strong motivation to consider alternatives to the standard particle scenario. One such example is macro dark matter, a class of candidates (macros) that could interact strongly with the particles of the Standard Model, have large masses and physical sizes, and yet behave as dark matter. Macros that scatter completely inelastically could have altered the primordial production of the elements, and macro charge-dependent constraints have been obtained previously. Here we reconsider the phenomenology of inelastically interacting macros on the abundance of primordially produced 4He and revise previous constraints by also taking into account improved measurements of the primordial 4He abundance. The constraints derived here are limited in applicability to only leptophobic macros that have a surface potential V (RX)≳0.5 MeV . However, an important conclusion from our analysis is that even neutral macros would likely affect the abundance of the light elements. Therefore, constraints on that scenario are possible and are currently an open question.

Possible interaction between baryons and dark-matter particles revealed by the first stars

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Barkana, Rennan

2018-03-01

The cosmic radio-frequency spectrum is expected to show a strong absorption signal corresponding to the 21-centimetre-wavelength transition of atomic hydrogen around redshift 20, which arises from Lyman-α radiation from some of the earliest stars. By observing this 21-centimetre signal—either its sky-averaged spectrum or maps of its fluctuations, obtained using radio interferometers—we can obtain information about cosmic dawn, the era when the first astrophysical sources of light were formed. The recent detection of the global 21-centimetre spectrum reveals a stronger absorption than the maximum predicted by existing models, at a confidence level of 3.8 standard deviations. Here we report that this absorption can be explained by the combination of radiation from the first stars and excess cooling of the cosmic gas induced by its interaction with dark matter. Our analysis indicates that the spatial fluctuations of the 21-centimetre signal at cosmic dawn could be an order of magnitude larger than previously expected and that the dark-matter particle is no heavier than several proton masses, well below the commonly predicted mass of weakly interacting massive particles. Our analysis also confirms that dark matter is highly non-relativistic and at least moderately cold, and primordial velocities predicted by models of warm dark matter are potentially detectable. These results indicate that 21-centimetre cosmology can be used as a dark-matter probe.

Possible interaction between baryons and dark-matter particles revealed by the first stars.

PubMed

Barkana, Rennan

2018-02-28

The cosmic radio-frequency spectrum is expected to show a strong absorption signal corresponding to the 21-centimetre-wavelength transition of atomic hydrogen around redshift 20, which arises from Lyman-α radiation from some of the earliest stars. By observing this 21-centimetre signal-either its sky-averaged spectrum or maps of its fluctuations, obtained using radio interferometers-we can obtain information about cosmic dawn, the era when the first astrophysical sources of light were formed. The recent detection of the global 21-centimetre spectrum reveals a stronger absorption than the maximum predicted by existing models, at a confidence level of 3.8 standard deviations. Here we report that this absorption can be explained by the combination of radiation from the first stars and excess cooling of the cosmic gas induced by its interaction with dark matter. Our analysis indicates that the spatial fluctuations of the 21-centimetre signal at cosmic dawn could be an order of magnitude larger than previously expected and that the dark-matter particle is no heavier than several proton masses, well below the commonly predicted mass of weakly interacting massive particles. Our analysis also confirms that dark matter is highly non-relativistic and at least moderately cold, and primordial velocities predicted by models of warm dark matter are potentially detectable. These results indicate that 21-centimetre cosmology can be used as a dark-matter probe.

Direct Dark Matter Detection through the use of a Xenon Based TPC Detector

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Daniel, Jonathan; Akerib, Daniel; LZ group at SLAC

2018-01-01

The vast majority of matter in the universe is unaccounted for. Only 15% of the universe's mass density is visible matter, while the other 85% is Dark Matter (DM). The Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP) is currently the frontrunner of the DM candidates. The Large Underground Xenon (LUX) and next generation LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiments are designed to directly detect WIMPs. Both experiments are xenon-based Time Projection Chambers (TPC) used to observe possible WIMP interactions. These interactions produce photons and electrons with the photons being collected in a set of two photomultiplier tube (PMT) arrays and the electrons drifted upwards in the detector by a strong electric field to create a secondary production of photons in gaseous xenon. These two populations of photons are classified as S1 and S2 signals, respectively. Using these signals we reconstruct the energy and position of the interaction and in doing so we can eliminate background events that would otherwise “light up” the detector. My participation in the experiment, while at SLAC, was the creation of the grids that produce the large electric field, along with additional lab activities aimed at testing the grids. While at Stan State, I work on background modeling in order to distinguish a possible WIMP signal from ambient backgrounds.

New limit on possible long-range parity-odd interactions of the neutron from neutron-spin rotation in liquid 4He.

PubMed

Yan, H; Snow, W M

2013-02-22

Various theories beyond the standard model predict new particles with masses in the sub-eV range with very weak couplings to ordinary matter. A parity-odd interaction between polarized nucleons and unpolarized matter proportional to g(V)g(A)s · p is one such possibility, where s[over →] and p[over →] are the spin and the momentum of the polarized nucleon, and g(V) and g(A) are the vector and axial vector couplings of an interaction induced by the exchange of a new light vector boson. We report a new experimental upper bound on such possible long-range parity-odd interactions of the neutron with nucleons and electrons from a recent search for parity violation in neutron spin rotation in liquid ^{4}He. Our constraint on the product of vector and axial vector couplings of a possible new light vector boson is g(V) g(A)(n) ≤ 10(-32) for an interaction range of 1 m. This upper bound is more than 7 orders of magnitude more stringent than the existing laboratory constraints for interaction ranges below 1 m, corresponding to a broad range of vector boson masses above 10(-6) eV. More sensitive searches for a g(V) g(A)(n) coupling could be performed using neutron spin rotation measurements in heavy nuclei or through analysis of experiments conducted to search for nucleon-nucleon weak interactions and nuclear anapole moments.

Nonlinear electromagnetic interactions in energetic materials

DOE PAGES

Wood, Mitchell Anthony; Dalvit, Diego Alejandro; Moore, David Steven

2016-01-12

We study the scattering of electromagnetic waves in anisotropic energetic materials. Nonlinear light-matter interactions in molecular crystals result in frequency-conversion and polarization changes. Applied electromagnetic fields of moderate intensity can induce these nonlinear effects without triggering chemical decomposition, offering a mechanism for the nonionizing identification of explosives. We use molecular-dynamics simulations to compute such two-dimensional THz spectra for planar slabs made of pentaerythritol tetranitrate and ammonium nitrate. Finally, we discuss third-harmonic generation and polarization-conversion processes in such materials. These observed far-field spectral features of the reflected or transmitted light may serve as an alternative tool for standoff explosive detection.

An on-chip colloidal magneto-optical grating

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Prikockis, M.; Wijesinghe, H.; Chen, A.

2016-04-18

Interacting nano- and micro-particles provide opportunities to create a wide range of useful colloidal and soft matter constructs. In this letter, we examine interacting superparamagnetic polymeric particles residing on designed permalloy (Ni{sub 0.8} Fe{sub 0.2}) shapes that are subject to weak time-orbiting magnetic fields. The precessing field and magnetic barriers that ensue along the outer perimeter of the shapes allow for containment concurrent with independent field-tunable ordering of the dipole-coupled particles. These remotely activated arrays with inter-particle spacing comparable to the wavelength of light yield microscopic on-chip surface gratings for beam steering and magnetically regulated light diffraction applications.

Influence of the carrier-envelope phase of few-cycle pulses on ponderomotive surface-plasmon electron acceleration.

PubMed

Irvine, S E; Dombi, P; Farkas, Gy; Elezzabi, A Y

2006-10-06

Control over basic processes through the electric field of a light wave can lead to new knowledge of fundamental light-matter interaction phenomena. We demonstrate, for the first time, that surface-plasmon (SP) electron acceleration can be coherently controlled through the carrier-envelope phase (CEP) of an excitation optical pulse. Analysis indicates that the physical origin of the CEP sensitivity arises from the electron's ponderomotive interaction with the oscillating electromagnetic field of the SP wave. The ponderomotive electron acceleration mechanism provides sensitive (nJ energies), high-contrast, single-shot CEP measurement capability of few-cycle laser pulses.

Activities report in quantum optics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

1985-03-01

Soft X-ray radiation from laser plasmas, intense Planck radiation, X-ray spectroscopy with transmission gratings, simulation of laser-produced shock waves, self-similar expansion in vacuum, radiation hydrodynamics, electronic structure of highly compressed matter, and heavy-ion beams for inertial confinement were investigated, and a high power iodine laser was developed. Laser-spectroscopy experiments, as well as a gravitational wave experiments were conducted. The fundamentals of light-matter interaction and nonlinear dynamics were studied. Many-photon ionization of molecules; spectroscopy of shock pairs; interaction of excited molecules with surfaces; IR laser applications; organic photochemistry with UV lasers; theoretical chemistry; and a ClF laser were investigated. Thin layers, and a high-pressure CO2 laser were studied.

Photon-Electron Interactions in Dirac Quantum Materials

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Xu, Xiaodong

The objective of this proposal was to explore the fundamental light-matter interactions in a new class of Dirac quantum materials, atomically thin transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs). Monolayer TMDs are newly discovered two-dimensional semiconductors with direct bandgap. Due to their hexagonal lattice structure, the band edge localizes at corner of Brillouin zone, i.e. “Dirac valleys”. This gives the corresponding electron states a “valley index” (or pseudospin) in addition to the real spin. Remarkably, the valley pseudospins have circularly polarized optical selection rules, providing the first solid state system for dynamic control of the valley degree of freedom. During this award, wemore » have developed a suite of advanced nano-optical spectroscopy tools in the investigation and manipulation of charge, spin, and valley degrees of freedom in monolayer semiconductors. Emerging physical phenomena, such as quantum coherence between valley pseudospins, have been demonstrated for the first time in solids. In addition to monolayers, we have developed a framework in engineering, formulating, and understanding valley pseudospin physics in 2D heterostructures formed by different monolayer semiconductors. We demonstrated long-lived valley-polarized interlayer excitons with valley-dependent many-body interaction effects. These works push the research frontier in understanding the light-matter interactions in atomically-thin quantum materials for protentional transformative energy technologies.« less

Dark matter directionality revisited with a high pressure xenon gas detector

DOE PAGES

Mohlabeng, Gopolang; Kong, Kyoungchul; Li, Jin; ...

2015-07-20

An observation of the anisotropy of dark matter interactions in a direction-sensitive detector would provide decisive evidence for the discovery of galactic dark matter. Directional information would also provide a crucial input to understanding its distribution in the local Universe. Most of the existing directional dark matter detectors utilize particle tracking methods in a low-pressure gas time projection chamber. These low pressure detectors require excessively large volumes in order to be competitive in the search for physics beyond the current limit. In order to avoid these volume limitations, we consider a novel proposal, which exploits a columnar recombination effect inmore » a high-pressure gas time projection chamber. The ratio of scintillation to ionization signals observed in the detector carries the angular information of the particle interactions. In this paper, we investigate the sensitivity of a future directional detector focused on the proposed high-pressure Xenon gas time projection chamber. We study the prospect of detecting an anisotropy in the dark matter velocity distribution. We find that tens of events are needed to exclude an isotropic distribution of dark matter interactions at 95% confidence level in the most optimistic case with head-to-tail information. However, one needs at least 10-20 times more events without head-to-tail information for light dark matter below ~50 GeV. For an intermediate mass range, we find it challenging to observe an anisotropy of the dark matter distribution. Our results also show that the directional information significantly improves precision measurements of dark matter mass and the elastic scattering cross section for a heavy dark matter.« less

Modeling of Nonlinear Optical Response in Gaseous Media and Its Comparison with Experiment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xia, Yi

This thesis demonstrates the model and application of nonlinear optical response with Metastable Electronic State Approach (MESA) in ultrashort laser propagation and verifies accuracy of MESA through extensive comparison with experimental data. The MESA is developed from quantum mechanics to describe the nonlinear off-resonant optical response together with strong-field ionization in gaseous medium. The conventional light-matter interaction models are based on a piece-wise approach where Kerr effect and multi-photon ionization are treated as independent nonlinear responses. In contrast, MESA is self-consistent as the response from freed electrons and bound electrons are microscopically linked. It also can be easily coupled to the Unidirectional Pulse Propagation Equations (UPPE) for large scale simulation of experiments. This work tests the implementation of MESA model in simulation of nonlinear phase transients of ultrashort pulse propagation in a gaseous medium. The phase transient has been measured through Single-Shot Supercontinuum Spectral Interferometry. This technique can achieve high temporal resolution (10 fs) and spatial resolution (5 mum). Our comparison between simulation and experiment gives a quantitive test of MESA model including post-adiabatic corrections. This is the first time such a comparison was achieved for a theory suitable for large scale numerical simulation of modern nonlinear-optics experiments. In more than one respect, ours is a first-of-a-kind achievement. In particular, • Large amount of data are compared. We compare the data of nonlinear response induced by different pump intensity in Ar and Nitrogen. The data sets are three dimensions including two transverse spacial dimensions and one axial temporal dimension which reflect the whole structure of nonlinear response including the interplay between Kerr and plasma-induced effects. The resolutions of spatial and temporal dimension are about a few micrometer and several femtosecond. • The regime of light-matter interaction investigated here is between the strong and perturbative, where the pulse intensity can induce nonlinear refractive index change and partial ionization of dielectric medium. Obviously, such regimes are difficult to study both experimentally and theoretically. • MESA is a quantum based model, but it retains the same computation complexity as conventional light-matter interaction model. MESA contains the response from both bound and continuum states in a single self-consistent "Package". So, it is fair to say that this experiment-theory comparison sets a new standard for nonlinear light-matter interaction models and their verification in the area of extreme nonlinear optics.

Top-philic dark matter within and beyond the WIMP paradigm

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Garny, Mathias; Heisig, Jan; Hufnagel, Marco; Lülf, Benedikt

2018-04-01

We present a comprehensive analysis of top-philic Majorana dark matter that interacts via a colored t -channel mediator. Despite the simplicity of the model—introducing three parameters only—it provides an extremely rich phenomenology allowing us to accommodate the relic density for a large range of coupling strengths spanning over 6 orders of magnitude. This model features all "exceptional" mechanisms for dark matter freeze-out, including the recently discovered conversion-driven freeze-out mode, with interesting signatures of long-lived colored particles at colliders. We constrain the cosmologically allowed parameter space with current experimental limits from direct, indirect and collider searches, with special emphasis on light dark matter below the top mass. In particular, we explore the interplay between limits from Xenon1T, Fermi-LAT and AMS-02 as well as limits from stop, monojet and Higgs invisible decay searches at the LHC. We find that several blind spots for light dark matter evade current constraints. The region in parameter space where the relic density is set by the mechanism of conversion-driven freeze-out can be conclusively tested by R -hadron searches at the LHC with 300 fb-1 .

Environmental Control on Microbial Turnover of Leaf Carbon in Streams – Ecological Function of Phototrophic-Heterotrophic Interactions

PubMed Central

Fabian, Jenny; Zlatanović, Sanja; Mutz, Michael; Grossart, Hans-Peter; van Geldern, Robert; Ulrich, Andreas; Gleixner, Gerd; Premke, Katrin

2018-01-01

In aquatic ecosystems, light availability can significantly influence microbial turnover of terrestrial organic matter through associated metabolic interactions between phototrophic and heterotrophic communities. However, particularly in streams, microbial functions vary significantly with the structure of the streambed, that is the distribution and spatial arrangement of sediment grains in the streambed. It is therefore essential to elucidate how environmental factors synergistically define the microbial turnover of terrestrial organic matter in order to better understand the ecological role of photo-heterotrophic interactions in stream ecosystem processes. In outdoor experimental streams, we examined how the structure of streambeds modifies the influence of light availability on microbial turnover of leaf carbon (C). Furthermore, we investigated whether the studied relationships of microbial leaf C turnover to environmental conditions are affected by flow intermittency commonly occurring in streams. We applied leaves enriched with a 13C-stable isotope tracer and combined quantitative and isotope analyses. We thereby elucidated whether treatment induced changes in C turnover were associated with altered use of leaf C within the microbial food web. Moreover, isotope analyses were combined with measurements of microbial community composition to determine whether changes in community function were associated with a change in community composition. In this study, we present evidence, that environmental factors interactively determine how phototrophs and heterotrophs contribute to leaf C turnover. Light availability promoted the utilization of leaf C within the microbial food web, which was likely associated with a promoted availability of highly bioavailable metabolites of phototrophic origin. However, our results additionally confirm that the structure of the streambed modifies light-related changes in microbial C turnover. From our observations, we conclude that the streambed structure influences the strength of photo-heterotrophic interactions by defining the spatial availability of algal metabolites in the streambed and the composition of microbial communities. Collectively, our multifactorial approach provides valuable insights into environmental controls on the functioning of stream ecosystems.

Asymmetric twin Dark Matter

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Farina, Marco

2015-11-09

We study a natural implementation of Asymmetric Dark Matter in Twin Higgs models. The mirroring of the Standard Model strong sector suggests that a twin baryon with mass around 5 GeV is a natural Dark Matter candidate once a twin baryon number asymmetry comparable to the SM asymmetry is generated. We explore twin baryon Dark Matter in two different scenarios, one with minimal content in the twin sector and one with a complete copy of the SM, including a light twin photon. The essential requirements for successful thermal history are presented, and in doing so we address some of themore » cosmological issues common to many Twin Higgs models. The required interactions we introduce predict signatures at direct detection experiments and at the LHC.« less

Asymmetric twin Dark Matter

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Farina, Marco, E-mail: mf627@cornell.edu

2015-11-01

We study a natural implementation of Asymmetric Dark Matter in Twin Higgs models. The mirroring of the Standard Model strong sector suggests that a twin baryon with mass around 5 GeV is a natural Dark Matter candidate once a twin baryon number asymmetry comparable to the SM asymmetry is generated. We explore twin baryon Dark Matter in two different scenarios, one with minimal content in the twin sector and one with a complete copy of the SM, including a light twin photon. The essential requirements for successful thermal history are presented, and in doing so we address some of themore » cosmological issues common to many Twin Higgs models. The required interactions we introduce predict signatures at direct detection experiments and at the LHC.« less

Solar neutrinos as a probe of dark matter-neutrino interactions

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Capozzi, Francesco; Vecchi, Luca; Shoemaker, Ian M., E-mail: capozzi.12@osu.edu, E-mail: ian.shoemaker@usd.edu, E-mail: vecchi@infn.pd.it

2017-07-01

Sterile neutrinos at the eV scale have long been studied in the context of anomalies in short baseline neutrino experiments. Their cosmology can be made compatible with our understanding of the early Universe provided the sterile neutrino sector enjoys a nontrivial dynamics with exotic interactions, possibly providing a link to the Dark Matter (DM) puzzle. Interactions between DM and neutrinos have also been proposed to address the long-standing 'missing satellites' problem in the field of large scale structure formation. Motivated by these considerations, in this paper we discuss realistic scenarios with light steriles coupled to DM . We point outmore » that within this framework active neutrinos acquire an effective coupling to DM that manifests itself as a new matter potential in the propagation within a medium of asymmetric DM . Assuming that at least a small fraction of asymmetric DM has been captured by the Sun, we show that a sizable region of the parameter space of these scenarios can be probed by solar neutrino experiments, especially in the regime of small couplings and light mediators where all other probes become inefficient. In the latter regime these scenarios behave as familiar 3+1 models in all channels except for solar data, where a Solar Dark MSW effect takes place. Solar Dark MSW is characterized by modifications of the most energetic {sup 8}B and CNO neutrinos, whereas the other fluxes remain largely unaffected.« less

Mechanic-Like Resonance in the Maxwell-Bloch Equations

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Meziane, Belkacem

2008-01-01

We show that, in their unstable regime of operation, the "Maxwell-Bloch" equations that describe light-matter interactions inside a bad-cavity-configured laser carry the same resonance properties as any externally driven mechanic or electric oscillator. This finding demonstrates that the nonlinearly coupled laser equations belong to the same…

Cornell Center for Materials Research - An NSF MRSEC

Science.gov Websites

Cornell Center for Materials Research Cornell Center for Materials Research | An NSF MRSEC Search Research Atomic Membranes for 3D Systems Structured Materials for Strong Light-Matter Interactions Mechanisms, Materials, and Devices for Spin Manipulation Seed Projects - Exploratory Research Acknowledging

NASA Find Clues that May Help Identify Dark Matter

NASA Image and Video Library

2015-03-26

Using observations from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers have found that dark matter does not slow down when colliding with itself, meaning it interacts with itself less than previously thought. Researchers say this finding narrows down the options for what this mysterious substance might be. Dark matter is an invisible matter that makes up most of the mass of the universe. Because dark matter does not reflect, absorb or emit light, it can only be traced indirectly by, such as by measuring how it warps space through gravitational lensing, during which the light from a distant source is magnified and distorted by the gravity of dark matter. Read more: 1.usa.gov/1E5LcpO Caption: Here are images of six different galaxy clusters taken with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (blue) and Chandra X-ray Observatory (pink) in a study of how dark matter in clusters of galaxies behaves when the clusters collide. A total of 72 large cluster collisions were studied. Credit: NASA and ESA mage Credit: NASA and ESA NASA image use policy. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission. Follow us on Twitter Like us on Facebook Find us on Instagram

Observation of Reverse Saturable Absorption of an X-ray Laser

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Cho, B. I.; Cho, M. S.; Kim, M.

A nonlinear absorber in which the excited state absorption is larger than the ground state can undergo a process called reverse saturable absorption. It is a well-known phenomenon in laser physics in the optical regime, but is more difficult to generate in the x-ray regime, where fast nonradiative core electron transitions typically dominate the population kinetics during light matter interactions. Here, we report the first observation of decreasing x-ray transmission in a solid target pumped by intense x-ray free electron laser pulses. The measurement has been made below the K-absorption edge of aluminum, and the x-ray intensity ranges are 10more » 16 –10 17 W=cm 2. It has been confirmed by collisional radiative population kinetic calculations, underscoring the fast spectral modulation of the x-ray pulses and charge states relevant to the absorption and transmission of x-ray photons. The processes shown through detailed simulations are consistent with reverse saturable absorption, which would be the first observation of this phenomena in the x-ray regime. These light matter interactions provide a unique opportunity to investigate optical transport properties in the extreme state of matters, as well as affording the potential to regulate ultrafast x-ray freeelectron laser pulses.« less

Observation of Reverse Saturable Absorption of an X-ray Laser

DOE PAGES

Cho, B. I.; Cho, M. S.; Kim, M.; ...

2017-08-16

A nonlinear absorber in which the excited state absorption is larger than the ground state can undergo a process called reverse saturable absorption. It is a well-known phenomenon in laser physics in the optical regime, but is more difficult to generate in the x-ray regime, where fast nonradiative core electron transitions typically dominate the population kinetics during light matter interactions. Here, we report the first observation of decreasing x-ray transmission in a solid target pumped by intense x-ray free electron laser pulses. The measurement has been made below the K-absorption edge of aluminum, and the x-ray intensity ranges are 10more » 16 –10 17 W=cm 2. It has been confirmed by collisional radiative population kinetic calculations, underscoring the fast spectral modulation of the x-ray pulses and charge states relevant to the absorption and transmission of x-ray photons. The processes shown through detailed simulations are consistent with reverse saturable absorption, which would be the first observation of this phenomena in the x-ray regime. These light matter interactions provide a unique opportunity to investigate optical transport properties in the extreme state of matters, as well as affording the potential to regulate ultrafast x-ray freeelectron laser pulses.« less

Twisted molecular excitons as mediators for changing the angular momentum of light

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zang, Xiaoning; Lusk, Mark T.

2017-07-01

Molecules with CN or CN h symmetry can absorb quanta of optical angular momentum to generate twisted excitons with well-defined quasiangular momenta of their own. Angular momentum is conserved in such interactions at the level of a paraxial approximation for the light beam. A sequence of absorption events can thus be used to create a range of excitonic angular momenta. Subsequent decay can produce radiation with a single angular momentum equal to that accumulated. Such molecules can thus be viewed as mediators for changing the angular momentum of light. This sidesteps the need to exploit nonlinear light-matter interactions based on higher-order susceptibilities. A tight-binding paradigm is used to verify angular momentum conservation and demonstrate how it can be exploited to change the angular momentum of light. The approach is then extended to a time-dependent density functional theory setting where the key results are shown to hold in a many-body, multilevel setting.

Optical Characterization of Light-Bending Mechanisms in Photonic Crystals with Simple Cubic Symmetry

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Frey, Brian James

For much of Earth's history, light was reputed to be an intangible, intractable, and transient quantity, but our understanding of light has since been revolutionized. The flow of electromagnetic energy through space can today be manipulated with a degree of precision and control once only dreamed of; rapidly developing technologies can create, guide, bend, and detect light to produce useful energy and information. One field where these technologies are most relevant is the field of light trapping, which concerns the harvesting of incident photons within a limited space by scattering, slowing, or otherwise prolonging and enhancing their interaction with matter. Over the past few decades, a class of materials, called photonic crystals (PCs), has emerged that is ideally suited for this task. This is because their wavelength-scale periodicity in one, two, or three dimensions can be designed to alter the dispersion relation and photonic density-of-states in a controllable manner. In this work, a TiO2 simple cubic PC with high dielectric contrast ( > 4:1) is fabricated with a lattice constant of 450 nm, and a newly discovered light-trapping mechanism is demonstrated, which bends light by 90 degrees and enhances optical absorption by one to two orders-of-magnitude over that in a reference film of the same thickness. It is shown that, for wavelengths from 450-950 nm, the achievable enhancement factor for this structure surpasses the theoretical limit of 4n2 derived under the assumption of ergodic system by multiple times. These results derive directly from the symmetry of the simple cubic lattice and are fundamental in nature, not depending on the material used or on the method of fabrication. The light trapping capability of these PCs has straight-forward applications that would be useful in a variety of areas where increased light-matter interaction is desirable, such as white-light generation, thin-film solar cells, photocatalytic pollutant degradation and hydrogen fuel production, and chemical sensing.

Fundamental Particle Structure in the Cosmological Dark Matter

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Khlopov, Maxim

2013-11-01

The nonbaryonic dark matter of the universe is assumed to consist of new stable forms of matter. Their stability reflects symmetry of micro-world and mechanisms of its symmetry breaking. Particle candidates for cosmological dark matter are lightest particles that bear new conserved quantum numbers. Dark matter particles may represent ideal gas of noninteracting particles. Self-interacting dark matter weakly or superweakly coupled to ordinary matter is also possible, reflecting nontrivial pattern of particle symmetry in the hidden sector of particle theory. In the early universe the structure of particle symmetry breaking gives rise to cosmological phase transitions, from which macroscopic cosmological defects or primordial nonlinear structures can be originated. Primordial black holes (PBHs) can be not only a candidate for dark matter, but also represent a universal probe for superhigh energy physics in the early universe. Evaporating PBHs turn to be a source of even superweakly interacting particles, while clouds of massive PBHs can serve as nonlinear seeds for galaxy formation. The observed broken symmetry of the three known families may provide a simultaneous solution for the problems of the mass of neutrino and strong CP-violation in the unique framework of models of horizontal unification. Dark matter candidates can also appear in the new families of quarks and leptons and the existence of new stable charged leptons and quarks is possible, hidden in elusive "dark atoms." Such possibility, strongly restricted by the constraints on anomalous isotopes of light elements, is not excluded in scenarios that predict stable double charged particles. The excessive -2 charged particles are bound in these scenarios with primordial helium in O-helium "atoms," maintaining specific nuclear-interacting form of the dark matter, which may provide an interesting solution for the puzzles of the direct dark matter searches. In the context of cosmoparticle physics, studying fundamental relationship of micro- and macro-worlds, the problem of cosmological dark matter implies cross disciplinary theoretical, experimental and observational studies for its solution.

Probing the Early Universe with the SZ Effect

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Joy, M. K.; Carlstrom, J. E.; Rose, M. Franklin (Technical Monitor)

2001-01-01

The Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR) which we observe today is relic radiation which last interacted with matter more than 10 billion years ago, when the expanding universe cooled to the point that free electrons and ionized nuclei recombined to form atoms. Prior to recombination, scattering between photons and free electrons was a very frequent occurrence, and the distance light could penetrate was small; afterwards, with free electrons out of circulation, the universe became largely transparent to light. Thus, the CMBR photons we observe today give us a clear view of the state of the early universe. Measured deviations in the intensity of the CMBR trace the small perturbations in the primordial matter density, which have been amplified by gravitational forces to form the magnificent, complex structures which comprise the present-day universe.

Strong-interaction-mediated critical coupling at two distinct frequencies.

PubMed

Gupta, S Dutta

2007-06-01

I study a multilayered medium consisting of a metal-dielectric composite film, a spacer layer, and a dielectric Bragg reflector. I demonstrate a greater flexibility over the critical coupling phenomenon [Tischler et al., Opt. Lett. 31, 2045 (2006)], whereby nearly all the incident light energy is absorbed by the composite film through suppression of both transmission and reflection from the structure. For a larger volume fraction of the metal inclusions, strong light-matter coupling is shown to lead to almost total absorption at two distinct frequencies.

A numerical analysis of the Born approximation for image formation modeling of differential interference contrast microscopy for human embryos

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Trattner, Sigal; Feigin, Micha; Greenspan, Hayit; Sochen, Nir

2008-03-01

The differential interference contrast (DIC) microscope is commonly used for the visualization of live biological specimens. It enables the view of the transparent specimens while preserving their viability, being a non-invasive modality. Fertility clinics often use the DIC microscope for evaluation of human embryos quality. Towards quantification and reconstruction of the visualized specimens, an image formation model for DIC imaging is sought and the interaction of light waves with biological matter is examined. In many image formation models the light-matter interaction is expressed via the first Born approximation. The validity region of this approximation is defined in a theoretical bound which limits its use to very small specimens with low dielectric contrast. In this work the Born approximation is investigated via the Helmholtz equation, which describes the interaction between the specimen and light. A solution on the lens field is derived using the Gaussian Legendre quadrature formulation. This numerical scheme is considered both accurate and efficient and has shortened significantly the computation time as compared to integration methods that required a great amount of sampling for satisfying the Whittaker - Shannon sampling theorem. By comparing the numerical results with the theoretical values it is shown that the theoretical bound is not directly relevant to microscopic imaging and is far too limiting. The numerical exhaustive experiments show that the Born approximation is inappropriate for modeling the visualization of thick human embryos.

Inelastic ponderomotive scattering of electrons at a high-intensity optical travelling wave in vacuum

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kozák, M.; Eckstein, T.; Schönenberger, N.; Hommelhoff, P.

2018-02-01

In the early days of quantum mechanics Kapitza and Dirac predicted that matter waves would scatter off the optical intensity grating formed by two counter-propagating light waves. This interaction, driven by the ponderomotive potential of the optical standing wave, was both studied theoretically and demonstrated experimentally for atoms and electrons. In the original version of the experiment, only the transverse momentum of particles was varied, but their energy and longitudinal momentum remained unchanged after the interaction. Here, we report on the generalization of the Kapitza-Dirac effect. We demonstrate that the energy of sub-relativistic electrons is strongly modulated on the few-femtosecond timescale via the interaction with a travelling wave created in vacuum by two colliding laser pulses at different frequencies. This effect extends the possibilities of temporal control of freely propagating particles with coherent light and can serve the attosecond ballistic bunching of electrons, or for the acceleration of neutral atoms or molecules by light.

Interplay of coherent and dissipative dynamics in condensates of light

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Radonjić, Milan; Kopylov, Wassilij; Balaž, Antun; Pelster, Axel

2018-05-01

Based on the Lindblad master equation approach we obtain a detailed microscopic model of photons in a dye-filled cavity, which features condensation of light. To this end we generalise a recent non-equilibrium approach of Kirton and Keeling such that the dye-mediated contribution to the photon–photon interaction in the light condensate is accessible due to an interplay of coherent and dissipative dynamics. We describe the steady-state properties of the system by analysing the resulting equations of motion of both photonic and matter degrees of freedom. In particular, we discuss the existence of two limiting cases for steady states: photon Bose–Einstein condensate and laser-like. In the former case, we determine the corresponding dimensionless photon–photon interaction strength by relying on realistic experimental data and find a good agreement with previous theoretical estimates. Furthermore, we investigate how the dimensionless interaction strength depends on the respective system parameters. This paper is dedicated to the memory of Tobias Brandes

Dark matter as a weakly coupled dark baryon

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mitridate, Andrea; Redi, Michele; Smirnov, Juri; Strumia, Alessandro

2017-10-01

Dark Matter might be an accidentally stable baryon of a new confining gauge interaction. We extend previous studies exploring the possibility that the DM is made of dark quarks heavier than the dark confinement scale. The resulting phenomenology contains new unusual elements: a two-stage DM cosmology (freeze-out followed by dark condensation), a large DM annihilation cross section through recombination of dark quarks (allowing to fit the positron excess). Light dark glue-balls are relatively long lived and give extra cosmological effects; DM itself can remain radioactive.

The Role of Angular Momentum in the Construction of Electromagnetic Multipolar Fields

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tischler, Nora; Zambrana-Puyalto, Xavier; Molina-Terriza, Gabriel

2012-01-01

Multipolar solutions of Maxwell's equations are used in many practical applications and are essential for the understanding of light-matter interactions at the fundamental level. Unlike the set of plane wave solutions of electromagnetic fields, the multipolar solutions do not share a standard derivation or notation. As a result, expressions…

Arthur H. Compton and Compton Scattering

Science.gov Websites

of X-rays, when he discovered the effect that is named after him in 1922. ... The Compton effect photon, when it interacts with matter. This effect demonstrates that light cannot be explained purely as overall momentum of the system is conserved. ... The explanation and measurement of the Compton effect

Teaching the Spin Selection Rule: An Inductive Approach

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Halstead, Judith A.

2013-01-01

In the group exercise described, students are guided through an inductive justification for the spin conservation selection rule ([delta]S = 0). Although the exercise only explicitly involves various states of helium, the conclusion is one of the most widely applicable selection rules for the interaction of light with matter, applying, in various…

Novel Plasmonic Materials and Nanodevices for Integrated Quantum Photonics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shalaginov, Mikhail Y.

Light-matter interaction is the foundation for numerous important quantum optical phenomena, which may be harnessed to build practical devices with higher efficiency and unprecedented functionality. Nanoscale engineering is seen as a fruitful avenue to significantly strengthen light-matter interaction and also make quantum optical systems ultra-compact, scalable, and energy efficient. This research focuses on color centers in diamond that share quantum properties with single atoms. These systems promise a path for the realization of practical quantum devices such as nanoscale sensors, single-photon sources, and quantum memories. In particular, we explored an intriguing methodology of utilizing nanophotonic structures, such as hyperbolic metamaterials, nanoantennae, and plasmonic waveguides, to improve the color centers performance. We observed enhancement in the color center's spontaneous emission rate, emission directionality, and cooperativity over a broad optical frequency range. Additionally, we studied the effect of plasmonic environments on the spin-readout sensitivity of color centers. The use of CMOS-compatible epitaxially grown plasmonic materials in the design of these nanophotonic structures promises a new level of performance for a variety of integrated room-temperature quantum devices based on diamond color centers.

Search for an Annual Modulation in a p-Type Point Contact Germanium Dark Matter Detector

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Barbeau, P.S.; Collar, J.I.; Fields, N.

2011-01-01

Fifteen months of cumulative CoGeNT data are examined for indications of an annual modulation, a predicted signature of weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) interactions. Presently available data support the presence of a modulated component of unknown origin, with parameters prima facie compatible with a galactic halo composed of light-mass WIMPs. Unoptimized estimators yield a statistical significance for a modulation of {approx}2.8{sigma}, limited by the short exposure.

Search for an Annual Modulation in a p-Type Point Contact Germanium Dark Matter Detector

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Aalseth, C. E.; Barbeau, P. S.; Colaresi, J.; Collar, J. I.; Diaz Leon, J.; Fast, J. E.; Fields, N.; Hossbach, T. W.; Keillor, M. E.; Kephart, J. D.; Knecht, A.; Marino, M. G.; Miley, H. S.; Miller, M. L.; Orrell, J. L.; Radford, D. C.; Wilkerson, J. F.; Yocum, K. M.

2011-09-01

Fifteen months of cumulative CoGeNT data are examined for indications of an annual modulation, a predicted signature of weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) interactions. Presently available data support the presence of a modulated component of unknown origin, with parameters prima facie compatible with a galactic halo composed of light-mass WIMPs. Unoptimized estimators yield a statistical significance for a modulation of ˜2.8σ, limited by the short exposure.

Recipe for Topological Polaritons

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Karzig, Torsten; Bardyn, Charles-Edouard; Lindner, Netanel; Refael, Gil

2015-03-01

The interaction between light and matter can give rise to novel topological states. This principle was recently exemplified in Floquet topological insulators, where classical light was used to induce a topological electronic band structure. Here, in contrast, we show that mixing single photons with excitons can result in new topological polaritonic states -- or ``topolaritons''. Taken separately, the underlying photons and excitons are topologically trivial. Combined appropriately, however, they give rise to non-trivial polaritonic bands with chiral edge modes allowing for unidirectional polariton propagation. The main ingredient in our construction is an exciton-photon coupling with a phase that winds in momentum space. We demonstrate how this winding emerges from spin-orbit coupling in the electronic system and an applied Zeeman field. We discuss the requirements for obtaining a sizable topological gap in the polariton spectrum. Funded by the Institute for Quantum Information and Matter, the Bi-National Science Foundation and I-Core: the Israeli Excellence Center ``Circle of Light'', and Darpa under funding for FENA, and the Swiss National Science Foundation.

Direct detection of light “Ge-phobic” exothermic dark matter

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Gelmini, Graciela B.; Georgescu, Andreea; Huh, Ji-Haeng

2014-07-15

We present comparisons of direct dark matter (DM) detection data for light WIMPs with exothermic scattering with nuclei (exoDM), both assuming the Standard Halo Model (SHM) and in a halo model — independent manner. Exothermic interactions favor light targets, thus reducing the importance of upper limits derived from xenon targets, the most restrictive of which is at present the LUX limit. In our SHM analysis the CDMS-II-Si and CoGeNT regions become allowed by these bounds, however the recent SuperCDMS limit rejects both regions for exoDM with isospin-conserving couplings. An isospin-violating coupling of the exoDM, in particular one with a neutronmore » to proton coupling ratio of −0.8 (which we call “Ge-phobic”), maximally reduces the DM coupling to germanium and allows the CDMS-II-Si region to become compatible with all bounds. This is also clearly shown in our halo-independent analysis.« less

Evaporation and scattering of momentum- and velocity-dependent dark matter in the Sun

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Busoni, Giorgio; Simone, Andrea De; Scott, Pat

Dark matter with momentum- or velocity-dependent interactions with nuclei has shown significant promise for explaining the so-called Solar Abundance Problem, a longstanding discrepancy between solar spectroscopy and helioseismology. The best-fit models are all rather light, typically with masses in the range of 3–5 GeV. This is exactly the mass range where dark matter evaporation from the Sun can be important, but to date no detailed calculation of the evaporation of such models has been performed. Here we carry out this calculation, for the first time including arbitrary velocity- and momentum-dependent interactions, thermal effects, and a completely general treatment valid frommore » the optically thin limit all the way through to the optically thick regime. We find that depending on the dark matter mass, interaction strength and type, the mass below which evaporation is relevant can vary from 1 to 4 GeV. This has the effect of weakening some of the better-fitting solutions to the Solar Abundance Problem, but also improving a number of others. As a by-product, we also provide an improved derivation of the capture rate that takes into account thermal and optical depth effects, allowing the standard result to be smoothly matched to the well-known saturation limit.« less

Fermionic dark matter with pseudo-scalar Yukawa interaction

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Ghorbani, Karim, E-mail: k-ghorbani@araku.ac.ir

2015-01-01

We consider a renormalizable extension of the standard model whose fermionic dark matter (DM) candidate interacts with a real singlet pseudo-scalar via a pseudo-scalar Yukawa term while we assume that the full Lagrangian is CP-conserved in the classical level. When the pseudo-scalar boson develops a non-zero vacuum expectation value, spontaneous CP-violation occurs and this provides a CP-violated interaction of the dark sector with the SM particles through mixing between the Higgs-like boson and the SM-like Higgs boson. This scenario suggests a minimal number of free parameters. Focusing mainly on the indirect detection observables, we calculate the dark matter annihilation crossmore » section and then compute the DM relic density in the range up to m{sub DM} = 300 GeV.We then find viable regions in the parameter space constrained by the observed DM relic abundance as well as invisible Higgs decay width in the light of 125 GeV Higgs discovery at the LHC. We find that within the constrained region of the parameter space, there exists a model with dark matter mass m{sub DM} ∼ 38 GeV annihilating predominantly into b quarks, which can explain the Fermi-LAT galactic gamma-ray excess.« less

Simulations of ultrafast x-ray laser experiments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fortmann-Grote, C.; Andreev, A. A.; Appel, K.; Branco, J.; Briggs, R.; Bussmann, M.; Buzmakov, A.; Garten, M.; Grund, A.; Huebl, A.; Jurek, Z.; Loh, N. D.; Nakatsutsumi, M.; Samoylova, L.; Santra, R.; Schneidmiller, E. A.; Sharma, A.; Steiniger, K.; Yakubov, S.; Yoon, C. H.; Yurkov, M. V.; Zastrau, U.; Ziaja-Motyka, B.; Mancuso, A. P.

2017-06-01

Simulations of experiments at modern light sources, such as optical laser laboratories, synchrotrons, and free electron lasers, become increasingly important for the successful preparation, execution, and analysis of these experiments investigating ever more complex physical systems, e.g. biomolecules, complex materials, and ultra-short lived states of matter at extreme conditions. We have implemented a platform for complete start-to-end simulations of various types of photon science experiments, tracking the radiation from the source through the beam transport optics to the sample or target under investigation, its interaction with and scattering from the sample, and registration in a photon detector. This tool allows researchers and facility operators to simulate their experiments and instruments under real life conditions, identify promising and unattainable regions of the parameter space and ultimately make better use of valuable beamtime. In this paper, we present an overview about status and future development of the simulation platform and discuss three applications: 1.) Single-particle imaging of biomolecules using x-ray free electron lasers and optimization of x-ray pulse properties, 2.) x-ray scattering diagnostics of hot dense plasmas in high power laser-matter interaction and identification of plasma instabilities, and 3.) x-ray absorption spectroscopy in warm dense matter created by high energy laser-matter interaction and pulse shape optimization for low-isentrope dynamic compression.

Origin of ΔN{sub eff} as a result of an interaction between dark radiation and dark matter

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Bjaelde, Ole Eggers; Das, Subinoy; Moss, Adam, E-mail: oeb@phys.au.dk, E-mail: subinoy@physik.rwth-aachen.de, E-mail: Adam.Moss@nottingham.ac.uk

2012-10-01

Results from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) and recently from the South Pole Telescope (SPT) have indicated the possible existence of an extra radiation component in addition to the well known three neutrino species predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics. In this paper, we explore the possibility of the apparent extra dark radiation being linked directly to the physics of cold dark matter (CDM). In particular, we consider a generic scenario where dark radiation, as a result of an interaction, is produced directly by a fraction of the dark matter density effectively decayingmore » into dark radiation. At an early epoch when the dark matter density is negligible, as an obvious consequence, the density of dark radiation is also very small. As the Universe approaches matter radiation equality, the dark matter density starts to dominate thereby increasing the content of dark radiation and changing the expansion rate of the Universe. As this increase in dark radiation content happens naturally after Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN), it can relax the possible tension with lower values of radiation degrees of freedom measured from light element abundances compared to that of the CMB. We numerically confront this scenario with WMAP+ACT and WMAP+SPT data and derive an upper limit on the allowed fraction of dark matter decaying into dark radiation.« less

Using surface lattice resonances to engineer nonlinear optical processes in metal nanoparticle arrays

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Huttunen, Mikko J.; Rasekh, Payman; Boyd, Robert W.; Dolgaleva, Ksenia

2018-05-01

Collective responses of localized surface plasmon resonances, known as surface lattice resonances (SLRs) in metal nanoparticle arrays, can lead to high quality factors (˜100 ), large local-field enhancements, and strong light-matter interactions. SLRs have found many applications in linear optics, but little work of the influence of SLRs on nonlinear optics has been reported. Here we show how SLRs could be utilized to enhance nonlinear optical interactions. We devote special attention to the sum-frequency, difference-frequency, and third-harmonic generation processes because of their potential for the realization of novel sources of light. We also demonstrate how such arrays could be engineered to enhance higher-order nonlinear optical interactions through cascaded nonlinear processes. In particular, we demonstrate how the efficiency of third-harmonic generation could be engineered via cascaded second-order responses.

Scintillation light from cosmic-ray muons in liquid argon

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Whittington, Denver Wade; Mufson, S.; Howard, B.

2016-05-01

This paper reports the results of an experiment to directly measure the time-resolved scintillation signal from the passage of cosmic-ray muons through liquid argon. Scintillation light from these muons is of value to studies of weakly-interacting particles in neutrino experiments and dark matter searches. The experiment was carried out at the TallBo dewar facility at Fermilab using prototype light guide detectors and electronics developed for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment. Two models are presented for the time structure of the scintillation light, a phenomenological model and a physically-motivated model. Both models find tT = 1:52 ms for the decay timemore » constant of the Ar 2 triplet state. These models also show that the identification of the “early” light fraction in the phenomenological model, FE 25% of the signal, with the total light from singlet decays is an underestimate. The total fraction of singlet light is FS 36%, where the increase over FE is from singlet light emitted by the wavelength shifter through processes with long decay constants. The models were further used to compute the experimental particle identification parameter Fprompt, the fraction of light coming in a short time window after the trigger compared with the light in the total recorded waveform. The models reproduce quite well the typical experimental value 0.3 found by dark matter and double b-decay experiments, which suggests this parameter provides a robust metric for discriminating electrons and muons from more heavily ionizing particles.« less

Nonlinear optical response and its theoretical modelling of Sb2S3 nanorod

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yadav, Rajesh Kumar; Barik, A. R.; Das, Amlan; Adarsh, K. V.

2018-05-01

Light-matter interaction in nanoscale regime have unprecedented and accelerating demand in optoelectronics, valley electronics and device applications. Such interaction in 1-dimention (1D) metal chalcogenides has emerged as an important research topic because of its possibility to custom design optical properties, implying enormous application including optical computers, communications, bioimaging, and so on. However, understanding of nonlinear optical response of these nanostructures is still lacking, although it constitutes an interesting problem on the light-matter interaction. Here, we have presented the nonlinear optical response in Sb2S3 nanorod using Z-scan technique. Our experimental findings show a strong saturable absorption (SA). In this context, we have numerically simulated the experimental result using two level rate equation. The solutions of these two-level rate equation for a Gaussian shaped pulse exactly replicated the experimental data. From the best numerical fit, we found excited state decay time (τ ≈ 0.15ns) and saturation intensity (IS ≈ 0.01 GW/cm2). Additionally, we have calculated number of career density (N ≈ 5.31 × 10-17 cm-3), ground state absorption cross section (σ1 ≈ 1.63 × 10-17 cm2). Our experimental finding indicates that they can be employed as saturable absorbers.

Colloquium: Excitons in atomically thin transition metal dichalcogenides

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Wang, Gang; Chernikov, Alexey; Glazov, Mikhail M.

Atomically thin materials such as graphene and monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) exhibit remarkable physical properties resulting from their reduced dimensionality and crystal symmetry. The family of semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides is an especially promising platform for fundamental studies of two-dimensional (2D) systems, with potential applications in optoelectronics and valleytronics due to their direct band gap in the monolayer limit and highly efficient light-matter coupling. A crystal lattice with broken inversion symmetry combined with strong spin-orbit interactions leads to a unique combination of the spin and valley degrees of freedom. In addition, the 2D character of the monolayers and weakmore » dielectric screening from the environment yield a significant enhancement of the Coulomb interaction. The resulting formation of bound electron-hole pairs, or excitons, dominates the optical and spin properties of the material. In this article, recent progress in understanding of the excitonic properties in monolayer TMDs is reviewed and future challenges are laid out. Discussed are the consequences of the strong direct and exchange Coulomb interaction, exciton light-matter coupling, and influence of finite carrier and electron-hole pair densities on the exciton properties in TMDs. Finally, the impact on valley polarization is described and the tuning of the energies and polarization observed in applied electric and magnetic fields is summarized.« less

Colloquium: Excitons in atomically thin transition metal dichalcogenides

DOE PAGES

Wang, Gang; Chernikov, Alexey; Glazov, Mikhail M.; ...

2018-04-04

Atomically thin materials such as graphene and monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) exhibit remarkable physical properties resulting from their reduced dimensionality and crystal symmetry. The family of semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides is an especially promising platform for fundamental studies of two-dimensional (2D) systems, with potential applications in optoelectronics and valleytronics due to their direct band gap in the monolayer limit and highly efficient light-matter coupling. A crystal lattice with broken inversion symmetry combined with strong spin-orbit interactions leads to a unique combination of the spin and valley degrees of freedom. In addition, the 2D character of the monolayers and weakmore » dielectric screening from the environment yield a significant enhancement of the Coulomb interaction. The resulting formation of bound electron-hole pairs, or excitons, dominates the optical and spin properties of the material. In this article, recent progress in understanding of the excitonic properties in monolayer TMDs is reviewed and future challenges are laid out. Discussed are the consequences of the strong direct and exchange Coulomb interaction, exciton light-matter coupling, and influence of finite carrier and electron-hole pair densities on the exciton properties in TMDs. Finally, the impact on valley polarization is described and the tuning of the energies and polarization observed in applied electric and magnetic fields is summarized.« less

Colloquium: Excitons in atomically thin transition metal dichalcogenides

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Gang; Chernikov, Alexey; Glazov, Mikhail M.; Heinz, Tony F.; Marie, Xavier; Amand, Thierry; Urbaszek, Bernhard

2018-04-01

Atomically thin materials such as graphene and monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) exhibit remarkable physical properties resulting from their reduced dimensionality and crystal symmetry. The family of semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides is an especially promising platform for fundamental studies of two-dimensional (2D) systems, with potential applications in optoelectronics and valleytronics due to their direct band gap in the monolayer limit and highly efficient light-matter coupling. A crystal lattice with broken inversion symmetry combined with strong spin-orbit interactions leads to a unique combination of the spin and valley degrees of freedom. In addition, the 2D character of the monolayers and weak dielectric screening from the environment yield a significant enhancement of the Coulomb interaction. The resulting formation of bound electron-hole pairs, or excitons, dominates the optical and spin properties of the material. Here recent progress in understanding of the excitonic properties in monolayer TMDs is reviewed and future challenges are laid out. Discussed are the consequences of the strong direct and exchange Coulomb interaction, exciton light-matter coupling, and influence of finite carrier and electron-hole pair densities on the exciton properties in TMDs. Finally, the impact on valley polarization is described and the tuning of the energies and polarization observed in applied electric and magnetic fields is summarized.

The XENON100 Dark Matter Experiment: Design, Construction, Calibration and 2010 Search Results with Improved Measurement of the Scintillation Response of Liquid Xenon to Low-Energy Nuclear Recoils

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Plante, Guillaume

An impressive array of astrophysical observations suggest that 83% of the matter in the universe is in a form of non-luminous, cold, collisionless, non-baryonic dark matter. Several extensions of the Standard Model of particle physics aimed at solving the hierarchy problem predict stable weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) that could naturally have the right cosmological relic abundance today to compose most of the dark matter if their interactions with normal matter are on the order of a weak scale cross section. These candidates also have the added benefit that their properties and interaction rates can be computed in a well defined particle physics model. A considerable experimental effort is currently under way to uncover the nature of dark matter. One method of detecting WIMP dark matter is to look for its interactions in terrestrial detectors where it is expected to scatter off nuclei. In 2007, the XENON10 experiment took the lead over the most sensitive direct detection dark matter search in operation, the CDMS II experiment, by probing spin-independent WIMP-nucleon interaction cross sections down to sigmachi N ˜ 5 x 10-44 cm 2 at 30 GeV/c2. Liquefied noble gas detectors are now among the technologies at the forefront of direct detection experiments. Liquid xenon (LXe), in particular, is a well suited target for WIMP direct detection. It is easily scalable to larger target masses, allows discrimination between nuclear recoils and electronic recoils, and has an excellent stopping power to shield against external backgrounds. A particle losing energy in LXe creates both ionization electrons and scintillation light. In a dual-phase LXe time projection chamber (TPC) the ionization electrons are drifted and extracted into the gas phase where they are accelerated to amplify the charge signal into a proportional scintillation signal. These two signals allow the three-dimensional localization of events with millimeter precision and the ability to fiducialize the target volume, yielding an inner core with a very low background. Additionally, the ratio of ionization and scintillation can be used to discriminate between nuclear recoils, from neutrons or WIMPs, and electronic recoils, from gamma or beta backgrounds. In these detectors, the energy scale is based on the scintillation signal of nuclear recoils and consequently the precise knowledge of the scintillation efficiency of nuclear recoils in LXe is of prime importance. Inspired by the success of the XENON10 experiment, the XENON collaboration designed and built a new, ten times larger, with a one hundred times lower background, LXe TPC to search for dark matter. It is currently the most sensitive direct detection experiment in operation. In order to shed light on the response of LXe to low energy nuclear recoils a new single phase detector designed specifically for the measurement of the scintillation efficiency of nuclear recoils was also built. In 2011, the XENON100 dark matter results from 100 live days set the most stringent limit on the spin-independent WIMP-nucleon interaction cross section over a wide range of masses, down to sigma chi N ˜ 7 x 10-45 cm2 at 50 GeV/c2, almost an order of magnitude improvement over XENON10 in less than four years. This thesis describes the research conducted in the context of the XENON100 dark matter search experiment. I describe the initial simulation results and ideas that influenced the design of the XENON100 detector, the construction and assembly steps that lead into its concrete realization, the detector and its subsystems, a subset of the calibration results of the detector, and finally dark matter exclusion limits. I also describe in detail the new improved measurement of the important quantity for the interpretation of results from LXe dark matter searches, the scintillation efficiency of low-energy nuclear recoils in LXe.

Doppelgänger dark energy: modified gravity with non-universal couplings after GW170817

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Amendola, Luca; Bettoni, Dario; Domènech, Guillem; Gomes, Adalto R.

2018-06-01

Gravitational Wave (GW) astronomy severely narrowed down the theoretical space for scalar-tensor theories. We propose a new class of attractor models {for Horndeski action} in which GWs propagate at the speed of light in the nearby universe but not in the past. To do so we derive new solutions to the interacting dark sector in which the ratio of dark energy and dark matter remains constant, which we refer to as doppelgänger dark energy (DDE). We then remove the interaction between dark matter and dark energy by a suitable change of variables. The accelerated expansion that (we) baryons observe is due to a conformal coupling to the dark energy scalar field. We show how in this context it is possible to find a non trivial subset of solutions in which GWs propagate at the speed of light only at low red-shifts. The model is an attractor, thus reaching the limit cT→1 relatively fast. However, the effect of baryons turns out to be non-negligible and severely constrains the form of the Lagrangian. In passing, we found that in the simplest DDE models the no-ghost conditions for perturbations require a non-universal coupling to gravity. In the end, we comment on possible ways to solve the lack of matter domination stage for DDE models.

Energy, momentum and propagation of non-paraxial high-order Gaussian beams in the presence of an aperture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stilgoe, Alexander B.; Nieminen, Timo A.; Rubinsztein-Dunlop, Halina

2015-12-01

Non-paraxial theories of wave propagation are essential to model the interaction of highly focused light with matter. Here we investigate the energy, momentum and propagation of the Laguerre-, Hermite- and Ince-Gaussian solutions (LG, HG, and IG) of the paraxial wave equation in an apertured non-paraxial regime. We investigate the far-field relationships between the LG, HG, and IG solutions and the vector spherical wave function (VSWF) solutions of the vector Helmholtz wave equation. We investigate the convergence of the VSWF and the various Gaussian solutions in the presence of an aperture. Finally, we investigate the differences in linear and angular momentum evaluated in the paraxial and non-paraxial regimes. The non-paraxial model we develop can be applied to calculations of the focusing of high-order Gaussian modes in high-resolution microscopes. We find that the addition of an aperture in high numerical aperture optical systems does not greatly affect far-field properties except when the beam is significantly clipped by an aperture. Diffraction from apertures causes large distortions in the near-field and will influence light-matter interactions. The method is not limited to a particular solution of the paraxial wave equation. Our model is constructed in a formalism that is commonly used in scattering calculations. It is thus applicable to optical trapping and other optical investigations of matter.

Second user workshop on high-power lasers at the Linac Coherent Light Source

DOE PAGES

Heimann, Phil; Glenzer, Siegfried

2015-05-28

The second international workshop on the physics enabled by the unique combination of high-power lasers with the world-class Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) free-electron X-ray laser beam was held in Stanford, CA, on October 7–8, 2014. The workshop was co-organized by UC Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley, Lawrence Livermore, and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratories. More than 120 scientists, including 40 students and postdoctoral scientists who are working in high-intensity laser-matter interactions, fusion research, and dynamic high-pressure science came together from North America, Europe, and Asia. The focus of the second workshop was on scientific highlights and the lessons learned from 16 newmore » experiments that were performed on the Matter in Extreme Conditions (MEC) instrument since the first workshop was held one year ago.« less

Ultra-low-power hybrid light-matter solitons.

PubMed

Walker, P M; Tinkler, L; Skryabin, D V; Yulin, A; Royall, B; Farrer, I; Ritchie, D A; Skolnick, M S; Krizhanovskii, D N

2015-09-24

New functionalities in nonlinear optics will require systems with giant optical nonlinearity as well as compatibility with photonic circuit fabrication techniques. Here we introduce a platform based on strong light-matter coupling between waveguide photons and quantum-well excitons. On a sub-millimetre length scale we generate picosecond bright temporal solitons at a pulse energy of only 0.5 pJ. From this we deduce a nonlinear refractive index three orders of magnitude larger than in any other ultrafast system. We study both temporal and spatio-temporal nonlinear effects and observe dark-bright spatio-temporal polariton solitons. Theoretical modelling of soliton formation in the strongly coupled system confirms the experimental observations. These results show the promise of our system as a high speed, low power, integrated platform for physics and devices based on strong interactions between photons.

A Mathematical Model for Plasticity and Cosmology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Muñoz-Andrade, Juan Daniel

2007-05-01

In the scenery of a crystalline universe, embedded and related in a spatially extended polycrystalline system, with a relativistic framework, the constancy of the speed of light is the cosmic connection between the Planck length and the Hubble length, As a matter of fact, in the general relativity theory the gravitational interaction is propagated at the speed of light and when the gravitational field changed, the gravitational waves are produced in a similar form of an elastic field with dislocations in a crystal during plastic flow. Moreover, the nature role of a field in relativistic physics shows that it is an independent physical entity that should be considered on the same grounds as matter particles and it possesses energy and momentum. Consequently, in this work a mathematical model for plasticity and cosmology is proposed and some properties of the universe are obtained.

Two-dimensional crystals: managing light for optoelectronics.

PubMed

Eda, Goki; Maier, Stefan A

2013-07-23

Semiconducting two-dimensional (2D) crystals such as MoS2 and WSe2 exhibit unusual optical properties that can be exploited for novel optoelectronics ranging from flexible photovoltaic cells to harmonic generation and electro-optical modulation devices. Rapid progress of the field, particularly in the growth area, is beginning to enable ways to implement 2D crystals into devices with tailored functionalities. For practical device performance, a key challenge is to maximize light-matter interactions in the material, which is inherently weak due to its atomically thin nature. Light management around the 2D layers with the use of plasmonic nanostructures can provide a compelling solution.

Engineered disorder and light propagation in a planar photonic glass

PubMed Central

Romanov, Sergei G.; Orlov, Sergej; Ploss, Daniel; Weiss, Clemens K.; Vogel, Nicolas; Peschel, Ulf

2016-01-01

The interaction of light with matter strongly depends on the structure of the latter at wavelength scale. Ordered systems interact with light via collective modes, giving rise to diffraction. In contrast, completely disordered systems are dominated by Mie resonances of individual particles and random scattering. However, less clear is the transition regime in between these two extremes, where diffraction, Mie resonances and near-field interaction between individual scatterers interplay. Here, we probe this transitional regime by creating colloidal crystals with controlled disorder from two-dimensional self-assembly of bidisperse spheres. Choosing the particle size in a way that the small particles are transparent in the spectral region of interest enables us to probe in detail the effect of increasing positional disorder on the optical properties of the large spheres. With increasing disorder a transition from a collective optical response characterized by diffractive resonances to single particles scattering represented by Mie resonances occurs. In between these extremes, we identify an intermediate, hopping-like light transport regime mediated by resonant interactions between individual spheres. These results suggest that different levels of disorder, characterized not only by absence of long range order but also by differences in short-range correlation and interparticle distance, exist in colloidal glasses. PMID:27277521

Optical angular momentum and atoms

PubMed Central

2017-01-01

Any coherent interaction of light and atoms needs to conserve energy, linear momentum and angular momentum. What happens to an atom’s angular momentum if it encounters light that carries orbital angular momentum (OAM)? This is a particularly intriguing question as the angular momentum of atoms is quantized, incorporating the intrinsic spin angular momentum of the individual electrons as well as the OAM associated with their spatial distribution. In addition, a mechanical angular momentum can arise from the rotation of the entire atom, which for very cold atoms is also quantized. Atoms therefore allow us to probe and access the quantum properties of light’s OAM, aiding our fundamental understanding of light–matter interactions, and moreover, allowing us to construct OAM-based applications, including quantum memories, frequency converters for shaped light and OAM-based sensors. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Optical orbital angular momentum’. PMID:28069766

Probing new physics with atmospheric neutrinos at KM3NeT-ORCA

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Coelho, João A. B.; KM3NeT Collaboration

2017-09-01

We present the prospects of ORCA searches for new physics phenomena using atmospheric neutrinos. Focus is given to exploiting the impact of strong matter effects on the oscillation of atmospheric neutrinos in light of expanded models, such as sterile neutrinos and non-standard interactions. In the presence of light sterile neutrinos that mix with active neutrinos, additional resonances and suppressions may occur at different energies. One may also use neutrino oscillations to probe the properties of the coherent forward scattering which may be altered by new interactions beyond the Standard Model. Preliminary studies show that ORCA would be able to probe some parameters of these models with sensitivity up to one order of magnitude better than current constraints.

Absorption and Emission of Light in Optoelectronic Nanomaterials: The Role of the Local Optical Environment.

PubMed

Jiménez-Solano, Alberto; Galisteo-López, Juan F; Míguez, Hernán

2018-04-19

Tailoring the interaction of electromagnetic radiation with matter is central to the development of optoelectronic devices. This becomes particularly relevant for a new generation of devices offering the possibility of solution processing with competitive efficiencies as well as new functionalities. These devices, containing novel materials such as inorganic colloidal quantum dots or hybrid organic-inorganic lead halide perovskites, commonly demand thin (tens of nanometers) active layers in order to perform optimally and thus maximizing the way electromagnetic radiation interacts with these layers is essential. In this Perspective, we discuss the relevance of tailoring the optical environment of the active layer in an optoelectronic device and illustrate it with two real-world systems comprising photovoltaic cells and light emitting devices.

Sr 2IrO 4: Gateway to cuprate superconductivity?

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Mitchell, J. F.

High temperature superconductivity in cuprates remains a defining challenge in condensed matter physics. Recently, a new set of related compounds based on Ir rather than Cu has been discovered that may be on the verge of superconductivity themselves or be able to shed new light on the underlying interactions responsible for superconductivity in the cuprates.

Light-Induced Pulling and Pushing by the Synergic Effect of Optical Force and Photophoretic Force

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lu, Jinsheng; Yang, Hangbo; Zhou, Lina; Yang, Yuanqing; Luo, Si; Li, Qiang; Qiu, Min

2017-01-01

Optical force, coming from momentum exchange during light-matter interactions, has been widely utilized to manipulate microscopic objects, though mostly in vacuum or in liquids. By contrast, due to the light-induced thermal effect, photophoretic force provides an alternative and effective way to transport light-absorbing particles in ambient gases. However, in most cases these forces work independently. Here, by employing the synergy of optical force and photophoretic force, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a configuration which can drive a micron-size metallic plate moving back and forth on a tapered fiber with supercontinuum light in ambient air. Optical pulling and oscillation of the metallic plate are experimentally realized. The results might open exhilarating possibilities in applications of optical driving and energy conversion.

All-optical liquid crystal spatial light modulators

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tabiryan, Nelson; Grozhik, Vladimir; Khoo, Iam Choon; Nersisyan, Sarik R.; Serak, Svetlana

2003-12-01

Nonlinear optical processes in liquid crystals (LC) can be used for construction of all-optical spatial light modulators (SLM) where the photosensitivity and phase modulating functions are integrated into a single layer of an LC-material. Such spatial light integrated modulators (SLIMs) cost only a fraction of the conventional LC-SLM and can be used with high power laser radiation due to high transparency of LC materials and absence of light absorbing electrodes on the substrates of the LC-cell constituting the SLIM. Recent development of LC materials the photosensitivity of which is comparable to that of semiconductors has led to using SLIM in schemes of optical anti-jamming, sensor protection, and image processing. All-optical processes add remarkable versatility to the operation of SLIM harnessing the wealth inherent to light-matter interaction phenomena.

Rainbow Trapping in Hyperbolic Metamaterial Waveguide

PubMed Central

Hu, Haifeng; Ji, Dengxin; Zeng, Xie; Liu, Kai; Gan, Qiaoqiang

2013-01-01

The recent reported trapped “rainbow” storage of light using metamaterials and plasmonic graded surface gratings has generated considerable interest for on-chip slow light. The potential for controlling the velocity of broadband light in guided photonic structures opens up tremendous opportunities to manipulate light for optical modulation, switching, communication and light-matter interactions. However, previously reported designs for rainbow trapping are generally constrained by inherent difficulties resulting in the limited experimental realization of this intriguing effect. Here we propose a hyperbolic metamaterial structure to realize a highly efficient rainbow trapping effect, which, importantly, is not limited by those severe theoretical constraints required in previously reported insulator-negative-index-insulator, insulator-metal-insulator and metal-insulator-metal waveguide tapers, and therefore representing a significant promise to realize the rainbow trapping structure practically. PMID:23409240

Electroweak bremsstrahlung for wino-like Dark Matter annihilations

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Ciafaloni, Paolo; Comelli, Denis; Simone, Andrea De

2012-06-01

If the Dark Matter is the neutral Majorana component of a multiplet which is charged under the electroweak interactions of the Standard Model, its main annihilation channel is into W{sup +}W{sup −}, while the annihilation into light fermions is helicity suppressed. As pointed out recently, the radiation of gauge bosons from the initial state of the annihilation lifts the suppression and opens up an s-wave contribution to the cross section. We perform the full tree-level calculation of Dark Matter annihilations, including electroweak bremsstrahlung, in the context of an explicit model corresponding to the supersymmetric wino. We find that the fermionmore » channel can become as important as the di-boson one. This result has significant implications for the predictions of the fluxes of particles originating from Dark Matter annihilations.« less

Creation of long-term coherent optical memory via controlled nonlinear interactions in Bose-Einstein condensates.

PubMed

Zhang, Rui; Garner, Sean R; Hau, Lene Vestergaard

2009-12-04

A Bose-Einstein condensate confined in an optical dipole trap is used to generate long-term coherent memory for light, and storage times of more than 1 s are observed. Phase coherence of the condensate as well as controlled manipulations of elastic and inelastic atomic scattering processes are utilized to increase the storage fidelity by several orders of magnitude over previous schemes. The results have important applications for creation of long-distance quantum networks and for generation of entangled states of light and matter.

Material content of the universe - Introductory survey

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tayler, R. J.

1986-12-01

Matter in the universe can be detected either by the radiation it emits or by its gravitational influence. There is a strong suggestion that the universe contains substantial hidden matter, mass without corresponding light. There are also arguments from elementary particle physics that the universe should have closure density, which would also imply hidden mass. Observations of the chemical composition of the universe interpreted in terms of the hot Big Bang cosmological theory suggest that this hidden matter cannot all be of baryonic form but must consist of weakly interacting elementary particles. A combination of observations and theoretical ideas about the origin of large-scale structure may demand that these particles are of a type which is not yet definitely known to exist.

If EM waves don't interfere, what causes interferograms?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wellard, Stanley J.

2012-10-01

Photonics engineers involved in designing and operating Fourier transform spectrometers (FTS) often rely on Maxwell's wave equations and time-frequency (distance-wavenumber) Fourier theory as models to understand and predict the conversion of optical energy to electrical signals in their instruments. Dr. Chandrasekhar Roychoudhuri and his colleagues, at last year's conference, presented three significant concepts that might completely change the way we comprehend the interaction of light and matter and the way interference information is generated. The first concept is his non-interaction of waves (NIW) formulation, which puts in place an optical wave description that more accurately describe the properties of the finite time and spatial signals of an optical system. The second is a new description for the cosmic EM environment that recognizes that space is really filled with the ether of classical electromagnetics. The third concept is a new metaphysics or metaphotonics that compares the photon as a particle in a void against the photon as a wave in a medium to see which best explain the twelve different aspects of light. Dr. Henry Lindner presents a compelling case that photons are waves in a medium and particles (electrons, protons, atoms) are wave-structures embedded in the new ether. Discussion of the three new principles is intended to increase the curiosity of photonics engineers to investigate these changes in the nature of light and matter.

Photoinduced Electron Transfer in the Strong Coupling Regime: Waveguide-Plasmon Polaritons.

PubMed

Zeng, Peng; Cadusch, Jasper; Chakraborty, Debadi; Smith, Trevor A; Roberts, Ann; Sader, John E; Davis, Timothy J; Gómez, Daniel E

2016-04-13

Reversible exchange of photons between a material and an optical cavity can lead to the formation of hybrid light-matter states where material properties such as the work function [ Hutchison et al. Adv. Mater. 2013 , 25 , 2481 - 2485 ], chemical reactivity [ Hutchison et al. Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. 2012 , 51 , 1592 - 1596 ], ultrafast energy relaxation [ Salomon et al. Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. 2009 , 48 , 8748 - 8751 ; Gomez et al. J. Phys. Chem. B 2013 , 117 , 4340 - 4346 ], and electrical conductivity [ Orgiu et al. Nat. Mater. 2015 , 14 , 1123 - 1129 ] of matter differ significantly to those of the same material in the absence of strong interactions with the electromagnetic fields. Here we show that strong light-matter coupling between confined photons on a semiconductor waveguide and localized plasmon resonances on metal nanowires modifies the efficiency of the photoinduced charge-transfer rate of plasmonic derived (hot) electrons into accepting states in the semiconductor material. Ultrafast spectroscopy measurements reveal a strong correlation between the amplitude of the transient signals, attributed to electrons residing in the semiconductor and the hybridization of waveguide and plasmon excitations.

Attosecond control of electron beams at dielectric and absorbing membranes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Morimoto, Yuya; Baum, Peter

2018-03-01

Ultrashort electron pulses are crucial for time-resolved electron diffraction and microscopy of the fundamental light-matter interaction. In this work, we study experimentally and theoretically the generation and characterization of attosecond electron pulses by optical-field-driven compression and streaking at dielectric or absorbing interaction elements. The achievable acceleration and deflection gradient depends on the laser-electron angle, the laser's electric and magnetic field directions, and the foil orientation. Electric and magnetic fields have similar contributions to the final effect and both need to be considered. Experiments and theory agree well and reveal the optimum conditions for highly efficient, velocity-matched electron-field interactions in the longitudinal or transverse direction. We find that metallic membranes are optimum for light-electron control at mid-infrared or terahertz wavelengths, but dielectric membranes are excellent in the visible and near-infrared regimes and are therefore ideal for the formation of attosecond electron pulses.

Strangeon and Strangeon Star

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xiaoyu, Lai; Renxin, Xu

2017-06-01

The nature of pulsar-like compact stars is essentially a central question of the fundamental strong interaction (explained in quantum chromo-dynamics) at low energy scale, the solution of which still remains a challenge though tremendous efforts have been tried. This kind of compact objects could actually be strange quark stars if strange quark matter in bulk may constitute the true ground state of the strong-interaction matter rather than 56Fe (the so-called Witten’s conjecture). From astrophysical points of view, however, it is proposed that strange cluster matter could be absolutely stable and thus those compact stars could be strange cluster stars in fact. This proposal could be regarded as a general Witten’s conjecture: strange matter in bulk could be absolutely stable, in which quarks are either free (for strange quark matter) or localized (for strange cluster matter). Strange cluster with three-light-flavor symmetry is renamed strangeon, being coined by combining “strange nucleon” for the sake of simplicity. A strangeon star can then be thought as a 3-flavored gigantic nucleus, and strangeons are its constituent as an analogy of nucleons which are the constituent of a normal (micro) nucleus. The observational consequences of strangeon stars show that different manifestations of pulsarlike compact stars could be understood in the regime of strangeon stars, and we are expecting more evidence for strangeon star by advanced facilities (e.g., FAST, SKA, and eXTP).

During air cool process aerosol absorption detection with photothermal interferometry

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Baosheng; Xu, Limei; Huang, Junling; Ma, Fei; Wang, Yicheng; Li, Zhengqiang

2014-11-01

This paper studies the basic principle of laser photothermal interferometry method of aerosol particles absorption coefficient. The photothermal interferometry method with higher accuracy and lower uncertainty can directly measure the absorption coefficient of atmospheric aerosols and not be affected by scattered light. With Jones matrix expression, the math expression of a special polarization interferometer is described. This paper using folded Jamin interferometer, which overcomes the influence of vibration on measuring system. Interference come from light polarization beam with two orthogonal and then combine to one beam, finally aerosol absorption induced refractive index changes can be gotten with four beam of phase orthogonal light. These kinds of styles really improve the stability of system and resolution of the system. Four-channel detections interact with interference fringes, to reduce the light intensity `zero drift' effect on the system. In the laboratory, this device typical aerosol absorption index, it shows that the result completely agrees with actual value. After heated by laser, cool process of air also show the process of aerosol absorption. This kind of instrument will be used to monitor ambient aerosol absorption and suspended particulate matter chemical component. Keywords: Aerosol absorption coefficient; Photothermal interferometry; Suspended particulate matter.

Simple potential model for interaction of dark particles with massive bodies

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Takibayev, Nurgali

2018-01-01

A simple model for interaction of dark particles with matter based on resonance behavior in a three-body system is proposed. The model describes resonant amplification of effective interaction between two massive bodies at large distances between them. The phenomenon is explained by catalytic action of dark particles rescattering at a system of two heavy bodies which are understood here as the big stellar objects. Resonant amplification of the effective interaction between the two heavy bodies imitates the increase in their mass while their true gravitational mass remains unchanged. Such increased interaction leads to more pronounced gravitational lensing of bypassing light. It is shown that effective interaction between the heavy bodies is changed at larger distances and can transform into repulsive action.

CO2 and Er:YAG laser interaction with grass tissues

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kim, Jaehun; Ki, Hyungson

2013-01-01

Plant leaves are multi-component optical materials consisting of water, pigments, and dry matter, among which water is the predominant constituent. In this article, we investigate laser interaction with grass using CO2 and Er:YAG lasers theoretically and experimentally, especially targeting water in grass tissues. We have first studied the optical properties of light absorbing constituents of grass theoretically, and then have identified interaction regimes and constructed interaction maps through a systematic experiment. Using the interaction maps, we have studied how interaction regimes change as process parameters are varied. This study reveals some interesting findings concerning carbonization and ablation mechanisms, the effect of laser beam diameter, and the ablation efficiency and quality of CO2 and Er:YAG lasers.

Fano Effect and Quantum Entanglement in Hybrid Semiconductor Quantum Dot-Metal Nanoparticle System.

PubMed

He, Yong; Zhu, Ka-Di

2017-06-20

In this paper, we review the investigation for the light-matter interaction between surface plasmon field in metal nanoparticle (MNP) and the excitons in semiconductor quantum dots (SQDs) in hybrid SQD-MNP system under the full quantum description. The exciton-plasmon interaction gives rise to the modified decay rate and the exciton energy shift which are related to the exciton energy by using a quantum transformation method. We illustrate the responses of the hybrid SQD-MNP system to external field, and reveal Fano effect shown in the absorption spectrum. We demonstrate quantum entanglement between two SQD mediated by surface plasmon field. In the absence of a laser field, concurrence of quantum entanglement will disappear after a few ns. If the laser field is present, the steady states appear, so that quantum entanglement produced will reach a steady-state entanglement. Because one of all optical pathways to induce Fano effect refers to the generation of quantum entangled states, It is shown that the concurrence of quantum entanglement can be obtained by observation for Fano effect. In a hybrid system including two MNP and a SQD, because the two Fano quantum interference processes share a segment of all optical pathways, there is correlation between the Fano effects of the two MNP. The investigations for the light-matter interaction in hybrid SQD-MNP system can pave the way for the development of the optical processing devices and quantum information based on the exciton-plasmon interaction.

Fano Effect and Quantum Entanglement in Hybrid Semiconductor Quantum Dot-Metal Nanoparticle System

PubMed Central

He, Yong; Zhu, Ka-Di

2017-01-01

In this paper, we review the investigation for the light-matter interaction between surface plasmon field in metal nanoparticle (MNP) and the excitons in semiconductor quantum dots (SQDs) in hybrid SQD-MNP system under the full quantum description. The exciton-plasmon interaction gives rise to the modified decay rate and the exciton energy shift which are related to the exciton energy by using a quantum transformation method. We illustrate the responses of the hybrid SQD-MNP system to external field, and reveal Fano effect shown in the absorption spectrum. We demonstrate quantum entanglement between two SQD mediated by surface plasmon field. In the absence of a laser field, concurrence of quantum entanglement will disappear after a few ns. If the laser field is present, the steady states appear, so that quantum entanglement produced will reach a steady-state entanglement. Because one of all optical pathways to induce Fano effect refers to the generation of quantum entangled states, It is shown that the concurrence of quantum entanglement can be obtained by observation for Fano effect. In a hybrid system including two MNP and a SQD, because the two Fano quantum interference processes share a segment of all optical pathways, there is correlation between the Fano effects of the two MNP. The investigations for the light-matter interaction in hybrid SQD-MNP system can pave the way for the development of the optical processing devices and quantum information based on the exciton-plasmon interaction. PMID:28632165

Observation of Tunable Charged Exciton Polaritons in Hybrid Monolayer WS2-Plasmonic Nanoantenna System.

PubMed

Cuadra, Jorge; Baranov, Denis G; Wersäll, Martin; Verre, Ruggero; Antosiewicz, Tomasz J; Shegai, Timur

2018-03-14

Formation of dressed light-matter states in optical structures, manifested as Rabi splitting of the eigen energies of a coupled system, is one of the key effects in quantum optics. In pursuing this regime with semiconductors, light is usually made to interact with excitons, electrically neutral quasiparticles of semiconductors; meanwhile interactions with charged three-particle states, trions, have received little attention. Here, we report on strong interaction between localized surface plasmons in silver nanoprisms and excitons and trions in monolayer tungsten disulfide (WS 2 ). We show that the plasmon-exciton interactions in this system can be efficiently tuned by controlling the charged versus neutral exciton contribution to the coupling process. In particular, we show that a stable trion state emerges and couples efficiently to the plasmon resonance at low temperature by forming three bright intermixed plasmon-exciton-trion polariton states. Our findings open up a possibility to exploit electrically charged polaritons at the single nanoparticle level.

Graphene-clad microfibre saturable absorber for ultrafast fibre lasers.

PubMed

Liu, X M; Yang, H R; Cui, Y D; Chen, G W; Yang, Y; Wu, X Q; Yao, X K; Han, D D; Han, X X; Zeng, C; Guo, J; Li, W L; Cheng, G; Tong, L M

2016-05-16

Graphene, whose absorbance is approximately independent of wavelength, allows broadband light-matter interactions with ultrafast responses. The interband optical absorption of graphene can be saturated readily under strong excitation, thereby enabling scientists to exploit the photonic properties of graphene to realize ultrafast lasers. The evanescent field interaction scheme of the propagating light with graphene covered on a D-shaped fibre or microfibre has been employed extensively because of the nonblocking configuration. Obviously, most of the fibre surface is unused in these techniques. Here, we exploit a graphene-clad microfibre (GCM) saturable absorber in a mode-locked fibre laser for the generation of ultrafast pulses. The proposed all-surface technique can guarantee a higher efficiency of light-graphene interactions than the aforementioned techniques. Our GCM-based saturable absorber can generate ultrafast optical pulses within 1.5 μm. This saturable absorber is compatible with current fibre lasers and has many merits such as low saturation intensities, ultrafast recovery times, and wide wavelength ranges. The proposed saturable absorber will pave the way for graphene-based wideband photonics.

Self-Organization of Metal Nanoparticles in Light: Electrodynamics-Molecular Dynamics Simulations and Optical Binding Experiments.

PubMed

McCormack, Patrick; Han, Fei; Yan, Zijie

2018-02-01

Light-driven self-organization of metal nanoparticles (NPs) can lead to unique optical matter systems, yet simulation of such self-organization (i.e., optical binding) is a complex computational problem that increases nonlinearly with system size. Here we show that a combined electrodynamics-molecular dynamics simulation technique can simulate the trajectories and predict stable configurations of silver NPs in optical fields. The simulated dynamic equilibrium of a two-NP system matches the probability density of oscillations for two optically bound NPs obtained experimentally. The predicted stable configurations for up to eight NPs are further compared to experimental observations of silver NP clusters formed by optical binding in a Bessel beam. All configurations are confirmed to form in real systems, including pentagonal clusters with five-fold symmetry. Our combined simulations and experiments have revealed a diverse optical matter system formed by anisotropic optical binding interactions, providing a new strategy to discover artificial materials.

Two-dimensional infrared spectroscopy of vibrational polaritons.

PubMed

Xiang, Bo; Ribeiro, Raphael F; Dunkelberger, Adam D; Wang, Jiaxi; Li, Yingmin; Simpkins, Blake S; Owrutsky, Jeffrey C; Yuen-Zhou, Joel; Xiong, Wei

2018-05-08

We report experimental 2D infrared (2D IR) spectra of coherent light-matter excitations--molecular vibrational polaritons. The application of advanced 2D IR spectroscopy to vibrational polaritons challenges and advances our understanding in both fields. First, the 2D IR spectra of polaritons differ drastically from free uncoupled excitations and a new interpretation is needed. Second, 2D IR uniquely resolves excitation of hybrid light-matter polaritons and unexpected dark states in a state-selective manner, revealing otherwise hidden interactions between them. Moreover, 2D IR signals highlight the impact of molecular anharmonicities which are applicable to virtually all molecular systems. A quantum-mechanical model is developed which incorporates both nuclear and electrical anharmonicities and provides the basis for interpreting this class of 2D IR spectra. This work lays the foundation for investigating phenomena of nonlinear photonics and chemistry of molecular vibrational polaritons which cannot be probed with traditional linear spectroscopy.

Reduction of the K* meson abundance in heavy ion collisions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cho, Sungtae; Lee, Su Houng

2018-03-01

We study the K* meson reduction in heavy-ion collisions by focusing on the hadronic effects on the K* meson abundance. We evaluate the absorption cross sections of the K* and K meson by light mesons in the hadronic matter, and further investigate the variation in the meson abundances for both particles during the hadronic stage of heavy-ion collisions. We show how the interplay between the interaction of the K* meson and kaon with light mesons in the hadronic medium determines the final yield difference of the statistical hadronization model to the experimental measurements. For the central Au+Au collision at √{sN N}=200 GeV, we find that the K*/K yield ratio at chemical freeze-out decreases by 37 % during the expansion of the hadronic matter, resulting in the final ratio comparable to STAR measurements of 0.23 ±0.05 .

Higgs portal dark matter in non-standard cosmological histories

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hardy, Edward

2018-06-01

A scalar particle with a relic density set by annihilations through a Higgs portal operator is a simple and minimal possibility for dark matter. However, assuming a thermal cosmological history this model is ruled out over most of parameter space by collider and direct detection constraints. We show that in theories with a non-thermal cosmological history Higgs portal dark matter is viable for a wide range of dark matter masses and values of the portal coupling, evading existing limits. In particular, we focus on the string theory motivated scenario of a period of matter domination due to a light modulus with a decay rate that is suppressed by the Planck scale. Dark matter with a mass ≲ GeV is possible without additional hidden sector states, and this can have astrophysically relevant self-interactions. We also study the signatures of such models at future direct, indirect, and collider experiments. Searches for invisible Higgs decays at the high luminosity LHC or an e + e - collider could cover a significant proportion of the parameter space for low mass dark matter, and future direct detection experiments will play a complementary role.

Enlightening Students about Dark Matter

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hamilton, Kathleen; Barr, Alex; Eidelman, Dave

2018-01-01

Dark matter pervades the universe. While it is invisible to us, we can detect its influence on matter we can see. To illuminate this concept, we have created an interactive javascript program illustrating predictions made by six different models for dark matter distributions in galaxies. Students are able to match the predicted data with actual experimental results, drawn from several astronomy papers discussing dark matter’s impact on galactic rotation curves. Programming each new model requires integration of density equations with parameters determined by nonlinear curve-fitting using MATLAB scripts we developed. Using our javascript simulation, students can determine the most plausible dark matter models as well as the average percentage of dark matter lurking in galaxies, areas where the scientific community is still continuing to research. In that light, we strive to use the most up-to-date and accepted concepts: two of our dark matter models are the pseudo-isothermal halo and Navarro-Frenk-White, and we integrate out to each galaxy’s virial radius. Currently, our simulation includes NGC3198, NGC2403, and our own Milky Way.

Circumstellar X-ray Emission from SN1978K

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schlegel, Eric M.; Colbert, E.; Petre, R.

1995-02-01

We present the X-ray light curve in the 0.2 2.4 keV band based on fiveROSAT observations of SN1978K in NGC 1313. The X-ray emission is believed to arise from the interaction of the reverse shock and the expanding debris from the supernova. The reverse shock becomes established after the outgoing shock runs into circumstellar matter.

M-shaped grating by nanoimprinting: a replicable, large-area, highly active plasmonic surface-enhanced Raman scattering substrate with nanogaps.

PubMed

Zhu, Zhendong; Bai, Benfeng; Duan, Huigao; Zhang, Haosu; Zhang, Mingqian; You, Oubo; Li, Qunqing; Tan, Qiaofeng; Wang, Jia; Fan, Shoushan; Jin, Guofan

2014-04-24

Plasmonic nanostructures separated by nanogaps enable strong electromagnetic-field confinement on the nanoscale for enhancing light-matter interactions, which are in great demand in many applications such as surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). A simple M-shaped nanograting with narrow V-shaped grooves is proposed. Both theoretical and experimental studies reveal that the electromagnetic field on the surface of the M grating can be pronouncedly enhanced over that of a grating without such grooves, due to field localization in the nanogaps formed by the narrow V grooves. A technique based on room-temperature nanoimprinting lithography and anisotropic reactive-ion etching is developed to fabricate this device, which is cost-effective, reliable, and suitable for fabricating large-area nanostructures. As a demonstration of the potential application of this device, the M grating is used as a SERS substrate for probing Rhodamine 6G molecules. Experimentally, an average SERS enhancement factor as high as 5×10⁸ has been achieved, which verifies the greatly enhanced light-matter interaction on the surface of the M grating over that of traditional SERS surfaces. © 2014 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Assembly of mesoscale helices with near-unity enantiomeric excess and light-matter interactions for chiral semiconductors.

PubMed

Feng, Wenchun; Kim, Ji-Young; Wang, Xinzhi; Calcaterra, Heather A; Qu, Zhibei; Meshi, Louisa; Kotov, Nicholas A

2017-03-01

Semiconductors with chiral geometries at the nanoscale and mesoscale provide a rich materials platform for polarization optics, photocatalysis, and biomimetics. Unlike metallic and organic optical materials, the relationship between the geometry of chiral semiconductors and their chiroptical properties remains, however, vague. Homochiral ensembles of semiconductor helices with defined geometries open the road to understanding complex relationships between geometrical parameters and chiroptical properties of semiconductor materials. We show that semiconductor helices can be prepared with an absolute yield of ca 0.1% and an enantiomeric excess (e.e.) of 98% or above from cysteine-stabilized cadmium telluride nanoparticles (CdTe NPs) dispersed in methanol. This high e.e. for a spontaneously occurring chemical process is attributed to chiral self-sorting based on the thermodynamic preference of NPs to assemble with those of the same handedness. The dispersions of homochiral self-assembled helices display broadband visible and near-infrared (Vis-NIR) polarization rotation with anisotropy ( g ) factors approaching 0.01. Calculated circular dichroism (CD) spectra accurately reproduced experimental CD spectra and gave experimentally validated spectral predictions for different geometrical parameters enabling de novo design of chiroptical semiconductor materials. Unlike metallic, ceramic, and polymeric helices that serve predominantly as scatterers, chiroptical properties of semiconductor helices have nearly equal contribution of light absorption and scattering, which is essential for device-oriented, field-driven light modulation. Deconstruction of a helix into a series of nanorods provides a simple model for the light-matter interaction and chiroptical activity of helices. This study creates a framework for further development of polarization-based optics toward biomedical applications, telecommunications, and hyperspectral imaging.

A Direct Dark Matter Search with the MAJORANA Low-Background Broad Energy Germanium Detector

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Finnerty, Padraic Seamus

It is well established that a significant portion of our Universe is comprised of invisible, non-luminous matter, commonly referred to as dark matter. The detection and characterization of this missing matter is an active area of research in cosmology and particle astrophysics. A general class of candidates for non-baryonic particle dark matter is weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs). WIMPs emerge naturally from supersymmetry with predicted masses between 1--1000 GeV. There are many current and near-future experiments that may shed light on the nature of dark matter by directly detecting WIMP-nucleus scattering events. The MAJORANA experiment will use p-type point contact (PPC) germanium detectors as both the source and detector to search for neutrinoless double-beta decay in 76Ge. These detectors have both exceptional energy resolution and low-energy thresholds. The low-energy performance of PPC detectors, due to their low-capacitance point-contact design, makes them suitable for direct dark matter searches. As a part of the research and development efforts for the MAJORANA experiment, a custom Canberra PPC detector has been deployed at the Kimballton Underground Research Facility in Ripplemead, Virginia. This detector has been used to perform a search for low-mass (< 10 GeV) WIMP induced nuclear recoils using a 221.49 live-day exposure. It was found that events originating near the surface of the detector plague the signal region, even after all cuts. For this reason, only an upper limit on WIMP induced nuclear recoils was placed. This limit is inconsistent with several recent claims to have observed light WIMP based dark matter.

Nuclear Physics Research at ELI-NP

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zamfir, N. V.

2018-05-01

The new research facility Extreme Light Infrastructure - Nuclear Physics (ELI-NP) is under construction in Romania, on the Magurele Physics campus. Valued more than 300 Meuros the center will be operational in 2019. The research center will use a high brilliance Gamma Beam and a High-power Laser beam, with unprecedented characteristics worldwide, to investigate the interaction of very intense radiation with matter with specific focus on nuclear phenomena and their applications. The energetic particle beams and radiation produced by the 2x10 PW laser beam interacting with matter will be studied. The precisely tunable energy and excellent bandwidth of the gamma-ray beam will allow for new experimental approaches regarding nuclear astrophysics, nuclear resonance fluorescence, and applications. The experimental equipment is presented, together with the main directions of the research envisioned with special emphasizes on nuclear physics studies.

Plasmons and Polaritons in Low Dimensional Systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sun, Zhiyuan

Nearly everything relies on the electromagnetic (EM) force to be in its current form. Therefore, light-matter interaction is both a fundamental and a practical subject in physics. Focusing on the electromagnetic field, the matter degrees of freedom can be encoded into its response to the EM field in the form of charge density and urrent. Reshaped by the EM response, the photons in condensed matter systems appear as various collective modes. In this doctoral dissertation, I present our investigation of the linear and nonlinear EM response theory especially in the hydrodynamic regime of electron systems. Electrons in pristine solids behave as a hydrodynamic fluid in a certain range of temperatures and frequencies. We show that the response of such a fluid to electromagnetic field is different from what is predicted by the usual kinetic theory. Certain aspects of this response are universal, for example, a direct relation between the linear and second-order nonlinear optical conductivities. Discovery of this relation enriches our understanding of the light-matter interaction in diverse electron systems and new materials such as graphene. Subsequently, I study the properties of the charged collective modes, the plasmons and demons in 2D Dirac fluids, e.g., the electron-hole system in graphene. Under non-equilibrium situation, the amplitudes of these collective modes could possibly grow due to an effect of adiabatic amplification. I also present our study of the hyperbolic polaritons, the EM modes in hyperbolic materials. When confined in cavities, they develop isolated eigen modes which could be efficiently predicted by applying semi-classical quantization rules to fictitious particles. We demonstrate this Hamiltonian Optics analytically for cavities of spheroidal shapes, and predict novel geometric patterns of the electric field distribution due to classical periodic orbits.

Light-matter interaction in the strong coupling regime: configurations, conditions, and applications.

PubMed

Dovzhenko, D S; Ryabchuk, S V; Rakovich, Yu P; Nabiev, I R

2018-02-22

Resonance interaction between a molecular transition and a confined electromagnetic field can reach the coupling regime where coherent exchange of energy between light and matter becomes reversible. In this case, two new hybrid states separated in energy are formed instead of independent eigenstates, which is known as Rabi splitting. This modification of the energy spectra of the system offers new possibilities for controlled impact on various fundamental properties of coupled matter (such as the rate of chemical reactions and the conductivity of organic semiconductors). To date, the strong coupling regime has been demonstrated in many configurations under different ambient conditions. However, there is still no comprehensive approach to determining parameters for achieving the strong coupling regime for a wide range of practical applications. In this review, a detailed analysis of various systems and corresponding conditions for reaching strong coupling is carried out and their advantages and disadvantages, as well as the prospects for application, are considered. The review also summarizes recent experiments in which the strong coupling regime has led to new interesting results, such as the possibility of collective strong coupling between X-rays and matter excitation in a periodic array of Fe isotopes, which extends the applications of quantum optics; a strong amplification of the Raman scattering signal from a coupled system, which can be used in surface-enhanced and tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy; and more efficient second-harmonic generation from the low polaritonic state, which is promising for nonlinear optics. The results reviewed demonstrate great potential for further practical applications of strong coupling in the fields of photonics (low-threshold lasers), quantum communications (switches), and biophysics (molecular fingerprinting).

Updated constraints on the dark matter interpretation of CDMS-II-Si data

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Witte, Samuel J.; Gelmini, Graciela B., E-mail: switte@physics.ucla.edu, E-mail: gelmini@physics.ucla.edu

2017-05-01

We present an updated halo-dependent and halo-independent analysis of viable light WIMP dark matter candidates which could account for the excess observed in CDMS-II-Si. We include recent constraints from LUX, PandaX-II, and PICO-60, as well as projected sensitivities for XENON1T, SuperCDMS SNOLAB, LZ, DARWIN, DarkSide-20k, and PICO-250, on candidates with spin-independent isospin conserving and isospin-violating interactions, and either elastic or exothermic scattering. We show that there exist dark matter candidates which can explain the CDMS-II-Si data and remain very marginally consistent with the null results of all current experiments, however such models are highly tuned, making a dark matter interpretationmore » of CDMS-II-Si very unlikely. We find that these models can only be ruled out in the future by an experiment comparable to LZ or PICO-250.« less

A Low Nuclear Recoil Energy Threshold for Dark Matter Search with CRESST-III Detectors

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mancuso, M.; Angloher, G.; Bauer, P.; Bento, A.; Bucci, C.; Canonica, L.; D'Addabbo, A.; Defay, X.; Erb, A.; von Feilitzsch, Franz; Ferreiro Iachellini, N.; Gorla, P.; Gütlein, A.; Hauff, D.; Jochum, J.; Kiefer, M.; Kluck, H.; Kraus, H.; Lanfranchi, J. C.; Langenkämper, A.; Loebell, J.; Mondragon, E.; Münster, A.; Pagliarone, C.; Petricca, F.; Potzel, W.; Pröbst, F.; Puig, R.; Reindl, F.; Rothe, J.; Schäffner, K.; Schieck, J.; Schipperges, V.; Schönert, S.; Seidel, W.; Stahlberg, M.; Stodolsky, L.; Strandhagen, C.; Strauss, R.; Tanzke, A.; Thi, H. H. Trinh; Türkoglu, C.; Uffinger, M.; Ulrich, A.; Usherov, I.; Wawoczny, S.; Willers, M.; Wüstrich, M.

2018-05-01

The CRESST-III experiment (Cryogenic Rare Events Search with Superconducting Thermometers), located at the underground facility Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso in Italy, uses scintillating CaWO_4 crystals as cryogenic calorimeters to search for direct dark matter interactions in detectors. A large part of the parameter space for spin-independent scattering off nuclei remains untested for dark matter particles with masses below a few GeV/c^2 , despite many naturally motivated theoretical models for light dark matter particles. The CRESST-III detectors are designed to achieve the performance required to probe the low-mass region of the parameter space with a sensitivity never reached before. In this paper, new results on the performance and an overview of the CRESST-III detectors will be presented, emphasizing the results about the low-energy threshold for nuclear recoil of CRESST-III Phase 1 which started collecting data in August 2016.

Direct optical measurement of the on-shot incoherent focal spot and intensity contrast on the OMEGA EP laser

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Dorrer, C.; Consentino, A.; Irwin, D.

Characterizing the prepulse temporal contrast of optical pulses is required to understand their interaction with matter. Light with relatively low intensity can interact with the target before the main high-intensity pulse. Estimating the intensity contrast, instead of the spatially averaged power contrast, is important to understand intensity-dependent laser–matter interactions. A direct optical approach to determining the on-shot intensity of the incoherent pedestal on an aberrated high-intensity laser system is presented. The spatially resolved focal spot of the incoherent pedestal preceding the main coherent pulse and the intensity contrast are calculated using experimental data. Furthermore, this technique is experimentally validated onmore » one of the chirped pulse amplification beamlines of the OMEGA EP Laser System. The intensity contrast of a 1-kJ, 10-ps laser pulse is shown to be ~10× higher than the power contrast because of the larger spatial extent of the incoherent focal spot relative to the coherent focal spot.« less

Direct optical measurement of the on-shot incoherent focal spot and intensity contrast on the OMEGA EP laser

DOE PAGES

Dorrer, C.; Consentino, A.; Irwin, D.

2016-05-18

Characterizing the prepulse temporal contrast of optical pulses is required to understand their interaction with matter. Light with relatively low intensity can interact with the target before the main high-intensity pulse. Estimating the intensity contrast, instead of the spatially averaged power contrast, is important to understand intensity-dependent laser–matter interactions. A direct optical approach to determining the on-shot intensity of the incoherent pedestal on an aberrated high-intensity laser system is presented. The spatially resolved focal spot of the incoherent pedestal preceding the main coherent pulse and the intensity contrast are calculated using experimental data. Furthermore, this technique is experimentally validated onmore » one of the chirped pulse amplification beamlines of the OMEGA EP Laser System. The intensity contrast of a 1-kJ, 10-ps laser pulse is shown to be ~10× higher than the power contrast because of the larger spatial extent of the incoherent focal spot relative to the coherent focal spot.« less

Hidden charged dark matter and chiral dark radiation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ko, P.; Nagata, Natsumi; Tang, Yong

2017-10-01

In the light of recent possible tensions in the Hubble constant H0 and the structure growth rate σ8 between the Planck and other measurements, we investigate a hidden-charged dark matter (DM) model where DM interacts with hidden chiral fermions, which are charged under the hidden SU(N) and U(1) gauge interactions. The symmetries in this model assure these fermions to be massless. The DM in this model, which is a Dirac fermion and singlet under the hidden SU(N), is also assumed to be charged under the U(1) gauge symmetry, through which it can interact with the chiral fermions. Below the confinement scale of SU(N), the hidden quark condensate spontaneously breaks the U(1) gauge symmetry such that there remains a discrete symmetry, which accounts for the stability of DM. This condensate also breaks a flavor symmetry in this model and Nambu-Goldstone bosons associated with this flavor symmetry appear below the confinement scale. The hidden U(1) gauge boson and hidden quarks/Nambu-Goldstone bosons are components of dark radiation (DR) above/below the confinement scale. These light fields increase the effective number of neutrinos by δNeff ≃ 0.59 above the confinement scale for N = 2, resolving the tension in the measurements of the Hubble constant by Planck and Hubble Space Telescope if the confinement scale is ≲1 eV. DM and DR continuously scatter with each other via the hidden U(1) gauge interaction, which suppresses the matter power spectrum and results in a smaller structure growth rate. The DM sector couples to the Standard Model sector through the exchange of a real singlet scalar mixing with the Higgs boson, which makes it possible to probe our model in DM direct detection experiments. Variants of this model are also discussed, which may offer alternative ways to investigate this scenario.

Scalar, Axial, and Tensor Interactions of Light Nuclei from Lattice QCD

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chang, Emmanuel; Davoudi, Zohreh; Detmold, William; Gambhir, Arjun S.; Orginos, Kostas; Savage, Martin J.; Shanahan, Phiala E.; Wagman, Michael L.; Winter, Frank; Nplqcd Collaboration

2018-04-01

Complete flavor decompositions of the matrix elements of the scalar, axial, and tensor currents in the proton, deuteron, diproton, and 3He at SU(3)-symmetric values of the quark masses corresponding to a pion mass mπ˜806 MeV are determined using lattice quantum chromodynamics. At the physical quark masses, the scalar interactions constrain mean-field models of nuclei and the low-energy interactions of nuclei with potential dark matter candidates. The axial and tensor interactions of nuclei constrain their spin content, integrated transversity, and the quark contributions to their electric dipole moments. External fields are used to directly access the quark-line connected matrix elements of quark bilinear operators, and a combination of stochastic estimation techniques is used to determine the disconnected sea-quark contributions. The calculated matrix elements differ from, and are typically smaller than, naive single-nucleon estimates. Given the particularly large, O (10 %), size of nuclear effects in the scalar matrix elements, contributions from correlated multinucleon effects should be quantified in the analysis of dark matter direct-detection experiments using nuclear targets.

Scalar, Axial, and Tensor Interactions of Light Nuclei from Lattice QCD

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Chang, Emmanuel; Davoudi, Zohreh; Detmold, William

Complete flavor decompositions of the matrix elements of the scalar, axial, and tensor currents in the proton, deuteron, diproton, and 3He at SU(3)-symmetric values of the quark masses corresponding to a pion mass m π~806 MeV are determined using lattice quantum chromodynamics. At the physical quark masses, the scalar interactions constrain mean-field models of nuclei and the low-energy interactions of nuclei with potential dark matter candidates. The axial and tensor interactions of nuclei constrain their spin content, integrated transversity, and the quark contributions to their electric dipole moments. External fields are used to directly access the quark-line connected matrix elementsmore » of quark bilinear operators, and a combination of stochastic estimation techniques is used to determine the disconnected sea-quark contributions. The calculated matrix elements differ from, and are typically smaller than, naive single-nucleon estimates. Given the particularly large, O(10%), size of nuclear effects in the scalar matrix elements, contributions from correlated multinucleon effects should be quantified in the analysis of dark matter direct-detection experiments using nuclear targets.« less

Scalar, Axial, and Tensor Interactions of Light Nuclei from Lattice QCD

DOE PAGES

Chang, Emmanuel; Davoudi, Zohreh; Detmold, William; ...

2018-04-13

Complete flavor decompositions of the matrix elements of the scalar, axial, and tensor currents in the proton, deuteron, diproton, and 3He at SU(3)-symmetric values of the quark masses corresponding to a pion mass m π~806 MeV are determined using lattice quantum chromodynamics. At the physical quark masses, the scalar interactions constrain mean-field models of nuclei and the low-energy interactions of nuclei with potential dark matter candidates. The axial and tensor interactions of nuclei constrain their spin content, integrated transversity, and the quark contributions to their electric dipole moments. External fields are used to directly access the quark-line connected matrix elementsmore » of quark bilinear operators, and a combination of stochastic estimation techniques is used to determine the disconnected sea-quark contributions. The calculated matrix elements differ from, and are typically smaller than, naive single-nucleon estimates. Given the particularly large, O(10%), size of nuclear effects in the scalar matrix elements, contributions from correlated multinucleon effects should be quantified in the analysis of dark matter direct-detection experiments using nuclear targets.« less

Scalar, Axial, and Tensor Interactions of Light Nuclei from Lattice QCD.

PubMed

Chang, Emmanuel; Davoudi, Zohreh; Detmold, William; Gambhir, Arjun S; Orginos, Kostas; Savage, Martin J; Shanahan, Phiala E; Wagman, Michael L; Winter, Frank

2018-04-13

Complete flavor decompositions of the matrix elements of the scalar, axial, and tensor currents in the proton, deuteron, diproton, and ^{3}He at SU(3)-symmetric values of the quark masses corresponding to a pion mass m_{π}∼806  MeV are determined using lattice quantum chromodynamics. At the physical quark masses, the scalar interactions constrain mean-field models of nuclei and the low-energy interactions of nuclei with potential dark matter candidates. The axial and tensor interactions of nuclei constrain their spin content, integrated transversity, and the quark contributions to their electric dipole moments. External fields are used to directly access the quark-line connected matrix elements of quark bilinear operators, and a combination of stochastic estimation techniques is used to determine the disconnected sea-quark contributions. The calculated matrix elements differ from, and are typically smaller than, naive single-nucleon estimates. Given the particularly large, O(10%), size of nuclear effects in the scalar matrix elements, contributions from correlated multinucleon effects should be quantified in the analysis of dark matter direct-detection experiments using nuclear targets.

Light scattering from an atomic gas under conditions of quantum degeneracy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Porozova, V. M.; Gerasimov, L. V.; Havey, M. D.; Kupriyanov, D. V.

2018-05-01

Elastic light scattering from a macroscopic atomic sample existing in the Bose-Einstein condensate phase reveals a unique physical configuration of interacting light and matter waves. However, the joint coherent dynamics of the optical excitation induced by an incident photon is influenced by the presence of incoherent scattering channels. For a sample of sufficient length the excitation transports as a polariton wave and the propagation Green's function obeys the scattering equation which we derive. The polariton dynamics could be tracked in the outgoing channel of the scattered photon as we show via numerical solution of the scattering equation for one-dimensional geometry. The results are analyzed and compared with predictions of the conventional macroscopic Maxwell theory for light scattering from a nondegenerate atomic sample of the same density and size.

The LZ Dark Matter Experiment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bernard, Ethan; LZ Collaboration

2013-10-01

Astrophysical and cosmological observations show that dark matter is concentrated in halos around galaxies and is approximately five times more abundant than baryonic matter. Dark matter has evaded direct detection despite a series of increasingly sensitive experiments. The LZ (LUX-ZEPLIN) experiment will use a two-phase liquid-xenon time projection chamber to search for elastic scattering of xenon nuclei by WIMP (weakly interactive massive particle) dark matter. The detector will contain seven tons of liquid xenon shielded by an active organic scintillator veto and a water tank within the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) in Lead, South Dakota. The LZ detector scales up the demonstrated light-sensing, cryogenic, radiopurity and shielding technologies of the LUX experiment. Active shielding, position fiducialization, radiopurity control and signal discrimination will reduce backgrounds to levels subdominant to solar neutrino scattering. This experiment will reach a sensitivity to the WIMP-nucleon spin-independent cross section approaching ~ 2 .10-48 cm2 for a 50 GeV WIMP mass, which is about three orders of magnitude smaller than current limits.

Axino LSP baryogenesis and dark matter

DOE PAGES

Monteux, Angelo; Shin, Chang Sub

2015-05-01

We discuss a new mechanism for baryogenesis, in which the baryon asymmetry is generated by the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP) decay via baryonic R-parity-violating interactions. As a specific example, we use a supersymmetric axion model with an axino LSP. This scenario predicts large R-parity violation for the stop, and an upper limit on the squark masses between 15 and 130 TeV, for different choices of the Peccei-Quinn scale and the soft Xt terms. We discuss the implications for the nature of dark matter in light of the axino baryogenesis mechanism, and find that both the axion and a metastable gravitinomore » can provide the correct dark matter density. In the axion dark matter scenario, the initial misalignment angle is restricted to be Script O(1). On the other hand, the reheating temperature is linked to the PQ scale and should be higher than 104-105 GeV in the gravitino dark matter scenario.« less

Supersymmetric model for dark matter and baryogenesis motivated by the recent CDMS result.

PubMed

Allahverdi, Rouzbeh; Dutta, Bhaskar; Mohapatra, Rabindra N; Sinha, Kuver

2013-08-02

We discuss a supersymmetric model for cogenesis of dark and baryonic matter where the dark matter (DM) has mass in the 8-10 GeV range as indicated by several direct detection searches, including most recently the CDMS experiment with the desired cross section. The DM candidate is a real scalar field. Two key distinguishing features of the model are the following: (i) in contrast with the conventional weakly interacting massive particle dark matter scenarios where thermal freeze-out is responsible for the observed relic density, our model uses nonthermal production of dark matter after reheating of the Universe caused by moduli decay at temperatures below the QCD phase transition, a feature which alleviates the relic overabundance problem caused by small annihilation cross section of light DM particles and (ii) baryogenesis occurs also at similar low temperatures from the decay of TeV scale mediator particles arising from moduli decay. A possible test of this model is the existence of colored particles with TeV masses accessible at the LHC.

Theory of Maxwell's fish eye with mutually interacting sources and drains

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Leonhardt, Ulf; Sahebdivan, Sahar

2015-11-01

Maxwell's fish eye is predicted to image with a resolution not limited by the wavelength of light. However, interactions between sources and drains may ruin the subwavelength imaging capabilities of this and similar absolute optical instruments. Nevertheless, as we show in this paper, at resonance frequencies of the device, an array of drains may resolve a single source, or alternatively, a single drain may scan an array of sources, no matter how narrowly spaced they are. It seems that near-field information can be obtained from far-field distances.

An experimental study of antireflective coatings in Ge light detectors for scintillating bolometers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mancuso, M.; Beeman, J. W.; Giuliani, A.; Dumoulin, L.; Olivieri, E.; Pessina, G.; Plantevin, O.; Rusconi, C.; Tenconi, M.

2014-01-01

Luminescent bolometers are double-readout devices able to measure simultaneously the phonon and the light yields after a particle interaction in the detector. This operation allows in some cases to tag the type of the interacting quantum, crucial issue for background control in rare event experiments such as the search for neutrinoless double beta decay and for interactions of particle dark matter candidates. The light detectors used in the LUCIFER and LUMINEU searches (projects aiming at the study of the double beta interesting candidates 82Se and 100Mo using ZnSe and ZnMoO4 scintillating bolometers) consist of hyper-pure Ge thin slabs equipped with NTD thermistors. A substantial sensitivity improvement of the Ge light detectors can be obtained applying a proper anti-reflective coatings on the Ge side exposed to the luminescent bolometer. The present paper deals with the investigation of this aspect, proving and quantifying the positive effect of a SiO2 and a SiO coating and setting the experimental bases for future tests of other coating materials. The results confirm that an appropriate coating procedure helps in improving the sensitivity of bolometric light detectors by an important factor (in the range 20% - 35%) and needs to be included in the recipe for the development of an optimized radio-pure scintillating bolometer.

Two-photon spectroscopy of excitons with entangled photons.

PubMed

Schlawin, Frank; Mukamel, Shaul

2013-12-28

The utility of quantum light as a spectroscopic tool is demonstrated for frequency-dispersed pump-probe, integrated pump-probe, and two-photon fluorescence signals which show Ramsey fringes. Simulations of the frequency-dispersed transmission of a broadband pulse of entangled photons interacting with a three-level model of matter reveal how the non-classical time-bandwidth properties of entangled photons can be used to disentangle congested spectra, and reveal otherwise unresolved features. Quantum light effects are most pronounced at weak intensities when entangled photon pairs are well separated, and are gradually diminished at higher intensities when different photon pairs overlap.

Controllable gaussian-qubit interface for extremal quantum state engineering.

PubMed

Adesso, Gerardo; Campbell, Steve; Illuminati, Fabrizio; Paternostro, Mauro

2010-06-18

We study state engineering through bilinear interactions between two remote qubits and two-mode gaussian light fields. The attainable two-qubit states span the entire physically allowed region in the entanglement-versus-global-purity plane. Two-mode gaussian states with maximal entanglement at fixed global and marginal entropies produce maximally entangled two-qubit states in the corresponding entropic diagram. We show that a small set of parameters characterizing extremally entangled two-mode gaussian states is sufficient to control the engineering of extremally entangled two-qubit states, which can be realized in realistic matter-light scenarios.

Two-photon spectroscopy of excitons with entangled photons

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Schlawin, Frank, E-mail: Frank.Schlawin@physik.uni-freiburg.de; Physikalisches Institut, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Hermann-Herder-Straße 3, 79108 Freiburg; Mukamel, Shaul, E-mail: smukamel@uci.edu

The utility of quantum light as a spectroscopic tool is demonstrated for frequency-dispersed pump-probe, integrated pump-probe, and two-photon fluorescence signals which show Ramsey fringes. Simulations of the frequency-dispersed transmission of a broadband pulse of entangled photons interacting with a three-level model of matter reveal how the non-classical time-bandwidth properties of entangled photons can be used to disentangle congested spectra, and reveal otherwise unresolved features. Quantum light effects are most pronounced at weak intensities when entangled photon pairs are well separated, and are gradually diminished at higher intensities when different photon pairs overlap.

Emergence of transverse spin in optical modes of semiconductor nanowires

DOE PAGES

Alizadeh, M. H.; Reinhard, Bjorn M.

2016-04-11

The transverse spin angular momentum of light has recently received tremendous attention as it adds a new degree of freedom for controlling light-matter interactions. In this work we demonstrate the generation of transverse spin angular momentum by the weakly-guided mode of semiconductor nanowires. The evanescent field of these modes in combination with the transversality condition rigorously accounts for the occurrence of transverse spin angular momentum. Furthermore, the intriguing and nontrivial spin properties of optical modes in semiconductor nanowires are of high interest for a broad range of new applications including chiral optical trapping, quantum information processing, and nanophotonic circuitry.

Analysis of dark matter axion clumps with spherical symmetry

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schiappacasse, Enrico D.; Hertzberg, Mark P.

2018-01-01

Recently there has been much interest in the spatial distribution of light scalar dark matter, especially axions, throughout the universe. When the local gravitational interactions between the scalar modes are sufficiently rapid, it can cause the field to re-organize into a BEC of gravitationally bound clumps. While these clumps are stable when only gravitation is included, the picture is complicated by the presence of the axion's attractive self-interactions, which can potentially cause the clumps to collapse. Here we perform a detailed stability analysis to determine under what conditions the clumps are stable. In this paper we focus on spherical configurations, leaving aspherical configurations for future work. We identify branches of clump solutions of the axion-gravity-self-interacting system and study their stability properties. We find that clumps that are (spatially) large are stable, while clumps that are (spatially) small are unstable and may collapse. Furthermore, there is a maximum number of particles that can be in a clump. We map out the full space of solutions, which includes quasi-stable axitons, and clarify how a recent claim in the literature of a new ultra-dense branch of stable solutions rests on an invalid use of the non-relativistic approximation. We also consider repulsive self-interactions that may arise from a generic scalar dark matter candidate, finding a single stable branch that extends to arbitrary particle number.

Tritium calibration of the LUX dark matter experiment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Akerib, D. S.; Araújo, H. M.; Bai, X.; Bailey, A. J.; Balajthy, J.; Beltrame, P.; Bernard, E. P.; Bernstein, A.; Biesiadzinski, T. P.; Boulton, E. M.; Bradley, A.; Bramante, R.; Cahn, S. B.; Carmona-Benitez, M. C.; Chan, C.; Chapman, J. J.; Chiller, A. A.; Chiller, C.; Currie, A.; Cutter, J. E.; Davison, T. J. R.; de Viveiros, L.; Dobi, A.; Dobson, J. E. Y.; Druszkiewicz, E.; Edwards, B. N.; Faham, C. H.; Fiorucci, S.; Gaitskell, R. J.; Gehman, V. M.; Ghag, C.; Gibson, K. R.; Gilchriese, M. G. D.; Hall, C. R.; Hanhardt, M.; Haselschwardt, S. J.; Hertel, S. A.; Hogan, D. P.; Horn, M.; Huang, D. Q.; Ignarra, C. M.; Ihm, M.; Jacobsen, R. G.; Ji, W.; Kazkaz, K.; Khaitan, D.; Knoche, R.; Larsen, N. A.; Lee, C.; Lenardo, B. G.; Lesko, K. T.; Lindote, A.; Lopes, M. I.; Malling, D. C.; Manalaysay, A. G.; Mannino, R. L.; Marzioni, M. F.; McKinsey, D. N.; Mei, D.-M.; Mock, J.; Moongweluwan, M.; Morad, J. A.; Murphy, A. St. J.; Nehrkorn, C.; Nelson, H. N.; Neves, F.; O'Sullivan, K.; Oliver-Mallory, K. C.; Ott, R. A.; Palladino, K. J.; Pangilinan, M.; Pease, E. K.; Phelps, P.; Reichhart, L.; Rhyne, C.; Shaw, S.; Shutt, T. A.; Silva, C.; Solovov, V. N.; Sorensen, P.; Stephenson, S.; Sumner, T. J.; Szydagis, M.; Taylor, D. J.; Taylor, W.; Tennyson, B. P.; Terman, P. A.; Tiedt, D. R.; To, W. H.; Tripathi, M.; Tvrznikova, L.; Uvarov, S.; Verbus, J. R.; Webb, R. C.; White, J. T.; Whitis, T. J.; Witherell, M. S.; Wolfs, F. L. H.; Young, S. K.; Zhang, C.; LUX Collaboration

2016-04-01

We present measurements of the electron-recoil (ER) response of the LUX dark matter detector based upon 170 000 highly pure and spatially uniform tritium decays. We reconstruct the tritium energy spectrum using the combined energy model and find good agreement with expectations. We report the average charge and light yields of ER events in liquid xenon at 180 and 105 V /cm and compare the results to the NEST model. We also measure the mean charge recombination fraction and its fluctuations, and we investigate the location and width of the LUX ER band. These results provide input to a reanalysis of the LUX run 3 weakly interacting massive particle search.

A slow neutron polarimeter for the measurement of parity-odd neutron rotary power.

PubMed

Snow, W M; Anderson, E; Barrón-Palos, L; Bass, C D; Bass, T D; Crawford, B E; Crawford, C; Dawkins, J M; Esposito, D; Fry, J; Gardiner, H; Gan, K; Haddock, C; Heckel, B R; Holley, A T; Horton, J C; Huffer, C; Lieffers, J; Luo, D; Maldonado-Velázquez, M; Markoff, D M; Micherdzinska, A M; Mumm, H P; Nico, J S; Sarsour, M; Santra, S; Sharapov, E I; Swanson, H E; Walbridge, S B; Zhumabekova, V

2015-05-01

We present the design, description, calibration procedure, and an analysis of systematic effects for an apparatus designed to measure the rotation of the plane of polarization of a transversely polarized slow neutron beam as it passes through unpolarized matter. This device is the neutron optical equivalent of a crossed polarizer/analyzer pair familiar from light optics. This apparatus has been used to search for parity violation in the interaction of polarized slow neutrons in matter. Given the brightness of existing slow neutron sources, this apparatus is capable of measuring a neutron rotary power of dϕ/dz = 1 × 10(-7) rad/m.

Ytterbium-doped fiber laser passively mode locked by few-layer Molybdenum Disulfide (MoS2) saturable absorber functioned with evanescent field interaction

PubMed Central

Du, Juan; Wang, Qingkai; Jiang, Guobao; Xu, Changwen; Zhao, Chujun; Xiang, Yuanjiang; Chen, Yu; Wen, Shuangchun; Zhang, Han

2014-01-01

By coupling few-layer Molybdenum Disulfide (MoS2) with fiber-taper evanescent light field, a new type of MoS2 based nonlinear optical modulating element had been successfully fabricated as a two-dimensional layered saturable absorber with strong light-matter interaction. This MoS2-taper-fiber device is not only capable of passively mode-locking an all-normal-dispersion ytterbium-doped fiber laser and enduring high power laser excitation (up to 1 W), but also functions as a polarization sensitive optical modulating component (that is, different polarized light can induce different nonlinear optical response). Thanks to the combined advantages from the strong nonlinear optical response in MoS2 together with the sufficiently-long-range interaction between light and MoS2, this device allows for the generation of high power stable dissipative solitons at 1042.6 nm with pulse duration of 656 ps and a repetition rate of 6.74 MHz at a pump power of 210 mW. Our work may also constitute the first example of MoS2-enabled wave-guiding photonic device, and potentially give some new insights into two-dimensional layered materials related photonics. PMID:25213108

Non-thermal damage to lead tungstate induced by intense short-wavelength laser radiation (Conference Presentation)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vozda, Vojtech; Boháček, Pavel; Burian, Tomáš; Chalupský, Jaromir; Hájková, Vera; Juha, Libor; Vyšín, Ludek; Gaudin, Jérôme; Heimann, Philip A.; Hau-Riege, Stefan P.; Jurek, Marek; Klinger, Dorota; Krzywinski, Jacek; Messerschmidt, Marc; Moeller, Stefan P.; Nagler, Robert; Pelka, Jerzy B.; Rowen, Michael; Schlotter, William F.; Swiggers, Michele L.; Sinn, Harald; Sobierajski, Ryszard; Tiedtke, Kai; Toleikis, Sven; Tschentscher, Thomas; Turner, Joshua J.; Wabnitz, Hubertus; Nelson, Art J.; Kozlova, Maria V.; Vinko, Sam M.; Whitcher, Thomas; Dzelzainis, Thomas; Renner, Oldrich; Saksl, Karel; Fäustlin, Roland R.; Khorsand, Ali R.; Fajardo, Marta; Iwan, Bianca S.; Andreasson, Jakob; Hajdu, Janos; Timneanu, Nicusor; Wark, Justin S.; Riley, David; Lee, Richard W.; Nagasono, Mitsuru; Yabashi, Makina

2017-05-01

Interaction of short-wavelength free-electron laser (FEL) beams with matter is undoubtedly a subject to extensive investigation in last decade. During the interaction various exotic states of matter, such as warm dense matter, may exist for a split second. Prior to irreversible damage or ablative removal of the target material, complicated electronic processes at the atomic level occur. As energetic photons impact the target, electrons from inner atomic shells are almost instantly photo-ionized, which may, in some special cases, cause bond weakening, even breaking of the covalent bonds, subsequently result to so-called non-thermal melting. The subject of our research is ablative damage to lead tungstate (PbWO4) induced by focused short-wavelength FEL pulses at different photon energies. Post-mortem analysis of complex damage patterns using the Raman spectroscopy, atomic-force (AFM) and Nomarski (DIC) microscopy confirms an existence of non-thermal melting induced by high-energy photons in the ionic monocrystalline target. Results obtained at Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), Free-electron in Hamburg (FLASH), and SPring-8 Compact SASE Source (SCSS) are presented in this Paper.

Evolution of light domain walls interacting with dark matter, part 1

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Massarotti, Alessandro

1990-01-01

The evolution of domain walls generated in the early Universe is discussed considering an interaction between the walls and a major gaseous component of the dark matter. The walls are supposed able to reflect the particles elastically and with a reflection coefficient of unity. A toy Lagrangian that could give rise to such a phenomenon is discussed. In the simple model studied, highly non-relativistic and slowly varying speeds are obtained for the domain walls (approximately 10 (exp -2)(1+z)(exp -1)) and negligible distortions of the microwave background. In addition, these topological defects may provide a mechanism of forming the large scale structure of the Universe, by creating fluctuations in the dark matter (delta rho/rho approximately O(1)) on a scale comparable with the distance the walls move from the formation (in the model d less than 20 h(exp -1) Mpc). The characteristic scale of the wall separation can be easily chosen to be of the order of 100 Mpc instead of being restricted to the horizon scale, as usually obtained.

On wave dark matter in spiral and barred galaxies

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Martinez-Medina, Luis A.; Matos, Tonatiuh; Bray, Hubert L., E-mail: lmedina@fis.cinvestav.mx, E-mail: bray@math.duke.edu, E-mail: tmatos@fis.cinvestav.mx

2015-12-01

We recover spiral and barred spiral patterns in disk galaxy simulations with a Wave Dark Matter (WDM) background (also known as Scalar Field Dark Matter (SFDM), Ultra-Light Axion (ULA) dark matter, and Bose-Einstein Condensate (BEC) dark matter). Here we show how the interaction between a baryonic disk and its Dark Matter Halo triggers the formation of spiral structures when the halo is allowed to have a triaxial shape and angular momentum. This is a more realistic picture within the WDM model since a non-spherical rotating halo seems to be more natural. By performing hydrodynamic simulations, along with earlier test particlesmore » simulations, we demonstrate another important way in which wave dark matter is consistent with observations. The common existence of bars in these simulations is particularly noteworthy. This may have consequences when trying to obtain information about the dark matter distribution in a galaxy, the mere presence of spiral arms or a bar usually indicates that baryonic matter dominates the central region and therefore observations, like rotation curves, may not tell us what the DM distribution is at the halo center. But here we show that spiral arms and bars can develop in DM dominated galaxies with a central density core without supposing its origin on mechanisms intrinsic to the baryonic matter.« less

Sparse Reconstruction of the Merging A520 Cluster System

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Peel, Austin; Lanusse, François; Starck, Jean-Luc, E-mail: austin.peel@cea.fr

2017-09-20

Merging galaxy clusters present a unique opportunity to study the properties of dark matter in an astrophysical context. These are rare and extreme cosmic events in which the bulk of the baryonic matter becomes displaced from the dark matter halos of the colliding subclusters. Since all mass bends light, weak gravitational lensing is a primary tool to study the total mass distribution in such systems. Combined with X-ray and optical analyses, mass maps of cluster mergers reconstructed from weak-lensing observations have been used to constrain the self-interaction cross-section of dark matter. The dynamically complex Abell 520 (A520) cluster is anmore » exceptional case, even among merging systems: multi-wavelength observations have revealed a surprising high mass-to-light concentration of dark mass, the interpretation of which is difficult under the standard assumption of effectively collisionless dark matter. We revisit A520 using a new sparsity-based mass-mapping algorithm to independently assess the presence of the puzzling dark core. We obtain high-resolution mass reconstructions from two separate galaxy shape catalogs derived from Hubble Space Telescope observations of the system. Our mass maps agree well overall with the results of previous studies, but we find important differences. In particular, although we are able to identify the dark core at a certain level in both data sets, it is at much lower significance than has been reported before using the same data. As we cannot confirm the detection in our analysis, we do not consider A520 as posing a significant challenge to the collisionless dark matter scenario.« less

Spin-dependent constraints on blind spots for thermal singlino-higgsino dark matter with(out) light singlets

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Badziak, Marcin; Olechowski, Marek; Szczerbiak, Paweł

The LUX experiment has recently set very strong constraints on spin-independent interactions of WIMP with nuclei. These null results can be accommodated in NMSSM provided that the effective spin-independent coupling of the LSP to nucleons is suppressed. Here, we investigate thermal relic abundance of singlino-higgsino LSP in these so-called spin-independent blind spots and derive current constraints and prospects for direct detection of spin-dependent interactions of the LSP with nuclei providing strong constraints on parameter space. We show that if the Higgs boson is the only light scalar the new LUX constraints set a lower bound on the LSP mass of about 300 GeV except for a small range around the half of Z 0 boson masses where resonant annihilation via Z 0 exchange dominates. XENON1T will probe entire range of LSP masses except for a tiny Z 0-resonant region that may be tested by the LZ experiment. These conclusions apply to general singlet-doublet dark matter annihilating dominantly tomore » $$t\\bar{t}$$. Presence of light singlet (pseudo)scalars generically relaxes the constraints because new LSP (resonant and non-resonant) annihilation channels become important. Even away from resonant regions, the lower limit on the LSP mass from LUX is relaxed to about 250 GeV while XENON1T may not be sensitive to the LSP masses above about 400 GeV.« less

Spin-dependent constraints on blind spots for thermal singlino-higgsino dark matter with(out) light singlets

DOE PAGES

Badziak, Marcin; Olechowski, Marek; Szczerbiak, Paweł

2017-07-11

The LUX experiment has recently set very strong constraints on spin-independent interactions of WIMP with nuclei. These null results can be accommodated in NMSSM provided that the effective spin-independent coupling of the LSP to nucleons is suppressed. Here, we investigate thermal relic abundance of singlino-higgsino LSP in these so-called spin-independent blind spots and derive current constraints and prospects for direct detection of spin-dependent interactions of the LSP with nuclei providing strong constraints on parameter space. We show that if the Higgs boson is the only light scalar the new LUX constraints set a lower bound on the LSP mass of about 300 GeV except for a small range around the half of Z 0 boson masses where resonant annihilation via Z 0 exchange dominates. XENON1T will probe entire range of LSP masses except for a tiny Z 0-resonant region that may be tested by the LZ experiment. These conclusions apply to general singlet-doublet dark matter annihilating dominantly tomore » $$t\\bar{t}$$. Presence of light singlet (pseudo)scalars generically relaxes the constraints because new LSP (resonant and non-resonant) annihilation channels become important. Even away from resonant regions, the lower limit on the LSP mass from LUX is relaxed to about 250 GeV while XENON1T may not be sensitive to the LSP masses above about 400 GeV.« less

Ocean Color Data at the Goddard DAAC

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1999-01-01

The apparent color of the ocean is determined by the interactions of incident light with substances or particles present in the water. The most significant constituents are free-floating photosynthetic organisms (phytoplankton) and inorganic particulates. Phytoplankton contain chlorophyll, which absorbs light at blue and red wavelengths and transmits in the green. Particulate matter can reflect and absorb light, which reduces the clarity (light transmission) of the water. Substances dissolved in water can also affect its color. Observations of ocean color from space, utilizing sensors specially designed to detect the small amount of light radiating from the sea surface, provide a global picture of the patterns of biological productivity in the world's oceans. For that reason, ocean color remote sensing data is a vital resource for biological oceanography. Unlike the limited area of the ocean that can be investigated from a research ship, data from a satellite sensor covers a large region and provides a comprehensive view of the marine environment.

Moth eye-inspired anti-reflective surfaces for improved IR optical systems & visible LEDs fabricated with colloidal lithography and etching.

PubMed

Chan, Lesley W; Morse, Daniel E; Gordon, Michael J

2018-05-08

Near- and sub-wavelength photonic structures are used by numerous organisms (e.g. insects, cephalopods, fish, birds) to create vivid and often dynamically-tunable colors, as well as create, manipulate, or capture light for vision, communication, crypsis, photosynthesis, and defense. This review introduces the physics of moth eye (ME)-like, biomimetic nanostructures and discusses their application to reduce optical losses and improve efficiency of various optoelectronic devices, including photodetectors, photovoltaics, imagers, and light emitting diodes. Light-matter interactions at structured and heterogeneous surfaces over different length scales are discussed, as are the various methods used to create ME-inspired surfaces. Special interest is placed on a simple, scalable, and tunable method, namely colloidal lithography with plasma dry etching, to fabricate ME-inspired nanostructures in a vast suite of materials. Anti-reflective surfaces and coatings for IR devices and enhancing light extraction from visible light emitting diodes are highlighted.

Pair interactions of heavy vortices in quantum fluids

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pshenichnyuk, Ivan A.

2018-02-01

The dynamics of quantum vortex pairs carrying heavy doping matter trapped inside their cores is studied. The nonlinear classical matter field formalism is used to build a universal mathematical model of a heavy vortex applicable to different types of quantum mixtures. It is shown how the usual vortex dynamics typical for undoped pairs qualitatively changes when heavy dopants are used: heavy vortices with opposite topological charges (chiralities) attract each other, while vortices with the same charge are repelled. The force responsible for such behavior appears as a result of superposition of vortices velocity fields in the presence of doping substance and can be considered as a special realization of the Magnus effect. The force is evaluated quantitatively and its inverse proportionality to the distance is demonstrated. The mechanism described in this paper gives an example of how a light nonlinear classical field may realize repulsive and attractive interactions between embedded heavy impurities.

Dark interactions and cosmological fine-tuning

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Quartin, Miguel; Calvao, Mauricio O; Joras, Sergio E

2008-05-15

Cosmological models involving an interaction between dark matter and dark energy have been proposed in order to solve the so-called coincidence problem. Different forms of coupling have been studied, but there have been claims that observational data seem to narrow (some of) them down to something annoyingly close to the {Lambda}CDM (CDM: cold dark matter) model, thus greatly reducing their ability to deal with the problem in the first place. The smallness problem of the initial energy density of dark energy has also been a target of cosmological models in recent years. Making use of a moderately general coupling scheme,more » this paper aims to unite these different approaches and shed some light on whether this class of models has any true perspective in suppressing the aforementioned issues that plague our current understanding of the universe, in a quantitative and unambiguous way.« less

Exploring novel structures for manipulating relativistic laser-plasma interaction

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ji, Liangliang

2016-10-01

The prospect of realizing compact particle accelerators and x-ray sources based on high power lasers has gained numerous attention. Utilization of all the proposed schemes in the field requires the laser-matter-interaction process to be repeatable or moreover, controllable. This has been very challenging at ultra-high light intensities due to the pre-pulse issue and the limitation on target manufacturing. With recent development on pulse cleaning technique, such as XPW and the use of plasma mirror, we now propose a novel approach that leverages recent advancements in 3D nano-printing of materials and high contrast lasers to manipulate the laser-matter interactions on the micro-scales. The current 3D direct laser-writing (DLW) technique can produce repeatable structures with at a resolution as high as 100 nm. Based on 3D PIC simulations, we explored two typical structures, the micro-cylinder and micro-tube targets. The former serves to enhance and control laser-electron acceleration and the latter is dedicated to manipulate relativistic light intensity. First principle-of-proof experiments were carried out in the SCARLET laser facility and confirmed some of our predictions on enhancing direct laser acceleration of electrons and ion acceleration. We believe that the use of the micro-structured elements provides another degree of freedom in LPI and these new results will open new paths towards micro-engineering interaction process that will benefit high field science, laser-based proton therapy, near-QED physics, and relativistic nonlinear optics. This work is supported by the AFOSR Basic Research Initiative (FA9550-14-1-0085).

Study of dark matter and QCD-charged mediators in the quasidegenerate regime

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Davidson, Andrew; Kelso, Chris; Kumar, Jason; Sandick, Pearl; Stengel, Patrick

2017-12-01

We study a scenario in which the only light new particles are a Majorana fermion dark matter candidate and one or more QCD-charged scalars, which couple to light quarks. This scenario has several interesting phenomenological features if the new particles are nearly degenerate in mass. In particular, LHC searches for the light scalars have reduced sensitivity, since the visible and invisible products tend to be softer. Moreover, dark matter-scalar coannihilation can allow even relatively heavy dark matter candidates to be consistent thermal relics. Finally, the dark matter nucleon scattering cross section is enhanced in the quasidegenerate limit, allowing direct detection experiments to use both spin-independent and spin-dependent scattering to probe regions of parameter space beyond those probed by the LHC. Although this scenario has a broad application, we phrase this study in terms of the minimal supersymmetric standard model, in the limit where the only light sparticles are a binolike dark matter candidate and light-flavored squarks.

The interactive optical fiber fabrics for smart interior environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bai, Z. Q.; Dong, A. H.; Du, Z. Y.; Tan, J.

2017-10-01

Comparing to conventional textiles, interactive photonic textiles can emit light, present different colors, change the surface pattern and can interact with users. They are particularly suitable for decorative purpose. Home furniture is one possible application [1]. With attractive illumination and color effect, the photonic textiles can also be used in hotels, exhibition halls, restaurants and many other circumstances to enhance the interior environment. However, the functionality of the interactive photonic textile for interior purpose is still underdeveloped, since there are still sever challenges about how to improve the usability and functionality of the interactive textile. This project aims to study how to improve the interactive function of photonic textiles, which can enhance the well-being of the end-user. In the end, a color-changeable interactive cushion which can detect the main primary particulate matter (PM) 2.5 was developed.

The development of formative assessment probes for optics education

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dokter, Erin F. C.; Pompea, Stephen M.; Sparks, Robert T.; Walker, Constance E.

2010-08-01

Research exploring students' knowledge of optics from elementary through college has revealed that many concepts can be difficult for students to grasp. This can be the case particularly with fundamental concepts, such as the nature of light, how light interacts with matter, and how light behaves in optical systems. The use of formative assessment probes (low-stakes questions posed to students before instruction or in real-time in the classroom) can inform instructors about student background knowledge, and can also be used as they progress through learning in class. By understanding what students know prior to instruction, and how well they are learning in real-time, instruction can be designed and modified in order to encourage the development of scientifically-accurate knowledge.

Near unity ultraviolet absorption in graphene without patterning

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhu, Jinfeng; Yan, Shuang; Feng, Naixing; Ye, Longfang; Ou, Jun-Yu; Liu, Qing Huo

2018-04-01

Enhancing the light-matter interaction of graphene is an important issue for related photonic devices and applications. In view of its potential ultraviolet applications, we aim to achieve extremely high ultraviolet absorption in graphene without any nanostructure or microstructure patterning. By manipulating the polarization and angle of incident light, the ultraviolet power can be sufficiently coupled to the optical dissipation of graphene based on single-channel coherent perfect absorption in an optimized multilayered thin film structure. The ultraviolet absorbance ratios of single and four atomic graphene layers are enhanced up to 71.4% and 92.2%, respectively. Our research provides a simple and efficient scheme to trap ultraviolet light for developing promising photonic and optoelectronic devices based on graphene and potentially other 2D materials.

The national ignition facility and atomic data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Crandall, David H.

1998-07-01

The National Ignition Facility (NIF) is under construction, capping over 25 years of development of the inertial confinement fusion concept by providing the facility to obtain fusion ignition in the laboratory for the first time. The NIF is a 192 beam glass laser to provide energy controlled in space and time so that a millimeter-scale capsule containing deuterium and tritium can be compressed to fusion conditions. Light transport, conversion of light in frequency, interaction of light with matter in solid and plasma forms, and diagnostics of extreme material conditions on small scale all use atomic data in preparing for use of the NIF. The NIF will provide opportunity to make measurements of atomic data in extreme physical environments related to fusion energy, nuclear weapon detonation, and astrophysics. The first laser beams of NIF should be operational in 2001 and the full facility completed at the end of 2003. NIF is to provide 1.8 megajoule of blue light on fusion targets and is intended to achieve fusion ignition by about the end of 2007. Today's inertial fusion development activities use atomic data to design and predict fusion capsule performance and in non-fusion applications to analyze radiation transport and radiation effects on matter. Conditions investigated involve radiation temperature of hundreds of eV, pressures up to gigabars and time scales of femptoseconds.

Experimentally simulating the dynamics of quantum light and matter at ultrastrong coupling using circuit QED (1) - implementation and matter dynamics -

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kounalakis, M.; Langford, N. K.; Sagastizabal, R.; Dickel, C.; Bruno, A.; Luthi, F.; Thoen, D. J.; Endo, A.; Dicarlo, L.

The field dipole coupling of quantum light and matter, described by the quantum Rabi model, leads to exotic phenomena when the coupling strength g becomes comparable or larger than the atom and photon frequencies ωq , r. In this ultra-strong coupling regime, excitations are not conserved, leading to collapse-revival dynamics in atom and photon parity and Schrödinger-cat-like atom-photon entanglement. We realize a quantum simulation of the Rabi model using a transmon qubit coupled to a resonator. In this first part, we describe our analog-digital approach to implement up to 90 symmetric Trotter steps, combining single-qubit gates with the Jaynes-Cummings interaction naturally present in our circuit QED system. Controlling the phase of microwave pulses defines a rotating frame and enables simulation of arbitrary parameter regimes of the Rabi model. We demonstrate measurements of qubit parity dynamics showing revivals at g /ωr > 0 . 8 for ωq = 0 and characteristic dynamics for nondegenerate ωq from g / 4 to g. Funding from the EU FP7 Project ScaleQIT, an ERC Grant, the Dutch Research Organization NWO, and Microsoft Research.

Assembly of mesoscale helices with near-unity enantiomeric excess and light-matter interactions for chiral semiconductors

PubMed Central

Feng, Wenchun; Kim, Ji-Young; Wang, Xinzhi; Calcaterra, Heather A.; Qu, Zhibei; Meshi, Louisa; Kotov, Nicholas A.

2017-01-01

Semiconductors with chiral geometries at the nanoscale and mesoscale provide a rich materials platform for polarization optics, photocatalysis, and biomimetics. Unlike metallic and organic optical materials, the relationship between the geometry of chiral semiconductors and their chiroptical properties remains, however, vague. Homochiral ensembles of semiconductor helices with defined geometries open the road to understanding complex relationships between geometrical parameters and chiroptical properties of semiconductor materials. We show that semiconductor helices can be prepared with an absolute yield of ca 0.1% and an enantiomeric excess (e.e.) of 98% or above from cysteine-stabilized cadmium telluride nanoparticles (CdTe NPs) dispersed in methanol. This high e.e. for a spontaneously occurring chemical process is attributed to chiral self-sorting based on the thermodynamic preference of NPs to assemble with those of the same handedness. The dispersions of homochiral self-assembled helices display broadband visible and near-infrared (Vis-NIR) polarization rotation with anisotropy (g) factors approaching 0.01. Calculated circular dichroism (CD) spectra accurately reproduced experimental CD spectra and gave experimentally validated spectral predictions for different geometrical parameters enabling de novo design of chiroptical semiconductor materials. Unlike metallic, ceramic, and polymeric helices that serve predominantly as scatterers, chiroptical properties of semiconductor helices have nearly equal contribution of light absorption and scattering, which is essential for device-oriented, field-driven light modulation. Deconstruction of a helix into a series of nanorods provides a simple model for the light-matter interaction and chiroptical activity of helices. This study creates a framework for further development of polarization-based optics toward biomedical applications, telecommunications, and hyperspectral imaging. PMID:28275728

Quantum state detection and state preparation based on cavity-enhanced nonlinear interaction of atoms with single photon

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hosseini, Mahdi

Our ability to engineer quantum states of light and matter has significantly advanced over the past two decades, resulting in the production of both Gaussian and non-Gaussian optical states. The resulting tailored quantum states enable quantum technologies such as quantum optical communication, quantum sensing as well as quantum photonic computation. The strong nonlinear light-atom interaction is the key to deterministic quantum state preparation and quantum photonic processing. One route to enhancing the usually weak nonlinear light-atom interactions is to approach the regime of cavity quantum electrodynamics (cQED) interaction by means of high finesse optical resonators. I present results from the MIT experiment of large conditional cross-phase modulation between a signal photon, stored inside an atomic quantum memory, and a control photon that traverses a high-finesse optical cavity containing the atomic memory. I also present a scheme to probabilistically change the amplitude and phase of a signal photon qubit to, in principle, arbitrary values by postselection on a control photon that has interacted with that state. Notably, small changes of the control photon polarization measurement basis by few degrees can substantially change the amplitude and phase of the signal state. Finally, I present our ongoing effort at Purdue to realize similar peculiar quantum phenomena at the single photon level on chip scale photonic systems.

Revealing the subfemtosecond dynamics of orbital angular momentum in nanoplasmonic vortices

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Spektor, G.; Kilbane, D.; Mahro, A. K.; Frank, B.; Ristok, S.; Gal, L.; Kahl, P.; Podbiel, D.; Mathias, S.; Giessen, H.; Meyer zu Heringdorf, F.-J.; Orenstein, M.; Aeschlimann, M.

2017-03-01

The ability of light to carry and deliver orbital angular momentum (OAM) in the form of optical vortices has attracted much interest. The physical properties of light with a helical wavefront can be confined onto two-dimensional surfaces with subwavelength dimensions in the form of plasmonic vortices, opening avenues for thus far unknown light-matter interactions. Because of their extreme rotational velocity, the ultrafast dynamics of such vortices remained unexplored. Here we show the detailed spatiotemporal evolution of nanovortices using time-resolved two-photon photoemission electron microscopy. We observe both long- and short-range plasmonic vortices confined to deep subwavelength dimensions on the scale of 100 nanometers with nanometer spatial resolution and subfemtosecond time-step resolution. Finally, by measuring the angular velocity of the vortex, we directly extract the OAM magnitude of light.

Scattering of dark particles with light mediators

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Soper, Davison E.; Spannowsky, Michael; Wallace, Chris J.; Tait, Tim M. P.

2014-12-01

We present a treatment of the high energy scattering of dark Dirac fermions from nuclei, mediated by the exchange of a light vector boson. The dark fermions are produced by proton-nucleus interactions in a fixed target and, after traversing shielding that screens out strongly interacting products, appear similarly to neutrino neutral current scattering in a detector. Using the Fermilab experiment E613 as an example, we place limits on a secluded dark matter scenario. Visible scattering in the detector includes both the familiar regime of large momentum transfer to the nucleus (Q2) described by deeply inelastic scattering, as well as small Q2 kinematics described by the exchanged vector mediator fluctuating into a quark-antiquark pair whose interaction with the nucleus is described by a saturation model. We find that the improved description of the low Q2 scattering leads to important corrections, resulting in more robust constraints in a regime where a description entirely in terms of deeply inelastic scattering cannot be trusted.

Plasmonic photonic crystals realized through DNA-programmable assembly

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Park, Daniel J.; Zhang, Chuan; Ku, Jessie C.

Three-dimensional dielectric photonic crystals have well-established enhanced light-matter interactions via high Q factors. Their plasmonic counterparts based on arrays of nanoparticles, however, have not been experimentally well explored owing to a lack of available synthetic routes for preparing them. However, such structures should facilitate these interactions based on the small mode volumes associated with plasmonic polarization. Herein we report strong light-plasmon interactions within 3D plasmonic photonic crystals that have lattice constants and nanoparticle diameters that can be independently controlled in the deep subwavelength size regime by using a DNA-programmable assembly technique. The strong coupling within such crystals is probed withmore » backscattering spectra, and the mode splitting (0.10 and 0.24 eV) is defined based on dispersion diagrams. Numerical simulations predict that the crystal photonic modes (Fabry-Perot modes) can be enhanced by coating the crystals with a silver layer, achieving moderate Q factors (~102) over the visible and near-infrared spectrum.« less

Plasmonic photonic crystals realized through DNA-programmable assembly

DOE PAGES

Park, Daniel J.; Zhang, Chuan; Ku, Jessie C.; ...

2014-12-29

Three-dimensional dielectric photonic crystals have well-established enhanced light-matter interactions via high Q factors. Their plasmonic counterparts based on arrays of nanoparticles, however, have not been experimentally well explored owing to a lack of available synthetic routes for preparing them. However, such structures should facilitate these interactions based on the small mode volumes associated with plasmonic polarization. Herein we report strong light-plasmon interactions within 3D plasmonic photonic crystals that have lattice constants and nanoparticle diameters that can be independently controlled in the deep subwavelength size regime by using a DNA-programmable assembly technique. The strong coupling within such crystals is probed withmore » backscattering spectra, and the mode splitting (0.10 and 0.24 eV) is defined based on dispersion diagrams. Numerical simulations predict that the crystal photonic modes (Fabry-Perot modes) can be enhanced by coating the crystals with a silver layer, achieving moderate Q factors (~102) over the visible and near-infrared spectrum.« less

Plasmonic photonic crystals realized through DNA-programmable assembly.

PubMed

Park, Daniel J; Zhang, Chuan; Ku, Jessie C; Zhou, Yu; Schatz, George C; Mirkin, Chad A

2015-01-27

Three-dimensional dielectric photonic crystals have well-established enhanced light-matter interactions via high Q factors. Their plasmonic counterparts based on arrays of nanoparticles, however, have not been experimentally well explored owing to a lack of available synthetic routes for preparing them. However, such structures should facilitate these interactions based on the small mode volumes associated with plasmonic polarization. Herein we report strong light-plasmon interactions within 3D plasmonic photonic crystals that have lattice constants and nanoparticle diameters that can be independently controlled in the deep subwavelength size regime by using a DNA-programmable assembly technique. The strong coupling within such crystals is probed with backscattering spectra, and the mode splitting (0.10 and 0.24 eV) is defined based on dispersion diagrams. Numerical simulations predict that the crystal photonic modes (Fabry-Perot modes) can be enhanced by coating the crystals with a silver layer, achieving moderate Q factors (∼10(2)) over the visible and near-infrared spectrum.

Drugs as habitable planets in the space of dark chemical matter.

PubMed

Siramshetty, Vishal B; Preissner, Robert

2018-03-01

A recent study demonstrated antifungal activity of dark chemical matter (DCM) compounds that were otherwise inactive in more than 100 HTS assays. These compounds were proposed to possess unique activity and 'clean' safety profiles. Here, we present an outlook of the promiscuity and safety of these compounds by retrospectively comparing their chemical and biological spaces with those of drugs. Significant amounts of marketed drugs (16%), withdrawn drugs (16.5%) and natural compounds (3.5%) share structural identity with DCM. Compound promiscuity assessment indicates that dark matter compounds could potentially interact with multiple biological targets. Further, thousands of DCM compounds showed presence of frequent-hitting pan-assay interference compound (PAINS) substructures. In light of these observations, filtering these compounds from screening libraries can be an irrevocable loss. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Role of magnetic and diamagnetic interactions in molecular optics and scattering

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Forbes, Kayn A.

2018-05-01

This paper aims to explicitly clarify the role and interpretation of diamagnetic interactions between molecules and light in quantum electrodynamics. In contrast to their electric and magnetic counterparts, the diamagnetic couplings between light and matter have received relatively little interest in the field of molecular optics. This intriguing disregard of an interaction term is puzzling. The diamagnetic couplings possess unique physical properties that warrant their inclusion in any multiphoton process, and the lack of gauge invariance for paramagnetic and diamagnetic susceptibilities necessitates their inclusion. Their role and importance within nonrelativistic molecular quantum electrodynamics in the Coulomb gauge is illuminated, and it is highlighted how for any multiphoton process their inclusion should be implicit. As an indicative example of the theory presented, the diamagnetic contributions to both forward and nonforward Rayleigh scattering are derived and put into context alongside the electric and magnetic molecular responses. The work represents clarification of diamagnetic couplings in molecular quantum electrodynamics, which subsequently should proffer the study of diamagnetic interactions in molecular optics due to their unique physical attributes and necessary inclusion in multiphoton processes.

Observation and simulation of an optically driven micromotor

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Metzger, N. K.; Mazilu, M.; Kelemen, L.; Ormos, P.; Dholakia, K.

2011-04-01

In the realm of low Reynolds number flow there is a need to find methods to pump, move and mix minute amounts of analyte. Interestingly, micro-devices performing such actuation can be initiated by means of the light-matter interaction. Light induced forces and torques are exerted on such micro-objects, which are then driven by the optical gradient or scattering force. Here, different driving geometries can be realized to harness the light induced force. For example, the scattering force enables micro-gears to be operated in a tangential setup where the micromotor rotors are in line with an optical waveguide. The operational geometry we investigate has the advantage that it reduces the complexity of the driving of such a device in a microfluidic environment by delivering the actuating light by means of a waveguide or fiber optic. In this paper we explore the case of a micromotor being driven by a fiber optically delivered light beam. We experimentally investigate how the driving light interacts with and diffracts from the motor, utilizing two-photon imaging. The micromotor rotation rate dependence on the light field parameters is explored. Additionally, a theoretical model based on the paraxial approximation is used to simulate the torque and predict the rotation rate of such a device and compare it with experiment. The results presented show that our model can be used to optimize the micromotor performance and some example motor designs are evaluated.

Thermal Dark Matter Below a MeV

DOE PAGES

Berlin, Asher; Blinov, Nikita

2018-01-08

We consider a class of models in which thermal dark matter is lighter than a MeV. If dark matter thermalizes with the standard model below the temperature of neutrino-photon decoupling, equilibration and freeze-out cool and heat the standard model bath comparably, alleviating constraints from measurements of the effective number of neutrino species. We demonstrate this mechanism in a model consisting of fermionic dark matter coupled to a light scalar mediator. Thermal dark matter can be as light as a few keV, while remaining compatible with existing cosmological and astrophysical observations. This framework motivates new experiments in the direct search formore » sub-MeV thermal dark matter and light force carriers.« less

Thermal Dark Matter Below a MeV

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Berlin, Asher; Blinov, Nikita

2018-01-01

We consider a class of models in which thermal dark matter is lighter than a MeV. If dark matter thermalizes with the standard model below the temperature of neutrino-photon decoupling, equilibration and freeze-out cool and heat the standard model bath comparably, alleviating constraints from measurements of the effective number of neutrino species. We demonstrate this mechanism in a model consisting of fermionic dark matter coupled to a light scalar mediator. Thermal dark matter can be as light as a few keV, while remaining compatible with existing cosmological and astrophysical observations. This framework motivates new experiments in the direct search for sub-MeV thermal dark matter and light force carriers.

Thermal Dark Matter Below a MeV.

PubMed

Berlin, Asher; Blinov, Nikita

2018-01-12

We consider a class of models in which thermal dark matter is lighter than a MeV. If dark matter thermalizes with the standard model below the temperature of neutrino-photon decoupling, equilibration and freeze-out cool and heat the standard model bath comparably, alleviating constraints from measurements of the effective number of neutrino species. We demonstrate this mechanism in a model consisting of fermionic dark matter coupled to a light scalar mediator. Thermal dark matter can be as light as a few keV, while remaining compatible with existing cosmological and astrophysical observations. This framework motivates new experiments in the direct search for sub-MeV thermal dark matter and light force carriers.

Thermal Dark Matter Below a MeV

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Berlin, Asher; Blinov, Nikita

We consider a class of models in which thermal dark matter is lighter than a MeV. If dark matter thermalizes with the standard model below the temperature of neutrino-photon decoupling, equilibration and freeze-out cool and heat the standard model bath comparably, alleviating constraints from measurements of the effective number of neutrino species. We demonstrate this mechanism in a model consisting of fermionic dark matter coupled to a light scalar mediator. Thermal dark matter can be as light as a few keV, while remaining compatible with existing cosmological and astrophysical observations. This framework motivates new experiments in the direct search formore » sub-MeV thermal dark matter and light force carriers.« less

Engineering and Characterizing Light-Matter Interactions in Photonic Crystals

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-01-01

photonic crystal effects would occur at wavelengths in the infrared spectrum. These effects would not be easily measured by our available...spectrometers which operate in the visible and near- infrared , at wavelengths shorter than 1.6 microns. Similarly, the majority of interesting luminescent...periodicity of the photonic crystal is defined by the high -throughput method while the low-throughput method performs the complementary task of adding a

Nuclear reactions induced by high-energy alpha particles

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Shen, B. S. P.

1974-01-01

Experimental and theoretical studies of nuclear reactions induced by high energy protons and heavier ions are included. Fundamental data needed in the shielding, dosimetry, and radiobiology of high energy particles produced by accelerators were generated, along with data on cosmic ray interaction with matter. The mechanism of high energy nucleon-nucleus reactions is also examined, especially for light target nuclei of mass number comparable to that of biological tissue.

Explore the concept of “light” and its interaction with matter: an inquiry-based science education project in primary school

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Varela, P.; Costa, M. F.

2015-04-01

The exploration process leading to the understanding of physical phenomena, such as light and its interaction with matter, raises great interest and curiosity in children. However, in most primary schools, children rarely have the opportunity to conduct science activities in which they can engage in an enquiry process even if by the action of the teacher. In this context, we have organised several in-service teacher training courses and carried out several pedagogic interventions in Portuguese primary schools, with the aim of promoting inquiry- based science education. This article describes one of those projects, developed with a class of the third grade, which explored the curricular topic “Light Experiments”. Various activities were planned and implemented, during a total of ten hours spread over five lessons. The specific objectives of this paper are: to illustrate and analyse the teaching and learning process promoted in the classroom during the exploration of one of these lessons, and to assess children's learning three weeks after the lessons. The results suggest that children made significant learning which persisted. We conclude discussing some processes that stimulated children’ learning, including the importance of teacher questioning in scaffolding children's learning and some didactic implications for teacher training.

Tailored Emission Properties of ZnTe/ZnTe:O/ZnO Core-Shell Nanowires Coupled with an Al Plasmonic Bowtie Antenna Array.

PubMed

Nie, Kui-Ying; Tu, Xuecou; Li, Jing; Chen, Xuanhu; Ren, Fang-Fang; Zhang, Guo-Gang; Kang, Lin; Gu, Shulin; Zhang, Rong; Wu, Peiheng; Zheng, Youdou; Tan, Hark Hoe; Jagadish, Chennupati; Ye, Jiandong

2018-06-14

The ability to manipulate light-matter interaction in semiconducting nanostructures is fascinating for implementing functionalities in advanced optoelectronic devices. Here, we report the tailoring of radiative emissions in a ZnTe/ZnTe:O/ZnO core-shell single nanowire coupled with a one-dimensional aluminum bowtie antenna array. The plasmonic antenna enables changes in the excitation and emission processes, leading to an obvious enhancement of near band edge emission (2.2 eV) and subgap excitonic emission (1.7 eV) bound to intermediate band states in a ZnTe/ZnTe:O/ZnO core-shell nanowire as well as surface-enhanced Raman scattering at room temperature. The increase of emission decay rate in the nanowire/antenna system, probed by time-resolved photoluminescence spectroscopy, yields an observable enhancement of quantum efficiency induced by local surface plasmon resonance. Electromagnetic simulations agree well with the experimental observations, revealing a combined effect of enhanced electric near-field intensity and the improvement of quantum efficiency in the ZnTe/ZnTe:O/ZnO nanowire/antenna system. The capability of tailoring light-matter interaction in low-efficient emitters may provide an alternative platform for designing advanced optoelectronic and sensing devices with precisely controlled response.

New class of biological detectors for WIMPs

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Drukier, A. K.; Cantor, Ch.; Chonofsky, M.; Church, G. M.; Fagaly, R. L.; Freese, K.; Lopez, A.; Sano, T.; Savage, C.; Wong, W. P.

2014-07-01

Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) may constitute a large fraction of the matter in the Universe. There are excess events in the data of DAMA/LIBRA, CoGeNT, CRESST-II, and recently CDMS-Si, which could be consistent with WIMP masses of approximately 10 GeV/c2. However, for MDM > 10 GeV/c2 null results of the CDMS-Ge, XENON, and LUX detectors may be in tension with the potential detections for certain dark matter scenarios and assuming a certain light response. We propose the use of a new class of biological dark matter (DM) detectors to further examine this light dark matter hypothesis, taking advantage of new signatures with low atomic number targets. Two types of biological DM detectors are discussed here: DNA-based detectors and enzymatic reactions (ER) based detectors. In the case of DNA-based detectors, we discuss a new implementation. In the case of ER detectors, there are four crucial phases of the detection process: (a) change of state due to energy deposited by a particle; (b) amplification due to the release of energy derived from the action of an enzyme on its substrate; (c) sustainable but nonexplosive enzymatic reaction; (d) self-termination due to the denaturation of the enzyme, when the temperature is raised. This paper provides information of how to design as well as optimize these four processes.

Nonlinear pulse propagation in InAs/InP quantum dot optical amplifiers: Rabi oscillations in the presence of nonresonant nonlinearities

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Karni, O.; Mishra, A. K.; Eisenstein, G.; Reithmaier, J. P.

2015-03-01

We study the interplay between coherent light-matter interactions and nonresonant pulse propagation effects when ultrashort pulses propagate in room-temperature quantum dot (QD) semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs). The signatures observed on a pulse envelope after propagating in a transparent SOA, when coherent Rabi oscillations are absent, highlight the contribution of two-photon absorption (TPA), and its accompanying Kerr-like effect, as well as of linear dispersion, to the modification of the pulse complex electric field profile. These effects are incorporated into our previously developed finite-difference time-domain comprehensive model that describes the interaction between the pulses and the QD SOA. The present generalized model is used to investigate the combined effect of coherent and nonresonant phenomena in the gain and absorption regimes of the QD SOA. It confirms that in the QD SOA we examined, linear dispersion in the presence of the Kerr-like effect causes pulse compression, which counteracts the pulse peak suppression due to TPA, and also modifies the patterns which the coherent Rabi oscillations imprint on the pulse envelope under both gain and absorption conditions. The inclusion of these effects leads to a better fit with experiments and to a better understanding of the interplay among the various mechanisms so as to be able to better analyze more complex future experiments of coherent light-matter interaction induced by short pulses propagating along an SOA.

Theory and modelling of light-matter interactions in photonic crystal cavity systems coupled to quantum dot ensembles

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cartar, William K.

Photonic crystal microcavity quantum dot lasers show promise as high quality-factor, low threshold lasers, that can be integrated on-chip, with tunable room temperature opera- tions. However, such semiconductor microcavity lasers are notoriously difficult to model in a self-consistent way and are primarily modelled by simplified rate equation approxima- tions, typically fit to experimental data, which limits investigations of their optimization and fundamental light-matter interaction processes. Moreover, simple cavity mode optical theory and rate equations have recently been shown to fail in explaining lasing threshold trends in triangular lattice photonic crystal cavities as a function of cavity size, and the potential impact of fabrication disorder is not well understood. In this thesis, we develop a simple but powerful numerical scheme for modelling the quantum dot active layer used for lasing in these photonic crystal cavity structures, as an ensemble of randomly posi- tioned artificial two-level atoms. Each two-level atom is defined by optical Bloch equations solved by a quantum master equation that includes phenomenological pure dephasing and an incoherent pump rate that effectively models a multi-level gain system. Light-matter in- teractions of both passive and lasing structures are analyzed using simulation defined tools and post-simulation Green function techniques. We implement an active layer ensemble of up to 24,000 statistically unique quantum dots in photonic crystal cavity simulations, using a self-consistent finite-difference time-domain method. This method has the distinct advantage of capturing effects such as dipole-dipole coupling and radiative decay, without the need for any phenomenological terms, since the time-domain solution self-consistently captures these effects. Our analysis demonstrates a powerful ability to connect with recent experimental trends, while remaining completely general in its set-up; for example, we do not invoke common approximations such as the rotating-wave or slowly-varying envelope approximations, and solve dynamics with zero a priori knowledge.

Interdependence of different symmetry energy elements

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mondal, C.; Agrawal, B. K.; De, J. N.; Samaddar, S. K.; Centelles, M.; Viñas, X.

2017-08-01

Relations between the nuclear symmetry energy coefficient and its density derivatives are derived. The relations hold for a class of interactions with quadratic momentum dependence and a power-law density dependence. The structural connection between the different symmetry energy elements as obtained seems to be followed by almost all reasonable nuclear energy density functionals, both relativistic and nonrelativistic, suggesting a universality in the correlation structure. This, coupled with known values of some well-accepted constants related to nuclear matter, helps in constraining values of different density derivatives of the nuclear symmetry energy, shedding light on the isovector part of the nuclear interaction.

Ion beams in radiotherapy - from tracks to treatment planning

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Krämer, M.; Scifoni, E.; Wälzlein, C.; Durante, M.

2012-07-01

Several dozen clinical sites around the world apply beams of fast light ions for radiotherapeutical purposes. Thus there is a vested interest in the various physical and radiobiological processes governing the interaction of ion beams with matter, specifically living systems. We discuss the various modelling steps which lead from basic interactions to the application in actual patient treatment planning. The nano- and microscopic scale is covered by sample calculations with our TRAX code. On the macroscopic scale we feature the TRiP98 treatment planning system, which was clinically used in GSI's radiotherapy pilot project.

2011 Quantum Control of Light & Matter Gordon Research Conference (July 31-August 5, 2011, Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA)

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Thomas Weinacht

2011-08-05

Quantum control of light and matter is the quest to steer a physical process to a desirable outcome, employing constructive and destructive interference. Three basic questions address feasibility of quantum control: (1) The problem of controllability, does a control field exist for a preset initial and target state; (2) Synthesis, constructively finding the field that leads to the target; and (3) Optimal Control Theory - optimizing the field that carries out this task. These continue to be the fundamental theoretical questions to be addressed in the conference. How to realize control fields in the laboratory is an ongoing challenge. Thismore » task is very diverse viewing the emergence of control scenarios ranging from attoseconds to microseconds. How do the experimental observations reflect on the theoretical framework? The typical arena of quantum control is an open environment where much of the control is indirect. How are control scenarios realized in dissipative open systems? Can new control opportunities emerge? Can one null decoherence effects? An ideal setting for control is ultracold matter. The initial and final state can be defined more precisely. Coherent control unifies many fields of physical science. A lesson learned in one field can reflect on another. Currently quantum information processing has emerged as a primary target of control where the key issue is controlling quantum gate operation. Modern nonlinear spectroscopy has emerged as another primary field. The challenge is to unravel the dynamics of molecular systems undergoing strong interactions with the environment. Quantum optics where non-classical fields are to be generated and employed. Finally, coherent control is the basis for quantum engineering. These issues will be under the limelight of the Gordon conference on Quantum Control of Light and Matter.« less

Imaging exciton–polariton transport in MoSe2 waveguides

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Hu, F.; Luan, Y.; Scott, M. E.

The exciton polariton (EP), a half-light and half-matter quasiparticle, is potentially an important element for future photonic and quantum technologies1-4. It provides both strong light-matter interactions and long-distance propagation that is necessary for applications associated with energy or information transfer. Recently, strongly-coupled cavity EPs at room temperature have been demonstrated in van der Waals (vdW) materials due to their strongly-bound excitons5-9. Here we report a nano-optical imaging study of waveguide EPs in MoSe2, a prototypical vdW semiconductor. The measured propagation length of the EPs is sensitive to the excitation photon energy and reaches over 12 μm. The polariton wavelength canmore » be conveniently altered from 600 nm down to 300 nm by controlling the waveguide thickness. Furthermore, we found an intriguing back-bending polariton dispersion close to the exciton resonance. The observed EPs in vdW semiconductors could be useful in future nanophotonic circuits operating in the near-infrared to visible spectral regions.« less

Imaging exciton–polariton transport in MoSe2 waveguides

DOE PAGES

Hu, F.; Luan, Y.; Scott, M. E.; ...

2017-05-08

The exciton polariton (EP), a half-light and half-matter quasiparticle, is potentially an important element for future photonic and quantum technologies1-4. It provides both strong light-matter interactions and long-distance propagation that is necessary for applications associated with energy or information transfer. Recently, strongly-coupled cavity EPs at room temperature have been demonstrated in van der Waals (vdW) materials due to their strongly-bound excitons5-9. Here we report a nano-optical imaging study of waveguide EPs in MoSe2, a prototypical vdW semiconductor. The measured propagation length of the EPs is sensitive to the excitation photon energy and reaches over 12 μm. The polariton wavelength canmore » be conveniently altered from 600 nm down to 300 nm by controlling the waveguide thickness. Furthermore, we found an intriguing back-bending polariton dispersion close to the exciton resonance. The observed EPs in vdW semiconductors could be useful in future nanophotonic circuits operating in the near-infrared to visible spectral regions.« less

Nanoscale Imaging of Light-Matter Coupling Inside Metal-Coated Cavities with a Pulsed Electron Beam.

PubMed

Moerland, Robert J; Weppelman, I Gerward C; Scotuzzi, Marijke; Hoogenboom, Jacob P

2018-05-02

Many applications in (quantum) nanophotonics rely on controlling light-matter interaction through strong, nanoscale modification of the local density of states (LDOS). All-optical techniques probing emission dynamics in active media are commonly used to measure the LDOS and benchmark experimental performance against theoretical predictions. However, metal coatings needed to obtain strong LDOS modifications in, for instance, nanocavities, are incompatible with all-optical characterization. So far, no reliable method exists to validate theoretical predictions. Here, we use subnanosecond pulses of focused electrons to penetrate the metal and excite a buried active medium at precisely defined locations inside subwavelength resonant nanocavities. We reveal the spatial layout of the spontaneous-emission decay dynamics inside the cavities with deep-subwavelength detail, directly mapping the LDOS. We show that emission enhancement converts to inhibition despite an increased number of modes, emphasizing the critical role of optimal emitter location. Our approach yields fundamental insight in dynamics at deep-subwavelength scales for a wide range of nano-optical systems.

Light scalar dark matter at neutrino oscillation experiments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liao, Jiajun; Marfatia, Danny; Whisnant, Kerry

2018-04-01

Couplings between light scalar dark matter (DM) and neutrinos induce a perturbation to the neutrino mass matrix. If the DM oscillation period is smaller than ten minutes (or equivalently, the DM particle is heavier than 0.69×10-17 eV), the fast-averaging over an oscillation cycle leads to a modification of the measured oscillation parameters. We present a specific μ - τ symmetric model in which the measured value of θ 13 is entirely generated by the DM interaction, and which reproduces the other measured oscillation parameters. For a scalar DM particle lighter than 10-15 eV, adiabatic solar neutrino propagation is maintained. A suppression of the sensitivity to CP violation at long baseline neutrino experiments is predicted in this model. We find that DUNE cannot exclude the DM scenario at more than 3 σ C.L. for bimaximal, tribimaximal and hexagonal mixing, while JUNO can rule it out at more than 6 σ C.L. by precisely measuring both θ 12 and θ 13.

High-Q/V Monolithic Diamond Microdisks Fabricated with Quasi-isotropic Etching.

PubMed

Khanaliloo, Behzad; Mitchell, Matthew; Hryciw, Aaron C; Barclay, Paul E

2015-08-12

Optical microcavities enhance light-matter interactions and are essential for many experiments in solid state quantum optics, optomechanics, and nonlinear optics. Single crystal diamond microcavities are particularly sought after for applications involving diamond quantum emitters, such as nitrogen vacancy centers, and for experiments that benefit from diamond's excellent optical and mechanical properties. Light-matter coupling rates in experiments involving microcavities typically scale with Q/V, where Q and V are the microcavity quality-factor and mode-volume, respectively. Here we demonstrate that microdisk whispering gallery mode cavities with high Q/V can be fabricated directly from bulk single crystal diamond. By using a quasi-isotropic oxygen plasma to etch along diamond crystal planes and undercut passivated diamond structures, we create monolithic diamond microdisks. Fiber taper based measurements show that these devices support TE- and TM-like optical modes with Q > 1.1 × 10(5) and V < 11(λ/n) (3) at a wavelength of 1.5 μm.

Determination of the spectral behaviour of atmospheric soot using different particle models

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Skorupski, Krzysztof

2017-08-01

In the atmosphere, black carbon aggregates interact with both organic and inorganic matter. In many studies they are modeled using different, less complex, geometries. However, some common simplification might lead to many inaccuracies in the following light scattering simulations. The goal of this study was to compare the spectral behavior of different, commonly used soot particle models. For light scattering simulations, in the visible spectrum, the ADDA algorithm was used. The results prove that the relative extinction error δCext, in some cases, can be unexpectedly large. Therefore, before starting excessive simulations, it is important to know what error might occur.

Determination of the element-specific complex permittivity using a soft x-ray phase modulator

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kubota, Y.; Hirata, Y.; Miyawaki, J.; Yamamoto, S.; Akai, H.; Hobara, R.; Yamamoto, Sh.; Yamamoto, K.; Someya, T.; Takubo, K.; Yokoyama, Y.; Araki, M.; Taguchi, M.; Harada, Y.; Wadati, H.; Tsunoda, M.; Kinjo, R.; Kagamihata, A.; Seike, T.; Takeuchi, M.; Tanaka, T.; Shin, S.; Matsuda, I.

2017-12-01

We report on directly determining the complex permittivity tensor using a method combining a developed light source from a segmented cross undulator of synchrotron radiation and the magneto-optical Kerr effect. The empirical permittivity, which carries the electronic and magnetic information of a material, has element specificity and has perfect confirmation using the quantum-mechanical calculation for itinerant electrons systems. These results help in understanding the interaction of light and matter, and they provide an interesting approach to seek the best materials as optical elements, for example, in extended-ultraviolet lithographic technologies or in state-of-the-art laser technologies.

Magnetic field concentration assisted by epsilon-near-zero media

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liberal, Iñigo; Li, Yue; Engheta, Nader

2017-03-01

Strengthening the magnetic response of matter at optical frequencies is of fundamental interest, as it provides additional information in spectroscopy, as well as alternative mechanisms to manipulate light at the nanoscale. Here, we demonstrate theoretically that epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) media can enhance the magnetic field concentration capabilities of dielectric resonators. We demonstrate that the magnetic field enhancement factor is unbounded in theory, and it diverges as the size of the ENZ host increases. In practice, the maximal enhancement factor is limited by dissipation losses in the host, and it is found via numerical simulations that ENZ hosts with moderate losses can enhance the performance of a circular dielectric rod resonator by around one order of magnitude. The physical mechanism behind this process is the strongly inhomogeneous magnetic field distributions induced by ENZ media in neighbouring dielectrics. We show that this is an intrinsic property of ENZ media, and that the occurrence of resonant enhancement is independent of the shape of the host. These results might find applications in spectroscopy, in sensing, in light emission and, in general, in investigating light-matter interactions beyond electric dipole transitions. This article is part of the themed issue 'New horizons for nanophotonics'.

Tritium calibration of the LUX dark matter experiment

DOE PAGES

Akerib, D. S.

2016-04-20

Here, we present measurements of the electron-recoil (ER) response of the LUX dark matter detector based upon 170,000 highly pure and spatially uniform tritium decays. We reconstruct the tritium energy spectrum using the combined energy model and find good agreement with expectations. We report the average charge and light yields of ER events in liquid xenon at 180 and 105 V/cm and compare the results to the NEST model. We also measure the mean charge recombination fraction and its fluctuations, and we investigate the location and width of the LUX ER band. These results provide input to a reanalysis ofmore » the LUX run 3 weakly interacting massive particle search.« less

Long-range Self-interacting Dark Matter in the Sun

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chen, Jing; Liang, Zheng-Liang; Wu, Yue-Liang; Zhou, Yu-Feng

2015-12-01

We investigate the implications of the long-rang self-interaction on both the self-capture and the annihilation of the self-interacting dark matter (SIDM) trapped in the Sun. Our discussion is based on a specific SIDM model in which DM particles self-interact via a light scalar mediator, or Yukawa potential, in the context of quantum mechanics. Within this framework, we calculate the self-capture rate across a broad region of parameter space. While the self-capture rate can be obtained separately in the Born regime with perturbative method, and in the classical limits with the Rutherford formula, our calculation covers the gap between in a non-perturbative fashion. Besides, the phenomenology of both the Sommerfeld-enhanced s- and p-wave annihilation of the solar SIDM is also involved in our discussion. Moreover, by combining the analysis of the Super-Kamiokande (SK) data and the observed DM relic density, we constrain the nuclear capture rate of the DM particles in the presence of the dark Yukawa potential. The consequence of the long-range dark force on probing the solar SIDM turns out to be significant if the force-carrier is much lighter than the DM particle, and a quantitative analysis is provided.

Controlling Photons, Qubits and their Interactions in Superconducting Electronic Circuits

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wallraff, Andreas

2009-03-01

A combination of ideas from atomic physics, quantum optics and solid state physics allows us to investigate the fundamental interaction of matter and light on the level of single quanta in electronic circuits. In an approach known as circuit quantum electrodynamics, we coherently couple individual photons stored in a high quality microwave frequency resonator to a fully controllable superconducting two-level system (qubit) realized in a macroscopic electronic circuit [1]. In particular, we have recently observed the simultaneous interaction of one, two and three photons with a single qubit. In these experiments, we have probed the quantum nonlinearity of the qubit/light interaction governed by the Jaynes-Cummings hamiltonian, clearly demonstrating the quantization of the radiation field in the on-chip cavity. We have also performed quantum optics experiments with no photons at all. In this situation, i.e. in pure vacuum, we have resolved the renormalization of the qubit transition frequency - known as the Lamb shift - due to its non-resonant interaction with the cavity vacuum fluctuations [3].[4pt] [1] A. Wallraff et al., Nature (London) 431, 162 (2004)[0pt] [2] J. Fink et al., Nature (London) 454, 315 (2008)[0pt] [3] A. Fragner et al., Science 322, 1357 (2008)

Dark matter self-interactions and small scale structure

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tulin, Sean; Yu, Hai-Bo

2018-02-01

We review theories of dark matter (DM) beyond the collisionless paradigm, known as self-interacting dark matter (SIDM), and their observable implications for astrophysical structure in the Universe. Self-interactions are motivated, in part, due to the potential to explain long-standing (and more recent) small scale structure observations that are in tension with collisionless cold DM (CDM) predictions. Simple particle physics models for SIDM can provide a universal explanation for these observations across a wide range of mass scales spanning dwarf galaxies, low and high surface brightness spiral galaxies, and clusters of galaxies. At the same time, SIDM leaves intact the success of ΛCDM cosmology on large scales. This report covers the following topics: (1) small scale structure issues, including the core-cusp problem, the diversity problem for rotation curves, the missing satellites problem, and the too-big-to-fail problem, as well as recent progress in hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy formation; (2) N-body simulations for SIDM, including implications for density profiles, halo shapes, substructure, and the interplay between baryons and self-interactions; (3) semi-analytic Jeans-based methods that provide a complementary approach for connecting particle models with observations; (4) merging systems, such as cluster mergers (e.g., the Bullet Cluster) and minor infalls, along with recent simulation results for mergers; (5) particle physics models, including light mediator models and composite DM models; and (6) complementary probes for SIDM, including indirect and direct detection experiments, particle collider searches, and cosmological observations. We provide a summary and critical look for all current constraints on DM self-interactions and an outline for future directions.

Microscopic Imaging and Spectroscopy with Scattered Light

PubMed Central

Boustany, Nada N.; Boppart, Stephen A.; Backman, Vadim

2012-01-01

Optical contrast based on elastic scattering interactions between light and matter can be used to probe cellular structure and dynamics, and image tissue architecture. The quantitative nature and high sensitivity of light scattering signals to subtle alterations in tissue morphology, as well as the ability to visualize unstained tissue in vivo, has recently generated significant interest in optical scatter based biosensing and imaging. Here we review the fundamental methodologies used to acquire and interpret optical scatter data. We report on recent findings in this field and present current advances in optical scatter techniques and computational methods. Cellular and tissue data enabled by current advances in optical scatter spectroscopy and imaging stand to impact a variety of biomedical applications including clinical tissue diagnosis, in vivo imaging, drug discovery and basic cell biology. PMID:20617940

Tuning the characteristics of surface plasmon polariton nanolasers by tailoring the dispersion relation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lu, Tien-Chang; Chou, Yu-Hsun; Hong, Kuo-Bin; Chung, Yi-Cheng; Lin, Tzy-Rong; Arakelian, S. M.; Alodjants, A. P.

2017-08-01

Nanolasers with ultra-compact footprint are able to provide high intensity coherent light, which have various potential applications in high capacity signal processing, biosensing, and sub-wavelength imaging. Among various nanolasers, those lasers with cavities surrounded with metals have shown to have superior light emission properties due to the surface plasmon effect providing better field confinement capability and allowing exotic light-matter interaction. In this talk, we report robust ultraviolet ZnO nanolaser by using silver (Ag) [1] and aluminum (Al) [2] to strongly shrink the mode volume. The nanolasers operated at room temperature and even high temperature (353K) shows several distinct features including an extremely small mode volume, large Purcell factor and group index. Comparison of characteristics between Ag- and Al-based will also be made.

Emerging Novel Metal Electrodes for Photovoltaic Applications.

PubMed

Lu, Haifei; Ren, Xingang; Ouyang, Dan; Choy, Wallace C H

2018-04-01

Emerging novel metal electrodes not only serve as the collector of free charge carriers, but also function as light trapping designs in photovoltaics. As a potential alternative to commercial indium tin oxide, transparent electrodes composed of metal nanowire, metal mesh, and ultrathin metal film are intensively investigated and developed for achieving high optical transmittance and electrical conductivity. Moreover, light trapping designs via patterning of the back thick metal electrode into different nanostructures, which can deliver a considerable efficiency improvement of photovoltaic devices, contribute by the plasmon-enhanced light-mattering interactions. Therefore, here the recent works of metal-based transparent electrodes and patterned back electrodes in photovoltaics are reviewed, which may push the future development of this exciting field. © 2018 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Large optical conductivity of Dirac semimetal Fermi arc surface states

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shi, Li-kun; Song, Justin C. W.

2017-08-01

Fermi arc surface states, a hallmark of topological Dirac semimetals, can host carriers that exhibit unusual dynamics distinct from that of their parent bulk. Here we find that Fermi arc carriers in intrinsic Dirac semimetals possess a strong and anisotropic light-matter interaction. This is characterized by a large Fermi arc optical conductivity when light is polarized transverse to the Fermi arc; when light is polarized along the Fermi arc, Fermi arc optical conductivity is significantly muted. The large surface spectral weight is locked to the wide separation between Dirac nodes and persists as a large Drude weight of Fermi arc carriers when the system is doped. As a result, large and anisotropic Fermi arc conductivity provides a novel means of optically interrogating the topological surfaces states of Dirac semimetals.

Parametrization of a nonlocal chiral quark model in the instantaneous three-flavor case. Basic formulas and tables

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Grigorian, H.

2007-05-01

We describe the basic formulation of the parametrization scheme for the instantaneous nonlocal chiral quark model in the three-flavor case. We choose to discuss the Gaussian, Lorentzian-type, Woods-Saxon, and sharp cutoff (NJL) functional forms of the momentum dependence for the form factor of the separable interaction. The four parameters, light and strange quark masses and coupling strength (G S) and range of the interaction (Λ), have been fixed by the same phenomenological inputs: pion and kaon masses and the pion decay constant and light quark mass in vacuum. The Woods-Saxon and Lorentzian-type form factors are suitable for an interpolation between sharp cutoff and soft momentum dependence. Results are tabulated for applications in models of hadron structure and quark matter at finite temperatures and chemical potentials, where separable models have been proven successfully.

Topological Phases of Sound and Light

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Peano, V.; Brendel, C.; Schmidt, M.; Marquardt, F.

2015-07-01

Topological states of matter are particularly robust, since they exploit global features of a material's band structure. Topological states have already been observed for electrons, atoms, and photons. It is an outstanding challenge to create a Chern insulator of sound waves in the solid state. In this work, we propose an implementation based on cavity optomechanics in a photonic crystal. The topological properties of the sound waves can be wholly tuned in situ by adjusting the amplitude and frequency of a driving laser that controls the optomechanical interaction between light and sound. The resulting chiral, topologically protected phonon transport can be probed completely optically. Moreover, we identify a regime of strong mixing between photon and phonon excitations, which gives rise to a large set of different topological phases and offers an example of a Chern insulator produced from the interaction between two physically distinct particle species, photons and phonons.

Nano-focusing effect simulation of metal film with subwavelength pattern structures

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wei, Dong; Yu, Yue; Li, Dapeng; Wu, Yong; Xin, Zhaowei; Xie, Xingwang; Zhang, Xinyu; Wang, Haiwei; Xie, Changsheng

2018-02-01

Surface plasmon polarizations (SPP) is a nano-scale photon control technology which can converge the spread of oscillation electron driven by incident light. In recent years, SPP has become an advanced research hotspot and has been studied more and more widely. The convergence effect of SPP has extensive applications, such as Schottky barrier detector in which the higher power hotspot, the lower signal-to-noise ratio. In this paper, studies have been done about the interaction of light and matter. Different geometric shapes have been simulated, which were obtained by graphic clipping. Via comparing the power of the hot spot and the minimum location on the transmittance line, we concluded the relationship of the interaction and the structure. It's found that every absorption peak corresponds a mode of LSPP spread. Therefore, we can design figure to control the spread of the SPP, and achieve fantastic goal. Finally, a typical figure with high power hotspot was given.

SOIL NITROGEN TRANSFORMATIONS AND ROLE OF LIGHT FRACTION ORGANIC MATTER IN FOREST SOILS

EPA Science Inventory

Depletion of soil organic matter through cultivation may alter substrate availability for microbes, altering the dynamic balance between nitrogen (N) immobilization and mineralization. Soil light fraction (LF) organic matter is an active pool that decreases upon cultivation, and...

Reconstruction of cluster masses using particle based lensing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Deb, Sanghamitra

Clusters of galaxies are among the richest astrophysical data systems, but to truly understand these systems, we need a detailed study of the relationship between observables and the underlying cluster dark matter distribution. Gravitational lensing is the most direct probe of dark matter, but many mass reconstruction techniques assume that cluster light traces mass, or combine different lensing signals in an ad hoc way. In this talk, we will describe "Particle Based Lensing" (PBL), a new method for cluster mass reconstruction, that avoids many of the pitfalls of previous techniques. PBL optimally combines lensing information of varying signal-to-noise, and makes no assumptions about the relationship between mass and light. We will describe mass reconstructions in three very different, but very illuminating cluster systems: the "Bullet Cluster" (lE 0657-56), A901/902 and A1689. The "Bullet Cluster" is a system of merging clusters made famous by the first unambiguous lensing detection of dark matter. A901/902 is a multi-cluster system with four peaks, and provides an ideal laboratory for studying cluster interaction. We are particularly interested in measuring and correlating the dark matter clump ellipticities. A1689 is one of the richest clusters known, and has significant substructure at the core. It is also my first exercise in optimally combining weak and strong gravitational lensing in a cluster reconstruction. We find that the dark matter distribution is significantly clumpier than indicated by X-ray maps of the gas. We conclude by discussing various potential applications of PBL to existing and future data.

Chiral quantum optics.

PubMed

Lodahl, Peter; Mahmoodian, Sahand; Stobbe, Søren; Rauschenbeutel, Arno; Schneeweiss, Philipp; Volz, Jürgen; Pichler, Hannes; Zoller, Peter

2017-01-25

Advanced photonic nanostructures are currently revolutionizing the optics and photonics that underpin applications ranging from light technology to quantum-information processing. The strong light confinement in these structures can lock the local polarization of the light to its propagation direction, leading to propagation-direction-dependent emission, scattering and absorption of photons by quantum emitters. The possibility of such a propagation-direction-dependent, or chiral, light-matter interaction is not accounted for in standard quantum optics and its recent discovery brought about the research field of chiral quantum optics. The latter offers fundamentally new functionalities and applications: it enables the assembly of non-reciprocal single-photon devices that can be operated in a quantum superposition of two or more of their operational states and the realization of deterministic spin-photon interfaces. Moreover, engineered directional photonic reservoirs could lead to the development of complex quantum networks that, for example, could simulate novel classes of quantum many-body systems.

Inverse Stellation of CuAu-ZnO Multimetallic-Semiconductor Nanostartube for Plasmon-Enhanced Photocatalysis.

PubMed

Tan, Chuan Fu; Su Su Zin, Aung Kyi; Chen, Zhihui; Liow, Chi Hao; Phan, Huy Thong; Tan, Hui Ru; Xu, Qing-Hua; Ho, Ghim Wei

2018-05-22

One-dimensional (1D) metallic nanocrystals constitute an important class of plasmonic materials for localization of light into subwavelength dimensions. Coupled with their intrinsic conductive properties and extended optical paths for light absorption, metallic nanowires are prevalent in light-harnessing applications. However, the transverse surface plasmon resonance (SPR) mode of traditional multiply twinned nanowires often suffers from weaker electric field enhancement due to its low degree of morphological curvature in comparison to other complex anisotropic nanocrystals. Herein, simultaneous anisotropic stellation and excavation of multiply twinned nanowires are demonstrated through a site-selective galvanic reaction for a pronounced manipulation of light-matter interaction. The introduction of longitudinal extrusions and cavitation along the nanowires leads to a significant enhancement in plasmon field with reduced quenching of localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR). The as-synthesized multimetallic nanostartubes serve as a panchromatic plasmonic framework for incorporation of photocatalytic materials for plasmon-assisted solar fuel production.

Study of multi-level atomic systems with the application of magnetic field

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hu, Jianping; Roy, Subhankar; Ummal Momeen, M.

2018-04-01

The complexity of multiple energy levels associated with each atomic system determines the various processes related to light- matter interactions. It is necessary to understand the influence of different levels in a given atomic system. In this work we focus on multi- level atomic schemes with the application of magnetic field. We analyze the different EIT windows which appears in the presence of moderately high magnetic field (∼ 10 G) strength.

Optical microfiber-based photonic crystal cavity

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yu, Yang; Sun, Yi-zhi; Andrews, Steve; Li, Zhi-yuan; Ding, Wei

2016-01-01

Using a focused ion beam milling technique, we fabricate broad stop band (∼10% wide) photonic crystal (PhC) cavities in adiabatically-tapered silica fibers. Abrupt structural design of PhC mirrors efficiently reduces radiation loss, increasing the cavity finesse to ∼7.5. Further experiments and simulations verify that the remaining loss is mainly due to Ga ion implantation. Such a microfiber PhC cavity probably has potentials in many light-matter interaction applications.

Magnetic field modification of optical magnetic dipoles.

PubMed

Armelles, Gaspar; Caballero, Blanca; Cebollada, Alfonso; Garcia-Martin, Antonio; Meneses-Rodríguez, David

2015-03-11

Acting on optical magnetic dipoles opens novel routes to govern light-matter interaction. We demonstrate magnetic field modification of the magnetic dipolar moment characteristic of resonant nanoholes in thin magnetoplasmonic films. This is experimentally shown through the demonstration of the magneto-optical analogue of Babinet's principle, where mirror imaged MO spectral dependencies are obtained for two complementary magnetoplasmonic systems: holes in a perforated metallic layer and a layer of disks on a substrate.

Alphas and surface backgrounds in liquid argon dark matter detectors

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stanford, Christopher J.

Current observations from astrophysics indicate the presence of dark matter, an invisible form of matter that makes up a large part of the mass of the universe. One of the leading theories for dark matter is that it is made up of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs). One of the ways we try to discover WIMPs is by directly detecting their interaction with regular matter. This can be done using a scintillator such as liquid argon, which gives off light when a particle interacts with it. Liquid argon (LAr) is a favorable means of detecting WIMPs because it has an inherent property that enables a technique called pulse-shape discrimination (PSD). PSD can distinguish a WIMP signal from the constant background of electromagnetic signals from other sources, like gamma rays. However, there are other background signals that PSD is not as capable of rejecting, such as those caused by alpha decays on the interior surfaces of the detector. Radioactive elements that undergo alpha decay are introduced to detector surfaces during construction by radon gas that is naturally present in the air, as well as other means. When these surface isotopes undergo alpha decay, they can produce WIMP-like signals in the detector. We present here two LAr experiments. The first (RaDOSE) discovered a property of an organic compound that led to a technique for rejecting surface alpha decays in LAr detectors with high efficiency. The second (DarkSide-50) is a dark matter experiment operated at LNGS in Italy and is the work of an international collaboration. A detailed look is given into alpha decays and surface backgrounds present in the detector, and projections are made of alpha-related backgrounds for 500 live days of data. The technique developed with RaDOSE is applied to DarkSide-50 to determine its effectiveness in practice. It is projected to suppress the surface background in DarkSide-50 by more than a factor of 1000.

Nonstandard Yukawa couplings and Higgs portal dark matter

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Bishara, Fady; Brod, Joachim; Uttayarat, Patipan

We study the implications of non-standard Higgs Yukawa couplings to light quarks on Higgs-portal dark matter phenomenology. Saturating the present experimental bounds on up-quark, down-quark, or strange-quark Yukawa couplings, the predicted direct dark matter detection scattering rate can increase by up to four orders of magnitude. The effect on the dark matter annihilation cross-section, on the other hand, is subleading unless the dark matter is very light — a scenario that is already excluded by measurements of the Higgs invisible decay width. We investigate the expected size of corrections in multi-Higgs-doublet models with natural flavor conservation, the type-II two-Higgs-doublet model,more » the Giudice-Lebedev model of light quark masses, minimal flavor violation new physics models, Randall-Sundrum, and composite Higgs models. We find that an enhancement in the dark matter scattering rate of an order of magnitude is possible. In conclusion, we point out that a discovery of Higgs-portal dark matter could lead to interesting bounds on the light-quark Yukawa couplings.« less

Nonstandard Yukawa couplings and Higgs portal dark matter

DOE PAGES

Bishara, Fady; Brod, Joachim; Uttayarat, Patipan; ...

2016-01-04

We study the implications of non-standard Higgs Yukawa couplings to light quarks on Higgs-portal dark matter phenomenology. Saturating the present experimental bounds on up-quark, down-quark, or strange-quark Yukawa couplings, the predicted direct dark matter detection scattering rate can increase by up to four orders of magnitude. The effect on the dark matter annihilation cross-section, on the other hand, is subleading unless the dark matter is very light — a scenario that is already excluded by measurements of the Higgs invisible decay width. We investigate the expected size of corrections in multi-Higgs-doublet models with natural flavor conservation, the type-II two-Higgs-doublet model,more » the Giudice-Lebedev model of light quark masses, minimal flavor violation new physics models, Randall-Sundrum, and composite Higgs models. We find that an enhancement in the dark matter scattering rate of an order of magnitude is possible. In conclusion, we point out that a discovery of Higgs-portal dark matter could lead to interesting bounds on the light-quark Yukawa couplings.« less

Unifying leptogenesis, dark matter and high-energy neutrinos with right-handed neutrino mixing via Higgs portal

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Bari, Pasquale Di; Ludl, Patrick Otto; Palomares-Ruiz, Sergio

2016-11-21

We revisit a model in which neutrino masses and mixing are described by a two right-handed (RH) neutrino seesaw scenario, implying a strictly hierarchical light neutrino spectrum. A third decoupled RH neutrino, N{sub DM} with mass M{sub DM}, plays the role of cold dark matter (DM) and is produced by the mixing with a source RH neutrino, N{sub S} with mass M{sub S}, induced by Higgs portal interactions. The same interactions are also responsible for N{sub DM} decays. We discuss in detail the constraints coming from DM abundance and stability conditions showing that in the hierarchical case, for M{sub DM}≫M{submore » S}, there is an allowed window on M{sub DM} values necessarily implying a contribution, from DM decays, to the high-energy neutrino flux recently detected by IceCube. We also show how the model can explain the matter-antimatter asymmetry of the Universe via leptogenesis in the quasi-degenerate limit. In this case, the DM mass should be within the range 300 GeV ≲M{sub S}« less

Strongly self-interacting vector dark matter via freeze-in

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Duch, Mateusz; Grzadkowski, Bohdan; Huang, Da

2018-01-01

We study a vector dark matter (VDM) model in which the dark sector couples to the Standard Model sector via a Higgs portal. If the portal coupling is small enough the VDM can be produced via the freeze-in mechanism. It turns out that the electroweak phase transition have a substantial impact on the prediction of the VDM relic density. We further assume that the dark Higgs boson which gives the VDM mass is so light that it can induce strong VDM self-interactions and solve the small-scale structure problems of the Universe. As illustrated by the latest LUX data, the extreme smallness of the Higgs portal coupling required by the freeze-in mechanism implies that the dark matter direct detection bounds are easily satisfied. However, the model is well constrained by the indirect detections of VDM from BBN, CMB, AMS-02, and diffuse γ/X-rays. Consequently, only when the dark Higgs boson mass is at most of O (keV) does there exist a parameter region which leads to a right amount of VDM relic abundance and an appropriate VDM self-scattering while satisfying all other constraints simultaneously.

Voltage‐Controlled Switching of Strong Light–Matter Interactions using Liquid Crystals

PubMed Central

Hertzog, Manuel; Rudquist, Per; Hutchison, James A.; George, Jino; Ebbesen, Thomas W.

2017-01-01

Abstract We experimentally demonstrate a fine control over the coupling strength of vibrational light–matter hybrid states by controlling the orientation of a nematic liquid crystal. Through an external voltage, the liquid crystal is seamlessly switched between two orthogonal directions. Using these features, for the first time, we demonstrate electrical switching and increased Rabi splitting through transition dipole moment alignment. The C−Nstr vibration on the liquid crystal molecule is coupled to a cavity mode, and FT‐IR is used to probe the formed vibropolaritonic states. A switching ratio of the Rabi splitting of 1.78 is demonstrated between the parallel and the perpendicular orientation. Furthermore, the orientational order increases the Rabi splitting by 41 % as compared to an isotropic liquid. Finally, by examining the influence of molecular alignment on the Rabi splitting, the scalar product used in theoretical modeling between light and matter in the strong coupling regime is verified. PMID:29155469

Electromagnetic toroidal excitations in matter and free space.

PubMed

Papasimakis, N; Fedotov, V A; Savinov, V; Raybould, T A; Zheludev, N I

2016-03-01

The toroidal dipole is a localized electromagnetic excitation, distinct from the magnetic and electric dipoles. While the electric dipole can be understood as a pair of opposite charges and the magnetic dipole as a current loop, the toroidal dipole corresponds to currents flowing on the surface of a torus. Toroidal dipoles provide physically significant contributions to the basic characteristics of matter including absorption, dispersion and optical activity. Toroidal excitations also exist in free space as spatially and temporally localized electromagnetic pulses propagating at the speed of light and interacting with matter. We review recent experimental observations of resonant toroidal dipole excitations in metamaterials and the discovery of anapoles, non-radiating charge-current configurations involving toroidal dipoles. While certain fundamental and practical aspects of toroidal electrodynamics remain open for the moment, we envision that exploitation of toroidal excitations can have important implications for the fields of photonics, sensing, energy and information.

Quantum memories: emerging applications and recent advances

PubMed Central

Heshami, Khabat; England, Duncan G.; Humphreys, Peter C.; Bustard, Philip J.; Acosta, Victor M.; Nunn, Joshua; Sussman, Benjamin J.

2016-01-01

Quantum light–matter interfaces are at the heart of photonic quantum technologies. Quantum memories for photons, where non-classical states of photons are mapped onto stationary matter states and preserved for subsequent retrieval, are technical realizations enabled by exquisite control over interactions between light and matter. The ability of quantum memories to synchronize probabilistic events makes them a key component in quantum repeaters and quantum computation based on linear optics. This critical feature has motivated many groups to dedicate theoretical and experimental research to develop quantum memory devices. In recent years, exciting new applications, and more advanced developments of quantum memories, have proliferated. In this review, we outline some of the emerging applications of quantum memories in optical signal processing, quantum computation and non-linear optics. We review recent experimental and theoretical developments, and their impacts on more advanced photonic quantum technologies based on quantum memories. PMID:27695198

REVIEWS OF TOPICAL PROBLEMS: Properties of matter in ultrahigh magnetic fields and the structure of the surface of neutron stars

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liberman, Mikhail A.; Johansson, B.

1995-02-01

The physical properties of atoms, molecules, and solids in ultrahigh magnetic fields B gg 109 G that are believed to exist on the surface of neutron stars are discussed. In these fields, atoms are strongly deformed and elongated along the magnetic field lines; the binding energy and ionizing energy of the atoms are substantially increased and the interatomic interaction is dramatically changed. This strongly modifies the properties of matter at the surface of magnetic neutron stars which are crucial for modelling the pulsar magnetosphere. A scenario for magnetosphere evolution is proposed which suggests free emission for a young pulsar and strong binding of the matter to the surface at a later stage. This later stage is due to strongly bound chains of alternate heavy atoms and light atoms accreted on the surface of the star.

Dark Kinetic Heating of Neutron Stars and an Infrared Window on WIMPs, SIMPs, and Pure Higgsinos

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Baryakhtar, Masha; Bramante, Joseph; Li, Shirley Weishi; Linden, Tim; Raj, Nirmal

2017-09-01

We identify a largely model-independent signature of dark matter (DM) interactions with nucleons and electrons. DM in the local galactic halo, gravitationally accelerated to over half the speed of light, scatters against and deposits kinetic energy into neutron stars, heating them to infrared blackbody temperatures. The resulting radiation could potentially be detected by the James Webb Space Telescope, the Thirty Meter Telescope, or the European Extremely Large Telescope. This mechanism also produces optical emission from neutron stars in the galactic bulge, and x-ray emission near the galactic center because dark matter is denser in these regions. For GeV-PeV mass dark matter, dark kinetic heating would initially unmask any spin-independent or spin-dependent dark matter-nucleon cross sections exceeding 2 ×10-45 cm2, with improved sensitivity after more telescope exposure. For lighter-than-GeV dark matter, cross-section sensitivity scales inversely with dark matter mass because of Pauli blocking; for heavier-than-PeV dark matter, it scales linearly with mass as a result of needing multiple scatters for capture. Future observations of dark sector-warmed neutron stars could determine whether dark matter annihilates in or only kinetically heats neutron stars. Because inelastic interstate transitions of up to a few GeV would occur in relativistic scattering against nucleons, elusive inelastic dark matter like pure Higgsinos can also be discovered.

Dark Kinetic Heating of Neutron Stars and an Infrared Window on WIMPs, SIMPs, and Pure Higgsinos.

PubMed

Baryakhtar, Masha; Bramante, Joseph; Li, Shirley Weishi; Linden, Tim; Raj, Nirmal

2017-09-29

We identify a largely model-independent signature of dark matter (DM) interactions with nucleons and electrons. DM in the local galactic halo, gravitationally accelerated to over half the speed of light, scatters against and deposits kinetic energy into neutron stars, heating them to infrared blackbody temperatures. The resulting radiation could potentially be detected by the James Webb Space Telescope, the Thirty Meter Telescope, or the European Extremely Large Telescope. This mechanism also produces optical emission from neutron stars in the galactic bulge, and x-ray emission near the galactic center because dark matter is denser in these regions. For GeV-PeV mass dark matter, dark kinetic heating would initially unmask any spin-independent or spin-dependent dark matter-nucleon cross sections exceeding 2×10^{-45}  cm^{2}, with improved sensitivity after more telescope exposure. For lighter-than-GeV dark matter, cross-section sensitivity scales inversely with dark matter mass because of Pauli blocking; for heavier-than-PeV dark matter, it scales linearly with mass as a result of needing multiple scatters for capture. Future observations of dark sector-warmed neutron stars could determine whether dark matter annihilates in or only kinetically heats neutron stars. Because inelastic interstate transitions of up to a few GeV would occur in relativistic scattering against nucleons, elusive inelastic dark matter like pure Higgsinos can also be discovered.

Earle K. Plyler Prize Lecture: The Three Pillars of Ultrafast Molecular Science - Time, Phase, Intensity

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stolow, Albert

We discuss the probing and control of molecular wavepacket dynamics in the context of three main `pillars' of light-matter interaction: time, phase, intensity. Time: Using short, coherent laser pulses and perturbative matter-field interactions, we study molecular wavepackets with a focus on the ultrafast non-Born-Oppenheimer dynamics, that is, the coupling of electronic and nuclear motions. Time-Resolved Photoelectron Spectroscopy (TRPES) is a powerful ultrafast probe of these processes in polyatomic molecules because it is sensitive both electronic and vibrational dynamics. Ideally, one would like to observe these ultrafast processes from the molecule's point of view - the Molecular Frame - thereby avoiding loss of information due to orientational averaging. This can be achieved by Time-Resolved Coincidence Imaging Spectroscopy (TRCIS) which images 3D recoil vectors of both photofragments and photoelectrons, in coincidence and as a function of time, permitting direct Molecular Frame imaging of valence electronic dynamics during a molecular dynamics. Phase: Using intermediate strength non-perturbative interactions, we apply the second order (polarizability) Non-Resonant Dynamic Stark Effect (NRDSE) to control molecular dynamics without any net absorption of light. NRDSE is also the interaction underlying molecular alignment and applies to field-free 1D of linear molecules and field-free 3D alignment of general (asymmetric) molecules. Using laser alignment, we can transiently fix a molecule in space, yielding a more general approach to direct Molecular Frame imaging of valence electronic dynamics during a chemical reaction. Intensity: In strong (ionizing) laser fields, a new laser-matter physics emerges for polyatomic systems wherein both the single active electron picture and the adiabatic electron response, both implicit in the standard 3-step models, can fail dramatically. This has important consequences for all attosecond strong field spectroscopies of polyatomic molecules, including high harmonic generation (HHG). We discuss an experimental method, Channel-Resolved Above Threshold Ionization (CRATI), which directly unveils the electronic channels participating in the attosecond molecular strong field ionization response [10]. This work was supported by the National Research Council of Canada and the Natural Sciences & Engineering Research Council.

Appreciation of the nature of light demands enhancement over the prevailing scientific epistemology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Roychoudhuri, Chandrasekhar

2011-09-01

Based on attempts to resolve the problem of various self contradictory assumptions behind the prevailing belief on single photon interference, we have analyzed the process steps behind our experimental measurements and named the process as the Interaction Process Mapping Epistemology (IPM-E). This has helped us recognize that the quantum mechanical Measurement Problem has a much universal and deeper root in nature. Our scientific theorization process suffers from a Perpetual Information Challenge (PIC), which cannot be overcome by elegant and/or sophisticated mathematical theories alone. Iterative imaginative application of IPM-E needs to be used as a metaphorical analytical continuation to fill up the missing information gaps. IPM-E has also guided us to recognize the generic NIW-principle (Non-Interaction of Waves) in the linear domain, not explicitly recognized in current books and literature. Superposition effects become manifest through light-matter interactions. Detecting dipoles gets stimulated by multiple superposed beams; it sums the simultaneous multiple stimulations into a single resultant undulation, which then guides the resultant energy exchange. The consequent transformation in the detector corresponds to observed fringes. They neither represent interference of light; nor represent selective arrival or non-arrival of photons on the detector. Photons do not possess any force of mutual interaction to generate their redistribution. Implementation of IPM-E requires us to recognize our subjective interpretation propensity with which we are burdened due to our evolutionary successes.

Dynamic near-field optical interaction between oscillating nanomechanical structures

DOE PAGES

Ahn, Phillip; Chen, Xiang; Zhang, Zhen; ...

2015-05-27

Near-field optical techniques exploit light-matter interactions at small length scales for mechanical sensing and actuation of nanomechanical structures. Here, we study the optical interaction between two mechanical oscillators—a plasmonic nanofocusing probe-tip supported by a low frequency cantilever, and a high frequency nanomechanical resonator—and leverage their interaction for local detection of mechanical vibrations. The plasmonic nanofocusing probe provides a confined optical source to enhance the interaction between the two oscillators. Dynamic perturbation of the optical cavity between the probe-tip and the resonator leads to nonlinear modulation of the scattered light intensity at the sum and difference of their frequencies. This double-frequencymore » demodulation scheme is explored to suppress unwanted background and to detect mechanical vibrations with a minimum detectable displacement sensitivity of 0.45pm/Hz 1/2, which is limited by shot noise and electrical noise. We explore the demodulation scheme for imaging the bending vibration mode shape of the resonator with a lateral spatial resolution of 20nm. We also demonstrate the time-resolved aspect of the local optical interaction by recording the ring-down vibrations of the resonator at frequencies of up to 129MHz. The near-field optical technique is promising for studying dynamic mechanical processes in individual nanostructures.« less

Interference effects in laser-induced plasma emission from surface-bound metal micro-particles

DOE PAGES

Feigenbaum, Eyal; Malik, Omer; Rubenchik, Alexander M.; ...

2017-04-19

Here, the light-matter interaction of an optical beam and metal micro-particulates at the vicinity of an optical substrate surface is critical to the many fields of applied optics. Examples of impacted fields are laser-induced damage in high power laser systems, sub-wavelength laser machining of transmissive materials, and laser-target interaction in directed energy applications. We present a full-wave-based model that predicts the laser-induced plasma pressure exerted on a substrate surface as a result of light absorption in surface-bound micron-scale metal particles. The model predictions agree with experimental observation of laser-induced shallow pits, formed by plasma emission and etching from surface-bound metalmore » micro-particulates. It provides an explanation for the prototypical side lobes observed along the pit profile, as well as for the dependence of the pit shape on the incident laser and particle parameters. Furthermore, the model highlights the significance of the interference of the incident light in the open cavity geometry formed between the micro-particle and the substrate in the resulting pit shape.« less

Multiphysics modeling of non-linear laser-matter interactions for optically active semiconductors

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kraczek, Brent; Kanp, Jaroslaw

Development of photonic devices for sensors and communications devices has been significantly enhanced by computational modeling. We present a new computational method for modelling laser propagation in optically-active semiconductors within the paraxial wave approximation (PWA). Light propagation is modeled using the Streamline-upwind/Petrov-Galerkin finite element method (FEM). Material response enters through the non-linear polarization, which serves as the right-hand side of the FEM calculation. Maxwell's equations for classical light propagation within the PWA can be written solely in terms of the electric field, producing a wave equation that is a form of the advection-diffusion-reaction equations (ADREs). This allows adaptation of the computational machinery developed for solving ADREs in fluid dynamics to light-propagation modeling. The non-linear polarization is incorporated using a flexible framework to enable the use of multiple methods for carrier-carrier interactions (e.g. relaxation-time-based or Monte Carlo) to enter through the non-linear polarization, as appropriate to the material type. We demonstrate using a simple carrier-carrier model approximating the response of GaN. Supported by ARL Materials Enterprise.

Interference effects in laser-induced plasma emission from surface-bound metal micro-particles.

PubMed

Feigenbaum, Eyal; Malik, Omer; Rubenchik, Alexander M; Matthews, Manyalibo J

2017-05-01

The light-matter interaction of an optical beam and metal micro-particulates at the vicinity of an optical substrate surface is critical to the many fields of applied optics. Examples of impacted fields are laser-induced damage in high power laser systems, sub-wavelength laser machining of transmissive materials, and laser-target interaction in directed energy applications. We present a full-wave-based model that predicts the laser-induced plasma pressure exerted on a substrate surface as a result of light absorption in surface-bound micron-scale metal particles. The model predictions agree with experimental observation of laser-induced shallow pits, formed by plasma emission and etching from surface-bound metal micro-particulates. It provides an explanation for the prototypical side lobes observed along the pit profile, as well as for the dependence of the pit shape on the incident laser and particle parameters. Furthermore, the model highlights the significance of the interference of the incident light in the open cavity geometry formed between the micro-particle and the substrate in the resulting pit shape.

Sequential Monte Carlo Instant Radiosity.

PubMed

Hedman, Peter; Karras, Tero; Lehtinen, Jaakko

2017-05-01

Instant Radiosity and its derivatives are interactive methods for efficiently estimating global (indirect) illumination. They represent the last indirect bounce of illumination before the camera as the composite radiance field emitted by a set of virtual point light sources (VPLs). In complex scenes, current algorithms suffer from a difficult combination of two issues: it remains a challenge to distribute VPLs in a manner that simultaneously gives a high-quality indirect illumination solution for each frame, and to do so in a temporally coherent manner. We address both issues by building, and maintaining over time, an adaptive and temporally coherent distribution of VPLs in locations where they bring indirect light to the image. We introduce a novel heuristic sampling method that strives to only move as few of the VPLs between frames as possible. The result is, to the best of our knowledge, the first interactive global illumination algorithm that works in complex, highly-occluded scenes, suffers little from temporal flickering, supports moving cameras and light sources, and is output-sensitive in the sense that it places VPLs in locations that matter most to the final result.

Light Controlling at Subwavelength Scales in Nanophotonic Systems: Physics and Applications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shen, Yuecheng

The capability of controlling light at scales that are much smaller than the operating wave-length enables new optical functionalities, and opens up a wide range of applications. Such a capability is out of the realm of conventional optical approaches. This dissertation aims to explore the light-matter interactions at nanometer scale, and to investigate the novel scien-tific and industrial applications. In particular, we will explain how to detect nanoparticles using an ultra-sensitive nano-sensor; we will also describe a photonic diode which gener-ates a unidirectional flow of single photons; Moreover, in an one-dimensional waveguide QED system where the fermionic degree of freedom is present, we will show that strong photon-photon interactions can be generated through scattering means, leading to photonic bunching and anti-bunching with various applications. Finally, we will introduce a mecha-nism to achieve super-resolution to discern fine features that are orders of magnitude smaller than the illuminating wavelength. These research projects incorporate recent advances in quantum nanophotonics, nanotechnologies, imaging reconstruction techniques, and rigorous numerical simulations.

Magneto-Plasmonics and Resonant Interaction of Light with Dynamic Magnetisation in Metallic and All-Magneto-Dielectric Nanostructures

PubMed Central

Maksymov, Ivan S.

2015-01-01

A significant interest in combining plasmonics and magnetism at the nanoscale gains momentum in both photonics and magnetism sectors that are concerned with the resonant enhancement of light-magnetic-matter interaction in nanostructures. These efforts result in a considerable amount of literature, which is difficult to collect and digest in limited time. Furthermore, there is insufficient exchange of results between the two research sectors. Consequently, the goal of this review paper is to bridge this gap by presenting an overview of recent progress in the field of magneto-plasmonics from two different points of view: magneto-plasmonics, and magnonics and magnetisation dynamics. It is expected that this presentation style will make this review paper of particular interest to both general physical audience and specialists conducting research on photonics, plasmonics, Brillouin light scattering spectroscopy of magnetic nanostructures and magneto-optical Kerr effect magnetometry, as well as ultrafast all-optical and THz-wave excitation of spin waves. Moreover, readers interested in a new, rapidly emerging field of all-dielectric nanophotonics will find a section about all-magneto-dielectric nanostructures. PMID:28347027

Magneto-Plasmonics and Resonant Interaction of Light with Dynamic Magnetisation in Metallic and All-Magneto-Dielectric Nanostructures.

PubMed

Maksymov, Ivan S

2015-04-09

A significant interest in combining plasmonics and magnetism at the nanoscale gains momentum in both photonics and magnetism sectors that are concerned with the resonant enhancement of light-magnetic-matter interaction in nanostructures. These efforts result in a considerable amount of literature, which is difficult to collect and digest in limited time. Furthermore, there is insufficient exchange of results between the two research sectors. Consequently, the goal of this review paper is to bridge this gap by presenting an overview of recent progress in the field of magneto-plasmonics from two different points of view: magneto-plasmonics, and magnonics and magnetisation dynamics. It is expected that this presentation style will make this review paper of particular interest to both general physical audience and specialists conducting research on photonics, plasmonics, Brillouin light scattering spectroscopy of magnetic nanostructures and magneto-optical Kerr effect magnetometry, as well as ultrafast all-optical and THz-wave excitation of spin waves. Moreover, readers interested in a new, rapidly emerging field of all-dielectric nanophotonics will find a section about all-magneto-dielectric nanostructures.

Concept for a dark matter detector using liquid helium-4

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Guo, W.; McKinsey, D. N.

2013-06-01

Direct searches for light dark matter particles (mass<10GeV) are especially challenging because of the low energies transferred in elastic scattering to typical heavy nuclear targets. We investigate the possibility of using liquid helium-4 as a target material, taking advantage of the favorable kinematic matching of the helium nucleus to light dark matter particles. Monte Carlo simulations are performed to calculate the charge, scintillation, and triplet helium molecule signals produced by recoil He ions, for a variety of energies and electric fields. We show that excellent background rejection might be achieved based on the ratios between different signal channels. The sensitivity of the helium-based detector to light dark matter particles is estimated for various electric fields and light collection efficiencies.

Focused fluorescence excitation with time-reversed ultrasonically encoded light and imaging in thick scattering media

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lai, Puxiang; Suzuki, Yuta; Xu, Xiao; Wang, Lihong V.

2013-07-01

Scattering dominates light propagation in biological tissue, and therefore restricts both resolution and penetration depth in optical imaging within thick tissue. As photons travel into the diffusive regime, typically 1 mm beneath human skin, their trajectories transition from ballistic to diffusive due to the increased number of scattering events, which makes it impossible to focus, much less track, photon paths. Consequently, imaging methods that rely on controlled light illumination are ineffective in deep tissue. This problem has recently been addressed by a novel method capable of dynamically focusing light in thick scattering media via time reversal of ultrasonically encoded (TRUE) diffused light. Here, using photorefractive materials as phase conjugate mirrors, we show a direct visualization and dynamic control of optical focusing with this light delivery method, and demonstrate its application for focused fluorescence excitation and imaging in thick turbid media. These abilities are increasingly critical for understanding the dynamic interactions of light with biological matter and processes at different system levels, as well as their applications for biomedical diagnosis and therapy.

Emerging Nanophotonic Applications Explored with Advanced Scientific Parallel Computing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Meng, Xiang

The domain of nanoscale optical science and technology is a combination of the classical world of electromagnetics and the quantum mechanical regime of atoms and molecules. Recent advancements in fabrication technology allows the optical structures to be scaled down to nanoscale size or even to the atomic level, which are far smaller than the wavelength they are designed for. These nanostructures can have unique, controllable, and tunable optical properties and their interactions with quantum materials can have important near-field and far-field optical response. Undoubtedly, these optical properties can have many important applications, ranging from the efficient and tunable light sources, detectors, filters, modulators, high-speed all-optical switches; to the next-generation classical and quantum computation, and biophotonic medical sensors. This emerging research of nanoscience, known as nanophotonics, is a highly interdisciplinary field requiring expertise in materials science, physics, electrical engineering, and scientific computing, modeling and simulation. It has also become an important research field for investigating the science and engineering of light-matter interactions that take place on wavelength and subwavelength scales where the nature of the nanostructured matter controls the interactions. In addition, the fast advancements in the computing capabilities, such as parallel computing, also become as a critical element for investigating advanced nanophotonic devices. This role has taken on even greater urgency with the scale-down of device dimensions, and the design for these devices require extensive memory and extremely long core hours. Thus distributed computing platforms associated with parallel computing are required for faster designs processes. Scientific parallel computing constructs mathematical models and quantitative analysis techniques, and uses the computing machines to analyze and solve otherwise intractable scientific challenges. In particular, parallel computing are forms of computation operating on the principle that large problems can often be divided into smaller ones, which are then solved concurrently. In this dissertation, we report a series of new nanophotonic developments using the advanced parallel computing techniques. The applications include the structure optimizations at the nanoscale to control both the electromagnetic response of materials, and to manipulate nanoscale structures for enhanced field concentration, which enable breakthroughs in imaging, sensing systems (chapter 3 and 4) and improve the spatial-temporal resolutions of spectroscopies (chapter 5). We also report the investigations on the confinement study of optical-matter interactions at the quantum mechanical regime, where the size-dependent novel properties enhanced a wide range of technologies from the tunable and efficient light sources, detectors, to other nanophotonic elements with enhanced functionality (chapter 6 and 7).

Photonics for life.

PubMed

Cubeddu, Rinaldo; Bassi, Andrea; Comelli, Daniela; Cova, Sergio; Farina, Andrea; Ghioni, Massimo; Rech, Ivan; Pifferi, Antonio; Spinelli, Lorenzo; Taroni, Paola; Torricelli, Alessandro; Tosi, Alberto; Valentini, Gianluca; Zappa, Franco

2011-01-01

Light is strictly connected with life, and its presence is fundamental for any living environment. Thus, many biological mechanisms are related to light interaction or can be evaluated through processes involving energy exchange with photons. Optics has always been a precious tool to evaluate molecular and cellular mechanisms, but the discovery of lasers opened new pathways of interactions of light with biological matter, pushing an impressive development for both therapeutic and diagnostic applications in biomedicine. The use of light in different fields has become so widespread that the word photonics has been utilized to identify all the applications related to processes where the light is involved. The photonics area covers a wide range of wavelengths spanning from soft X-rays to mid-infrared and includes all devices related to photons as light sources, optical fibers and light guides, detectors, and all the related electronic equipment. The recent use of photons in the field of telecommunications has pushed the technology toward low-cost, compact, and efficient devices, making them available for many other applications, including those related to biology and medicine where these requirements are of particular relevance. Moreover, basic sciences such as physics, chemistry, mathematics, and electronics have recognized the interdisciplinary need of biomedical science and are translating the most advanced researches into these fields. The Politecnico school has pioneered many of them,and this article reviews the state of the art of biomedical research at the Politecnico in the field internationally known as biophotonics.

Track structure: time evolution from physics to chemistry.

PubMed

Dingfelder, M

2006-01-01

This review discusses interaction cross sections of charged particles (electrons, protons, light ions) with atoms and molecules. The focus is on biological relevant targets like liquid water which serves as a substitute of soft tissue in most Monte Carlo codes. The spatial distribution of energy deposition patterns by different radiation qualities and their importance to the time evolution from the physical to the chemical stage or radiation response is discussed. The determination of inelastic interaction cross sections for charged particles in condensed matter is discussed within the relativistic plane-wave Born approximation and semi-empirical models. The dielectric-response-function of liquid water is discussed.

Mutual interactions of phonons, rotons, and gravity

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nicolis, Alberto; Penco, Riccardo

2018-04-01

We introduce an effective point-particle action for generic particles living in a zero-temperature superfluid. This action describes the motion of the particles in the medium at equilibrium as well as their couplings to sound waves and generic fluid flows. While we place the emphasis on elementary excitations such as phonons and rotons, our formalism applies also to macroscopic objects such as vortex rings and rigid bodies interacting with long-wavelength fluid modes. Within our approach, we reproduce phonon decay and phonon-phonon scattering as predicted using a purely field-theoretic description of phonons. We also correct classic results by Landau and Khalatnikov on roton-phonon scattering. Finally, we discuss how phonons and rotons couple to gravity, and show that the former tend to float while the latter tend to sink but with rather peculiar trajectories. Our formalism can be easily extended to include (general) relativistic effects and couplings to additional matter fields. As such, it can be relevant in contexts as diverse as neutron star physics and light dark matter detection.

Technical results from the surface run of the LUX dark matter experiment

DOE PAGES

Akerib, D. S.; Bai, X.; Bernard, E.; ...

2013-03-07

We present the results of the three-month above-ground commissioning run of the Large Underground Xenon (LUX) experiment at the Sanford Underground Research Facility located in Lead, South Dakota, USA. LUX is a 370 kg liquid xenon detector that will search for cold dark matter in the form of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs). The commissioning run, conducted with the detector immersed in a water tank, validated the integration of the various sub-systems in preparation of the underground deployment. Using the data collected, we report excellent light collection properties, achieving 8.4 photoelectrons per keV for 662 keV electron recoils without anmore » applied electric field, measured in the center of the WIMP target. Here, we also find good energy and position resolution in relatively high-energy interactions from a variety of internal and external sources. Finally, we have used the commissioning data to tune the optical properties of our simulation and report updated sensitivity projections for spin-independent WIMP-nucleon scattering.« less

Graded-index optical dimer formed by optical force

DOE PAGES

Akbarzadeh, Alireza; Koschny, Thomas; Kafesaki, Maria; ...

2016-05-30

We propose an optical dimer formed from two spherical lenses bound by the pressure that light exerts on matter. With the help of the method of force tracing, we find the required graded-index profiles of the lenses for the existence of the dimer. We study the dynamics of the opto-mechanical interaction of lenses under the illumination of collimated light beams and quantitatively validate the performance of the proposed dimer. We also examine the stability of the dimer due to the lateral misalignments and we show how restoring forces bring the dimer into lateral equilibrium. The dimer can be employed inmore » various practical applications such as optical manipulation, sensing and imaging.« less

Strong Photoluminescence Enhancement in All-Dielectric Fano Metasurface with High Quality Factor.

PubMed

Yuan, Shuai; Qiu, Xingzhi; Cui, Chengcong; Zhu, Liangqiu; Wang, Yuxi; Li, Yi; Song, Jinwen; Huang, Qingzhong; Xia, Jinsong

2017-11-28

All-dielectric metamaterials offer great flexibility for controlling light-matter interaction, owing to their strong electric and magnetic resonances with negligible loss at wavelengths above the material bandgap. Here, we propose an all-dielectric asymmetric metasurface structure exhibiting high quality factor and prominent Fano line shape. Over three-orders photoluminescence enhancement is demonstrated in the fabricated all-dielectric metasurface with record-high quality factor of 1011. We find this strong emission enhancement is attributed to the coherent Fano resonances, which originate from the destructive interferences of antisymmetric displacement currents in the asymmetric all-dielectric metasurface. Our observations show a promising approach to realize light emitters based on all-dielectric metasurfaces.

Graded-index optical dimer formed by optical force

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Akbarzadeh, Alireza; Koschny, Thomas; Kafesaki, Maria

We propose an optical dimer formed from two spherical lenses bound by the pressure that light exerts on matter. With the help of the method of force tracing, we find the required graded-index profiles of the lenses for the existence of the dimer. We study the dynamics of the opto-mechanical interaction of lenses under the illumination of collimated light beams and quantitatively validate the performance of the proposed dimer. We also examine the stability of the dimer due to the lateral misalignments and we show how restoring forces bring the dimer into lateral equilibrium. The dimer can be employed inmore » various practical applications such as optical manipulation, sensing and imaging.« less

Track-structure simulations for charged particles.

PubMed

Dingfelder, Michael

2012-11-01

Monte Carlo track-structure simulations provide a detailed and accurate picture of radiation transport of charged particles through condensed matter of biological interest. Liquid water serves as a surrogate for soft tissue and is used in most Monte Carlo track-structure codes. Basic theories of radiation transport and track-structure simulations are discussed and differences compared to condensed history codes highlighted. Interaction cross sections for electrons, protons, alpha particles, and light and heavy ions are required input data for track-structure simulations. Different calculation methods, including the plane-wave Born approximation, the dielectric theory, and semi-empirical approaches are presented using liquid water as a target. Low-energy electron transport and light ion transport are discussed as areas of special interest.

SLAC All Access: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Science Instrument

ScienceCinema

Bozek, John

2018-02-13

John Bozek, a staff scientist at SLAC's Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) X-ray laser who manages the LCLS Soft X-ray Department, takes us behind the scenes at the Atomic, Molecular and Optical Science (AMO) instrument, the first of six experimental stations now operating at LCLS. Samples used in AMO experiments include atoms, molecules, clusters, and nanoscale objects such as protein crystals or viruses. Science performed at AMO includes fundamental studies of light-matter interactions in the extreme X-ray intensity of the LCLS pules, time-resolved studies of increasingly charged states of atoms and molecules, X-ray diffraction imaging of nanocrystals, and single-shot imaging of a variety of objects.

Superchiral Light Generation on Degenerate Achiral Surfaces

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vázquez-Guardado, Abraham; Chanda, Debashis

2018-03-01

A novel route of superchiral near-field generation is demonstrated based on geometrically achiral systems supporting degenerate and spatially superimposed plasmonic modes. Such systems generate a single-handed chiral near field with simultaneous zero far-field circular dichroism. The phenomenon is theoretically elucidated with a rotating dipole model, which predicts a uniform single-handed chiral near field that flips handedness solely by reversing the handedness of the source. This property allows detection of pure background free molecular chirality through near-field light-matter interaction, which is experimentally demonstrated in the precise identification of both handedness of a chiral molecule on a single substrate with about four orders of magnitude enhancement in detection sensitivity compared to its conventional volumetric counterpart.

Femtosecond Lasers in Ophthalmology: Surgery and Imaging

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bille, J. F.

Ophthalmology has traditionally been the field with prevalent laser applications in medicine. The human eye is one of the most accessible human organs and its transparency for visible and near-infrared light allows optical techniques for diagnosis and treatment of almost any ocular structure. Laser vision correction (LVC) was introduced in the late 1980s. Today, the procedural ease, success rate, and lack of disturbing side-effects in laser assisted in-situ keratomileusis (LASIK) have made it the most frequently performed refractive surgical procedure (keratomileusis(greek): cornea-flap-cutting). Recently, it has been demonstrated that specific aspects of LVC can take advantage of unique light-matter interaction processes that occur with femtosecond laser pulses.

The spectrum of darkonium in the Sun

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Kouvaris, Chris; Langæble, Kasper; Nielsen, Niklas Grønlund

Dark matter that gets captured in the Sun may form positronium-like bound states if it self-interacts via light dark photons. In this case, dark matter can either annihilate to dark photons or recombine in bound states which subsequently also decay to dark photons. The fraction of the dark photons that leave the Sun without decaying to Standard Model particles have a characteristic energy spectrum which is a mixture of the direct annihilation process, the decays of ortho- and para- bound states and the recombination process. The ultimate decay of these dark photons to positron-electron pairs (via kinetic mixing) outside themore » Sun creates a distinct signal that can either identify or set strict constraints on dark photon models.« less

Parallel mapping of optical near-field interactions by molecular motor-driven quantum dots.

PubMed

Groß, Heiko; Heil, Hannah S; Ehrig, Jens; Schwarz, Friedrich W; Hecht, Bert; Diez, Stefan

2018-04-30

In the vicinity of metallic nanostructures, absorption and emission rates of optical emitters can be modulated by several orders of magnitude 1,2 . Control of such near-field light-matter interaction is essential for applications in biosensing 3 , light harvesting 4 and quantum communication 5,6 and requires precise mapping of optical near-field interactions, for which single-emitter probes are promising candidates 7-11 . However, currently available techniques are limited in terms of throughput, resolution and/or non-invasiveness. Here, we present an approach for the parallel mapping of optical near-field interactions with a resolution of <5 nm using surface-bound motor proteins to transport microtubules carrying single emitters (quantum dots). The deterministic motion of the quantum dots allows for the interpolation of their tracked positions, resulting in an increased spatial resolution and a suppression of localization artefacts. We apply this method to map the near-field distribution of nanoslits engraved into gold layers and find an excellent agreement with finite-difference time-domain simulations. Our technique can be readily applied to a variety of surfaces for scalable, nanometre-resolved and artefact-free near-field mapping using conventional wide-field microscopes.

Theory and Simulation of Self- and Mutual-Diffusion of Carrier Density and Temperature in Semiconductor Lasers

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Li, Jian-Zhong; Cheung, Samson H.; Ning, C. Z.

2001-01-01

Carrier diffusion and thermal conduction play a fundamental role in the operation of high-power, broad-area semiconductor lasers. Restricted geometry, high pumping level and dynamic instability lead to inhomogeneous spatial distribution of plasma density, temperature, as well as light field, due to strong light-matter interaction. Thus, modeling and simulation of such optoelectronic devices rely on detailed descriptions of carrier dynamics and energy transport in the system. A self-consistent description of lasing and heating in large-aperture, inhomogeneous edge- or surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) require coupled diffusion equations for carrier density and temperature. In this paper, we derive such equations from the Boltzmann transport equation for the carrier distributions. The derived self- and mutual-diffusion coefficients are in general nonlinear functions of carrier density and temperature including many-body interactions. We study the effects of many-body interactions on these coefficients, as well as the nonlinearity of these coefficients for large-area VCSELs. The effects of mutual diffusions on carrier and temperature distributions in gain-guided VCSELs will be also presented.

The effects of the small-scale behaviour of dark matter power spectrum on CMB spectral distortion

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sarkar, Abir; Sethi, Shiv. K.; Das, Subinoy

2017-07-01

After numerous astronomical and experimental searches, the precise particle nature of dark matter is still unknown. The standard Weakly Interacting Massive Particle(WIMP) dark matter, despite successfully explaining the large-scale features of the universe, has long-standing small-scale issues. The spectral distortion in the Cosmic Microwave Background(CMB) caused by Silk damping in the pre-recombination era allows one to access information on a range of small scales 0.3 Mpc < k < 104 Mpc-1, whose dynamics can be precisely described using linear theory. In this paper, we investigate the possibility of using the Silk damping induced CMB spectral distortion as a probe of the small-scale power. We consider four suggested alternative dark matter candidates—Warm Dark Matter (WDM), Late Forming Dark Matter (LFDM), Ultra Light Axion (ULA) dark matter and Charged Decaying Dark Matter (CHDM); the matter power in all these models deviate significantly from the ΛCDM model at small scales. We compute the spectral distortion of CMB for these alternative models and compare our results with the ΛCDM model. We show that the main impact of alternative models is to alter the sub-horizon evolution of the Newtonian potential which affects the late-time behaviour of spectral distortion of CMB. The y-parameter diminishes by a few percent as compared to the ΛCDM model for a range of parameters of these models: LFDM for formation redshift zf = 105 (7%); WDM for mass mwdm = 1 keV (2%); CHDM for decay redshift zdecay = 105 (5%); ULA for mass ma = 10-24 eV (3%). This effect from the pre-recombination era can be masked by orders of magnitude higher y-distortions generated by late-time sources, e.g. the Epoch of Reionization and tSZ from the cluster of galaxies. We also briefly discuss the detectability of this deviation in light of the upcoming CMB experiment PIXIE, which might have the sensitivity to detect this signal from the pre-recombination phase.

The effects of the small-scale behaviour of dark matter power spectrum on CMB spectral distortion

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Sarkar, Abir; Sethi, Shiv K.; Das, Subinoy, E-mail: abir@rri.res.in, E-mail: sethi@rri.res.in, E-mail: subinoy@iiap.res.in

After numerous astronomical and experimental searches, the precise particle nature of dark matter is still unknown. The standard Weakly Interacting Massive Particle(WIMP) dark matter, despite successfully explaining the large-scale features of the universe, has long-standing small-scale issues. The spectral distortion in the Cosmic Microwave Background(CMB) caused by Silk damping in the pre-recombination era allows one to access information on a range of small scales 0.3 Mpc < k < 10{sup 4} Mpc{sup −1}, whose dynamics can be precisely described using linear theory. In this paper, we investigate the possibility of using the Silk damping induced CMB spectral distortion as amore » probe of the small-scale power. We consider four suggested alternative dark matter candidates—Warm Dark Matter (WDM), Late Forming Dark Matter (LFDM), Ultra Light Axion (ULA) dark matter and Charged Decaying Dark Matter (CHDM); the matter power in all these models deviate significantly from the ΛCDM model at small scales. We compute the spectral distortion of CMB for these alternative models and compare our results with the ΛCDM model. We show that the main impact of alternative models is to alter the sub-horizon evolution of the Newtonian potential which affects the late-time behaviour of spectral distortion of CMB. The y -parameter diminishes by a few percent as compared to the ΛCDM model for a range of parameters of these models: LFDM for formation redshift z {sub f} = 10{sup 5} (7%); WDM for mass m {sub wdm} = 1 keV (2%); CHDM for decay redshift z {sub decay} = 10{sup 5} (5%); ULA for mass m {sub a} = 10{sup −24} eV (3%). This effect from the pre-recombination era can be masked by orders of magnitude higher y -distortions generated by late-time sources, e.g. the Epoch of Reionization and tSZ from the cluster of galaxies. We also briefly discuss the detectability of this deviation in light of the upcoming CMB experiment PIXIE, which might have the sensitivity to detect this signal from the pre-recombination phase.« less

The vectorial control of magnetization by light.

PubMed

Kanda, Natsuki; Higuchi, Takuya; Shimizu, Hirokatsu; Konishi, Kuniaki; Yoshioka, Kosuke; Kuwata-Gonokami, Makoto

2011-06-21

Application of coherent light-matter interactions has recently been extended to the ultrafast control of magnetization. An important but unrealized technique is the manipulation of magnetization vector motion to make it follow an arbitrarily designed multidimensional trajectory. Here we demonstrate a full manipulation of two-dimensional magnetic oscillations in antiferromagnetic NiO with a pair of polarization-twisted femtosecond laser pulses. We employ Raman-type nonlinear optical processes, wherein magnetic oscillations are impulsively induced with a controlled initial phase. Their azimuthal angle follows well-defined selection rules that have been determined by the symmetries of the materials. We emphasize that the temporal variation of the laser-pulse polarization angle enables us to control the phase and amplitude of the two degenerate modes, independently. These results lead to a new concept of the vectorial control of magnetization by light.

Contribution of Lubricating Oil to Particulate Matter Emissions from Light-Duty Gasoline Vehicles in Kansas City

EPA Science Inventory

The contribution of lubricating oil to particulate matter (PM) emissions representative of the in-use 2004 light-duty gasoline vehicles fleet is estimated from the Kansas City Light-Duty Vehicle Emissions Study (KCVES). PM emissions are apportioned to lubricating oil and gasoline...

Contribution of Lubricating Oil to Particulate Matter Emissions from Light-duty Gasoline Vehicles in Kansas City

EPA Science Inventory

The contribution of lubricating oil to particulate matter (PM) emissions representative of the in-use 2004 light-duty gasoline vehicles fleet is estimated from the Kansas City Light-Duty Vehicle Emissions Study (KCVES). PM emissions are apportioned to lubricating oil and gasoline...

New chiral fermions, a new gauge interaction, Dirac neutrinos, and dark matter

DOE PAGES

de Gouvea, Andre; Hernandez, Daniel

2015-10-07

Here, we propose that all light fermionic degrees of freedom, including the Standard Model (SM) fermions and all possible light beyond-the-standard-model fields, are chiral with respect to some spontaneously broken abelian gauge symmetry. Hypercharge, for example, plays this role for the SM fermions. We introduce a new symmetry, U(1) ν , for all new light fermionic states. Anomaly cancellations mandate the existence of several new fermion fields with nontrivial U(1) ν charges. We develop a concrete model of this type, for which we show that (i) some fermions remain massless after U(1) ν breaking — similar to SM neutrinos —more » and (ii) accidental global symmetries translate into stable massive particles — similar to SM protons. These ingredients provide a solution to the dark matter and neutrino mass puzzles assuming one also postulates the existence of heavy degrees of freedom that act as “mediators” between the two sectors. The neutrino mass mechanism described here leads to parametrically small Dirac neutrino masses, and the model also requires the existence of at least four Dirac sterile neutrinos. Finally, we describe a general technique to write down chiral-fermions-only models that are at least anomaly-free under a U(1) gauge symmetry.« less

New chiral fermions, a new gauge interaction, Dirac neutrinos, and dark matter

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

de Gouvea, Andre; Hernandez, Daniel

Here, we propose that all light fermionic degrees of freedom, including the Standard Model (SM) fermions and all possible light beyond-the-standard-model fields, are chiral with respect to some spontaneously broken abelian gauge symmetry. Hypercharge, for example, plays this role for the SM fermions. We introduce a new symmetry, U(1) ν , for all new light fermionic states. Anomaly cancellations mandate the existence of several new fermion fields with nontrivial U(1) ν charges. We develop a concrete model of this type, for which we show that (i) some fermions remain massless after U(1) ν breaking — similar to SM neutrinos —more » and (ii) accidental global symmetries translate into stable massive particles — similar to SM protons. These ingredients provide a solution to the dark matter and neutrino mass puzzles assuming one also postulates the existence of heavy degrees of freedom that act as “mediators” between the two sectors. The neutrino mass mechanism described here leads to parametrically small Dirac neutrino masses, and the model also requires the existence of at least four Dirac sterile neutrinos. Finally, we describe a general technique to write down chiral-fermions-only models that are at least anomaly-free under a U(1) gauge symmetry.« less

Quantum Simulation of the Quantum Rabi Model in a Trapped Ion

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lv, Dingshun; An, Shuoming; Liu, Zhenyu; Zhang, Jing-Ning; Pedernales, Julen S.; Lamata, Lucas; Solano, Enrique; Kim, Kihwan

2018-04-01

The quantum Rabi model, involving a two-level system and a bosonic field mode, is arguably the simplest and most fundamental model describing quantum light-matter interactions. Historically, due to the restricted parameter regimes of natural light-matter processes, the richness of this model has been elusive in the lab. Here, we experimentally realize a quantum simulation of the quantum Rabi model in a single trapped ion, where the coupling strength between the simulated light mode and atom can be tuned at will. The versatility of the demonstrated quantum simulator enables us to experimentally explore the quantum Rabi model in detail, including a wide range of otherwise unaccessible phenomena, as those happening in the ultrastrong and deep strong-coupling regimes. In this sense, we are able to adiabatically generate the ground state of the quantum Rabi model in the deep strong-coupling regime, where we are able to detect the nontrivial entanglement between the bosonic field mode and the two-level system. Moreover, we observe the breakdown of the rotating-wave approximation when the coupling strength is increased, and the generation of phonon wave packets that bounce back and forth when the coupling reaches the deep strong-coupling regime. Finally, we also measure the energy spectrum of the quantum Rabi model in the ultrastrong-coupling regime.

Controls on dissolved organic matter (DOM) degradation in a headwater stream: the influence of photochemical and hydrological conditions in determining light-limitation or substrate-limitation of photo-degradation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cory, R. M.; Harrold, K. H.; Neilson, B. T.; Kling, G. W.

2015-11-01

We investigated how absorption of sunlight by chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM) controls the degradation and export of DOM from Imnavait Creek, a beaded stream in the Alaskan Arctic. We measured concentrations of dissolved organic carbon (DOC), as well as concentrations and characteristics of CDOM and fluorescent dissolved organic matter (FDOM), during ice-free periods of 2011-2012 in the pools of Imnavait Creek and in soil waters draining to the creek. Spatial and temporal patterns in CDOM and FDOM in Imnavait Creek were analyzed in conjunction with measures of DOM degradation by sunlight and bacteria and assessments of hydrologic residence times and in situ UV exposure. CDOM was the dominant light attenuating constituent in the UV and visible portion of the solar spectrum, with high attenuation coefficients ranging from 86 ± 12 m-1 at 305 nm to 3 ± 1 m-1 in the photosynthetically active region (PAR). High rates of light absorption and thus light attenuation by CDOM contributed to thermal stratification in the majority of pools in Imnavait Creek under low-flow conditions. In turn, thermal stratification increased the residence time of water and DOM, and resulted in a separation of water masses distinguished by contrasting UV exposure (i.e., UV attenuation by CDOM with depth resulted in bottom waters receiving less UV than surface waters). When the pools in Imnavait Creek were stratified, DOM in the pool bottom water closely resembled soil water DOM in character, while the concentration and character of DOM in surface water was reproduced by experimental photo-degradation of bottom water. These results, in combination with water column rates of DOM degradation by sunlight and bacteria, suggest that photo-degradation is the dominant process controlling DOM fate and export in Imnavait Creek. A conceptual model is presented showing how CDOM amount and lability interact with incident UV light and water residence time to determine whether photo-degradation is "light-limited" or "substrate-limited". We suggest that degradation of DOM in CDOM-rich streams or ponds similar to Imnavait is typically light-limited under most flow conditions. Thus, export of DOM from this stream will be less under conditions that increase the light available for DOM photo-degradation (i.e., low flows, sunny days).

Nonlinear propagation of light in Dirac matter.

PubMed

Eliasson, Bengt; Shukla, P K

2011-09-01

The nonlinear interaction between intense laser light and a quantum plasma is modeled by a collective Dirac equation coupled with the Maxwell equations. The model is used to study the nonlinear propagation of relativistically intense laser light in a quantum plasma including the electron spin-1/2 effect. The relativistic effects due to the high-intensity laser light lead, in general, to a downshift of the laser frequency, similar to a classical plasma where the relativistic mass increase leads to self-induced transparency of laser light and other associated effects. The electron spin-1/2 effects lead to a frequency upshift or downshift of the electromagnetic (EM) wave, depending on the spin state of the plasma and the polarization of the EM wave. For laboratory solid density plasmas, the spin-1/2 effects on the propagation of light are small, but they may be significant in superdense plasma in the core of white dwarf stars. We also discuss extensions of the model to include kinetic effects of a distribution of the electrons on the nonlinear propagation of EM waves in a quantum plasma.

Long-range Self-interacting Dark Matter in the Sun

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Chen, Jing; State Key Laboratory of Theoretical Physics, Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics China,Institute of Theoretical Physics, Chinese Academy of Science,Zhong Guan Cun East Street 55#, Beijing, 100190; Liang, Zheng-Liang

2015-12-10

We investigate the implications of the long-rang self-interaction on both the self-capture and the annihilation of the self-interacting dark matter (SIDM) trapped in the Sun. Our discussion is based on a specific SIDM model in which DM particles self-interact via a light scalar mediator, or Yukawa potential, in the context of quantum mechanics. Within this framework, we calculate the self-capture rate across a broad region of parameter space. While the self-capture rate can be obtained separately in the Born regime with perturbative method, and in the classical limits with the Rutherford formula, our calculation covers the gap between in amore » non-perturbative fashion. Besides, the phenomenology of both the Sommerfeld-enhanced s- and p-wave annihilation of the solar SIDM is also involved in our discussion. Moreover, by combining the analysis of the Super-Kamiokande (SK) data and the observed DM relic density, we constrain the nuclear capture rate of the DM particles in the presence of the dark Yukawa potential. The consequence of the long-range dark force on probing the solar SIDM turns out to be significant if the force-carrier is much lighter than the DM particle, and a quantitative analysis is provided.« less

A facility to search for hidden particles at the CERN SPS: the SHiP physics case.

PubMed

Alekhin, Sergey; Altmannshofer, Wolfgang; Asaka, Takehiko; Batell, Brian; Bezrukov, Fedor; Bondarenko, Kyrylo; Boyarsky, Alexey; Choi, Ki-Young; Corral, Cristóbal; Craig, Nathaniel; Curtin, David; Davidson, Sacha; de Gouvêa, André; Dell'Oro, Stefano; deNiverville, Patrick; Bhupal Dev, P S; Dreiner, Herbi; Drewes, Marco; Eijima, Shintaro; Essig, Rouven; Fradette, Anthony; Garbrecht, Björn; Gavela, Belen; Giudice, Gian F; Goodsell, Mark D; Gorbunov, Dmitry; Gori, Stefania; Grojean, Christophe; Guffanti, Alberto; Hambye, Thomas; Hansen, Steen H; Helo, Juan Carlos; Hernandez, Pilar; Ibarra, Alejandro; Ivashko, Artem; Izaguirre, Eder; Jaeckel, Joerg; Jeong, Yu Seon; Kahlhoefer, Felix; Kahn, Yonatan; Katz, Andrey; Kim, Choong Sun; Kovalenko, Sergey; Krnjaic, Gordan; Lyubovitskij, Valery E; Marcocci, Simone; Mccullough, Matthew; McKeen, David; Mitselmakher, Guenakh; Moch, Sven-Olaf; Mohapatra, Rabindra N; Morrissey, David E; Ovchynnikov, Maksym; Paschos, Emmanuel; Pilaftsis, Apostolos; Pospelov, Maxim; Reno, Mary Hall; Ringwald, Andreas; Ritz, Adam; Roszkowski, Leszek; Rubakov, Valery; Ruchayskiy, Oleg; Schienbein, Ingo; Schmeier, Daniel; Schmidt-Hoberg, Kai; Schwaller, Pedro; Senjanovic, Goran; Seto, Osamu; Shaposhnikov, Mikhail; Shchutska, Lesya; Shelton, Jessie; Shrock, Robert; Shuve, Brian; Spannowsky, Michael; Spray, Andy; Staub, Florian; Stolarski, Daniel; Strassler, Matt; Tello, Vladimir; Tramontano, Francesco; Tripathi, Anurag; Tulin, Sean; Vissani, Francesco; Winkler, Martin W; Zurek, Kathryn M

2016-12-01

This paper describes the physics case for a new fixed target facility at CERN SPS. The SHiP (search for hidden particles) experiment is intended to hunt for new physics in the largely unexplored domain of very weakly interacting particles with masses below the Fermi scale, inaccessible to the LHC experiments, and to study tau neutrino physics. The same proton beam setup can be used later to look for decays of tau-leptons with lepton flavour number non-conservation, [Formula: see text] and to search for weakly-interacting sub-GeV dark matter candidates. We discuss the evidence for physics beyond the standard model and describe interactions between new particles and four different portals-scalars, vectors, fermions or axion-like particles. We discuss motivations for different models, manifesting themselves via these interactions, and how they can be probed with the SHiP experiment and present several case studies. The prospects to search for relatively light SUSY and composite particles at SHiP are also discussed. We demonstrate that the SHiP experiment has a unique potential to discover new physics and can directly probe a number of solutions of beyond the standard model puzzles, such as neutrino masses, baryon asymmetry of the Universe, dark matter, and inflation.

Enhanced coupling of light into a turbid medium through microscopic interface engineering

PubMed Central

Thompson, Jonathan V.; Hokr, Brett H.; Kim, Wihan; Ballmann, Charles W.; Applegate, Brian E.; Jo, Javier; Yamilov, Alexey; Cao, Hui; Scully, Marlan O.; Yakovlev, Vladislav V.

2017-01-01

There are many optical detection and sensing methods used today that provide powerful ways to diagnose, characterize, and study materials. For example, the measurement of spontaneous Raman scattering allows for remote detection and identification of chemicals. Many other optical techniques provide unique solutions to learn about biological, chemical, and even structural systems. However, when these systems exist in a highly scattering or turbid medium, the optical scattering effects reduce the effectiveness of these methods. In this article, we demonstrate a method to engineer the geometry of the optical interface of a turbid medium, thereby drastically enhancing the coupling efficiency of light into the material. This enhanced optical coupling means that light incident on the material will penetrate deeper into (and through) the medium. It also means that light thus injected into the material will have an enhanced interaction time with particles contained within the material. These results show that, by using the multiple scattering of light in a turbid medium, enhanced light–matter interaction can be achieved; this has a direct impact on spectroscopic methods such as Raman scattering and fluorescence detection in highly scattering regimes. Furthermore, the enhanced penetration depth achieved by this method will directly impact optical techniques that have previously been limited by the inability to deposit sufficient amounts of optical energy below or through highly scattering layers. PMID:28701381

Background-independent condensed matter models for quantum gravity

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hamma, Alioscia; Markopoulou, Fotini

2011-09-01

A number of recent proposals on a quantum theory of gravity are based on the idea that spacetime geometry and gravity are derivative concepts and only apply at an approximate level. There are two fundamental challenges to any such approach. At the conceptual level, there is a clash between the 'timelessness' of general relativity and emergence. Secondly, the lack of a fundamental spacetime renders difficult the straightforward application of well-known methods of statistical physics to the problem. We recently initiated a study of such problems using spin systems based on the evolution of quantum networks with no a priori geometric notions as models for emergent geometry and gravity. In this paper, we review two such models. The first model is a model of emergent (flat) space and matter, and we show how to use methods from quantum information theory to derive features such as the speed of light from a non-geometric quantum system. The second model exhibits interacting matter and geometry, with the geometry defined by the behavior of matter. This model has primitive notions of gravitational attraction that we illustrate with a toy black hole, and exhibits entanglement between matter and geometry and thermalization of the quantum geometry.

On the existence of low-mass dark matter and its direct detection.

PubMed

Bateman, James; McHardy, Ian; Merle, Alexander; Morris, Tim R; Ulbricht, Hendrik

2015-01-27

Dark Matter (DM) is an elusive form of matter which has been postulated to explain astronomical observations through its gravitational effects on stars and galaxies, gravitational lensing of light around these, and through its imprint on the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). This indirect evidence implies that DM accounts for as much as 84.5% of all matter in our Universe, yet it has so far evaded all attempts at direct detection, leaving such confirmation and the consequent discovery of its nature as one of the biggest challenges in modern physics. Here we present a novel form of low-mass DM χ that would have been missed by all experiments so far. While its large interaction strength might at first seem unlikely, neither constraints from particle physics nor cosmological/astronomical observations are sufficient to rule out this type of DM, and it motivates our proposal for direct detection by optomechanics technology which should soon be within reach, namely, through the precise position measurement of a levitated mesoscopic particle which will be perturbed by elastic collisions with χ particles. We show that a recently proposed nanoparticle matter-wave interferometer, originally conceived for tests of the quantum superposition principle, is sensitive to these collisions, too.

On the Existence of Low-Mass Dark Matter and its Direct Detection

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bateman, James; McHardy, Ian; Merle, Alexander; Morris, Tim R.; Ulbricht, Hendrik

2015-01-01

Dark Matter (DM) is an elusive form of matter which has been postulated to explain astronomical observations through its gravitational effects on stars and galaxies, gravitational lensing of light around these, and through its imprint on the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). This indirect evidence implies that DM accounts for as much as 84.5% of all matter in our Universe, yet it has so far evaded all attempts at direct detection, leaving such confirmation and the consequent discovery of its nature as one of the biggest challenges in modern physics. Here we present a novel form of low-mass DM χ that would have been missed by all experiments so far. While its large interaction strength might at first seem unlikely, neither constraints from particle physics nor cosmological/astronomical observations are sufficient to rule out this type of DM, and it motivates our proposal for direct detection by optomechanics technology which should soon be within reach, namely, through the precise position measurement of a levitated mesoscopic particle which will be perturbed by elastic collisions with χ particles. We show that a recently proposed nanoparticle matter-wave interferometer, originally conceived for tests of the quantum superposition principle, is sensitive to these collisions, too.

Inelastic dark matter in light of DAMA/LIBRA

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Chang, Spencer; Weiner, Neal; Kribs, Graham D.

2009-02-15

Inelastic dark matter, in which weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP)-nucleus scatterings occur through a transition to an excited WIMP state {approx}100 keV above the ground state, provides a compelling explanation of the DAMA annual modulation signal. We demonstrate that the relative sensitivities of various dark matter direct detection experiments are modified such that the DAMA annual modulation signal can be reconciled with the absence of a reported signal at CDMS-Soudan, XENON10, ZEPLIN, CRESST, and KIMS for inelastic WIMPs with masses O(100 GeV). We review the status of these experiments, and make predictions for upcoming ones. In particular, we note thatmore » inelastic dark matter leads to highly suppressed signals at low energy, with most events typically occurring between 20 and 45 keV (unquenched) at xenon and iodine experiments, and generally no events at low ({approx}10 keV) energies. Suppressing the background in this high-energy region is essential to testing this scenario. The recent CRESST data suggest seven observed tungsten events, which is consistent with expectations from this model. If the tungsten signal persists at future CRESST runs, it would provide compelling evidence for inelastic dark matter, while its absence should exclude it.« less

Polariton devices and quantum fluids

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ballarini, D.; De Giorgi, M.; Lerario, G.; Cannavale, A.; Cancellieri, E.; Bramati, A.; Gigli, G.; Laussy, F.; Sanvitto, D.

2014-02-01

Exciton-polaritons, composite particles resulting from the strong coupling between excitons and photons, have shown the capability to undergo condensation into a macroscopically coherent quantum state, demonstrating strong non-linearities and unique propagation properties. These strongly-coupled light-matter particles are promising candidates for the realization of semiconductor all-optical devices with fast time response and small energy consumption. Recently, quantum fluids of polaritons have been used to demonstrate the possibility to implement optical functionalities as spin switches, transistors or memories, but also to provide a channel for the transmission of information inside integrated circuits. In this context, the possibility to extend the range of light-matter interaction up to room temperature becomes of crucial importance. One of the most intriguing promises is to use organic Frenkel excitons, which, thanks to their huge oscillator strength, not only sustain the polariton picture at room temperature, but also bring the system into the unexplored regime of ultra-strong coupling. The combination of these materials with ad-hoc designed structures may allow the control of the propagation properties of polaritons, paving the way towards their implementation of the polariton functionalities in actual devices for opto-electronic applications.

Compression and release dynamics of an active matter system of Euglena gracilis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lam, Amy; Tsang, Alan C. H.; Ouellette, Nicholas; Riedel-Kruse, Ingmar

Active matter, defined as ensembles of self-propelled particles, encompasses a large variety of systems at all scales, from nanoparticles to bird flocks. Though various models and simulations have been created to describe the dynamics of these systems, experimental verification has been difficult to obtain. This is frequently due to the complex interaction rules which govern the particle behavior, in turn making systematic varying of parameters impossible. Here, we propose a model for predicting the system evolution of compression and release of an active system based on experiments and simulations. In particular, we consider ensembles of the unicellular, photo-responsive algae, Euglena gracilis, under light stimulation. By varying the spatiotemporal light patterns, we are able to finely adjust cell densities and achieve arbitrary non-homogeneous distributions, including compression into high-density aggregates of varying geometries. We observe the formation of depletion zones after the release of the confining stimulus and investigate the effects of the density distribution and particle rotational noise on the depletion. These results provide implications for defining state parameters which determine system evolution.

Tunable room-temperature spin-selective optical Stark effect in solution-processed layered halide perovskites.

PubMed

Giovanni, David; Chong, Wee Kiang; Dewi, Herlina Arianita; Thirumal, Krishnamoorthy; Neogi, Ishita; Ramesh, Ramamoorthy; Mhaisalkar, Subodh; Mathews, Nripan; Sum, Tze Chien

2016-06-01

Ultrafast spin manipulation for opto-spin logic applications requires material systems that have strong spin-selective light-matter interaction. Conventional inorganic semiconductor nanostructures [for example, epitaxial II to VI quantum dots and III to V multiple quantum wells (MQWs)] are considered forerunners but encounter challenges such as lattice matching and cryogenic cooling requirements. Two-dimensional halide perovskite semiconductors, combining intrinsic tunable MQW structures and large oscillator strengths with facile solution processability, can offer breakthroughs in this area. We demonstrate novel room-temperature, strong ultrafast spin-selective optical Stark effect in solution-processed (C6H4FC2H4NH3)2PbI4 perovskite thin films. Exciton spin states are selectively tuned by ~6.3 meV using circularly polarized optical pulses without any external photonic cavity (that is, corresponding to a Rabi energy of ~55 meV and equivalent to applying a 70 T magnetic field), which is much larger than any conventional system. The facile halide and organic replacement in these perovskites affords control of the dielectric confinement and thus presents a straightforward strategy for tuning light-matter coupling strength.

Gravitational Wave in Linear General Relativity

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cubillos, D. J.

2017-07-01

General relativity is the best theory currently available to describe the interaction due to gravity. Within Albert Einstein's field equations this interaction is described by means of the spatiotemporal curvature generated by the matter-energy content in the universe. Weyl worked on the existence of perturbations of the curvature of space-time that propagate at the speed of light, which are known as Gravitational Waves, obtained to a first approximation through the linearization of the field equations of Einstein. Weyl's solution consists of taking the field equations in a vacuum and disturbing the metric, using the Minkowski metric slightly perturbed by a factor ɛ greater than zero but much smaller than one. If the feedback effect of the field is neglected, it can be considered as a weak field solution. After introducing the disturbed metric and ignoring ɛ terms of order greater than one, we can find the linearized field equations in terms of the perturbation, which can then be expressed in terms of the Dalambertian operator of the perturbation equalized to zero. This is analogous to the linear wave equation in classical mechanics, which can be interpreted by saying that gravitational effects propagate as waves at the speed of light. In addition to this, by studying the motion of a particle affected by this perturbation through the geodesic equation can show the transversal character of the gravitational wave and its two possible states of polarization. It can be shown that the energy carried by the wave is of the order of 1/c5 where c is the speed of light, which explains that its effects on matter are very small and very difficult to detect.

J. J. Sakurai Prize: Astrophysics, Cosmology and PQ Symmetry--Linking the Very Small and the Very Large

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Quinn, Helen

2013-04-01

The symmetry between the laws of physics for matter and those for antimatter (technically known as CP symmetry) is broken in the weak interaction but maintained to a high level of precision in the strong interaction. In the context of the Standard Model theory of particles and their interactions this is a puzzle --what protects the strong interaction from being more ``infected'' by the lack of a symmetry of the weak interaction? I will review the history of the idea we had to solve this puzzle, its consequences, and its evolution into the versions still viable today. Our answer to this puzzle, adding a further symmetry now known as PQ symmetry, arose from thinking about the effects of quark-Higgs couplings as in the early Universe, in the phase transition that gives quarks their masses. Not only did this modification of the Standard Model arise from cosmological thinking, it turns out to have possible cosmological consequences in the form of a light, weakly-coupled particle known as the axion, a possible dark matter candidate. Furthermore astrophysical constraints on such a particle have played a role in the subsequent evolution of theories with PQ symmetry. I will review the early history of this fascinating linkage of large scale and small scale physics, leaving later developments for my collaborator and co-recipient of this prize, Roberto Peccei, to talk about.

Quantum capacity of quantum black holes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Adami, Chris; Bradler, Kamil

2014-03-01

The fate of quantum entanglement interacting with a black hole has been an enduring mystery, not the least because standard curved space field theory does not address the interaction of black holes with matter. We discuss an effective Hamiltonian of matter interacting with a black hole that has a precise analogue in quantum optics and correctly reproduces both spontaneous and stimulated Hawking radiation with grey-body factors. We calculate the quantum capacity of this channel in the limit of perfect absorption, as well as in the limit of a perfectly reflecting black hole (a white hole). We find that the white hole is an optimal quantum cloner, and is isomorphic to the Unruh channel with positive quantum capacity. The complementary channel (across the horizon) is entanglement-breaking with zero capacity, avoiding a violation of the quantum no-cloning theorem. The black hole channel on the contrary has vanishing capacity, while its complement has positive capacity instead. Thus, quantum states can be reconstructed faithfully behind the black hole horizon, but not outside. This work sheds new light on black hole complementarity because it shows that black holes can both reflect and absorb quantum states without violating the no-cloning theorem, and makes quantum firewalls obsolete.

Multi-dimensional simulation package for ultrashort pulse laser-matter interactions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Suslova, Anastassiya; Hassanein, Ahmed

2017-10-01

Advanced simulation models recently became a popular tool of investigation of ultrashort pulse lasers (USPLs) to enhance understanding of the physics and allow minimizing the experimental costs for optimization of laser and target parameters for various applications. Our research interest is focused on developing multi-dimensional simulation package FEMTO-2D to investigate the USPL-matter interactions and laser induced effects. The package is based on solution of two heat conduction equations for electron and lattice sub-systems - enhanced two temperature model (TTM). We have implemented theoretical approach based on the collision theory to define the thermal dependence of target material optical properties and thermodynamic parameters. Our approach allowed elimination of fitted parameters commonly used in TTM based simulations. FEMTO-2D is used to simulated the light absorption and interactions for several metallic targets as a function of wavelength and pulse duration for wide range of laser intensity. The package has capability to consider different angles of incidence and polarization. It has also been used to investigate the damage threshold of the gold coated optical components with the focus on the role of the film thickness and substrate heat sink effect. This work was supported by the NSF, PIRE project.

Cosmological simulations of decaying dark matter: implications for small-scale structure of dark matter haloes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Mei-Yu; Peter, Annika H. G.; Strigari, Louis E.; Zentner, Andrew R.; Arant, Bryan; Garrison-Kimmel, Shea; Rocha, Miguel

2014-11-01

We present a set of N-body simulations of a class of models in which an unstable dark matter particle decays into a stable dark matter particle and a non-interacting light particle with decay lifetime comparable to the Hubble time. We study the effects of the recoil kick velocity (Vk) received by the stable dark matter on the structures of dark matter haloes ranging from galaxy-cluster to Milky Way-mass scales. For Milky Way-mass haloes, we use high-resolution, zoom-in simulations to explore the effects of decays on Galactic substructure. In general, haloes with circular velocities comparable to the magnitude of kick velocity are most strongly affected by decays. We show that models with lifetimes Γ-1 ˜ H_0^{-1} and recoil speeds Vk ˜ 20-40 km s-1 can significantly reduce both the abundance of Galactic subhaloes and their internal densities. We find that decaying dark matter models that do not violate current astrophysical constraints can significantly mitigate both the `missing satellites problem' and the more recent `too big to fail problem'. These decaying models predict significant time evolution of haloes, and this implies that at high redshifts decaying models exhibit the similar sequence of structure formation as cold dark matter. Thus, decaying dark matter models are significantly less constrained by high-redshift phenomena than warm dark matter models. We conclude that models of decaying dark matter make predictions that are relevant for the interpretation of small galaxies observations in the Local Group and can be tested as well as by forthcoming large-scale surveys.

Matter and Interactions: A Particle Physics Perspective

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Organtini, Giovanni

2011-01-01

In classical mechanics, matter and fields are completely separated; matter interacts with fields. For particle physicists this is not the case; both matter and fields are represented by particles. Fundamental interactions are mediated by particles exchanged between matter particles. In this article we explain why particle physicists believe in…

Cosmological constraints on interacting light particles

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Brust, Christopher; Cui, Yanou; Sigurdson, Kris, E-mail: cbrust@perimeterinstitute.ca, E-mail: yanou.cui@ucr.edu, E-mail: krs@phas.ubc.ca

2017-08-01

Cosmological observations are becoming increasingly sensitive to the effects of light particles in the form of dark radiation (DR) at the time of recombination. The conventional observable of effective neutrino number, N {sub eff}, is insufficient for probing generic, interacting models of DR. In this work, we perform likelihood analyses which allow both free-streaming effective neutrinos (parametrized by N {sub eff}) and interacting effective neutrinos (parametrized by N {sub fld}). We motivate an alternative parametrization of DR in terms of N {sub tot} (total effective number of neutrinos) and f {sub fs} (the fraction of effective neutrinos which are free-streaming),more » which is less degenerate than using N {sub eff} and N {sub fld}. Using the Planck 2015 likelihoods in conjunction with measurements of baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO), we find constraints on the total amount of beyond the Standard Model effective neutrinos (both free-streaming and interacting) of Δ N {sub tot} < 0.39 at 2σ. In addition, we consider the possibility that this scenario alleviates the tensions between early-time and late-time cosmological observations, in particular the measurements of σ{sub 8} (the amplitude of matter power fluctuations at 8 h {sup −1} Mpc), finding a mild preference for interactions among light species. We further forecast the sensitivities of a variety of future experiments, including Advanced ACTPol (a representative CMB Stage-III experiment), CMB Stage-IV, and the Euclid satellite. This study is relevant for probing non-standard neutrino physics as well as a wide variety of new particle physics models beyond the Standard Model that involve dark radiation.« less

Primordial black holes from fifth forces

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Amendola, Luca; Rubio, Javier; Wetterich, Christof

2018-04-01

Primordial black holes can be produced by a long-range attractive fifth force stronger than gravity, mediated by a light scalar field interacting with nonrelativistic "heavy" particles. As soon as the energy fraction of heavy particles reaches a threshold, the fluctuations rapidly become nonlinear. The overdensities collapse into black holes or similar screened objects, without the need for any particular feature in the spectrum of primordial density fluctuations generated during inflation. We discuss whether such primordial black holes can constitute the total dark matter component in the Universe.

Control of strong light-matter coupling using the capacitance of metamaterial nanocavities

DOE PAGES

Benz, Alexander; Campione, Salvatore; Klem, John Frederick; ...

2015-01-27

Metallic nanocavities with deep subwavelength mode volumes can lead to dramatic changes in the behavior of emitters placed in their vicinity. The resulting collocation and interaction often leads to strong coupling. We present for the first time experimental evidence that the Rabi splitting is directly proportional to the electrostatic capacitance associated with the metallic nanocavity. As a result, the system analyzed consists of different metamaterial geometries with the same resonance wavelength coupled to intersubband transitions in quantum wells.

BBN constraints on MeV-scale dark sectors. Part I. Sterile decays

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hufnagel, Marco; Schmidt-Hoberg, Kai; Wild, Sebastian

2018-02-01

We study constraints from Big Bang Nucleosynthesis on inert particles in a dark sector which contribute to the Hubble rate and therefore change the predictions of the primordial nuclear abundances. We pay special attention to the case of MeV-scale particles decaying into dark radiation, which are neither fully relativistic nor non-relativistic during all temperatures relevant to Big Bang Nucleosynthesis. As an application we discuss the implications of our general results for models of self-interacting dark matter with light mediators.

Investigating the applicability of activity-based quantum mechanics in a few high school physics classrooms

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Escalada, Lawrence Todd

Quantum physics is not traditionally introduced in high school physics courses because of the level of abstraction and mathematical formalism associated with the subject. As part of the Visual Quantum Mechanics project, activity-based instructional units have been developed that introduce quantum principles to students who have limited backgrounds in physics and mathematics. This study investigates the applicability of one unit, Solids & Light, that introduces quantum principles within the context of learning about light emitting diodes. An observation protocol, attitude surveys, and questionnaires were used to examine the implementation of materials and student-teacher interactions in various secondary physics classrooms. Aspects of Solids & Light including the use of hands-on activities, interactive computer programs, inexpensive materials, and the focus on conceptual understanding were very applicable in the various physics classrooms observed. Both teachers and students gave these instructional strategies favorable ratings in motivating students to make observations and to learn. These ratings were not significantly affected by gender or students, attitudes towards physics or computers. Solid's & Light was applicable in terms of content and teaching style for some teachers. However, a mismatch of teaching styles between some instructors and the unit posed some problems in determining applicability. Observations indicated that some instructors were not able to utilize the exploratory instructional strategy of Solid's & Light. Thus, Solids & Light must include additional support necessary to make the instructor comfortable with the subject matter and pedagogical style. With these revisions, Solids & Light, will have all the key components to make its implementation in a high school physics classroom a successful one.

Probing the ultimate plasmon confinement limits with a van der Waals heterostructure.

PubMed

Alcaraz Iranzo, David; Nanot, Sébastien; Dias, Eduardo J C; Epstein, Itai; Peng, Cheng; Efetov, Dmitri K; Lundeberg, Mark B; Parret, Romain; Osmond, Johann; Hong, Jin-Yong; Kong, Jing; Englund, Dirk R; Peres, Nuno M R; Koppens, Frank H L

2018-04-20

The ability to confine light into tiny spatial dimensions is important for applications such as microscopy, sensing, and nanoscale lasers. Although plasmons offer an appealing avenue to confine light, Landau damping in metals imposes a trade-off between optical field confinement and losses. We show that a graphene-insulator-metal heterostructure can overcome that trade-off, and demonstrate plasmon confinement down to the ultimate limit of the length scale of one atom. This is achieved through far-field excitation of plasmon modes squeezed into an atomically thin hexagonal boron nitride dielectric spacer between graphene and metal rods. A theoretical model that takes into account the nonlocal optical response of both graphene and metal is used to describe the results. These ultraconfined plasmonic modes, addressed with far-field light excitation, enable a route to new regimes of ultrastrong light-matter interactions. Copyright © 2018 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works.

Space-atmospheric interactions of energetic cosmic rays

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Isar, Paula Gina

2015-02-01

Ultra-high energy cosmic rays are the most energetic particles in the Universe of which origin still remain a mystery since a century from their descovery. They are unique messengers coming from far beyond our Milky Way Galaxy, which provides insights into the fundamental matter, energy, space and time. As subatomic particles flying through space to nearly light speed, the ultra-high energy cosmic rays are so rare that they strike the Earth's atmosphere at a rate of up to only one particle per square kilometer per year or century. While the atmosphere is used as a giant calorimeter where cosmic rays induced air showers are initiated and the medium through which Cherenkov or fluorescence light or radio waves propagate, all cosmic ray measurements (performed either from space or ground) rely on an accurate atmospheric monitoring and understanding of atmospheric effects. The interdisciplinary link between Astroparticle Physics and Atmospheric Environment through the ultra-high energy comic rays space - atmospheric interactions, based on the present ground- and future space-based cosmic ray observatories, will be presented.

The LILIA (laser induced light ions acceleration) experiment at LNF

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Agosteo, S.; Anania, M. P.; Caresana, M.; Cirrone, G. A. P.; De Martinis, C.; Delle Side, D.; Fazzi, A.; Gatti, G.; Giove, D.; Giulietti, D.; Gizzi, L. A.; Labate, L.; Londrillo, P.; Maggiore, M.; Nassisi, V.; Sinigardi, S.; Tramontana, A.; Schillaci, F.; Scuderi, V.; Turchetti, G.; Varoli, V.; Velardi, L.

2014-07-01

Laser-matter interaction at relativistic intensities opens up new research fields in the particle acceleration and related secondary sources, with immediate applications in medical diagnostics, biophysics, material science, inertial confinement fusion, up to laboratory astrophysics. In particular laser-driven ion acceleration is very promising for hadron therapy once the ion energy will attain a few hundred MeV. The limited value of the energy up to now obtained for the accelerated ions is the drawback of such innovative technique to the real applications. LILIA (laser induced light ions acceleration) is an experiment now running at LNF (Frascati) with the goal of producing a real proton beam able to be driven for significant distances (50-75 cm) away from the interaction point and which will act as a source for further accelerating structure. In this paper the description of the experimental setup, the preliminary results of solid target irradiation and start to end simulation for a post-accelerated beam up to 60 MeV are given.

Submicron bidirectional all-optical plasmonic switches

PubMed Central

Chen, Jianjun; Li, Zhi; Zhang, Xiang; Xiao, Jinghua; Gong, Qihuang

2013-01-01

Ultra-small all-optical switches are of importance in highly integrated optical communication and computing networks. However, the weak nonlinear light-matter interactions in natural materials present an enormous challenge to realize efficiently switching for the ultra-short interaction lengths. Here, we experimentally demonstrate a submicron bidirectional all-optical plasmonic switch with an asymmetric T-shape single slit. Sharp asymmetric spectra as well as significant field enhancements (about 18 times that in the conventional slit case) occur in the symmetry-breaking structure. Consequently, both of the surface plasmon polaritons propagating in the opposite directions on the metal surface are all-optically controlled inversely at the same time with the on/off switching ratios of >6 dB for the device lateral dimension of <1 μm. Moreover, in such a submicron structure, the coupling of free-space light and the on-chip bidirectional switching are integrated together. This submicron bidirectional all-optical switch may find important applications in the highly integrated plasmonic circuits. PMID:23486232

Laser optomechanics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yang, Weijian; Adair Gerke, Stephen; Wei Ng, Kar; Rao, Yi; Chase, Christopher; Chang-Hasnain, Connie J.

2015-09-01

Cavity optomechanics explores the interaction between optical field and mechanical motion. So far, this interaction has relied on the detuning between a passive optical resonator and an external pump laser. Here, we report a new scheme with mutual coupling between a mechanical oscillator supporting the mirror of a laser and the optical field generated by the laser itself. The optically active cavity greatly enhances the light-matter energy transfer. In this work, we use an electrically-pumped vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) with an ultra-light-weight (130 pg) high-contrast-grating (HCG) mirror, whose reflectivity spectrum is designed to facilitate strong optomechanical coupling, to demonstrate optomechanically-induced regenerative oscillation of the laser optomechanical cavity. We observe >550 nm self-oscillation amplitude of the micromechanical oscillator, two to three orders of magnitude larger than typical, and correspondingly a 23 nm laser wavelength sweep. In addition to its immediate applications as a high-speed wavelength-swept source, this scheme also offers a new approach for integrated on-chip sensors.

Super-luminescent jet light generated by femtosecond laser pulses

PubMed Central

Xu, Zhijun; Zhu, Xiaonong; Yu, Yang; Zhang, Nan; Zhao, Jiefeng

2014-01-01

Phenomena of nonlinear light-matter interaction that occur during the propagation of intense ultrashort laser pulses in continuous media have been extensively studied in ultrafast optical science. In this vibrant research field, conversion of the input laser beam into optical filament(s) is commonly encountered. Here, we demonstrate generation of distinctive single or double super-luminescent optical jet beams as a result of strong spatial-temporal nonlinear interaction between focused 50 fs millijoule laser pulses and their induced micro air plasma. Such jet-like optical beams, being slightly divergent and coexisting with severely distorted conical emission of colored speckles, are largely different from optical filaments, and obtainable when the focal lens of proper f-number is slightly tilted or shifted. Once being collimated, the jet beams can propagate over a long distance in air. These beams not only reveal a potentially useful approach to coherent optical wave generation, but also may find applications in remote sensing. PMID:24463611

Dark Forces at KLOE/KLOE-2

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Curciarello, Francesca

2014-05-01

Searches for dark matter particles in the GeV mass range and for dark forces are strongly motivated by the numerous striking astrophysical observations recently reported by many experiments. Flavor factories, like the Frascati Φ-factory DAΦNE, are particularly suited to search for the light gauge vector boson, called U boson, which is thought to mediate an unknown interaction between hypothetical dark matter particles. By using the KLOE detector, limits on U boson coupling factor ɛ2 of the order of 10-5 ÷ 10-7 have been set through the study of the ϕ Dalitz decay, the Higgsstrahlung process and Uγ events. New experiments with the upgraded KLOE detector and the increased luminosity of DAΦNE are expected to improve the already set upper limits by a factor of two or better.

Complete Coherent Control of a Quantum Dot Strongly Coupled to a Nanocavity.

PubMed

Dory, Constantin; Fischer, Kevin A; Müller, Kai; Lagoudakis, Konstantinos G; Sarmiento, Tomas; Rundquist, Armand; Zhang, Jingyuan L; Kelaita, Yousif; Vučković, Jelena

2016-04-26

Strongly coupled quantum dot-cavity systems provide a non-linear configuration of hybridized light-matter states with promising quantum-optical applications. Here, we investigate the coherent interaction between strong laser pulses and quantum dot-cavity polaritons. Resonant excitation of polaritonic states and their interaction with phonons allow us to observe coherent Rabi oscillations and Ramsey fringes. Furthermore, we demonstrate complete coherent control of a quantum dot-photonic crystal cavity based quantum-bit. By controlling the excitation power and phase in a two-pulse excitation scheme we achieve access to the full Bloch sphere. Quantum-optical simulations are in good agreement with our experiments and provide insight into the decoherence mechanisms.

Complete Coherent Control of a Quantum Dot Strongly Coupled to a Nanocavity

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dory, Constantin; Fischer, Kevin A.; Müller, Kai; Lagoudakis, Konstantinos G.; Sarmiento, Tomas; Rundquist, Armand; Zhang, Jingyuan L.; Kelaita, Yousif; Vučković, Jelena

2016-04-01

Strongly coupled quantum dot-cavity systems provide a non-linear configuration of hybridized light-matter states with promising quantum-optical applications. Here, we investigate the coherent interaction between strong laser pulses and quantum dot-cavity polaritons. Resonant excitation of polaritonic states and their interaction with phonons allow us to observe coherent Rabi oscillations and Ramsey fringes. Furthermore, we demonstrate complete coherent control of a quantum dot-photonic crystal cavity based quantum-bit. By controlling the excitation power and phase in a two-pulse excitation scheme we achieve access to the full Bloch sphere. Quantum-optical simulations are in good agreement with our experiments and provide insight into the decoherence mechanisms.

Sterile neutrinos in cosmology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Abazajian, Kevork N.

2017-11-01

Sterile neutrinos are natural extensions to the standard model of particle physics in neutrino mass generation mechanisms. If they are relatively light, less than approximately 10 keV, they can alter cosmology significantly, from the early Universe to the matter and radiation energy density today. Here, we review the cosmological role such light sterile neutrinos can play from the early Universe, including production of keV-scale sterile neutrinos as dark matter candidates, and dynamics of light eV-scale sterile neutrinos during the weakly-coupled active neutrino era. We review proposed signatures of light sterile neutrinos in cosmic microwave background and large scale structure data. We also discuss keV-scale sterile neutrino dark matter decay signatures in X-ray observations, including recent candidate ∼3.5 keV X-ray line detections consistent with the decay of a ∼7 keV sterile neutrino dark matter particle.

Strong-field adiabatic passage in the continuum: Electromagnetically induced transparency and stimulated Raman adiabatic passage

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Eilam, A.; Shapiro, M.

2012-01-01

We present a fully quantum-mechanical theory of the mutual light-matter effects when two laser pulses interact with three discrete states coupled to a (quasi)continuum. Our formulation uses a single set of equations to describe the time dependence of the discrete and continuum populations, as well as pulse propagation in electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) and stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) situations, for both weak and strong laser pulses. The theory gives a mechanistic picture of the “slowing down of light” and the state of spontaneously emitted photons during this process. Surprising features regarding the time dependence of material and radiative transients as well as limitations on quantum light storage and retrieval are unraveled.

Nanofabrication with Pulsed Lasers

PubMed Central

2010-01-01

An overview of pulsed laser-assisted methods for nanofabrication, which are currently developed in our Institute (LP3), is presented. The methods compass a variety of possibilities for material nanostructuring offered by laser–matter interactions and imply either the nanostructuring of the laser-illuminated surface itself, as in cases of direct laser ablation or laser plasma-assisted treatment of semiconductors to form light-absorbing and light-emitting nano-architectures, as well as periodic nanoarrays, or laser-assisted production of nanoclusters and their controlled growth in gaseous or liquid medium to form nanostructured films or colloidal nanoparticles. Nanomaterials synthesized by laser-assisted methods have a variety of unique properties, not reproducible by any other route, and are of importance for photovoltaics, optoelectronics, biological sensing, imaging and therapeutics. PMID:20672069

HD 143 418 - An Interacting Binary with a Subsynchronously Rotating Primary

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mikulášek, Z.; Zverko, J.; Žižňovský, J.; Krtička, J.; Iliev, I. Kh.; Kudryavtsev, D. O.; Gráf, T.; Zejda, M.

2010-12-01

HD 143418 is a non-eclipsing double-lined close binary with orbital period Porb=2.282520 d. The photometrically and spectroscopically dominant primary component is a normal A5V star in the middle of its stay on the main sequence with extremely slow, subsynchronous rotation (Prot being about 14 days!). Its photometric monitoring since 1982 revealed orbitally modulated variations with changing form and amplitude. The advanced principal component analysis (APCA) disentangling extract-ed a steady part of light curves obviously caused by the ellipticity of the primary. Seasonal components of the light curves may be related to an expected incidence of circumstellar matter ejected from the tidally spinning up primary component. A possible scenario of the synchronisation process is also briefly discussed.

Topological Transport of Light and Sound

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Brendel, Christian; Peano, Vittorio; Schmidt, Michael; Marquardt, Florian

Since they exploit global features of a material's band structure, topological states of matter are particularly robust. Having already been observed for electrons, atoms, and photons, it is an outstanding challenge to create a Chern insulator of sound waves in the solid state. In this work, we propose an implementation based on cavity optomechanics in a photonic crystal. We demonstrate the feasibility of our proposal by means of an effective lattice model as well as first principle simulations. The topological properties of the sound waves can be wholly tuned in situ by adjusting the amplitude and frequency of a driving laser that controls the optomechanical interaction between light and sound. The resulting chiral, topologically protected phonon transport can be probed completely optically.

A note on the Sagnac effect for matter beams

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ruggiero, Matteo Luca; Tartaglia, Angelo

2015-05-01

We study the Sagnac effect for matter beams, in order to estimate the kinematic corrections to the basic formula, deriving from the position and the extent of the interferometer, and discuss the analogy with the Aharonov-Bohm effect. We show that the formula for the Sagnac time delay is the same for matter and light beams in arbitrary stationary space-times, provided that a suitable condition on the speed of the beams is fulfilled. Hence, the same results obtained for light beams apply to matter beams.

An investigation of the effects of wavelength shifter thickness on backgrounds for the DEAP-3600 dark matter direct detection experiment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cranshaw, Derek

Several lines of astronomical evidence indicate that most of the matter in our universe is made of non-luminous material known as dark matter, the nature of which remains a mystery. DEAP-3600 is a liquid-argon-based scintillation detector located 2 km underground outside Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, purposed towards directly detecting dark matter particles as they pass through the target material. Since the acrylic vessel containing the 3600-kg liquid argon target is not transparent to the 128-nm scintillation light produced during these interactions, a thin layer of 1,1,4,4-tetraphenyl-1,3-butadiene (TPB) was deposited onto the inner surface of the acrylic vessel to shift the wavelength of the scintillation light to the visible range, where is can pass through the transparent acrylic vessel and is more easily detected by the surrounding array of photomultiplier tubes. The dark matter signal in DEAP-3600 is accompanied by a host of other background signals, which must either be suppressed, or identified as background signals and subsequently cut from the analysis. A major anticipated source of background events is alpha decays of radioactive isotopes on the inner surface of the acrylic vessel, near the TPB layer. The potential for these events to generate a background signal depends sensitively on the choice of thickness of the TPB layer. A study of the effects of TPB layer thickness on the background rate of these surface alpha events is presented, and a model for the dominant contributor to these background events is developed to generate estimates of the probability that an event of this type would mimic a dark matter signal. Other effects considered in the choice of TPB layer thickness are presented, and the final decision of a 2.99 +- 0.02 micron TPB layer thickness, along with the TPB deposition campaign, is briefly described.

Photonic Architectures for Equilibrium High-Temperature Bose-Einstein Condensation in Dichalcogenide Monolayers

PubMed Central

Jiang, Jian-Hua; John, Sajeev

2014-01-01

Semiconductor-microcavity polaritons are composite quasiparticles of excitons and photons, emerging in the strong coupling regime. As quantum superpositions of matter and light, polaritons have much stronger interparticle interactions compared with photons, enabling rapid equilibration and Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC). Current realizations based on 1D photonic structures, such as Fabry-Pérot microcavities, have limited light-trapping ability resulting in picosecond polariton lifetime. We demonstrate, theoretically, above-room-temperature (up to 590 K) BEC of long-lived polaritons in MoSe2 monolayers sandwiched by simple TiO2 based 3D photonic band gap (PBG) materials. The 3D PBG induces very strong coupling of 40 meV (Rabi splitting of 62 meV) for as few as three dichalcogenide monolayers. Strong light-trapping in the 3D PBG enables the long-lived polariton superfluid to be robust against fabrication-induced disorder and exciton line-broadening. PMID:25503586

Tunable multipole resonances in plasmonic crystals made by four-beam holographic lithography

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Luo, Y.; Li, X.; Zhang, X.

2016-02-01

Plasmonic nanostructures confine light to sub-wavelength scales, resulting in drastically enhanced light-matter interactions. Recent interest has focused on controlled symmetry breaking to create higher-order multipole plasmonic modes that store electromagnetic energy more efficiently than dipole modes. Here we demonstrate that four-beam holographic lithography enables fabrication of large-area plasmonic crystals with near-field coupled plasmons as well as deliberately broken symmetry to sustain multipole modes and Fano-resonances. Compared with the spectrally broad dipole modes we demonstrate an order of magnitude improved Q-factors (Q = 21) when the quadrupole mode is activated. We further demonstrate continuous tuning of the Fano-resonances using the polarization state ofmore » the incident light beam. The demonstrated technique opens possibilities to extend the rich physics of multipole plasmonic modes to wafer-scale applications that demand low-cost and high-throughput.« less

Nonperturbative model for optical response under intense periodic fields with application to graphene in a strong perpendicular magnetic field

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cheng, J. L.; Guo, C.

2018-05-01

Graphene exhibits extremely strong optical nonlinearity in a perpendicular magnetic field, the optical conductivities show complicated field dependence at a moderate light intensity, and the perturbation theory fails. The full optical currents induced by a periodic field are nonperturbatively investigated in an equation-of-motion framework based on the Floquet theorem, with the scattering described phenomenologically. The nonlinear responses are understood in terms of the dressed electronic states, or Floquet states, which could be characterized by a weak probe light field. The method is illustrated for a magnetic field at 5 T and a driving field with photon energy 0.05 eV. Our results show that the perturbation theory works for weak fields <3 kV/cm, confirming the unusual strong light-matter interaction for Landau levels of graphene. Our approach can be easily extended to other systems.

Visible light photodegradation of phenanthrene catalyzed by Fe(III)-smectite: role of soil organic matter.

PubMed

Jia, Hanzhong; Li, Li; Fan, Xiaoyun; Liu, Mingdeng; Deng, Wenye; Wang, Chuanyi

2013-07-15

In the present study, phenanthrene is employed as a model to explore the roles played by three soil organic matter (SOM) fractions, i.e., dissolved organic matter (DOM), humic acid (HA), and fulvic acid (FA), in its photodegradation with assistance of Fe(III)-smectite under visible-light. Slight decrease in phenanthrene photodegradation rate was observed in the presence of DOM, which is explained in terms of oxidative-radical competition between DOM and target phenanthrene molecules due to the high electron-donor capacity of phenolic moieties in DOM. On the other hand, a critic content is observed with FA (0.70mg/g) and HA (0.65mg/g). Before reaching the critic content, the removal of phenanthrene is accelerated; while after that, the photodegradation rate is suppressed. The acceleration of phenanthrene degradation can be attributed to the photosensitization of FA and HA. Due to the strong interaction between phenanthrene and the phenyl rings, however, the retention of phenanthrene on SOM-Fe(III)-smectite in the presence of high content of HA or FA is enhanced, thus slowing down its photodegradation. Those observations provide valuable insights into the transformation and fate of PAHs in the natural soil environment and open a window for using clay-humic substances complexes for remediation of contaminated soil. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Graded metascreens to enable a new degree of nanoscale light management

PubMed Central

Mohammadi Estakhri, Nasim; Argyropoulos, Christos; Alù, Andrea

2015-01-01

Optical metasurfaces, typically referred to as two-dimensional metamaterials, are arrays of engineered subwavelength inclusions suitably designed to tailor the light properties, including amplitude, phase and polarization state, over deeply subwavelength scales. By exploiting anomalous localized interactions of surface elements with optical waves, metasurfaces can go beyond the functionalities offered by conventional diffractive optical gratings. The innate simplicity of implementation and the distinct underlying physics of their wave–matter interaction distinguish metasurfaces from three-dimensional metamaterials and provide a valuable means of moulding optical waves in the desired manner. Here, we introduce a general approach based on the electromagnetic equivalence principle to develop and synthesize graded, non-periodic metasurfaces to generate arbitrarily prescribed distributions of electromagnetic waves. Graded metasurfaces are realized with a single layer of spatially modulated, electrically polarizable nanoparticles, tailoring the scattering response of the surface with nanoscale resolutions. We discuss promising applications based on the proposed local wave management technique, including the design of ultrathin optical carpet cloaks, alignment-free polarization beam splitters and a novel approach to enable broadband light absorption enhancement in thin-film solar cells. This concept opens up a practical route towards efficient planarized optical structures with potential impact on the integrated nanophotonic technology. PMID:26217059

Double Higgs mechanisms, supermassive stable particles and the vacuum energy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Santillán, Osvaldo P.; Gabbanelli, Luciano

2016-07-01

In the present work, a hidden scenario which cast a long-lived superheavy particle A0 and simultaneously an extremely light particle a with mass ma ˜ 10-32-10-33 eV is presented. The potential energy V (a) of the particle a models the vacuum energy density of the universe ρc ≃ 10-47GeV4. On the other hand, the A0 particle may act as superheavy dark matter at present times and the products of its decay may be observed in high energy cosmic ray events. The hidden sector proposed here include light fermions with masses near the neutrino mass mν ˜ 10-2 eV and superheavy ones with masses of the order of the GUT scale, interacting through a hidden SU(2)L interaction which also affects the ordinary sector. The construction of such combined scenario is nontrivial since the presence of light particles may spoil the stability of the heavy particle A0. However, double Higgs mechanisms may be helpful for overcoming this problem. In this context, the stability of the superheavy particle A0 is ensured due to chiral symmetry arguments elaborated in the text.

Controls on dissolved organic matter (DOM) degradation in a headwater stream: the influence of photochemical and hydrological conditions in determining light-limitation or substrate-limitation of photo-degradation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cory, R. M.; Harrold, K. H.; Neilson, B. T.; Kling, G. W.

2015-07-01

We investigated how absorption of sunlight by chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM) controls the degradation and export of DOM from Imnavait Creek, a beaded stream in the Alaskan Arctic. We measured concentrations of dissolved organic carbon (DOC), as well as concentrations and characteristics of CDOM and fluorescent dissolved organic matter (FDOM), during ice-free periods of 2011-2012 in the pools of Imnavait Creek and in soil waters draining to the creek. Spatial and temporal patterns in CDOM and FDOM in Imnavait Creek were analyzed in conjunction with measures of DOM degradation by sunlight and bacteria and assessments of hydrologic residence times and in situ UV exposure. CDOM was the dominant light attenuating constituent in the UV and visible portion of the solar spectrum, with high attenuation coefficients ranging from 86 ± 12 m-1 at 305 nm to 3 ± 1 m-1 in the photosynthetically active region (PAR). High rates of light absorption and thus light attenuation by CDOM contributed to thermal stratification in the majority of pools in Imnavait Creek under low-flow conditions. In turn, thermal stratification increased the residence time of water and DOM, and resulted in a separation of water masses distinguished by contrasting UV exposure (i.e., UV attenuation by CDOM with depth resulted in bottom waters receiving less UV than surface waters). When the pools in Imnavait Creek were stratified, DOM in the pool bottom water closely resembled soil water DOM in character, while the concentration and character of DOM in surface water was reproduced by experimental photo-degradation of bottom water. These results, in combination with water column rates of DOM degradation by sunlight and bacteria, suggest that photo-degradation is the dominant process controlling DOM fate and export in Imnavait Creek. A conceptual model is presented showing how CDOM amount and lability interact with incident UV light and water residence time to determine whether photo-degradation is "light-limited" or "substrate-limited". We suggest that degradation, and thus export, of DOM in CDOM-rich streams or ponds similar to Imnavait is typically light-limited under most flow conditions.

Update on the MiniCLEAN dark matter experiment

DOE PAGES

Rielage, K.; Akashi-Ronquest, M.; Bodmer, M.; ...

2015-03-24

The direct search for dark matter is entering a period of increased sensitivity to the hypothetical Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP). One such technology that is being examined is a scintillation only noble liquid experiment, MiniCLEAN. MiniCLEAN utilizes over 500 kg of liquid cryogen to detect nuclear recoils from WIMP dark matter and serves as a demonstration for a future detector of order 50 to 100 tonnes. The liquid cryogen is interchangeable between argon and neon to study the A² dependence of the potential signal and examine backgrounds. MiniCLEAN utilizes a unique modular design with spherical geometry to maximize themore » light yield using cold photomultiplier tubes in a single-phase detector. Pulse shape discrimination techniques are used to separate nuclear recoil signals from electron recoil backgrounds. MiniCLEAN will be spiked with additional ³⁹Ar to demonstrate the effective reach of the pulse shape discrimination capability. Assembly of the experiment is underway at SNOLAB and an update on the project is given.« less

Transient dynamics in cavity electromagnetically induced transparency with ion Coulomb crystals

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Albert, Magnus; Dantan, Aurélien; Drewsen, Michael

2018-03-01

We experimentally investigate the transient dynamics of an optical cavity field interacting with large ion Coulomb crystals in a situation of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). EIT is achieved by injecting a probe field at the single photon level and a more intense control field with opposite circular polarization into the same mode of an optical cavity to couple Zeeman substates of a metastable level in ? ions. The EIT interaction dynamics are investigated both in the frequency-domain - by measuring the probe field steady state reflectivity spectrum - and in the time-domain - by measuring the progressive buildup of transparency. The experimental results are observed to be in excellent agreement with theoretical predictions taking into account the inhomogeneity of the control field in the interaction volume, and confirm the high degree of control on light-matter interaction that can be achieved with ion Coulomb crystals in optical cavities.

Auxiliary field diffusion Monte Carlo calculations of light and medium-mass nuclei with local chiral interactions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lonardoni, D.; Gandolfi, S.; Lynn, J. E.; Petrie, C.; Carlson, J.; Schmidt, K. E.; Schwenk, A.

2018-04-01

Quantum Monte Carlo methods have recently been employed to study properties of nuclei and infinite matter using local chiral effective-field-theory interactions. In this work, we present a detailed description of the auxiliary field diffusion Monte Carlo algorithm for nuclei in combination with local chiral two- and three-nucleon interactions up to next-to-next-to-leading order. We show results for the binding energy, charge radius, charge form factor, and Coulomb sum rule in nuclei with 3 ≤A ≤16 . Particular attention is devoted to the effect of different operator structures in the three-body force for different cutoffs. The outcomes suggest that local chiral interactions fit to few-body observables give a very good description of the ground-state properties of nuclei up to 16O, with the exception of one fit for the softer cutoff which predicts overbinding in larger nuclei.

Dark Matter Reality Check: Chandra Casts Cloud On Alternative Theory

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

2002-10-01

New evidence from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory challenges an alternative theory of gravity that eliminates the need for dark matter. The observation also narrows the field for competing forms of dark matter, the elusive material thought to be the dominant form of matter in the universe. An observation of the galaxy NGC 720 shows it is enveloped in a slightly flattened, or ellipsoidal cloud of hot gas that has an orientation different from that of the optical image of the galaxy. The flattening is too large to be explained by theories in which stars and gas are assumed to contain most of the mass in the galaxy. "The shape and orientation of the hot gas cloud require it to be confined by an egg-shaped dark matter halo," said David Buote of the University of California, Irvine, and lead author of a report on this research in the 2002 September 20 issue of The Astrophysical Journal. "This means that dark matter is not just an illusion due to a shortcoming of the standard theory of gravity - it is real." According to the generally accepted standard theory of gravity, the hot X-ray cloud would need an additional source of gravity - a halo of dark matter - to keep the hot gas from expanding away. The mass of dark matter required would be about five to ten times the mass of the stars in the galaxy. If the dark matter tracked the optical light from the stars in the galaxy, the hot X-ray cloud would be more round than it is. The flattened shape of the hot gas cloud requires a flattened dark matter halo. An alternative theory of gravity called MOND, for Modified Newtonian Dynamics, was proposed in 1983 by Mordecai Milgrom of the Weizmann Institute in Israel, and has remained viable over the years. MOND does away with the need for dark matter by modifying the theory where the acceleration produced by gravity is very small, such as the outskirts of galaxies. However, MOND cannot explain the Chandra observation of NGC 720. This is apparently the first dynamical evidence that has successfully distinguished dark matter from MOND. The researchers also found that the Chandra data fit predictions of the cold dark matter theories, according to which dark matter consists of slowly moving particles, which interact with each other and "normal" matter only through gravity. Other forms of dark matter, such as self-interacting dark matter, and cold molecular dark matter, are not consistent with the observation in that they require a dark matter halo that is too round or too flat, respectively. "Chandra's ability to precisely identify and locate the point-like sources contaminating the diffuse emission in the X-ray image was absolutely essential," said Buote. "Only then could we make accurate measurements of the shape and orientation of the X-ray image contours." The conclusion from the Chandra data that NGC 720 possesses a dark matter halo assumes that the hot gas cloud has not been unduly disturbed by collisions or mergers with other galaxies in the last 100 million years. The lack of evidence of such activity indicates that this assumption is valid. Chandra observed NGC 720, which is about 80 million light years from Earth, for 11 hours with the Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS). Other members of the team include Tesla Jeltema and Claude Canizares of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, and Gordon Garmire of Pennsylvania State University in University Park. Penn State and MIT developed the instrument for NASA. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program, and TRW, Inc., Redondo Beach, Calif., is the prime contractor for the spacecraft. The Smithsonian's Chandra X-ray Center controls science and flight operations from Cambridge, Mass.

Plankton Dynamics and Mesoscale Turbulence

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-06-29

transformation of inorganic materials and light into living matter by photosynthesis ) is operated mainly by small, unicellular algae that float freely in the...ecosystems, primary production (the transformation of inorganic materials and light into living matter by photosynthesis ) is operated mainly by small...them into biomass via photosynthesis . The main limiting factors for phytoplankton growth are light and nutrient availability; for this reason

Astronomical bounds on a cosmological model allowing a general interaction in the dark sector

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pan, Supriya; Mukherjee, Ankan; Banerjee, Narayan

2018-06-01

Non-gravitational interaction between two barotropic dark fluids, namely the pressureless dust and the dark energy in a spatially flat Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker model, has been discussed. It is shown that for the interactions that are linear in terms the energy densities of the dark components and their first order derivatives, the net energy density is governed by a second-order differential equation with constant coefficients. Taking a generalized interaction, which includes a number of already known interactions as special cases, the dynamics of the universe is described for three types of the dark energy equation of state, namely that of interacting quintessence, interacting vacuum energy density, and interacting phantom. The models have been constrained using the standard cosmological probes, Supernovae Type Ia data from joint light curve analysis and the observational Hubble parameter data. Two geometric tests, the cosmographic studies, and the Om diagnostic have been invoked so as to ascertain the behaviour of the present model vis-a-vis the Λ-cold dark matter model. We further discussed the interacting scenarios taking into account the thermodynamic considerations.

UV Absorption Spectroscopy in Water-Filled Antiresonant Hollow Core Fibers for Pharmaceutical Detection.

PubMed

Nissen, Mona; Doherty, Brenda; Hamperl, Jonas; Kobelke, Jens; Weber, Karina; Henkel, Thomas; Schmidt, Markus A

2018-02-06

Due to a worldwide increased use of pharmaceuticals and, in particular, antibiotics, a growing number of these substance residues now contaminate natural water resources and drinking supplies. This triggers a considerable demand for low-cost, high-sensitivity methods for monitoring water quality. Since many biological substances exhibit strong and characteristic absorption features at wavelengths shorter than 300 nm, UV spectroscopy presents a suitable approach for the quantitative identification of such water-contaminating species. However, current UV spectroscopic devices often show limited light-matter interaction lengths, demand sophisticated and bulky experimental infrastructure which is not compatible with microfluidics, and leave large fractions of the sample analyte unused. Here, we introduce the concept of UV spectroscopy in liquid-filled anti-resonant hollow core fibers, with large core diameters and lengths of approximately 1 m, as a means to overcome such limitations. This extended light-matter interaction length principally improves the concentration detection limit by two orders of magnitude while using almost the entire sample volume-that is three orders of magnitude smaller compared to cuvette based approaches. By integrating the fibers into an optofluidic chip environment and operating within the lowest experimentally feasible transmission band, concentrations of the application-relevant pharmaceutical substances, sulfamethoxazole (SMX) and sodium salicylate (SS), were detectable down to 0.1 µM (26 ppb) and 0.4 µM (64 ppb), respectively, with the potential to reach significantly lower detection limits for further device integration.

UV Absorption Spectroscopy in Water-Filled Antiresonant Hollow Core Fibers for Pharmaceutical Detection

PubMed Central

Nissen, Mona; Doherty, Brenda; Hamperl, Jonas; Kobelke, Jens; Weber, Karina; Henkel, Thomas; Schmidt, Markus A.

2018-01-01

Due to a worldwide increased use of pharmaceuticals and, in particular, antibiotics, a growing number of these substance residues now contaminate natural water resources and drinking supplies. This triggers a considerable demand for low-cost, high-sensitivity methods for monitoring water quality. Since many biological substances exhibit strong and characteristic absorption features at wavelengths shorter than 300 nm, UV spectroscopy presents a suitable approach for the quantitative identification of such water-contaminating species. However, current UV spectroscopic devices often show limited light-matter interaction lengths, demand sophisticated and bulky experimental infrastructure which is not compatible with microfluidics, and leave large fractions of the sample analyte unused. Here, we introduce the concept of UV spectroscopy in liquid-filled anti-resonant hollow core fibers, with large core diameters and lengths of approximately 1 m, as a means to overcome such limitations. This extended light-matter interaction length principally improves the concentration detection limit by two orders of magnitude while using almost the entire sample volume—that is three orders of magnitude smaller compared to cuvette based approaches. By integrating the fibers into an optofluidic chip environment and operating within the lowest experimentally feasible transmission band, concentrations of the application-relevant pharmaceutical substances, sulfamethoxazole (SMX) and sodium salicylate (SS), were detectable down to 0.1 µM (26 ppb) and 0.4 µM (64 ppb), respectively, with the potential to reach significantly lower detection limits for further device integration. PMID:29415468

Dark-matter particles without weak-scale masses or weak interactions.

PubMed

Feng, Jonathan L; Kumar, Jason

2008-12-05

We propose that dark matter is composed of particles that naturally have the correct thermal relic density, but have neither weak-scale masses nor weak interactions. These models emerge naturally from gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking, where they elegantly solve the dark-matter problem. The framework accommodates single or multiple component dark matter, dark-matter masses from 10 MeV to 10 TeV, and interaction strengths from gravitational to strong. These candidates enhance many direct and indirect signals relative to weakly interacting massive particles and have qualitatively new implications for dark-matter searches and cosmological implications for colliders.

Emergence of the mass discrepancy-acceleration relation from dark matter-baryon interactions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Famaey, Benoit; Khoury, Justin; Penco, Riccardo

2018-03-01

The observed tightness of the mass discrepancy-acceleration relation (MDAR) poses a fine-tuning challenge to current models of galaxy formation. We propose that this relation could arise from collisional interactions between baryons and dark matter (DM) particles, without the need for modification of gravity or ad hoc feedback processes. We assume that these interactions satisfy the following three conditions: (i) the relaxation time of DM particles is comparable to the dynamical time in disk galaxies; (ii) DM exchanges energy with baryons due to elastic collisions; (iii) the product between the baryon-DM cross section and the typical energy exchanged in a collision is inversely proportional to the DM number density. As a proof of principle, we present an example of a particle physics model that gives a DM-baryon cross section with the desired density and velocity dependence. For consistency with direct detection constraints, our DM particles must be either very light (m ll mb) or very heavy (mgg mb), corresponding respectively to heating and cooling of DM by baryons. In both cases, our mechanism applies and an equilibrium configuration can in principle be reached. In this exploratory paper, we focus on the heavy DM/cooling case because it is technically simpler, since the average energy exchanged turns out to be approximately constant throughout galaxies. Under these assumptions, we find that rotationally-supported disk galaxies could naturally settle to equilibrium configurations satisfying a MDAR at all radii without invoking finely tuned feedback processes. We also discuss issues related to the small scale clumpiness of baryons, as well as predictions for pressure-supported systems. We argue in particular that galaxy clusters do not follow the MDAR despite being DM-dominated because they have not reached their equilibrium configuration. Finally, we revisit existing phenomenological, astrophysical and cosmological constraints on baryon-DM interactions in light of the unusual density dependence of the cross section of DM particles.

Ultrashort laser-matter interaction at moderate intensities: two-temperature relaxation, foaming of stretched melt, and freezing of evolving nanostructures

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Inogamov, Nail A.; Zhakhovsky, Vasily V.; Petrov, Yurii V.; Khokhlov, Viktor A.; Ashitkov, Sergey I.; Migdal, Kirill P.; Ilnitsky, Denis K.; Emirov, Yusuf N.; Khishchenko, Konstantin V.; Komarov, Pavel S.; Shepelev, Vadim V.; Agranat, Mikhail B.; Anisimov, Sergey I.; Oleynik, Ivan I.; Fortov, Vladimir E.

2013-11-01

Interaction of ultrashort laser pulse with metals is considered. Ultrafast heating in our range of absorbed fluences Fabs > 10 mJjcm2 transfers matter into two-temperature (2T) state and induces expressed thermomechani­ cal response. To analyze our case, where 2T, thermomechanical, and multidimensional (formation of surface structures) effects are significant, we use density functional theory (DFT), solutions of kinetic equations in τ- approximation, 2T-hydrodynamics, and molecular dynamics simulations. We have studied transition from light absorption in a skin layer to 2T state, and from 2T stage to hydrodynamical motions. We describe (i) formation of very peculiar (superelasticity) acoustic wave irradiated from the laser heated surface layer and (ii) rich com­ plex of surface phenomena including fast melting, nucleation of seed bubbles in hydrodynamically stretched fluid, evolution of vapor-liquid mixture into very spatially extended foam, mechanical breaking of liquid membranes in foam (foam disintegration), strong surface tension oscillations driven by breaking of membranes, non-equilibrium freezing of overcooled molten metals, transition to nano-domain solid, and formation of surface nanostructures.

Quantum Simulation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Orzel, Chad

2017-06-01

One of the most active areas in atomic, molecular and optical physics is the use of ultracold atomic gases in optical lattices to simulate the behaviour of electrons in condensed matter systems. The larger mass, longer length scale, and tuneable interactions in these systems allow the dynamics of atoms moving in these systems to be followed in real time, and resonant light scattering by the atoms allows this motion to be probed on a microscopic scale using site-resolved imaging. This book reviews the physics of Hubbard-type models for both bosons and fermions in an optical lattice, which give rise to a rich variety of insulating and conducting phases depending on the lattice properties and interparticle interactions. It also discusses the effect of disorder on the transport of atoms in these models, and the recently discovered phenomenon of many-body localization. It presents several examples of experiments using both density and momentum imaging and quantum gas microscopy to study the motion of atoms in optical lattices. These illustrate the power and flexibility of ultracold-lattice analogues for exploring exotic states of matter at an unprecedented level of precision.

Radiative natural supersymmetry: Reconciling electroweak fine-tuning and the Higgs boson mass

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Baer, Howard; Barger, Vernon; Huang, Peisi; Mickelson, Dan; Mustafayev, Azar; Tata, Xerxes

2013-06-01

Models of natural supersymmetry seek to solve the little hierarchy problem by positing a spectrum of light Higgsinos ≲200-300GeV and light top squarks ≲600GeV along with very heavy squarks and TeV-scale gluinos. Such models have low electroweak fine-tuning and satisfy the LHC constraints. However, in the context of the minimal supersymmetric standard model, they predict too low a value of mh, are frequently in conflict with the measured b→sγ branching fraction, and the relic density of thermally produced Higgsino-like weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) falls well below dark matter measurements. We propose a framework dubbed radiative natural supersymmetry (RNS), which can be realized within the minimal supersymmetric standard model (avoiding the addition of extra exotic matter) and which maintains features such as gauge coupling unification and radiative electroweak symmetry breaking. The RNS model can be generated from supersymmetry (SUSY) grand unified theory type models with nonuniversal Higgs masses. Allowing for high-scale soft SUSY breaking Higgs mass mHu>m0 leads to automatic cancellations during renormalization group running and to radiatively-induced low fine-tuning at the electroweak scale. Coupled with large mixing in the top-squark sector, RNS allows for fine-tuning at the 3%-10% level with TeV-scale top squarks and a 125 GeV light Higgs scalar h. The model allows for at least a partial solution to the SUSY flavor, CP, and gravitino problems since first-/second-generation scalars (and the gravitino) may exist in the 10-30 TeV regime. We outline some possible signatures for RNS at the LHC, such as the appearance of low invariant mass opposite-sign isolated dileptons from gluino cascade decays. The smoking gun signature for RNS is the appearance of light Higgsinos at a linear e+e- collider. If the strong CP problem is solved by the Peccei-Quinn mechanism, then RNS naturally accommodates mixed axion-Higgsino cold dark matter, where the light Higgsino-like WIMPs—which in this case make up only a fraction of the measured relic abundance—should be detectable at upcoming WIMP detectors.

Non-resonant Nanoscale Extreme Light Confinement

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Subramania, Ganapathi Subramanian; Huber, Dale L.

2014-09-01

A wide spectrum of photonics activities Sandia is engaged in such as solid state lighting, photovoltaics, infrared imaging and sensing, quantum sources, rely on nanoscale or ultrasubwavelength light-matter interactions (LMI). The fundamental understanding in confining electromagnetic power and enhancing electric fields into ever smaller volumes is key to creating next generation devices for these programs. The prevailing view is that a resonant interaction (e.g. in microcavities or surface-plasmon polaritions) is necessary to achieve the necessary light confinement for absorption or emission enhancement. Here we propose new paradigm that is non-resonant and therefore broadband and can achieve light confinement and fieldmore » enhancement in extremely small areas [~(λ/500)^2 ]. The proposal is based on a theoretical work[1] performed at Sandia. The paradigm structure consists of a periodic arrangement of connected small and large rectangular slits etched into a metal film named double-groove (DG) structure. The degree of electric field enhancement and power confinement can be controlled by the geometry of the structure. The key operational principle is attributed to quasistatic response of the metal electrons to the incoming electromagnetic field that enables non-resonant broadband behavior. For this exploratory LDRD we have fabricated some test double groove structures to enable verification of quasistatic electronic response in the mid IR through IR optical spectroscopy. We have addressed some processing challenges in DG structure fabrication to enable future design of complex sensor and detector geometries that can utilize its non-resonant field enhancement capabilities.].« less

Core-size regulated aggregation/disaggregation of citrate-coated gold nanoparticles (5-50 nm) and dissolved organic matter: Extinction, emission, and scattering evidence

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Esfahani, Milad Rabbani; Pallem, Vasanta L.; Stretz, Holly A.; Wells, Martha J. M.

2018-01-01

Knowledge of the interactions between gold nanoparticles (GNPs) and dissolved organic matter (DOM) is significant in the development of detection devices for environmental sensing, studies of environmental fate and transport, and advances in antifouling water treatment membranes. The specific objective of this research was to spectroscopically investigate the fundamental interactions between citrate-stabilized gold nanoparticles (CT-GNPs) and DOM. Studies indicated that 30 and 50 nm diameter GNPs promoted disaggregation of the DOM. This result-disaggregation of an environmentally important polyelectrolyte-will be quite useful regarding antifouling properties in water treatment and water-based sensing applications. Furthermore, resonance Rayleigh scattering results showed significant enhancement in the UV range which can be useful to characterize DOM and can be exploited as an analytical tool to better sense and improve our comprehension of nanomaterial interactions with environmental systems. CT-GNPs having core size diameters of 5, 10, 30, and 50 nm were studied in the absence and presence of added DOM at 2 and 8 ppm at low ionic strength and near neutral pH (6.0-6.5) approximating surface water conditions. Interactions were monitored by cross-interpretation among ultraviolet (UV)-visible extinction spectroscopy, excitation-emission matrix (EEM) spectroscopy (emission and Rayleigh scattering), and dynamic light scattering (DLS). This comprehensive combination of spectroscopic analyses lends new insights into the antifouling behavior of GNPs. The CT-GNP-5 and -10 controls emitted light and aggregated. In contrast, the CT-GNP-30 and CT-GNP-50 controls scattered light intensely, but did not aggregate and did not emit light. The presence of any CT-GNP did not affect the extinction spectra of DOM, and the presence of DOM did not affect the extinction spectra of the CT-GNPs. The emission spectra (visible range) differed only slightly between calculated and actual mixtures of CT-GNP-5 or -10 with DOM, whereas emissions for mixtures of CT-GNP-30 or -50 with DOM were enhanced at the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) wavelength. The emission spectra (ultraviolet range) for protein-like constituents of DOM were quenched. Resonance Rayleigh scattering (RRS) was more intense for the CT-GNP-30 and -50 than for the CT-GNP-5 and -10 controls. Intensity-based DLS particle size distributions (PSDs) of DOM controls, CT-GNP-5 and -10 nm controls, and 5- and 10 nm GNP-DOM mixtures exhibited multimodal aggregation. Analyses of CT-GNP-5 and CT-GNP-10 nm mixtures with DOM indicated overcoating of DOM molecules occurred in close proximity (< 10 nm) to GNPs, whereas similar overcoating was not supported for the CT-GNP-30 or -50 mixtures with DOM. These fundamental observations can be exploited to improve our comprehension of nanomaterial interactions with environmental systems.

Kohn-Sham approach to quantum electrodynamical density-functional theory: Exact time-dependent effective potentials in real space.

PubMed

Flick, Johannes; Ruggenthaler, Michael; Appel, Heiko; Rubio, Angel

2015-12-15

The density-functional approach to quantum electrodynamics extends traditional density-functional theory and opens the possibility to describe electron-photon interactions in terms of effective Kohn-Sham potentials. In this work, we numerically construct the exact electron-photon Kohn-Sham potentials for a prototype system that consists of a trapped electron coupled to a quantized electromagnetic mode in an optical high-Q cavity. Although the effective current that acts on the photons is known explicitly, the exact effective potential that describes the forces exerted by the photons on the electrons is obtained from a fixed-point inversion scheme. This procedure allows us to uncover important beyond-mean-field features of the effective potential that mark the breakdown of classical light-matter interactions. We observe peak and step structures in the effective potentials, which can be attributed solely to the quantum nature of light; i.e., they are real-space signatures of the photons. Our findings show how the ubiquitous dipole interaction with a classical electromagnetic field has to be modified in real space to take the quantum nature of the electromagnetic field fully into account.

Light dark matter through assisted annihilation

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Dey, Ujjal Kumar; Maity, Tarak Nath; Ray, Tirtha Sankar, E-mail: ujjal@cts.iitkgp.ernet.in, E-mail: tarak.maity.physics@gmail.com, E-mail: tirthasankar.ray@gmail.com

2017-03-01

In this paper we investigate light dark matter scenarios where annihilation to Standard Model particles at tree-level is kinematically forbidden. In such cases annihilation can be aided by massive Standard Model-like species, called assisters , in the initial state that enhances the available phase space opening up novel tree-level processes. We investigate the feasibility of such non-standard assisted annihilation processes to reproduce the observed relic density of dark matter. We present a simple scalar dark matter-scalar assister model where this is realised. We find that if the dark matter and assister are relatively degenerate the required relic density can bemore » achieved for a keV-MeV scale dark matter. We briefly discuss the cosmological constraints on such dark matter scenarios.« less

Probing light nonthermal dark matter at the LHC

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dutta, Bhaskar; Gao, Yu; Kamon, Teruki

2014-05-01

This paper investigates the collider phenomenology of a minimal nonthermal dark matter model with a 1-GeV dark matter candidate, which naturally explains baryogenesis. Since the light dark matter is not parity protected, it can be singly produced at the LHC. This leads to large missing energy associated with an energetic jet whose transverse momentum distribution is featured by a Jacobian-like shape. The monojet, dijet, paired dijet, and two jets + missing energy channels are studied. Currently existing data at the Tevatron and LHC offer significant bounds on our model.

Supersymmetric dark matter in the harsh light of the Large Hadron Collider

PubMed Central

Peskin, Michael E.

2015-01-01

I review the status of the model of dark matter as the neutralino of supersymmetry in the light of constraints on supersymmetry given by the 7- to 8-TeV data from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). PMID:25331902

Exploring ν signals in dark matter detectors

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Harnik, Roni; Kopp, Joachim; Machado, Pedro A.N., E-mail: roni@fnal.gov, E-mail: jkopp@fnal.gov, E-mail: accioly@fma.if.usp.br

2012-07-01

We investigate standard and non-standard solar neutrino signals in direct dark matter detection experiments. It is well known that even without new physics, scattering of solar neutrinos on nuclei or electrons is an irreducible background for direct dark matter searches, once these experiments reach the ton scale. Here, we entertain the possibility that neutrino interactions are enhanced by new physics, such as new light force carriers (for instance a ''dark photon'') or neutrino magnetic moments. We consider models with only the three standard neutrino flavors, as well as scenarios with extra sterile neutrinos. We find that low-energy neutrino-electron and neutrino-nucleusmore » scattering rates can be enhanced by several orders of magnitude, potentially enough to explain the event excesses observed in CoGeNT and CRESST. We also investigate temporal modulation in these neutrino signals, which can arise from geometric effects, oscillation physics, non-standard neutrino energy loss, and direction-dependent detection efficiencies. We emphasize that, in addition to providing potential explanations for existing signals, models featuring new physics in the neutrino sector can also be very relevant to future dark matter searches, where, on the one hand, they can be probed and constrained, but on the other hand, their signatures could also be confused with dark matter signals.« less

White Matter Development in Adolescence: The Influence of Puberty and Implications for Affective Disorders

PubMed Central

Ladouceur, Cecile D.; Peper, Jiska S.; Crone, Eveline A.; Dahl, Ronald E.

2011-01-01

There have been rapid advances in understanding a broad range of changes in brain structure and function during adolescence, and a growing interest in identifying which of these neurodevelopmental changes are directly linked with pubertal maturation—at least in part because of their potential to provide insights into the numerous emotional and behavioral health problems that emerge during this developmental period. This review focuses on what is known about the influence of puberty on white matter development in adolescence. We focus on white matter because of its role in providing the structural architectural organization of the brain and as a structural correlate of communication within complex neural systems. We begin with a review of studies that report sex differences or sex by age interactions in white matter development as these findings can provide, although indirectly, information relevant to puberty-related changes. Studies are also critically reviewed based on methodological procedures used to assess pubertal maturation and relations with white matter changes. Findings are discussed in light of their implications for the development of neural systems underlying the regulation of emotion and behavior and how alterations in the development of these systems may mediate risk for affective disorders in vulnerable adolescents. PMID:22247751

Exploring nu Signals in Dark Matter Detectors

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Harnik, Roni; Kopp, Joachim; Machado, Pedro A.N.

2012-02-01

We investigate standard and non-standard solar neutrino signals in direct dark matter detection experiments. It is well known that even without new physics, scattering of solar neutrinos on nuclei or electrons is an irreducible background for direct dark matter searches, once these experiments each the ton scale. Here, we entertain the possibility that neutrino interactions are enhanced by new physics, such as new light force carriers (for instance a "dark photon") or neutrino magnetic moments. We consider models with only the three standard neutrino flavors, as well as scenarios with extra sterile neutrinos. We find that low-energy neutrino--electron and neutrino--nucleusmore » scattering rates can be enhanced by several orders of magnitude, potentially enough to explain the event excesses observed in CoGeNT and CRESST. We also investigate temporal modulation in these neutrino signals, which can arise from geometric effects, oscillation physics, non-standard neutrino energy loss, and direction-dependent detection efficiencies. We emphasize that, in addition to providing potential explanations for existing signals, models featuring new physics in the neutrino sector can also be very relevant to future dark matter searches, where, on the one hand, they can be probed and constrained, but on the other hand, their signatures could also be confused with dark matter signals.« less

Leptogenesis as an origin of hot dark matter and baryon asymmetry in the E6 inspired SUSY models

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nevzorov, R.

2018-04-01

We explore leptogenesis within the E6 inspired U (1) extension of the MSSM in which exact custodial symmetry forbids tree-level flavour-changing transitions and the most dangerous baryon and lepton number violating operators. This supersymmetric (SUSY) model involves extra exotic matter beyond the MSSM. In the simplest phenomenologically viable scenarios the lightest exotic fermions are neutral and stable. These states should be substantially lighter than 1eV forming hot dark matter in the Universe. The low-energy effective Lagrangian of the SUSY model under consideration possesses an approximate global U(1)E symmetry associated with the exotic states. The U(1)E symmetry is explicitly broken because of the interactions between the right-handed neutrino superfields and exotic matter supermultiplets. As a consequence the decays of the lightest right-handed neutrino/sneutrino give rise to both U(1)E and U(1) B - L asymmetries. When all right-handed neutrino/sneutrino are relatively light ∼106-107GeV the appropriate amount of the baryon asymmetry can be induced via these decays if the Yukawa couplings of the lightest right-handed neutrino superfields to the exotic matter supermultiplets vary between ∼10-4-10-3.

On the Existence of Low-Mass Dark Matter and its Direct Detection

PubMed Central

Bateman, James; McHardy, Ian; Merle, Alexander; Morris, Tim R.; Ulbricht, Hendrik

2015-01-01

Dark Matter (DM) is an elusive form of matter which has been postulated to explain astronomical observations through its gravitational effects on stars and galaxies, gravitational lensing of light around these, and through its imprint on the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). This indirect evidence implies that DM accounts for as much as 84.5% of all matter in our Universe, yet it has so far evaded all attempts at direct detection, leaving such confirmation and the consequent discovery of its nature as one of the biggest challenges in modern physics. Here we present a novel form of low-mass DM χ that would have been missed by all experiments so far. While its large interaction strength might at first seem unlikely, neither constraints from particle physics nor cosmological/astronomical observations are sufficient to rule out this type of DM, and it motivates our proposal for direct detection by optomechanics technology which should soon be within reach, namely, through the precise position measurement of a levitated mesoscopic particle which will be perturbed by elastic collisions with χ particles. We show that a recently proposed nanoparticle matter-wave interferometer, originally conceived for tests of the quantum superposition principle, is sensitive to these collisions, too. PMID:25622565

Identifying the theory of dark matter with direct detection

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Gluscevic, Vera; Gresham, Moira I.; McDermott, Samuel D.

2015-12-01

Identifying the true theory of dark matter depends crucially on accurately characterizing interactions of dark matter (DM) with other species. In the context of DM direct detection, we present a study of the prospects for correctly identifying the low-energy effective DM-nucleus scattering operators connected to UV-complete models of DM-quark interactions. We take a census of plausible UV-complete interaction models with different low-energy leading-order DM-nuclear responses. For each model (corresponding to different spin–, momentum–, and velocity-dependent responses), we create a large number of realizations of recoil-energy spectra, and use Bayesian methods to investigate the probability that experiments will be able tomore » select the correct scattering model within a broad set of competing scattering hypotheses. We conclude that agnostic analysis of a strong signal (such as Generation-2 would see if cross sections are just below the current limits) seen on xenon and germanium experiments is likely to correctly identify momentum dependence of the dominant response, ruling out models with either 'heavy' or 'light' mediators, and enabling downselection of allowed models. However, a unique determination of the correct UV completion will critically depend on the availability of measurements from a wider variety of nuclear targets, including iodine or fluorine. We investigate how model-selection prospects depend on the energy window available for the analysis. In addition, we discuss accuracy of the DM particle mass determination under a wide variety of scattering models, and investigate impact of the specific types of particle-physics uncertainties on prospects for model selection.« less

WIMPs at the galactic center

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Agrawal, Prateek; Batell, Brian; Fox, Patrick J.

2015-05-07

Simple models of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) predict dark matter annihilations into pairs of electroweak gauge bosons, Higgses or tops, which through their subsequent cascade decays produce a spectrum of gamma rays. Intriguingly, an excess in gamma rays coming from near the Galactic center has been consistently observed in Fermi data. A recent analysis by the Fermi collaboration confirms these earlier results. Taking into account the systematic uncertainties in the modelling of the gamma ray backgrounds, we show for the first time that this excess can be well fit by these final states. In particular, for annihilations to (WW,more » ZZ, hh, tt{sup -bar}), dark matter with mass between threshold and approximately (165, 190, 280, 310) GeV gives an acceptable fit. The fit range for bb{sup -bar} is also enlarged to 35 GeV≲m{sub χ}≲165 GeV. These are to be compared to previous fits that concluded only much lighter dark matter annihilating into b, τ, and light quark final states could describe the excess. We demonstrate that simple, well-motivated models of WIMP dark matter including a thermal-relic neutralino of the MSSM, Higgs portal models, as well as other simplified models can explain the excess.« less

WIMPs at the galactic center

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Agrawal, Prateek; Batell, Brian; Fox, Patrick J.

Simple models of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) predict dark matter annihilations into pairs of electroweak gauge bosons, Higgses or tops, which through their subsequent cascade decays produce a spectrum of gamma rays. Intriguingly, an excess in gamma rays coming from near the Galactic center has been consistently observed in Fermi data. A recent analysis by the Fermi collaboration confirms these earlier results. Taking into account the systematic uncertainties in the modelling of the gamma ray backgrounds, we show for the first time that this excess can be well fit by these final states. In particular, for annihilations to (WW,more » ZZ, hh, tt¯), dark matter with mass between threshold and approximately (165, 190, 280, 310) GeV gives an acceptable fit. The fit range for bb¯ is also enlarged to 35 GeV ≲ m χ ≲ 165 GeV. These are to be compared to previous fits that concluded only much lighter dark matter annihilating into b, τ, and light quark final states could describe the excess. We demonstrate that simple, well-motivated models of WIMP dark matter including a thermal-relic neutralino of the MSSM, Higgs portal models, as well as other simplified models can explain the excess.« less

WIMPs at the galactic center

DOE PAGES

Agrawal, Prateek; Batell, Brian; Fox, Patrick J.; ...

2015-05-07

Simple models of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) predict dark matter annihilations into pairs of electroweak gauge bosons, Higgses or tops, which through their subsequent cascade decays produce a spectrum of gamma rays. Intriguingly, an excess in gamma rays coming from near the Galactic center has been consistently observed in Fermi data. A recent analysis by the Fermi collaboration confirms these earlier results. Taking into account the systematic uncertainties in the modelling of the gamma ray backgrounds, we show for the first time that this excess can be well fit by these final states. In particular, for annihilations to (WW,more » ZZ, hh, tt¯), dark matter with mass between threshold and approximately (165, 190, 280, 310) GeV gives an acceptable fit. The fit range for bb¯ is also enlarged to 35 GeV ≲ m χ ≲ 165 GeV. These are to be compared to previous fits that concluded only much lighter dark matter annihilating into b, τ, and light quark final states could describe the excess. We demonstrate that simple, well-motivated models of WIMP dark matter including a thermal-relic neutralino of the MSSM, Higgs portal models, as well as other simplified models can explain the excess.« less

Electromagnon Resonance at Room Temperature with Gigantic Magnetochromism

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shishikura, H.; Tokunaga, Y.; Takahashi, Y.; Masuda, R.; Taguchi, Y.; Kaneko, Y.; Tokura, Y.

2018-04-01

The elementary excitation characteristic of magnetoelectric (ME) multiferroics is a magnon endowed with electric activity, which is referred to as an electromagnon. The electromagnon resonance mediated by the bilinear exchange coupling potentially exhibits strong terahertz light-matter interaction with optical properties different from the conventional magnon excitation. Here we report the robust electromagnon resonance on helimagnetic Y -type hexaferrites in a wide temperature range including room temperature. Furthermore, the efficient magnetic field controls of the electromagnon are demonstrated on the flexible spin structure of these compounds, leading to the generation or annihilation of the resonance as well as the large resonance energy shift. These terahertz characteristics of the electromagnon exemplify the versatile magneto-optical functionality driven by the ME coupling in multiferroics, paving a way for possible terahertz applications as well as terahertz control of a magnetic state of matter.

The MiniCLEAN Dark Matter Experiment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schnee, Richard; Deap/Clean Collaboration

2011-10-01

The MiniCLEAN dark matter experiment exploits a single-phase liquid argon (LAr) detector, instrumented with photomultiplier tubes submerged in the cryogen with nearly 4 π coverage of a 500 kg target (150 kg fiducial) mass. The high light yield and large difference in singlet/triplet scintillation time-profiles in LAr provide effective defense against radioactive backgrounds through pulse-shape discrimination and event position reconstruction. The detector is also designed for a liquid neon target which, in the event of a positive signal in LAr, will enable an independent verification of backgrounds and provide a unique test of the expected A2 dependence of the WIMP interaction rate. The conceptually simple design can be scaled to target masses in excess of 10 tons in a relatively straightforward and economic manner. The experimental technique and current status of MiniCLEAN will be summarized.

Anisotropic Galaxy-Galaxy Lensing in the Illustris-1 Simulation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Brainerd, Tereasa G.

2017-06-01

In Cold Dark Matter universes, the dark matter halos of galaxies are expected to be triaxial, leading to a surface mass density that is not circularly symmetric. In principle, this "flattening" of the dark matter halos of galaxies should be observable as an anisotropy in the weak galaxy-galaxy lensing signal. The degree to which the weak lensing signal is observed to be anisotropic, however, will depend strongly on the degree to which mass (i.e., the dark matter) is aligned with light in the lensing galaxies. That is, the anisotropy will be maximized when the major axis of the projected mass distribution is well aligned with the projected light distribution of the lens galaxies. Observational studies of anisotropic galaxy-galaxy lensing have found an anisotropic weak lensing signal around massive, red galaxies. Detecting the signal around blue, disky galaxies has, however, been more elusive. A possible explanation for this is that mass and light are well aligned within red galaxies and poorly aligned within blue galaxies (an explanation that is supported by studies of the locations of satellites of large, relatively isolated galaxies). Here we compute the weak lensing signal of isolated central galaxies in the Illustris-1 simulation. We compute the anisotropy of the weak lensing signal using two definitions of the geometry: [1] the major axis of the projected dark matter mass distribution and [2] the major axis of the projected stellar mass. On projected scales less than 15% of the virial radius, an anisotropy of order 10% is found for both definitions of the geometry. On larger scales, the anisotropy computed relative to the major axis of the projected light distribution is less than the anisotropy computed relative to the major axis of the projected dark matter. On projected scales of order the virial radius, the anisotropy obtained when using the major axis of the light is an order of magnitude less than the anisotropy obtained when using the major axis of the dark matter. The suppression of the anisotropy when using the major axis of the light to define the geometry is indicative of a significant misalignment of mass and light in the Illustris-1 galaxies at large physical radii.

Correlations among Brain Gray Matter Volumes, Age, Gender, and Hemisphere in Healthy Individuals

PubMed Central

Taki, Yasuyuki; Thyreau, Benjamin; Kinomura, Shigeo; Sato, Kazunori; Goto, Ryoi; Kawashima, Ryuta; Fukuda, Hiroshi

2011-01-01

To determine the relationship between age and gray matter structure and how interactions between gender and hemisphere impact this relationship, we examined correlations between global or regional gray matter volume and age, including interactions of gender and hemisphere, using a general linear model with voxel-based and region-of-interest analyses. Brain magnetic resonance images were collected from 1460 healthy individuals aged 20–69 years; the images were linearly normalized and segmented and restored to native space for analysis of global gray matter volume. Linearly normalized images were then non-linearly normalized and smoothed for analysis of regional gray matter volume. Analysis of global gray matter volume revealed a significant negative correlation between gray matter ratio (gray matter volume divided by intracranial volume) and age in both genders, and a significant interaction effect of age × gender on the gray matter ratio. In analyzing regional gray matter volume, the gray matter volume of all regions showed significant main effects of age, and most regions, with the exception of several including the inferior parietal lobule, showed a significant age × gender interaction. Additionally, the inferior temporal gyrus showed a significant age × gender × hemisphere interaction. No regional volumes showed significant age × hemisphere interactions. Our study may contribute to clarifying the mechanism(s) of normal brain aging in each brain region. PMID:21818377

Dynamics of a Sonoluminescing Bubble in Sulfuric Acid

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hopkins, Stephen D.; Putterman, Seth J.; Kappus, Brian A.; Suslick, Kenneth S.; Camara, Carlos G.

2005-12-01

The spectral shape and observed sonoluminescence emission from Xe bubbles in concentrated sulfuric acid is consistent only with blackbody emission from a spherical surface that fills the bubble. The interior of the observed 7000 K blackbody must be at least 4 times hotter than the emitting surface in order that the equilibrium light-matter interaction length be smaller than the radius. Bright emission is correlated with long emission times (˜10ns), sharp thresholds, unstable translational motion, and implosions that are sufficiently weak that contributions from the van der Waals hard core are small.

Dynamics of a sonoluminescing bubble in sulfuric acid.

PubMed

Hopkins, Stephen D; Putterman, Seth J; Kappus, Brian A; Suslick, Kenneth S; Camara, Carlos G

2005-12-16

The spectral shape and observed sonoluminescence emission from Xe bubbles in concentrated sulfuric acid is consistent only with blackbody emission from a spherical surface that fills the bubble. The interior of the observed 7000 K blackbody must be at least 4 times hotter than the emitting surface in order that the equilibrium light-matter interaction length be smaller than the radius. Bright emission is correlated with long emission times (approximately 10 ns), sharp thresholds, unstable translational motion, and implosions that are sufficiently weak that contributions from the van der Waals hard core are small.

Nested plasmonic resonances: extraordinary enhancement of linear and nonlinear interactions.

PubMed

de Ceglia, Domenico; Vincenti, Maria Antonietta; Akozbek, Neset; Bloemer, Mark J; Scalora, Michael

2017-02-20

Plasmonic resonators can provide large local electric fields when the gap between metal components is filled with an ordinary dielectric. We consider a new concept consisting of a hybrid nanoantenna obtained by introducing a resonant, plasmonic nanoparticle strategically placed inside the gap of an aptly sized metallic antenna. The system exhibits two nested, nearly overlapping plasmonic resonances whose signature is a large field enhancement at the surface and within the bulk of the plasmonic nanoparticle that leads to unusually strong, linear and nonlinear light-matter coupling.