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Physical Review Letters

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June 29, 2009 Luminescence spectra of coupled quantum well excitons trapped in a harmonic potential. The measurements yield data for exciton-exciton interactions, independent of the density.
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June 29, 2009
By exploiting the concept of particle-hole duality, one can realize a point junction between integer and fractional quantum Hall phases, which constitutes a crucial building block towards possible applications of the quantum Hall effect. [Viewpoint on Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 016802 (2009)] Read Article | More Viewponts |
June 29, 2009 We at PRL work continuously to ensure that the journal fulfills its mission, to allow readers to “learn about all the latest significant developments in physics research” . To accomplish this the journal must publish only the best papers, must not turn away suitable papers, and must act with reasonable promptness.
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June 29, 2009
In the theory of statistical information processing, what is the minimum amount of energy needed to make a measurement and then erase its memory? [Synopsis on Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 250602 (2009)] Read Article | More Synopses |
June 29, 2009
The rapid evaporation of solvent during spin casting—a technique widely used in the manufacture of plastic parts—may prevent polymer films from reaching equilibrium. [Synopsis on Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 248303 (2009)] Read Article | More Synopses |
May 11, 2009
How can the scientific publishing enterprise deal with the increasing specialization of individual physicists? The possible aids include virtual journals, the new APS journal Physics, and the possibility of artificial intelligence programs.
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February 9, 2009 Impact factors are a bit like television’s Nielsen ratings. You scrutinize them and take credit if you are a beneficiary, but they are a tad unsavory! Physicists ostensibly do not write to garner citations; they merely prefer to publish in journals with high impact factors.
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June 30, 2009
Gamma rays and energetic electrons detected on a Japanese mountaintop confirm that thunderstorms are efficient electron accelerators.
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More Focus Articles
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To promote reading across fields, the editors of Physical Review Letters offer "Suggestions" each week of papers that they hope will lead readers to explore other areas of physics. Please see our Announcement PRL 98, 010001 (2007).
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Jia Shao, Shlomo Havlin, and H. Eugene Stanley
We propose a “nonconsensus” opinion model that allows for stable coexistence of two opinions by forming clusters of agents holding the same opinion. We study this nonconsensus model on lattices, several model complex networks, and a real-life social network. We find that the model displays a pha...
[Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 018701
] Published Wed Jul 1, 2009
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Ph. Wernet, M. Odelius, K. Godehusen, J. Gaudin, O. Schwarzkopf, and W. Eberhardt
Time-resolved valence band photoelectron spectroscopy with a temporal resolution of 135 fs is used to map the entire occupied valence electronic structure of photoexcited gas-phase Br2 molecules during dissociation. The observed shifting and mixing of valence energy levels defines a transition peri...
[Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 013001
] Published Mon Jun 29, 2009
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A. Bauswein, H.-T. Janka, R. Oechslin, G. Pagliara, I. Sagert, J. Schaffner-Bielich, M. M. Hohle, and R. Neuhäuser
We determine the Galactic production rate of strangelets as a canonical input to calculations of the measurable cosmic ray flux of strangelets by performing simulations of strange star mergers and combining the results with recent estimates of stellar binary populations. We find that the flux depend...
[Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 011101
] Published Mon Jun 29, 2009
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Takahiro Sagawa and Masahito Ueda
The fundamental lower bounds on the thermodynamic energy cost of measurement and information erasure are determined. The lower bound on the erasure validates Landauer’s principle for a symmetric memory; for other cases, the bound indicates the breakdown of the principle. Our results constitute the...
[Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 250602
] Published Wed Jun 24, 2009
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Yun Lai, Jack Ng, HuanYang Chen, DeZhuan Han, JunJun Xiao, Zhao-Qing Zhang, and C. T. Chan
We propose to use transformation optics to generate a general illusion such that an arbitrary object appears to be like some other object of our choice. This is achieved by using a remote device that can transform the scattered light outside a virtual boundary into that of the object chosen for the ...
[Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 253902
] Published Mon Jun 22, 2009
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Mankei Tsang
I propose a quantum imaging method that can beat the Rayleigh-Abbe diffraction limit and achieve de Broglie resolution without requiring a multiphoton absorber or coincidence detection. Using the same nonclassical states of light as those for quantum lithography, the proposed method requires only o...
[Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 253601
] Published Mon Jun 22, 2009
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Matthias Roth, Laurent Guyon, Jonathan Roslund, Véronique Boutou, Francois Courvoisier, Jean-Pierre Wolf, and Herschel Rabitz
Fundamental selectivity limits of quantum control are pushed by introducing laser driven optimal dynamic discrimination to create distinguishing excitations on two nearly identical flavin molecules. Even with modest spectral resources, significant specificity is achieved with optimal pulse shapes, w...
[Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 253001
] Published Mon Jun 22, 2009
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David R. Barbero and Ullrich Steiner
A new experimental approach is introduced to probe the rheology of ≳100 nm-thick liquid polymer films. As-cast films were found to have a substantially reduced effective viscosity compared to annealed films. The reduced viscosity is explained in terms of nonequilibrium chain conformations giv...
[Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 248303
] Published Thu Jun 18, 2009
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Alexei P. Sokolov and Kenneth S. Schweizer
We propose an explanation for the long-standing puzzles of the microscopic mechanism of chain friction and the failure of time-temperature superposition in polymer melts based on decoupling of macromolecular scale diffusion from local structural relaxation due to spatially heterogeneous dynamics. Th...
[Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 248301
] Published Mon Jun 15, 2009
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Massimo Campostrini and Ettore Vicari
We study the scaling properties of critical particle systems confined by a potential. Using renormalization-group arguments, we show that their critical behavior can be cast in the form of a trap-size scaling, resembling finite-size scaling theory, with a nontrivial trap critical exponent θ, which ...
[Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 240601
] Published Mon Jun 15, 2009
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General Physics: Statistical and Quantum Mechanics, Quantum Information, etc.
X. Du, Y. Zhang, J. Petricka, and J. E. Thomas
We study fundamental features of spin current in a very weakly interacting Fermi gas of 6Li. By creating a spin current and then reversing its flow, we demonstrate control of the spin current. This reversal is predicted by a spin vector evolution equation in energy representation, which shows how th...
[Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 010401
] Published Wed Jul 1, 2009
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I. A. Pedrosa and Alexandre Rosas
We present a quantization scheme for the electromagnetic field in time-dependent homogeneous nondispersive conducting and nonconducting linear media without sources. Using the Coulomb gauge, we demonstrate this quantization can be mapped into a damped (attenuated) time-dependent quantum harmonic osc...
[Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 010402
] Published Wed Jul 1, 2009
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Mark Sadgrove, Sanjay Kumar, and Ken’ichi Nakagawa
We show that phase noise can induce nontrivial dynamics in atoms prepared in a superposition of momentum eigenstates of a periodic potential. Experimental measurements demonstrate a resonance in mean energy as a function of the size of applied random phase jumps. We discuss the mechanism for the obs...
[Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 010403
] Published Wed Jul 1, 2009
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Gravitation and Astrophysics
Sean M. Carroll, Sonny Mantry, Michael J. Ramsey-Musolf, and Christoper W. Stubbs
A long-range fifth force coupled to dark matter can induce a coupling to ordinary matter if the dark matter interacts with standard model fields. We consider constraints on such a scenario from both astrophysical observations and laboratory experiments. We also examine the case where the dark matter...
[Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 011301
] Published Wed Jul 1, 2009
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Elementary Particles and Fields
N. Muramatsu et al. LEPS Collaboration
Photoproduction of Λ(1520) with liquid hydrogen and deuterium targets was examined at photon energies below 2.4 GeV in the SPring-8 LEPS experiment. For the first time, the differential cross sections were measured at low energies and with a deuterium target. A large asymmetry of the production cr...
[Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 012001
] Published Wed Jul 1, 2009
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A. Bredenstein, A. Denner, S. Dittmaier, and S. Pozzorini
We report on the calculation of the full next-to-leading-order QCD corrections to the production of tt̅ bb̅ final states at the LHC, which deliver a serious background contribution to the production of a Higgs boson (decaying into a bb̅ pair) in association with a tt̅ ...
[Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 012002
] Published Wed Jul 1, 2009
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A. Adare et al. PHENIX Collaboration
The double helicity asymmetry in neutral pion production for pT=1 to 12 GeV/c was measured with the PHENIX experiment to access the gluon-spin contribution, ΔG, to the proton spin. Measured asymmetries are consistent with zero, and at a theory scale of μ2=4 GeV2 a next to leading order Q...
[Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 012003
] Published Wed Jul 1, 2009
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Nuclear Physics
W. Chen et al. The CLAS Collaboration
We report a measurement of the differential cross section for the γn→π-p process from the CLAS detector at Jefferson Laboratory in Hall B for photon energies between 1.0 and 3.5 GeV and pion center-of-mass (c.m.) angles (θc.m.) between 50° and 115°. We confirm a previous indication of a broa...
[Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 012301
] Published Wed Jul 1, 2009
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W. Satuła, J. Dobaczewski, W. Nazarewicz, and M. Rafalski
We present the self-consistent, nonperturbative analysis of isospin mixing using the nuclear density functional approach and the rediagonalization of the Coulomb interaction in the good-isospin basis. The unphysical isospin violation on the mean-field level, caused by the neutron excess, is eliminat...
[Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 012502
] Published Wed Jul 1, 2009
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K. Yako et al.
The double-differential cross sections for the 48Ca(p,n) and 48Ti(n,p) reactions were measured at 300 MeV. A multipole decomposition technique was applied to the spectra to extract the Gamow-Teller (GT) components. The integrated GT strengths up to an excitation energy of 30 MeV in 48Sc are 15.3±...
[Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 012503
] Published Wed Jul 1, 2009
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Papers recently accepted for publication in Physical Review Letters (view more).
General Physics: Statistical and Quantum Mechanics, Quantum Information, etc.
Efficient computation of Casimir interactions between arbitrary 3D objects
M. T.Homer Reid, Alejandro W. Rodriguez, Jacob White and Steven G. Johnson
We introduce an efficient technique for computing Casimir energies and forces between objects of arbitrarily complex 3D geometries. In contrast to other recently developed methods, our technique easily handles non-spheroidal, non-axisymmetric objects and objects with sharp corners. Using our new technique, we obtain the first predictions of Casimir interactions in a number of experimentally relevant geometries, including crossed cylinders and tetrahedral nanoparticles.
Accepted Thu Jul 2, 2009
Superfluid to Bose glass transition in a 1D weakly interacting Bose gas
Luca Fontanesi, Michiel Wouters and Vincenzo Savona
We study the one-dimensional Bose gas in spatially correlated disorder at zero temperature, using an extended density-phase Bogoliubov method. We analyze in particular the decay of the one-body density matrix and the behaviour of the Bogoliubov excitations across the phase boundary. We observe that the transition to the Bose glass phase is marked by a power-law divergence of the density of states at low energy. A measure of the localization length displays a power-law energy dependence in both regions, with the exponent equal to -1 at the boundary. We draw the phase diagram of the superfluid-insulator transition in the limit of small interaction strength.
Accepted Thu Jul 2, 2009
Gravitation and Astrophysics
Neutrinos from supernovae as a trigger for gravitational wave search
G. Pagliaroli, F. Vissani, E. Coccia and W. Fulgione
Exploiting an improved analysis of the [`(n)]e signal from the explosion of a galactic core collapse supernova, we show that it is possible to identify within about ten milliseconds the time of the bounce, which is strongly correlated to the time of the maximum amplitude of the gravitational signal. This allows to precisely identify the gravitational wave burst timing.
Accepted Thu Jul 2, 2009
Nuclear Physics
Isoscalar and isovector splitting of pygmy dipole structures
N. Paar, Y. Niu, D. Vretenar and J. Meng
The electric dipole response of 140Ce is investigated using the fully consistent relativistic quasiparticle random phase approximation. By analyzing the isospin structure of the E1 response, it is shown that the low-energy (pygmy) strength separates into two segments with different isospin character. The more pronounced pygmy structure at lower energy is composed of predominantly isoscalar states with surface-peaked transition densities. At somewhat higher energy the calculated E1 strength is primarily of isovector character, as expected for the low-energy tail of the giant dipole resonance. The results are in qualitative agreement with those obtained in recent (g,g) and (a,ag) experiments, and provide a simple explanation for the splitting of low-energy E1 strength into two groups of states with different isospin structure and radial dependence of the corresponding transition densities.
Accepted Thu Jul 2, 2009
Spectroscopy of ^{32}Ne and the ``Island of inversion''
P. Doornenbal, H. Scheit, N. Aoi, S. Takeuchi, K. Li, E. Takeshita, H. Wang, H. Baba, S. Deguchi, N. Fukuda, H. Geissel, R. Gernhauser, J. Gibelin, I. Hachiuma, Y. Hara, C. Hinke, N. Inabe, K. Itahashi, S. Itoh, D. Kameda, S. Kanno, Y. Kawada, N. Kobayashi and Y. Kondo
We report on the first spectroscopic study of the N=22 nucleus Ne at the newly completed RIKEN Radioactive Ion Beam Factory. A single line with an energy of was observed in both inelastic scattering of a 226 MeV/u Ne beam on a Carbon target and proton removal from Na at 245 MeV/u. This transition is assigned to the de-excitation of the first Jp = 2+ state in Ne to the 0+ ground state. Interpreted through comparison with state-of-the-art shell model calculations, the low excitation energy demonstrates that the extends to at least N=22 for the Ne isotopes.
Accepted Wed Jul 1, 2009
Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics
Electromagnetically induced transparency and light storage in an atomic Mott insulator
U. Schnorrberger, J. D. Thompson, S. Trotzky, R. Pugatch, N. Davidson, S. Kuhr and I. Bloch
We experimentally demonstrate electromagnetically induced transparency and light storage with ultracold 87Rb atoms in a Mott insulating state in a three dimensional optical lattice. We have observed light storage times of @ 240nbsp;ms, to our knowledge the longest ever achieved in ultracold atomic samples. Using the differential light shift caused by a spatially inhomogeneous far detuned light field we imprint a "phase gradient" across the atomic sample, resulting in controlled angular redirection of the retrieved light pulse.
Accepted Thu Jul 2, 2009
Photo- and Auger electron recoil induced dynamics of interatomic Coulombic decay
K. Kreidi, Ph. V. Demekhin, T. Jahnke, Th. Weber, T. Havermeier, X. J. Liu, Y. Morisita, S. Schossler, L.Ph. H. Schmidt, M. Schoffler, M. Odenweller, N. Neumann, L. Foucar, J. Titze, B. Ulrich, F. Sturm, C. Stuck, R. Wallauer, S. Voss, I. Lauter, H. K. Kim, M. Rudloff, H. Fukuzawa and G. Prumper
At photon energies near the Ne K-edge it is shown that for 1s ionization the Auger electron and for 2s ionization the fast photoelectron launch vibrational wave packets in a Ne dimer. These wave packets then decay by emission of a slow electron via interatomic Coulombic decay (ICD). The measured and computed ICD electron spectra are shown to be significantly modified by the recoil induced nuclear motion.
Accepted Thu Jul 2, 2009
Hund's paradox and the collisional stabilization of chiral molecules
Johannes Trost and Klaus Hornberger
We identify the dominant collisional decoherence mechanism which serves to stabilize and super-select the configuration states of chiral molecules. A high-energy description of this effect is compared to the results of the exact molecular scattering problem, obtained by solving the coupled-channel equations. It allows to predict the experimental conditions for observing the collisional suppression of the tunneling dynamics in D2S2 molecules.
Accepted Wed Jul 1, 2009
Nonlinear Dynamics, Fluid Dynamics, Classical Optics, etc.
Deep subwavelength focusing and steering of light in an aperiodic metallic waveguide array
Lieven Verslegers, Peter B. Catrysse, Zon Yugfu and Shanhui Fan
We consider an aperiodic array of coupled metallic waveguides with varying subwavelength widths. For an incident plane wave, we numerically demonstrate that a focus of as small as one hundredth of a wavelength. Moreover, the focusing behavior can be controlled by changing either the incident wavelength, or the angle of incidence, thus providing the capability of nanoscale beam steering. We show that the behavior of such subwavelength focusing can be understood using Hamiltonian optics.
Accepted Wed Jul 1, 2009
Boosting molecular fluorescence with a plasmonic nanolauncher
Andrea Alu and Nader Engheta
Molecular emission enhancement is generally obtained by proper coupling with external resonances. Here we propose the idea of a plasmonic nanolauncher, i.e., a metamaterial-inspired ultranarrow channel at cut-off. Its peculiar operation provides uniform phase and drastic amplitude increase all over the channel, allowing high emission enhancement independent of the position of an individual or group of molecules along the channel, and of its length and geometry. This may provide a fascinating mechanism for efficient molecular detection and enhanced optical fluorescence.
Accepted Wed Jul 1, 2009
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In Oct 2008, 88% of new papers received by Physical Review Letters were sent to referees within 14 days; in Oct 2004, 65% were sent out within 14 days.
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