Physical Review Letters

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 ...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 ...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 ...

The double helicity asymmetry in neutral pion production for p_T=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...

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 (θ_c.m.) between 50° and 115°. We confirm a previous indication of a broa...

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...

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±...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.