The collision-energy resolved rate coefficient for dissociative recombination of HD${}^{+}$ ions in the vibrational ground state is measured using the photocathode electron target at the heavy-ion storage ring TSR. Rydberg resonances associated with rovibrational excitation of the HD${}^{+}$ core are scanned as a function of the electron collision energy with an instrumental broadening below 1 meV in the low-energy limit. The measurement is compared to calculations using multichannel quantum defect theory, accounting for rotational structure and interactions and considering the six lowest rotational energy levels as initial ionic states. Using thermal-equilibrium-level populations at 300 K to approximate the experimental conditions, close correspondence between calculated and measured structures is found up to the first vibrational excitation threshold of the cations near 0.24 eV. Detailed assignments, including naturally broadened and overlapping Rydberg resonances, are performed for all structures up to 0.024 eV. Resonances from purely rotational excitation of the ion core are found to have similar strengths as those involving vibrational excitation. A dominant low-energy resonance is assigned to contributions from excited rotational states only. The results indicate strong modifications in the energy dependence of the dissociative recombination rate coefficient through the rotational excitation of the parent ions, and underline the need for studies with rotationally cold species to obtain results reflecting low-temperature ionized media.

Charge transfer due to collisions of ground-state N${}^{6+}\left(1s{}^{2}S\right)$ with atomic hydrogen has been investigated theoretically using the quantum-mechanical molecular-orbital close-coupling (QMOCC) method, in which the adiabatic potentials and nonadiabatic couplings were obtained using the multireference single- and double-excitation configuration-interaction (MRDCI) approach. Total, $n$-, $l$-, and $S$-resolved cross sections have been obtained for energies between 10 meV/u and 10 keV/u. The QMOCC results were compared to available experimental and theoretical data as well as to merged-beams measurements and atomic-orbital close-coupling and classical trajectory Monte Carlo calculations. The accuracy of the QMOCC charge-transfer cross sections was found to be sensitive to the accuracy of the adiabatic potentials and couplings. Consequently, we developed a method to optimize the atomic basis sets used in the MRDCI calculations for highly charged ions. Since cross sections, especially those that are state selective, are necessary input for x-ray emission simulation of heliospheric and Martian exospheric spectra arising from solar wind ion–neutral gas collisions, a recommended set of state-selective cross sections, based on our evaluation of the calculations and measurements, is provided.

We present a method for generation of single circularly polarized attosecond pulses in extended asymmetric HHe${}^{2+}$ molecular ions. By employing an intense ultrashort circularly polarized laser pulse with intensity $4.0\times {10}^{14}$ W/cm${}^2$, wavelength 400 nm, and duration 10 optical cycles, molecular high-order-harmonic generation (MHOHG) spectra with multiple plateaus exhibit characters of circular polarization. Using a classical laser-induced collision model, double collisions of continuum electrons first with neighboring ions and then second with parent ions are presented at a particular internuclear distance and confirmed from numerical solutions of a time-dependent Schrödinger equation. We analyze the MHOHG spectra with a Gabor time window and find that, due to the asymmetry of HHe${}^{2+}$, a single collision trajectory of continuum electrons with ions can produce circularly polarized harmonics, leading to single circularly polarized attosecond pulses for specific internuclear distances.

We present a physical model that describes the transport of Bose-Einstein-condensed atoms from a reservoir to a waveguide. By using the similarity and Möbius transformations, we study nonautonomous matter waves in Bose-Einstein condensates in the presence of an inhomogeneous source. Then, we find its various types of exact nonautonomous matter-wave solutions, including the W-shaped bright solitary waves, W-shaped and U-shaped dark solitary waves, periodic wave solutions, and rational solitary waves. The results show that these different types of matter-wave structures can be generated and effectively controlled by modulating the amplitude of the source. Our results may raise the possibility of some experiments and potential applications related to Bose-Einstein condensates in the presence of an inhomogeneous source.

We study the relationship between Tan's contact parameter and the macroscopic dynamic properties of an ultracold trapped gas, such as the frequencies of the collective oscillations and the propagation of sound in one-dimensional (1D) configurations. We find that the value of the contact, extracted from the most recent low-temperature measurements of the equation of state near unitarity, reproduces with accuracy the experimental values of the collective frequencies of the radial breathing mode at the lowest temperatures. The available experiment results for the 1D sound velocities near unitarity are also investigated.

We analyze a detailed model of a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) trapped in a ring optical resonator and contrast its classical and quantum properties to those of a Fabry-Pérot geometry. The inclusion of two counterpropagating light fields and three matter field modes leads to important differences between the two situations. Specifically, we identify an experimentally realizable region where the system’s behavior differs strongly from that of a BEC in a Fabry-Pérot cavity, and also where quantum corrections become significant. The classical dynamics are rich, and near bifurcation points in the mean-field classical system, the quantum fluctuations have a major impact on the system’s dynamics.

The soliton formation and evolution are numerically and experimentally investigated in passively-mode-locked lasers where pulses encounter ultralong anomalous-dispersion fibers. The pulse formation and evolution in lasers are determined by two balances, namely, nonlinearity and anomalous-dispersion balance and intracavity filtering and self-amplitude modulation balance. It is numerically found that a higher-energy soliton can be split into identical lower-energy multisolitons with exactly the same physical properties. Simulation results show that the separation of neighboring solitons is variational in the temporal domain. The temporal and spectral characteristics of solitons have large variations throughout the laser cavity, qualitatively distinct from the steady state of conventional solitons. The experimental observations confirm the theoretical predictions.

A coupled state of an electromagnetic field with an electric or magnetic dipole-carrying excitation is well known as a polariton. Such a state is the result of the mixing of a photon with the excitation of a material. The most discussed types of polaritons are phonon polaritons, exciton polaritons, and surface-plasmon polaritons. Recently, it was shown that, in microwaves, strong magnon-photon coupling can be achieved due to magnetic-dipolar-mode (MDM) vortices in small thin-film ferrite disks. These coupled states can be specified as MDM-vortex polaritons. In this paper, we study the properties of MDM-vortex polaritons. We numerically analyze a variety of topological structures of MDM-vortex polaritons. Based on analytical studies of the MDM spectra, we give theoretical insight into a possible origin for the observed topological properties of the fields. We show that the MDM-vortex polaritons are characterized by helical-mode resonances. We demonstrate the $\mathcal{P}\mathcal{T}$-invariance properties of MDM oscillations in a quasi-two-dimensional ferrite disk and show that such properties play an essential role in the physics of the observed topologically distinctive states with the localization or cloaking of electromagnetic fields. We may suppose that one of the useful implementations of the MDM-vortex polaritons could be microwave metamaterial structures and microwave near-field sensors.

Non-linear-optical properties in ${\mathrm{C}}_{60}$ have attracted enormous attention for over two decades. The endohedral complex $\mathrm{N}@{\mathrm{C}}_{60}$, with its remarkable thermal stability and spin-quartet ground state, is a candidate for future room-temperature quantum computing, but there has been no investigation of its non-linear-optical properties. Here, a first-principles calculation shows that $\mathrm{N}@{\mathrm{C}}_{60}$ is a promising material for nanoscale and ultrafast modulations. Excitation by a pump laser pulse of the nitrogen-atom vibration inside the ${\mathrm{C}}_{60}$ cage transiently breaks inversion symmetry and can enable second-harmonic generation (SHG) from a probe pulse. Unlike the SHG observed in ${\mathrm{C}}_{60}$ thin films, this harmonic signal is switched on and off periodically every 345 fs. For an fcc crystal of $\mathrm{N}@{\mathrm{C}}_{60}$, the second-order susceptibility ${\chi }^{\left(2\right)}$ is on the order of ${10}^{-8}\mathrm{esu}$, similar to commercially used nonlinear materials.

Engineering of synthetic magnetic flux in Bose-Einstein condensates [Lin et al., Nature (London) 462, 628 (2009)] has prospects for attaining the high vortex densities necessary to emulate the fractional quantum Hall effect. We analytically establish the hydrodynamical behavior of a condensate in a uniform synthetic magnetic field, including its density and velocity profile. Importantly, we find that the onset of vortex nucleation observed experimentally corresponds to a dynamical instability in the hydrodynamical solutions and reveal other routes to instability and anticipated vortex nucleation.

We put the pure-state decomposition mathematical property of a mixed state to a physical test. We present a protocol for preparing two known nonorthogonal quantum states with well-defined a priori probabilities. Hence we characterize all the possible decompositions of a rank-two mixed state by means of the complex overlap between the two involved states. The physical test proposes a scheme for quantum state recognition of one of the two linearly independent states that arise from the decomposition. We find that the two states associated with the balanced pure-state decomposition have the smaller overlap modulus and therefore the smallest probability of being discriminated conclusively, while in the nonconclusive process they have the highest probability of having an error. In addition, we design an experimental scheme that allows discriminating conclusively and optimally two nonorthogonal states prepared with different a priori probabilities. Thus we propose a physical implementation for this linearly independent pure-state decomposition and state discrimination test by using twin photons generated in the process of spontaneous parametric down-conversion. The information state is encoded in a one-photon polarization state, whereas the second single photon is used for heralded detection.

We present an easy implementable algorithm for approximating the geometric measure of entanglement from above. The algorithm can be applied to any multipartite mixed state. It involves only the solution of an eigenproblem and finding a singular value decomposition; no further numerical techniques are needed. To provide examples, the algorithm was applied to the isotropic states of three qubits and the three-qubit $XX$ model with external magnetic field.

A scheme to evaluate computation fidelities within the one-way model is developed and explored to understand the role of correlations in the quality of noisy quantum computations. The formalism is promptly applied to many computation instances and unveils that a higher amount of entanglement in the noisy resource state does not necessarily imply a better computation.

The elastic integral, differential, and momentum transfer cross sections and the excitation cross sections from the ground state to the first three low-lying electron excited states for low-energy (0–10 eV) electron collisions with thioformaldehyde (H${}_2$CS) molecule are calculated using the $R$-matrix method. Eighteen target states are included in the close-coupling formalism. Three core-excited shape resonant states (${}^2$$B_2$,${}^2$$B_1$,${}^2$$A_1$) and three Feshbach resonant states (${}^2$$B_2$,${}^2$$A_1$,${}^2$$B_1$) are determined for the ($N$ + 1)-electron H${}_2$CS${}^{-}$ system in the low-energy range. The dissociative electron attachment processes at the first two low-lying core-excited shape resonant states are proven by performing a series of scattering calculations, indicating the S${}^{-}$(${}^{2}P$) yields together with the CH${}_2$ fragment at three different states.

A large photonic band gap (PBG) is highly favorable for photonic crystal devices. One of the most important goals of PBG materials research is identifying structural design strategies for maximizing the gap size. We provide a comprehensive analysis of the PBG properties of two-dimensional (2D) quasicrystals (QCs), where rotational symmetry, dielectric fill factor, and structural morphology were varied systematically in order to identify correlations between structure and PBG width at a given dielectric contrast (13:1, Si:air). The transverse electric (TE) and transverse magnetic (TM) PBGs of 12 types of QCs are investigated (588 structures). We discovered a 12$mm$ QC with a 56.5% TE PBG, the largest reported TE PBG for an aperiodic crystal to date. We also report here a QC morphology comprising “throwing star”-like dielectric domains, with near-circular air cores and interconnecting veins emanating radially around the core. This interesting morphology leads to a complete PBG of ∼20% , which is the largest reported complete PBG for aperiodic crystals.

Off-axial beam dynamics of ultrashort laser pulses in a filament enable a radical energy-throughput improvement for filamentation-assisted pulse compression. We identify regimes where a weakly diverging wave, produced on the trailing edge of the pulse, catches up with a strongly diverging component, arising in the central part of the pulse, allowing sub-100-fs millijoule infrared laser pulses to be compressed to 20–25-fs pulse widths with energy throughputs in excess of 70%. Theoretical predictions have been verified by experimental results on filamentation-assisted compression of 70-fs, 1.5-μm laser pulses in high-pressure argon.

We consider the propagation of few-cycle pulses (FCPs) beyond the slowly varying envelope approximation in media in which the dynamics of constituent atoms is described by a two-level Hamiltonian by taking into account the wave polarization. We consider the short-wave approximation, assuming that the resonance frequency of the two-level atoms is well below the inverse of the characteristic duration of the optical pulse. By using the reductive perturbation method (multiscale analysis), we derive from the Maxwell-Bloch-Heisenberg equations the governing evolution equations for the two polarization components of the electric field in the first order of the perturbation approach. We show that propagation of circularly polarized (CP) few-optical-cycle solitons is described by a system of coupled nonlinear equations, which reduces in the scalar case to the standard sine Gordon equation describing the dynamics of linearly polarized FCPs in the short-wave-approximation regime. By direct numerical simulations, we calculate the lifetime of CP FCPs, and we study the transition to two orthogonally polarized single-humped pulses as a generic route of their instability.

Transmission of photons through open-air or optical fibers is an important primitive in quantum-information processing. Theoretical descriptions of this process often consider single photons as information carriers and thus fail to accurately describe experimental implementations where any number of photons may enter a detector. It has been a great challenge to bridge this big gap between theory and experiments. One powerful method for achieving this goal is by conceptually squashing the received multiphoton states to single-photon states. However, until now, only a few protocols admit a squash model; furthermore, a recently proven no-go theorem appears to rule out the existence of a universal squash model. Here we show that a necessary condition presumed by all existing squash models is in fact too stringent. By relaxing this condition, we find that, rather surprisingly, a universal squash model actually exists for many protocols, including quantum key distribution, quantum state tomography, Bell's inequality testing, and entanglement verification.

We show theoretically that elongated vortex-antivortex dipoles can be created controllably in trapped Bose-Einstein condensates, using known experimental techniques. Vortex dipoles of sufficient length are unstable and cascade into slow vortex rings which ultimately decay via sound emission. This instability of antiparallel vortex line elements, which self-generates Kelvin waves on vortex loops in trapped atomic gases, may play a role in bridging the Kelvin-wave and Kolmogorov-Richardson cascades of quantum turbulence.

An optical fiber is treated as a natural one-dimensional random system where lasing is possible due to a combination of Rayleigh scattering by refractive index inhomogeneities and distributed amplification through the Raman effect. We present such a random fiber laser that is tunable over a broad wavelength range with uniquely flat output power and high efficiency, which outperforms traditional lasers of the same category. Outstanding characteristics defined by deep underlying physics and the simplicity of the scheme make the demonstrated laser a very attractive light source both for fundamental science and practical applications.