Using Gross-Pitaevskii equation, we study the time reversibility of Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC) in kicked optical lattices, showing that in the regime of quantum chaos, the dynamics can be inverted from explosion to collapse. The accuracy of time reversal decreases with the increase of atom interactions in BEC, until it is completely lost. Surprisingly, quantum chaos helps to restore time reversibility. These predictions can be tested with existing experimental setups.

We report here the direct observation by using a scanning near-field microscopy technique of the light focusing through a photonic crystal flat lens designed and fabricated to operate at optical frequencies. The lens is fabricated using a III-V semiconductor slab, and we directly visualize the propagation of the electromagnetic waves by using a scanning near-field optical microscope. We directly evidence spatially, as well as spectrally, the focusing operating regime of the lens. At last, in light of the experimental scanning near-field optical microscope pictures, we discuss the lens ability to focus light at a subwavelength scale.

The classical-quantum transition for chaotic systems is understood to be accompanied by the suppression of chaotic effects as the relative $\hslash$ is increased. We show evidence to the contrary in the behavior of the quantum trajectory dynamics of a dissipative quantum chaotic system, the double-well Duffing oscillator. The classical limit in the case considered has regular behavior, but as the effective $\hslash$ is increased we see chaotic behavior. This chaos then disappears deeper into the quantum regime, which means that the quantum-classical transition in this case is nonmonotonic in $\hslash$.

G. I. Taylor’s postulate [Proc. R. Soc. A 151, 421 (1935)] that dissipation is independent of viscosity at high Reynolds numbers is the foundation of many single-fluid turbulence theories and closure models. The validity of this key postulate in an important class of flows, turbulent mixtures, is not yet clearly established. We devise a simple numerical experiment of decaying turbulence in a mixture of two fluids of vastly different viscosities to examine dissipation scaling. Initially, the two fluids are segregated, and dissipation is directly proportional to viscosity. As turbulence evolves and fluids mix, the velocity gradients rapidly adapt to the viscosity field, and within one-half eddy turnover time, dissipation-viscosity independence is established. Viscosity-weighted velocity-gradient skewness is shown to be constant, leading to the validity of Taylor’s postulate in turbulent mixtures.

We demonstrate optical nonlinearities due to the interaction of weak optical fields with the collective motion of a strongly dispersive ultracold gas. The combination of a recoil-induced resonance in the high gain regime and optical waveguiding within the dispersive medium enables us to achieve a collective atomic cooperativity of $275\pm 50$ even in the absence of a cavity. As a result, we observe optical bistability at input powers as low as 20 pW. The present scheme allows for dynamic optical control of the dispersive properties of the ultracold gas using very weak pulses of light. The experimental observations are in good agreement with a theoretical model.

We demonstrate some interesting phenomena associated with a nonmonochromatic plane wave passing through a spherical invisibility cloak whose radial permittivity and permeability are of Drude and Lorentz types. We observe that the frequency center of a quasimonochromatic incident wave will suffer a blueshift in the forward scattering direction. Different frequency components have different depths of penetration, causing a rainbowlike effect within the cloak. The concept of group velocity at the inner boundary of the cloak needs to be revisited. Extremely low scattering can still be achieved within a narrow band.

We study electro- and diffusio-osmosis of aqueous electrolytes at superhydrophobic surfaces by means of computer simulation and hydrodynamic theory. We demonstrate that the diffusio-osmotic flow at superhydrophobic surfaces can be amplified by more than 3 orders of magnitude relative to flow in channels with a zero interfacial slip. By contrast, little enhancement is observed at these surfaces for electro-osmotic flow. This amplification for diffusio-osmosis is due to the combined effects of enhanced slip and ion surface depletion or excess at the air-water interfaces on superhydrophobic surfaces. This effect is interpreted in terms of capillary driven Marangoni motion. A practical microfluidic pumping device is sketched on the basis of the slip-enhanced diffusio-osmosis at a superhydrophobic surface.

Bidirectional single file water transport in a carbon nanotube is known to occur in “bursts” in short nanotubes. Here we show that in long carbon nanotubes, when the orientation of the water molecules is maintained along one direction, a net water transport along that direction can be attained due to coupling between rotational and translational motions. The rotations of the water molecules are correlated more with the translation of the neighboring water molecule with the acceptor oxygen than the neighbor with the donor hydrogen. This mechanism can be used to pump water through nanotubes.

We study localized resonance patterns of a weakly deformed circular dielectric microcavity. The dominant pattern among them is detected when the classical motion of the light is on the separatrix of the effective potential. In this case, the topological shape of the pattern is automatically determined by the refractive index of the microcavity $n$. Also, the pattern can be interpreted as a linear combination of nearly degenerate eigenstates in the circular dielectric microcavity. Applying this analysis to a spiral-shaped microcavity, we generate quasiscarred patterns for $n=2$ and $n=3$.

We study experimentally how two key geometric parameters (pitch and gas fraction) of textured hydrophobic surfaces affect liquid slip. The two are independently controlled on precisely fabricated microstructures of posts and grates, and the slip length of water on each sample is measured using a rheometer system. The slip length increases linearly with the pitch but dramatically with the gas fraction above 90%, the latter trend being more pronounced on posts than on grates. Once the surfaces are designed for very large slips ($>20\mu \mathrm{m}$), however, further increase is not obtained in regular practice because the meniscus loses its stability. By developing near-perfect samples that delay the transition from a dewetted (Cassie) to a wetted (Wenzel) state until near the theoretical limit, we achieve giant slip lengths, as large as $185\mu \mathrm{m}$.

Phase singularities of wave-front-like screw dislocations or vortices possess a well-defined quantity that can only take integer value: the topological charge. In the nonlinear regime, it has been demonstrated that optical or acoustical vortices interact and the topological charge follows a conservation law. Here this facility is used in nonlinear parametric interaction of two vortices shifted in frequency to perform sums and subtractions of the topological charge. Thus, we experimentally demonstrate a new technique to perform wave computation in the group of integer $\mathbb{Z}$. When the two vortices have commensurable frequencies, different combinations give the same frequencies but different tolopological charges may occur. We show that an energy criterion can be used to predict the outcome. A corollary is that a modulation of amplitude of the vortices switches from one result to the other.

We report the discovery of a remarkable “periodicity hub” inside the chaotic phase of an electronic circuit containing two diodes as a nonlinear resistance. The hub is a focal point from where an infinite hierarchy of nested spirals emanates. By suitably tuning two reactances simultaneously, both current and voltage may have their periodicity increased continuously without bound and without ever crossing the surrounding chaotic phase. Familiar period-adding current and voltage cascades are shown to be just restricted one-parameter slices of an exceptionally intricate and very regular onionlike parameter surface centered at the focal hub which organizes all the dynamics.

It is widely known that the paradigmatic Chirikov-Taylor model presents enhanced diffusion for specific intervals of its stochasticity parameter due to islands of stability, which are elliptic orbits surrounding accelerator mode fixed points. In contrast with normal diffusion, its effect has never been analytically calculated. Here, we introduce a differential form for the Perron-Frobenius evolution operator in which normal diffusion and superdiffusion are treated separately through phases formed by angular wave numbers. The superdiffusion coefficient is then calculated analytically resulting in a Schloemilch series with an exponent $\beta =3/2$ for the divergences. Numerical simulations support our results.

We demonstrate for the first time that seeded harmonic generation on electron storage rings can produce coherent optical pulses in the vacuum ultraviolet spectral range. The experiment is performed at Elettra, where coherent pulses are generated at 132 nm, with a duration of about 100 fs. The light source has a repetition rate of 1 kHz and adjustable polarization; it is very bright, with a peak power several orders of magnitude above that of spontaneous synchrotron radiation. Owing to high stability, the source is used in a test photoemission electron microscopy experiment. We anticipate that seeded harmonic generation on storage rings can lead to unprecedented developments in time-resolved femtosecond spectroscopy and microscopy.

We demonstrate control and stabilization of an optical frequency comb generated by four-wave mixing in a monolithic microresonator with a mode spacing in the microwave regime (86 GHz). The comb parameters (mode spacing and offset frequency) are controlled via the power and the frequency of the pump laser, which constitutes one of the comb modes. Furthermore, generation of a microwave beat note at the comb’s mode spacing frequency is demonstrated, enabling direct stabilization to a microwave frequency standard.

We report a new dynamic two-center interference effect in high-harmonic generation from ${\mathrm{H}}_2$, in which the attosecond nuclear motion of ${\mathrm{H}}_2^{+}$ initiated at ionization causes interference to be observed at lower harmonic orders than would be the case for static nuclei. To enable this measurement we utilize a recently developed technique for probing the attosecond nuclear dynamics of small molecules. The experimental results are reproduced by a theoretical analysis based upon the strong-field approximation which incorporates the temporally dependent two-center interference term.

Observation of surface-plasmon phenomena that are dependent upon the handedness of the circularly polarized incident light (spin) is presented. The polarization-dependent near-field intensity distribution obtained in our experiment is attributed to the presence of a geometric phase arising from the interaction of light with an anisotropic and inhomogeneous nanoscale structure. A near-field vortex surface mode with a spin-dependent topological charge was obtained in a plasmonic microcavity. The remarkable phenomenon of polarization-sensitive focusing in a plasmonic structure was also demonstrated.

Linear birefringence, as implemented in wave plates, is a natural way to control the state of polarization of light. We report on a general method for designing miniature planar wave plates using surface plasmons. The resonant optical device considered here is a single circular aperture surrounded by an elliptical antenna grating. The difference between the short and long axis of each ellipsis introduces a phase shift on the surface plasmons which enables the realization of a quarter wave plate. Furthermore, the experimental results and the theoretical analysis show that the general procedure used does not influence the optical coherence of the polarization state and allows us to explore completely the surface of the unit Poincaré sphere by changing only the shape of the elliptical grating.

We present a new model for fluid flow and solute transport in porous media, which employs smoothed particle hydrodynamics to solve a Langevin equation for flow and dispersion in porous media. This allows for effective separation of the advective and diffusive mixing mechanisms, which is absent in the classical dispersion theory that lumps both types of mixing into dispersion coefficient. The classical dispersion theory overestimates both mixing-induced effective reaction rates and the effective fractal dimension of the mixing fronts associated with miscible fluid Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities. We demonstrate that the stochastic (Langevin equation) model overcomes these deficiencies.

Here we explore the radiation features of optical nanoantennas, analyzing the concepts of optical input impedance, optical radiation resistance, impedance matching, and loading of plasmonic nanodipoles. We discuss how the concept of antenna impedance may be applied to optical frequencies and how its quantity may be properly defined and evaluated. We exploit these concepts in the optimization of nanoantenna loading by optical nanocircuit elements, extending classic concepts of radio-frequency antenna theory to the visible regime for the proper design and matching of plasmonic nanoantennas.