We report time-resolved electron emission in experiments on ionization of rubidium Rydberg atoms ($n=90$) by few-cycle radio-frequency (RF) (1–10 MHz) pulses. The electron emission occurs in multiple bursts and strongly depends on the carrier-envelope phase as well as the duration and amplitude of the RF pulses. Remarkably, ionization is observed during a series of cycles with the same amplitude. Even at the low RF frequencies, ionization is not completed in a single cycle. Remixing of the states at the zero crossing of the field is believed to play an essential role. Similarities with the ionization process leading to high order harmonic generation are discussed.

We investigate the quasistatic mechanical response of soils under cyclic loading using a discrete model of randomly generated convex polygons. This response exhibits a sequence of regimes, each one characterized by a linear accumulation of plastic deformation with the number of cycles. At the grain level, a quasiperiodic ratchetlike behavior is observed at the contacts, which excludes the existence of an elastic regime. The study of this slow dynamics allows exploration of the role of friction in the permanent deformation of unbound granular materials subjected to cyclic loading.

An ensemble approach for force distributions in static granular packings is developed. This framework is based on the separation of packing and force scales, together with an a priori flat measure in the force phase space under the constraints that the contact forces are repulsive and balance on every particle. We show how the formalism yields realistic results, both for disordered and regular triangular “snooker ball” configurations, and obtain a shear-induced unjamming transition of the type proposed recently for athermal media.

Microfluidic technology offers capabilities for the precise handling of small fluid volumes dispersed as droplets. To fully exploit this potential requires simultaneous generation of multiple size droplets. We demonstrate two methods for passively breaking larger drops into precisely controlled daughter drops using pressure-driven flow in simple microfluidic configurations: (i) a T junction and (ii) flow past isolated obstacles. We quantify conditions for breakup at a T junction and illustrate sequential breakup at T junctions for making small drops at high dispersed phase volume fractions.

A stretched vortex model is proposed which includes a nonuniform stretching in the radial direction that is clearly present in real flows, as well as a slow variation of velocity profiles along the vortex axis. Both features of this boundary layer approximation depart from the classical Burgers solution. This model is shown to be in very good agreement with experimental velocity measurements.

A microstrip configuration is loaded with a left-handed medium substrate and studied regarding its dispersion diagrams over the microwave and millimeter-wave frequency bands for a number of different modal solutions. Ab initio calculations are accomplished self-consistently with a computer code using a full-wave integral equation numerical method based upon a Green’s function employing appropriate boundary conditions. Bands of both propagating and evanescent behavior are discovered in some of the modes. Electromagnetic field plots in the cross-sectional dimension are made. New electric field line and magnetic circulation patterns are discovered.

A periodically kicked ring of a Bose-Einstein condensate is considered as a nonlinear generalization of the quantum kicked rotor. For weak interactions between atoms, periodic motion (antiresonance) becomes quasiperiodic (quantum beating) but remains stable. There exists a critical strength of interactions beyond which quasiperiodic motion becomes chaotic, resulting in an instability of the condensate manifested by exponential growth in the number of noncondensed atoms. Similar behavior is observed for dynamically localized states (essentially quasiperiodic motions), where stability remains for weak interactions but is destroyed by strong interactions.

We report a series of numerical simulations showing that the critical magnetic Reynolds number ${\mathrm{R}\mathrm{m}}_{\mathrm{c}}$ for the nonhelical small-scale dynamo depends on the Reynolds number $\mathrm{R}\mathrm{e}$. Namely, the dynamo is shut down if the magnetic Prandtl number ${\mathrm{P}\mathrm{r}}_{\mathrm{m}}=\mathrm{R}\mathrm{m}/\mathrm{R}\mathrm{e}$ is less than some critical value ${\mathrm{P}\mathrm{r}}_{\mathrm{m}\mathrm{,}\mathrm{c}}\lesssim 1$ even for $\mathrm{R}\mathrm{m}$ for which dynamo exists at ${\mathrm{P}\mathrm{r}}_{\mathrm{m}}\ge 1$. We argue that, in the limit of $\mathrm{R}\mathrm{e}\to \infty$, a finite ${\mathrm{P}\mathrm{r}}_{\mathrm{m}\mathrm{,}\mathrm{c}}$ may exist. The second possibility is that ${\mathrm{P}\mathrm{r}}_{\mathrm{m}\mathrm{,}\mathrm{c}}\to 0$ as $\mathrm{R}\mathrm{e}\to \infty$, while ${\mathrm{R}\mathrm{m}}_{\mathrm{c}}$ tends to a very large constant value inaccessible at current resolutions. If there is a finite ${\mathrm{P}\mathrm{r}}_{\mathrm{m}\mathrm{,}\mathrm{c}}$, the dynamo is sustainable only if magnetic fields can exist at scales smaller than the flow scale, i.e., it is always effectively a large-${\mathrm{P}\mathrm{r}}_{\mathrm{m}}$ dynamo. If there is a finite ${\mathrm{R}\mathrm{m}}_{\mathrm{c}}$, our results provide a lower bound: ${\mathrm{R}\mathrm{m}}_{\mathrm{c}}\gtrsim 220$ for ${\mathrm{P}\mathrm{r}}_{\mathrm{m}}\le 1/8$. This is larger than $\mathrm{R}\mathrm{m}$ in many planets and in all liquid-metal experiments.

We show, both theoretically and experimentally, that the interface between two viscous fluids in a Hele-Shaw cell can be nonlinearly unstable before the Saffman-Taylor linear instability point is reached. We identify the family of exact elastica solutions [Nye et al., Eur. J. Phys. 5, 73 (1984)] as the unstable branch of the corresponding subcritical bifurcation which ends up at a topological singularity defined by interface pinchoff. We devise an experimental procedure to prepare arbitrary initial conditions in a Hele-Shaw cell. This is used to test the proposed bifurcation scenario and quantitatively asses its practical relevance.

Using symmetry considerations, we identify three families of large photonic band-gap (PBG) architectures defined by the isointensity surfaces of four beam laser interference. For particular choices of beam intensities, directions, and polarizations, we obtain a diamondlike crystal, a novel body-centered cubic architecture, and a simple cubic structure with PBG to center frequency ratios of 25%, 21%, and 11%, respectively, when the isointensity surface defines a silicon (dielectric constant of 11.9) to air boundary.

We present the first space-filling bearing in three dimensions. It is shown that a packing which contains only loops of an even number of spheres can be constructed in a self-similar way and that it can act as a three-dimensional bearing in which spheres can rotate without slip and with negligible torsion friction.

We demonstrate parametric frequency doubling in a whispering gallery cavity made of periodically poled lithium niobate. This demonstration is an example of utility of such crystalline optical whispering gallery resonators with very high $Q$ factors, which we have fabricated.

We observe stable propagation of spatially localized single- and double-charge optical vortices in a self-focusing nonlinear medium. The vortices are created by self-trapping of partially incoherent light carrying a phase dislocation, and they are stabilized when the spatial incoherence of light exceeds a certain threshold. We confirm the vortex stabilization effect by numerical simulations and also show that the similar mechanism of stabilization applies to higher-order vortices.

The dynamical behavior of a single-mode laser subject to optical feedback is investigated in the limit, when the delay time is much shorter than the period of the relaxation oscillations. Use of an integrated distributed feedback device allows us to control the feedback phase. We observe two kinds of Hopf bifurcations associated with regular self-pulsations of different frequencies.

Experimental evidence of convective and absolute instabilities in a nonlinear optical system is given. In optics, the presence of spatial nonuniformities brings in additional complexity. Hence, signatures characterizing these two regimes are derived based on analytical and numerical investigations. The corresponding noise-sustained and dynamical patterns are observed experimentally in a liquid crystal layer subjected to a laser beam with tilted feedback.

A phenomenological turbulence model in which the energy spectrum obeys a nonlinear diffusion equation is analyzed. The general steady state contains a nonlinear mixture of the constant-flux Kolmogorov and fluxless thermodynamic components. Such “warm cascade” solutions describe a bottleneck phenomenon of spectrum stagnation near the dissipative scale. Transient self-similar solutions describing a finite-time formation of steady cascades are analyzed and found to exhibit nontrivial scaling behavior.

An exact time-domain method is proposed to time reverse a transient scalar wave using only the field measured on an arbitrary closed surface enclosing the initial source. Under certain conditions, a time-reversed field can be approximated by retransmitting the measured signals in a reversed temporal order. Exact reconstruction for three-dimensional broadband diffraction tomography (a linearized inverse scattering problem) is proposed by time-reversing the measured field back to the time when each secondary source is excited. The algorithm is verified by a numerical simulation. Extension to the case using Green’s function in a heterogeneous medium is discussed.

We have observed angular anisotropy in weak localization of light from highly scattering, orientationally ordered, nematic liquid crystals. This demonstration of angular anisotropy in a multiple-scattering interference phenomenon was facilitated by a light scattering instrument with extraordinary angular resolution. The measured anisotropies were consistent with a simple model of coherent backscattering generalized for propagation-direction dependent mean free paths.

We show that in the classical interaction picture the echo dynamics, namely, the composition of perturbed forward and unperturbed backward Hamiltonian evolution, can be treated as a time-dependent Hamiltonian system. For strongly chaotic (Anosov) systems we derive a cascade of exponential decays for the classical Loschmidt echo, starting with the leading Lyapunov exponent, followed by a sum of the two largest exponents, etc. In the loxodromic case a decay starts with the rate given as twice the largest Lyapunov exponent. For a class of perturbations of symplectic maps the echo dynamics exhibits a drift resulting in a superexponential decay of the Loschmidt echo.

We study the existence and stability of periodic-wave arrays propagating in uniform quadratic nonlinear media and discover that they become completely stable above a threshold light intensity. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first example in physics of completely stable periodic-wave patterns propagating in conservative uniform media supporting bright solitons.