Cyclotron Motion Of Electrons Research Articles

Enhanced Classical Radiation Damping of Electronic Cyclotron Motion in the Vicinity of the Van Hove Singularity in a Waveguide

Abstract We study the damping process of electron cyclotron motion and the resulting emission in a waveguide using the classical Friedrichs model without relying on perturbation analysis such as Fermi’s golden rule. A Van Hove singularity appears at the lower bound (or cutoff frequency) of the dispersion associated with each of the electromagnetic field modes in the waveguide. In the vicinity of the Van Hove singularity, we found that not only is the decay process associated with the resonance pole enhanced (amplification factor ∼104) but the branch-point effect is also comparably enhanced. As a result, the timescale on which most of the decay occurs is dramatically shortened. Further, this suggests that the non-Markovian branch-point effect should be experimentally observable in the vicinity of the Van Hove singularity. Our treatment yields a physically acceptable solution without the problematic runaway solution that is well known to appear in the traditional treatment of classical radiation damping based on the Abraham–Lorentz equation.

Influence of magnetic field gradient on the capacitive argon discharge at 8 MHz and 40 MHz

A one-dimensional implicit particle-in-cell/Monte Carlo collision model is used to study the effects of magnetic field gradients on the capacitively coupled argon plasma at 8 MHz and 40 MHz. The magnetic field strength at the powered electrode is fixed at 10 G, while varies from 30 to 100 G at the grounded electrode. The simulations show that the magnetic field with variable gradient can produce controllable asymmetry in the plasma density and ion flux profiles to each electrode. Increasing the magnetic field gradient will generate a significant dc self-bias, which results in a large ion bombardment energy at the powered electrode. The magnetic field gradients have been demonstrated to be an approach to create the dc self-bias and also effectively improve the plasma density. It is also found that at a higher frequency of 40 MHz, the dc self-bias voltage decreases, due to the fact that high collision rate of electrons with background gas will disturb the cyclotron motion of electrons, so the effect of the magnetic field is weakened. As a result, the ability to independently control ion energy and flux is weakened.

Tuning Multiple Landau Quantization in Transition-Metal Dichalcogenide with Strain.

Landau quantization associated with the quantized cyclotron motion of electrons under magnetic field provides the effective way to investigate topologically protected quantum states with entangled degrees of freedom and multiple quantum numbers. Here we report the cascade of Landau quantization in a strained type-II Dirac semimetal NiTe2 with spectroscopic-imaging scanning tunneling microscopy. The uniform-height surfaces exhibit single-sequence Landau levels (LLs) at a magnetic field originating from the quantization of topological surface state (TSS) across the Fermi level. Strikingly, we reveal the multiple sequence of LLs in the strained surface regions where the rotation symmetry is broken. First-principles calculations demonstrate that the multiple LLs attest to the remarkable lifting of the valley degeneracy of TSS by the in-plane uniaxial or shear strains. Our findings pave a pathway to tune multiple degrees of freedom and quantum numbers of TMDs via strain engineering for practical applications such as high-frequency rectifiers, Josephson diode and valleytronics.

Electron-cyclotron resonance heating and current drive source for flux-driven gyrokinetic simulations of tokamaks

Electromagnetic waves that resonate with the cyclotron motion of electrons in a magnetized plasma can efficiently transfer their momentum and energy to the plasma. This is routinely used to heat or drive current in tokamak plasmas. The impact of this localized source of momentum and energy on turbulence and the retro-action of turbulence on the resonant interaction between the electromagnetic wave and the plasma has been scarcely studied due to the difficulty in self-consistently simulating the two physical mechanisms. In this paper, a realistic source representing electron-cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH) and electron-cyclotron current drive (ECCD) is derived and implemented in a gyrokinetic code. The implementation of this realistic source in any existing global gyrokinetic code would enable the self-consistent study of turbulence in the presence of ECRH/ECCD using this code. The analytical source derived in this paper is valid for a beam propagating in the equatorial plane of an axisymmetric tokamak plasma. The realistic ECRH/ECCD source is implemented in the global gyrokinetic code ORB5 and successfully benchmarked against analytical theory (Albajar et al 2006 Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion 49 15–29) and the C3PO/LUKE suite of codes (Peysson et al 2011 Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion 53 124028), which is routinely used to study ECRH/ECCD deposition.

Enhanced heating in plasma bulk due to electron cyclotron resonance in weakly magnetized capacitively coupled plasmas

An enhanced electron heating mechanism based on a resonance between the cyclotron motion of electrons and radio frequency (rf) electric field in the plasma bulk is reported in weakly magnetized capacitively coupled argon plasmas at low pressure. When the electron cyclotron frequency coincides with the applied power source frequency, the bulk electrons can continuously acquire energy from the background electric field within certain rf periods during the cyclotron motion, inducing overall distinct increase of excitation rate and electron temperature in the plasma bulk. This enhanced electron heating effect has been examined by a combination of kinetic particle simulations, experimental measurements, and an analytical model, and the dynamics of electrons are revealed at resonant conditions.

Resonant sheath heating in weakly magnetized capacitively coupled plasmas due to electron-cyclotron motion.

An electron heating mechanism based on a resonance between the cyclotron motion of electrons and the radio frequency sheath oscillations is reported in weakly magnetized capacitively coupled plasmas at low pressure. If half of the electron cyclotron period coincides with the radio frequency period, then electrons will coherently collide with the expanding sheath and gain substantial energy, which enhances the plasma density. A relation between the magnetic field and the driving frequency is found to characterize this resonance effect and the kinetics of electrons are revealed at resonance conditions for various driving frequencies.

Quasi-isotropic orbital magnetoresistance in lightly doped SrTiO3

A magnetic field parallel to an electrical current does not produce a Lorentz force on the charge carriers. Therefore, orbital longitudinal magnetoresistance is unexpected. Here we report on the observation of a large and non saturating magnetoresistance in lightly doped SrTiO$_{3-x}$ independent of the relative orientation of current and magnetic field. We show that this quasi-isotropic magnetoresistance can be explained if the carrier mobility along all orientations smoothly decreases with magnetic field. This anomalous regime is restricted to low concentrations when the dipolar correlation length is longer than the distance between carriers. We identify cyclotron motion of electrons in a potential landscape tailored by polar domains as the cradle of quasi-isotropic orbital magnetoresistance. The result emerges as a challenge to theory and may be a generic feature of lightly-doped quantum paralectric materials.

Motional quantum states of surface electrons on liquid helium in a tilted magnetic field

The Jaynes-Cummings model (JCM), one of the paradigms of quantum electrodynamics, was introduced to describe interaction between light and a fictitious two-level atom. Recently it was suggested that the JCM Hamiltonian can be invoked to describe the motional states of electrons trapped on the surface of liquid helium and subjected to a constant uniform magnetic field tilted with respect to the surface [Yunusova et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 176802 (2019)]. In this case, the surface-bound (Rydberg) states of an electron are coupled to the electron cyclotron motion by the in-plane component of tilted field. Here we investigate, both theoretically and experimentally, the spectroscopic properties of surface electrons in a tilted magnetic field and demonstrate that such a system exhibits a variety of phenomena common to the light dressed states of atomic and molecular systems. This shows that electrons on helium realize a prototypical atomic system where interaction between components can be engineered and controlled by simple means and with high accuracy, and which therefore can be potentially used as a new flexible platform for quantum experiments. Our work introduces a pure condensed-matter system of electrons on helium into the context of atomic, molecular and optical physics.

Electromagnetic control of valley splitting in ideal and disordered Si quantum dots

In silicon spin qubits, the valley splitting must be tuned far away from the qubit Zeeman splitting to prevent fast qubit relaxation. In this work, we study in detail how the valley splitting depends on the electric and magnetic fields as well as the quantum dot geometry for both ideal and disordered Si/SiGe interfaces. We theoretically model a realistic electrostatically defined quantum dot and find the exact ground and excited states for the out-of-plane electron motion. This enables us to find the electron envelope function and its dependence on the electric and magnetic fields. For a quantum dot with an ideal interface, the slight cyclotron motion of electrons driven by an in-plane magnetic field slightly increases the valley splitting. Importantly, our modeling makes it possible to analyze the effect of arbitrary configurations of interface disorders. In agreement with previous studies, we show that interface steps can significantly reduce the valley splitting. Interestingly, depending on where the interface steps are located, the magnetic field can increase or further suppress the valley splitting. Moreover, the valley splitting can scale linearly or, in the presence of interface steps, non-linearly with the electric field.

Electron cyclotron motion excited surface plasmon and radiation with orbital angular momentum on a semiconductor thin film

In this work, surface plasmons (SPs) on a germanium (Ge) thin film in terahertz (THz) region that are excited by electron cyclotron motion (ECM) and the subsequent SP emission (SPE) by adding Ge gratings on the film are explored by finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) and particle-in-cell FDTD (PIC-FDTD) simulations. The optical properties of ECM-excited SPs are the same as those of SPs that are excited by electron straight motion (ESM). For operating at the flat band of SPs’ dispersion curve on the Ge film, changing the electron energy will only change the wavevector of SPs and hence the number of periods of SPs on the circular orbital. When the periodic gratings are deposited on the Ge film along the circular orbital of electrons, the emitted SPE contains the orbital angular momentum (OAM). The number of arms and chirality of the spiral patterns in phase map (i.e. the quantum number of OAM) of SPE are determined by the difference between the number of SPs’ periods and the number of gratings. Manipulations of the quantum number of OAM by changing the number of gratings for a fixed electron energy and by changing the electron energy for a fixed number of gratings are also demonstrated. This work provides an active OAM source and it is not required to launch circularly polarized beams or pumping beams into the structure.

Theory of supercurrent in superconductors

According to the standard theory of superconductivity, the origin of superconductivity is electron pairing. The induced current by a magnetic field is calculated by the linear response to the vector potential, and the supercurrent is identified as the dissipationless flow of the paired electrons, while single electrons flow with dissipation. This supercurrent description suffers from the following serious problems: (1) it contradicts the reversible superconducting-normal phase transition in a magnetic field observed in type I superconductors; (2) the gauge invariance of the supercurrent induced by a magnetic field requires the breakdown of the global [Formula: see text] gauge invariance, or the nonconservation of the particle number; and (3) the explanation of the ac Josephson effect is based on the boundary condition that is different from the real experimental one. We will show that above problems are resolved if the supercurrent is attributed to the collective mode arising from the Berry connection for many-body wavefunctions. Problem (1) is resolved by attributing the appearance and disappearance of the supercurrent to the abrupt appearance and disappearance of topologically protected loop currents produced by the Berry connection; problem (2) is resolved by assigning the non-conserved number to that for the particle number participating in the collective mode produced by the Berry connection; and problem (3) is resolved by identifying the relevant phase in the Josephson effect is that arising from the Berry connection, and using the modified Bogoliubov transformation that conserves the particle number. We argue that the required Berry connection arises from spin-twisting itinerant motion of electrons. For this motion to happen, the Rashba spin–orbit interaction has to be added to the Hamiltonian for superconducting systems. The collective mode from the Berry connections is stabilized by the pairing interaction that changes the number of particles participating in it; thus, the superconducting transition temperatures for some superconductors is given by the pairing energy gap formation temperature as explained in the BCS theory. The topologically protected loop currents in this case are generated as cyclotron motion of electrons that is quantized by the Berry connection even without an external magnetic field. We also explain a way to obtain the Berry connection from spin-twisting itinerant motion of electrons for a two-dimensional model where the on-site Coulomb repulsion is large and doped holes form small polarons. In this model, the electron pairing is not required for the stabilization of the collective mode, and the supercurrent is given as topologically protected spin-vortex-induced loop currents (SVILCs).

Exact and locally implicit source term solvers for multifluid-Maxwell systems

Recently, a family of models that couple multifluid systems to the full Maxwell equations have been used in laboratory, space, and astrophysical plasma modeling. These models are more complete descriptions of the plasma than reduced models like magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) since they are derived more closely from the full kinetic Vlasov-Maxwell system, without assumptions like quasi-neutrality, negligible electron mass, etc. Thus these models naturally retain non-ideal MHD effects like electron inertia, Hall term, pressure anisotropy/nongyrotropy, displacement current, among others. One obstacle to broader application of these models is that an explicit treatment of their source terms leads to the need to resolve rapid processes like plasma oscillation and electron cyclotron motion, even when these are not important. In this paper, we suggest two ways to address this issue. First, we derive the analytic solutions to the source update equations, which can be implemented as a practical, but less generic solver. We then develop a time-centered, locally implicit algorithm to update the source terms, allowing stepping over the fast kinetic time-scales. For a plasma with S species, the locally implicit algorithm involves inverting a local (3S+3)×(3S+3) matrix only, thus is very efficient. The performance can be further increased by using the direct update formulas to skip null calculations. We present benchmarks illustrating the exact energy-conservation of the locally implicit solver, as well as its efficiency and robustness for both small-scale, idealized problems and large-scale, complex systems. The locally implicit algorithm can be also easily extended to include other local sources, like collisions and ionization, which are difficult to solve analytically.

Long-wavelength gauge symmetry and translations in a magnetic field for Dirac electrons in graphene

In two-dimensional (2D) electron systems in a magnetic field, the Coulomb interaction among charge carriers, under Landau quantization, essentially governs a variety of many-body phenomena while there are also phenomena, such as the (integer) quantum Hall effect, that appear unaffected by the interaction. It is pointed out that the response of 2D electrons to spatially-uniform potentials and fields enjoys a long-wavelength gauge symmetry, associated with cyclotron motion of electrons, that leaves the Coulomb interaction invariant and that thus naturally explains why cyclotron resonance (as implied by Kohn’s theorem) and the quantized Hall conductance appear insensitive to the interaction. It is discussed, in the light of this new long-wavelength gauge symmetry, how Dirac electrons in graphene and conventional 2D electrons differ in cyclotron-resonance characteristics and the quantum Hall effect.

Interplay of resonant states and Landau levels in functionalized graphene

Adsorbates can drastically alter physical properties of graphene. Particularly important are adatoms and admolecules that induce resonances at the Dirac point. Such resonances limit electron mobilities and spin relaxation times. We present a systematic tight-binding as well as analytical modeling to investigate the properties of resonant states in the presence of a quantizing magnetic field. Landau levels are strongly influenced by the resonances, especially close to the Dirac point. Here the cyclotron motion of electrons around a defect leads to the formation of circulating local currents which are manifested by the appearance of side peaks around the zero-energy Landau level. Our study is based on realistic parameters for H, F, and Cu adatoms, each exhibiting distinct spectral features in the magnetic field. We also show that by observing a local density of states around an adatom in the presence of Landau levels useful microscopic model parameters can be extracted.

Influence of strong magnetic fields on laser pulse propagation in underdense plasma

We examine the interaction between intense laser pulses and strongly magnetised plasmas in the weakly relativistic regime. An expression for the electron Lorentz factor coupling both relativistic and cyclotron motion nonlinearities is derived for static magnetic fields along the laser propagation axis. This is applied to predict modifications to the refractive index, critical density, group velocity dispersion and power threshold for relativistic self-focusing. It is found that electron quiver response is enhanced under right circularly-polarised light, decreasing the power threshold for various instabilities, while a dampening effect occurs under left circularly-polarised light, increasing the power thresholds. Derived theoretical predictions are tested by one- and three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations.

Classical understanding of electron vortex beams in a uniform magnetic field

Recently, interesting observations on electron vortex beams have been made. We propose a classical model that shows vortex-like motion due to suitably-synchronized motion of each electron's cyclotron motion in a uniform magnetic field. It is shown that some basic features of electron vortex beams in a uniform magnetic field, such as azimuthal currents, the relation between energy and kinetic angular momentum, and the parallel-axis theorem are understandable by using this classical model. We also show that the time-dependence of kinetic angular momentum of electron vortex beams could be understood as an effect of a specific nonuniform distribution of classical electrons.

Electron dynamics in the minimagnetosphere above a lunar magnetic anomaly

AbstractWe consider a three‐dimensional electromagnetic particle‐in‐cell simulation of the boundary layer current in a minimagnetosphere created by the interaction between a magnetized plasma flow, which models the typical solar wind, and a small‐scale magnetic dipole, which represents the Reiner Gamma magnetic anomaly on the lunar surface. The size of this magnetic anomaly (measured as the distance from the dipole center to the position where the pressure of the local magnetic field equals the dynamic pressure of the solar wind) is one quarter that of the Larmor radius of the solar wind ions. In spite of the weak magnetization of the ions, a minimagnetosphere is formed above the magnetic anomaly. In the boundary layer of the minimagnetosphere, the electron current is dominant. Due to the intense electric field induced by charge separation, electrons entering the boundary layer undergo E × B drift. In each hemisphere, the electron boundary current due to the drift shows a structure where the convection reverses; these structures are symmetric with respect to the magnetic equator. Detailed analysis of the electron cyclotron motion shows that electrons at the edge of the inner boundary layer obtain maximum velocity by the electric field acceleration due to the charge separation, not due to the drift of the electron's guiding center. The maximum electron velocity is approximately 8 times that of the upstream plasma. The width of the boundary layer current becomes approximately equal to the radius of the local electron cyclotron.

Strong Coupling of the Cyclotron Motion of Surface Electrons on Liquid Helium to a Microwave Cavity.

The strong coupling regime is observed in a system of two-dimensional electrons whose cyclotron motion is coupled to an electromagnetic mode in a Fabry-Perot cavity resonator. Rabi splitting of eigenfrequencies of the coupled motion is observed both in the cavity reflection spectrum and ac current of the electrons, the latter probed by measuring their bolometric photoresponse. Despite the fact that similar observations of Rabi splitting in many-particle systems have been described as a quantum-mechanical effect, we show that the observed splitting can be explained completely by a model based on classical electrodynamics.

3D electrostatic gyrokinetic electron and fully kinetic ion simulation of lower-hybrid drift instability of Harris current sheet

The eigenmode stability properties of three-dimensional lower-hybrid-drift-instabilities (LHDI) in a Harris current sheet with a small but finite guide magnetic field have been systematically studied by employing the gyrokinetic electron and fully kinetic ion (GeFi) particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation model with a realistic ion-to-electron mass ratio mi/me. In contrast to the fully kinetic PIC simulation scheme, the fast electron cyclotron motion and plasma oscillations are systematically removed in the GeFi model, and hence one can employ the realistic mi/me. The GeFi simulations are benchmarked against and show excellent agreement with both the fully kinetic PIC simulation and the analytical eigenmode theory. Our studies indicate that, for small wavenumbers, ky, along the current direction, the most unstable eigenmodes are peaked at the location where k→·B→=0, consistent with previous analytical and simulation studies. Here, B→ is the equilibrium magnetic field and k→ is the wavevector perpendicular to the nonuniformity direction. As ky increases, however, the most unstable eigenmodes are found to be peaked at k→·B→≠0. In addition, the simulation results indicate that varying mi/me, the current sheet width, and the guide magnetic field can affect the stability of LHDI. Simulations with the varying mass ratio confirm the lower hybrid frequency and wave number scalings.

Comment on “Propagation of a TE surface mode in a relativistic electron beam–quantum plasma system” [Phys. Lett. A 376 (2012) 169

In a recent paper Abdel Aziz [Phys. Lett. A 376 (2012) 169] obtained the dispersion properties of TE surface modes propagating at the interface between a magnetized quantum plasma and vacuum in the Faraday configuration, where these TE surface waves are excited during the interaction of relativistic electron beam with magnetized quantum plasma. The present Comment points out that in the Faraday configuration the surface waves acquire both TM and TE components due to the cyclotron motion of electrons. Therefore, the TE surface waves cannot propagate on surface of the present system and the general dispersion relations for surface waves, derived by Abdel Aziz are incorrect.