Single Wave Packet Research Articles

Interferometry of Non-Abelian Band Singularities and Euler Class Topology.

In systems with a real Bloch Hamiltonian band nodes can be characterized by a non-Abelian frame-rotation charge. The ability of these band nodes to annihilate pairwise is path dependent, since by braiding nodes in adjacent gaps the sign of their charges can be changed. Here, we theoretically construct and numerically confirm two concrete methods to experimentally probe these non-Abelian braiding processes and charges in ultracold atomic systems. We consider a coherent superposition of two bands that can be created by moving atoms through the band singularities at some angle in momentum space. Analyzing the dependency of excitations on the frame charges, we demonstrate an interferometry scheme passing through two band nodes, which reveals the relative frame charges and allows for measuring the multigap topological invariant. The second method relies on a single wave packet probing two nodes sequentially, where the frame charges can be determined from the band populations. Our results present a feasible avenue for measuring non-Abelian charges of band nodes and the direct experimental verification of braiding procedures, which can be applied in a variety of settings including the recently discovered anomalous non-Abelian phases arising under periodic driving.

Variational Gaussian approximation for the magnetic Schrödinger equation *

In the present paper we consider the semiclassical magnetic Schrödinger equation, which describes the dynamics of particles under the influence of a magnetic field. The solution of the time-dependent Schrödinger equation is approximated by a single Gaussian wave packet via the time-dependent Dirac–Frenkel variational principle. For the approximation we derive ordinary differential equations of motion for the parameters of the variational solution. Moreover, we prove L 2-error bounds and observable error bounds for the approximating Gaussian wave packet.

Nonlinear electron scattering by electrostatic waves in collisionless shocks

We present a theoretical analysis of electron pitch-angle scattering by ion-acoustic electrostatic fluctuations present in the Earth's bow shock and, presumably, collisionless shocks in general. We numerically simulate electron interaction with a single wave packet to demonstrate the scattering through phase bunching and phase trapping and quantify electron pitch-angle scattering in dependence on the wave amplitude and wave normal angle to the local magnetic field. The iterative mapping technique is used to model pitch-angle scattering of electrons by a large number of wave packets, which have been reported in the Earth's bow shock. Assuming that successive electron scatterings are not correlated, we revealed that the long-term dynamics of electrons is diffusive. The diffusion coefficient depends on the ratio $\varPhi _0/W$ between the wave packet amplitude and electron energy, $D\propto (\varPhi _0/W)^{\nu }$ . A quasi-linear scaling ( $\nu \approx 2$ ) is observed for sufficiently small wave amplitudes, $\varPhi _0\lesssim 10^{-3}W$ , while the diffusion is nonlinear ( $1<\nu <2$ ) above this threshold. We show that pitch-angle diffusion of ${\lesssim }1$ keV electrons in the Earth's bow shock can be nonlinear. The corresponding diffusion coefficient scales with the intensity $E_{w}^{2}$ of the electrostatic fluctuations in a nonlinear fashion, $D\propto E_{w}^{\nu }$ with $\nu <2$ , while its expected values in the Earth's bow shock are $D\sim 0.1\unicode{x2013}100$ $(T_{e}/W)^{\nu -1/2}\,{\rm rad}^{2}\,{\rm s}^{-1}$ . We speculate that in the Earth's quasi-perpendicular bow shock the stochastic shock drift acceleration mechanism with pitch-angle scattering provided by the electrostatic fluctuations can contribute to the acceleration of thermal electrons up to approximately 1 keV. The potential effects of a finite perpendicular coherence scale of the wave packets on the efficiency of electron scattering are discussed.

Quantum analysis of a Mach–Zehnder interferometer with propagating a single photon Gaussian wave packet

In this paper, a Mach–Zehnder interferometer is analyzed with a single photon Gaussian wave packet at one of its input ports and vacuum state at the other input port. Various noises arising in the Mach–Zehnder interferometer such as photon flux noise and quadrature noise are mathematically analyzed. The effect of variation in device parameters on the power spectral density at the output ports of the Mach–Zehnder interferometer is studied. It is observed that the power spectral density of photon flux noise autocorrelation at the output ports of a Mach–Zehnder interferometer is a function of phase shift, whereas the power spectral density of quadrature noise autocorrelation at the output ports of a Mach–Zehnder interferometer is a function of frequency of a single photon wave packet and the phase shift. The analysis carried out in this paper will be helpful in understanding the quantum fluctuations in the design of quantum logic devices and circuits where the Mach–Zehnder interferometer is a core building block.

In-situ sparse-array imaging for through-thickness cracks in plates with [formula omitted] Lamb waves and an efficient waveform inversion algorithm

Structural health monitoring (SHM) requires efficient online crack detection and characterization to prevent structural failures, which mainly arise from fatigue cracks. Existing solutions for crack characterization involve analyzing sensed wave signals directly, but these approaches usually require onerous steps or many sensors to obtain sufficient and clear wave packets. An alternative strategy is a model-based inversion, which takes the full waveform into consideration and does not require analysis on a single wave packet. This approach can achieve accurate characterization with fewer sensors and simpler implementation. We propose an efficient model based on the Huygens’ principle and the no-mode-conversion property of the A0 mode Lamb waves to meet the requirements of online monitoring. We then verify the proposed model-based crack imaging method through simulation and experiments on smooth and rough cracks. The proposed method is easy, cheap, and efficient, making it a desirable option for SHM tasks.

Adaptive crack damage identification based on multi-scale sample entropy under variable temperature environment

High-speed trains inevitably experience the impact of complex temperature loads during operation, which can easily result in cracks. Structural health monitoring methods based on Lamb waves are affected by the impact of temperature on their propagation mechanism, leading to difficulties in constructing accurate damage diagnostic models. This paper proposes a crack damage identification method based on adaptive multi-scale sample entropy under variable temperature environment. A sliding window method is proposed to obtain multiple wave packets in a Lamb wave, which avoids the disadvantage of insufficient information of a single wave packet and improves the robustness and reliability of diagnosis. A variance-based multiscale transform method is proposed to process Lamb wave signals, which reduces the sensitivity of Lamb wave signals to temperature compared to the traditional mean-based multiscale transform method. Lamb waves in different sliding windows are transformed at multiple scales to extract damage Multi-scale sample entropy (MSE) at different scales. The Quantum genetic algorithm (QGA) is introduced to optimize sliding windows and MSE, achieving adaptive MSE extraction under variable temperature environments. Based on the advantage of adaptive multiscale entropy, a quantitative crack diagnosis model is established. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed method, crack detection experiments under variable temperatures were conducted. The results show that the proposed adaptive MSE has good resistance to temperature changes and can accurately identify crack length.

Airy-type bichromatic wave pulses on the sea surface and generation of rogue waves

We present a theoretical study of bichromatic weakly non-collinear Airy-type waves propagating with various amplitudes in water of infinite depth. The coupled nonlinear Schrödinger equations are invoked to study the behavior of self- and cross-interacting Airy wave packets. We demonstrate that bichromatic pulses possess the main properties of single Airy wave packets—shape invariance and self-acceleration or self-deceleration—when propagating in a dispersive medium. Accounting for nonlinearity leads to a strong dependence of the structure, stability, and propagation velocity of wave pulses on their amplitude. We show that interacting pulses of Airy-type waves can form giant accelerating and decelerating waves.

Susceptibility of a single photon wave packet

Susceptibility of a single photon wave packet

Collapse mechanisms of a Neimark–Sacker torus

Two examples of collapse of a Neimark–Sacker torus in the Rössler system are studied. Their stability is evaluated by measuring the rotation number, defined as the long-term average value of the angular phase shift that occurs in the Poincaré map on each pass, and by theoretically calculating the same angular shift within the context of a normalized cubic model. The parameters of the cubic model are evaluated using perturbation theory applied to a limit cycle, which involves first evaluating the response after a fixed time, the known period of the limit cycle, and then calculating the additional effect due to variations in time of flight to reach a fixed plane perpendicular to velocity.For the first example of collapse, the above two methods yield the same result, namely that the collapse is characterized by a constant rotation number as we move away from the bifurcation, leading to a torus that usually coalesces into discrete branches and then collapses due to turning points. This mechanism allows us to define a simple criterion that the parameters of the cubic model must satisfy, which is related to stability. The second example of collapse is more complex: the normalized cubic model suggests correctly that the collapse will be associated with the calculated radius of the torus becoming complex, which leads to a second criterion for the cubic parameters. However, the predicted point of collapse is significantly premature. The actual torus continues to survive until the rotation number approaches zero, leading to a single wave packet of infinite duration that travels between the two known equilibrium points of the system.

Влияние материальной дисперсии на осцилляции одноциклового волнового пакета

Analytically, numerically and experimentally the effect of the material dispersion of the dielectric on the oscillation period of the electric field in a single cycle wave packet (a light bullet) is investigated. Wave packet oscillates due to periodic phase shift between the envelope of the pulse and its carrier wave. The influence of nonlinear shift of phase and group velocities on the analytical estimation of the oscillation period of a light bullet with a different carrier wavelength is considered.

Material dispersion effect on the oscillations of a single-cycle wave packet

Analytically, numerically and experimentally the effect of the material dispersion of the dielectric on the oscillation period of the electric field in a single cycle wave packet (a light bullet) is investigated. Wave packet oscillates due to periodic phase shift between the envelope of the pulse and its carrier wave. The influence of nonlinear shift of phase and group velocities on the analytical estimation of the oscillation period of a light bullet with a different carrier wavelength is considered. Keywords: group velocity, phase velocity, material dispersion, absolute phase shift, single-cycle wave packet, filamentation, light bullet.

Propagation of Electromagnetic Ion Cyclotron Waves in a Dipole Magnetic Field: A 2‐D Hybrid Simulation

AbstractsElectromagnetic ion cyclotron (EMIC) waves are one commonly observed plasma waves in the Earth's inner magnetosphere and play a crucial role in particle dynamics in the radiation belt and ring current. EMIC waves are excited by a proton temperature anisotropy and generally have a left‐handed polarization, however satellite observations have usually reported the existence of linearly polarized EMIC waves in the inner magnetosphere. In this paper, we employ a two‐dimensional (2D) hybrid code in a dipole field (gcPIC‐hybrid) to simulate the propagation of EMIC waves from the equatorial source region. We track one single EMIC wave packet and analyze how its properties evolve along its trajectory. In diagnosing the wave normal angle (WNA) of the packet, we propose a novel method called Wave Front Shape Identification (WFSI). The ellipticity can also been calculated after we know the WNA. By comparing the ellipticity calculated from the linear theory and the ellipticity diagnosed from the simulation, we conclude that in a proton‐electron plasma, EMIC waves would turn from a left‐handed polarization to a linear polarization solely due to the propagation effect when the waves propagate toward higher latitudes and become oblique. We also find that the peak frequency of the wave packet (the wave mode with the maximum amplitude) decreases when propagating toward higher latitudes, which is due to different growth and damping behavior of different modes.

Dissipation-enabled resonant adiabatic quantum state transfer: Entanglement generation and quantum cloning

Resonant dissipation-enabled adiabatic quantum state transfer processes between the polarization degrees of freedom of a single photon wave packet and quantum emitters are discussed. These investigations generalize previous work [N. Trautmann and G. Alber, Phys. Rev. A 93, 053807 (2015)] by taking into account the properties of the spontaneously emitted photon wave packet and of non adiabatic corrections. It is demonstrated that the photonic degrees of freedoms of these adiabatic one-photon quantum state transfer processes can be used for the passive, heralded and deterministic preparation of Bell states of two material quantum emitters and for realizing a large family of symmetric and asymmetric quantum cloning processes. Although these theoretical investigations concentrate on waveguide scenarios they are expected to be relevant also for other scenarios as long as the processes involved are adiabatic so that the Fourier-limited bandwidth of the single photon wave packet involved is small in comparison with the relevant dissipative rates.

Contribution of Lamb wave modes in the formation of higher order modes cluster (HOMC) guided waves

In recent years, Higher Order Modes Cluster (HOMC) guided waves have been considered for ultrasonic testing of plates and pipes. HOMC guided waves consist of higher order Lamb wave modes that travel together as a single nondispersive wave packet. The objective of this paper is to investigate the effect of frequency-thickness value on the contribution of Lamb wave modes in an HOMC guided wave. This is an important issue that has not been thoroughly investigated before. The contribution of each Lamb wave mode in an HOMC guided wave is studied by using a two-dimensional finite element model. The level of contribution of various Lamb wave modes to the wave cluster is verified by using a 2D FFT analysis. The results show that by increasing the frequency-thickness value, the order of contributing modes in the HOMC wave packet increases. The number of modes that comprise a cluster also increases up to a specific frequency-thickness value and then it starts to decrease. Plotting of the cross-sectional displacement patterns along the HOMC guided wave paths confirms the shifting of dominant modes from lower to higher order modes with increase of frequency-thickness value. Experimental measurements conducted on a mild steel plate are used to verify the finite element simulations. The experimental results are found to be in good agreement with simulations and confirm the changes observed in the level of contribution of Lamb wave modes in a wave cluster by changing the frequency-thickness value.

The Complex Charge Paradigm: A New Approach for Designing Electromagnetic Wavepackets.

Singularities in optics famously describe a broad range of intriguing phenomena, from vortices and caustics to field divergences near point charges. The diverging fields created by point charges are conventionally seen as a mathematical peculiarity that is neither needed nor related to the description of electromagnetic beams and pulses, and other effects in modern optics. This work disrupts this viewpoint by shifting point charges into the complex plane, and showing that their singularities then give rise to propagating, divergence‐free wavepackets. Specifically, point charges moving in complex space‐time trajectories are shown to map existing wavepackets to corresponding complex trajectories. Tailoring the complex trajectories in this “complex charge paradigm” leads to the discovery and design of new wavepacket families, as well as unprecedented electromagnetic phenomena, such as the combination of both nondiffracting behavior and abruptly‐varying behavior in a single wavepacket. As an example, the abruptly focusing X‐wave–a propagation‐invariant X‐wave‐like wavepacket with prechosen self‐disruptions that enhance its peak intensity by over 200 times–is presented. This work envisions a unified method that captures all existing wavepackets as corresponding complex trajectories, creating a new design tool in modern optics and paving the way to further discoveries of electromagnetic modes and waveshaping applications.

Theory of wave-packet transport under narrow gaps and spatial textures: Nonadiabaticity and semiclassicality

We generalise the celebrated semiclassical wavepacket approach from the adiabatic to the non-adiabatic regime. A unified description covering both of these regimes is particularly desired for systems with spatially varying band structures where band gaps of various sizes are simultaneously present, e.g. in moir\'{e} patterns. For a single wavepacket, alternative to the previous derivation by Lagrangian variational approach, we show that the same semiclassical equations of motion can be obtained by introducing a spatial-texture-induced force operator similar to the Ehrenfest theorem. For semiclassically computing the current, the ensemble of wavepackets based on adiabatic dynamics is shown to well correspond to a phase-space fluid for which the fluid's mass and velocity are two distinguishable properties. This distinction is not inherited to the ensemble of wavepackets with the non-adiabatic dynamics. We extend the adiabatic kinetic theory to the non-adiabatic regime by taking into account decoherence, whose joint action with electric field favours certain form of inter-band coherence. The steady-state density matrix as a function of the phase-space variables is then phenomenologically obtained for calculating the transport current. The result, applicable with a finite electric field, expectedly reproduces the known adiabatic limit by taking the electric field to be infinitesimal, and therefore attains a unified description from the adiabatic to the non-adiabatic situations.

Decoherence of charge density waves in beam splitters for interacting quantum wires

Simple intersections between one-dimensional channels can act as coherent beam splitters for non-interacting electrons. Here we examine how coherent splitting at such intersections is affected by inter-particle interactions, in the special case of an intersection of topological edge states. We derive an effective impurity model which represents the edge-state intersection within Luttinger liquid theory at low energy. For Luttinger K = 1 / 2 , we compute the exact time-dependent expectation values of the charge density as well as the density-density correlation functions. In general a single incoming charge density wave packet will split into four outgoing wave packets with transmission and reflection coefficients depending on the strengths of the tunnelling processes between the wires at the junction. We find that when multiple charge density wave packets from different directions pass through the intersection at the same time, reflection and splitting of the packets depend on the relative phases of the waves. Active use of this phase-dependent splitting of wave packets may make Luttinger interferometry possible. We also find that coherent incident packets generally suffer partial decoherence from the intersection, with some of their initially coherent signal being transferred into correlated quantum noise. In an extreme case four incident coherent wave packets can be transformed entirely into density-density correlations, with the charge density itself having zero expectation value everywhere in the final state.

Echo in a single vibrationally excited molecule

Echo is a ubiquitous phenomenon found in many physical systems, ranging from spins in magnetic fields to particle beams in hadron accelerators. It is typically observed in inhomogeneously broadened ensembles of nonlinear objects, and is used to eliminate the effects of environmental-induced dephasing, enabling observation of proper, inherent object properties. Here, we report experimental observation of quantum wave packet echoes in a single isolated molecule. In contrast to conventional echoes, here the entire dephasing-rephasing cycle occurs within a single molecule without any inhomogeneous spread of molecular properties, or any interaction with the environment. In our experiments, we use a short laser pulse to impulsively excite a vibrational wave packet in an anharmonic molecular potential, and observe its oscillations and eventual dispersion with time. A second delayed pulsed excitation is applied, giving rise to an echo: a partial recovery of the initial coherent wavepacket. The vibrational dynamics of single molecules is visualized by time-delayed probe pulse dissociating them one at a time. Two mechanisms for the echo formation are discussed: ac Stark-induced molecular potential shaking and creation of depletion-induced "hole" in the nuclear spatial distribution. Interplay between the optically induced echoes and quantum revivals of the vibrational wave packets is observed and theoretically analyzed. The single molecule wave packet echoes may lead to the development of new tools for probing ultrafast intramolecular processes in various molecules.

Programmable and robust static topological solitons in mechanical metamaterials

Solitary, persistent wave packets called solitons hold potential to transfer information and energy across a wide range of spatial and temporal scales in physical, chemical, and biological systems. Mechanical solitons characteristically emerge either as a single wave packet or uncorrelated propagating topological entities through space and/or time, but these are notoriously difficult to control. Here, we report a theoretical framework for programming static periodic topological solitons into a metamaterial, and demonstrate its implementation in real metamaterials computationally and experimentally. The solitons are excited by deformation localizations under quasi-static compression, and arise from buckling-induced kink-antikink bands that provide domain separation barriers. The soliton number and wavelength demonstrate a previously unreported size-dependence, due to intrinsic length scales. We identify that these unanticipated solitons stem from displacive phase transitions with periodic topological excitations captured by the well-known {varphi }^{4} theory. Results reveal pathways for robust regularizations of stochastic responses of metamaterials.

Measurement of the curvature and height of the potential barrier for a dynamic quantum dot

We report a method to characterize the potential barrier of a dynamic quantum dot by measuring the barrier height and determining the curvature. We show that the loading statistics and hence accuracy of electron transfer through the dynamic quantum dot depend significantly on these parameters, and hence our method provides a detailed characterization of device performance. This method takes a further step towards tunable barrier shapes, which would greatly increase the accuracy of single electron sources, allowing the single electron current to be useful for quantum sensing, quantum information, and metrology. We apply our method to the case of a tunable-barrier single-electron pump, an exemplary device that shows promise as a source of hot single electron wavepackets.