Scatter-free acceleration of particles by interaction with plasma shock waves in the interstellar medium

ABSTRACT Scatter-free acceleration is investigated for a test particle thrusted by a moving magnetized cloud in the presence of the uniform interstellar magnetic field. It is found that depending on the orientation of the background magnetic field, three different scenarios occur for the interacting particle. In some cases, the particle reflects into space with a negligible increase in energy. Otherwise, the particle is either trapped at the wavefront or is injected inside the cloud. The trapped particle moves with the cloud and gains energy through the magnetic trapping acceleration mechanism, which is already investigated in previous reports. The injected particle accelerates through a different mechanism, which is introduced in this paper as the spiral acceleration. In this mechanism, the particle moves in a spiral path and gains energy by the convective electric field of the cloud. The radius of the spiral increases as the particle gains more energy and the process continues until the particle is located inside the cloud. Since in most cases the trapping condition is not satisfied, the spiral acceleration mechanism is of great importance.

Paper-thin multilayer microfluidic devices with integrated valves

The “thin-chip” provides the functionality of multilayer PDMS microfluidic devices with integrated valves, in a paper-thin form factor, enabling integration with advanced optical microscopy and magnetic trapping.

How the breakout-limited mass in B-star centrifugal magnetospheres controls their circumstellar H α emission

ABSTRACT Strongly magnetic B-type stars with moderately rapid rotation form ‘centrifugal magnetospheres’ (CMs) from the magnetic trapping of stellar wind material in a region above the Kepler co-rotation radius. A long-standing question is whether the eventual loss of such trapped material occurs from gradual drift and/or diffusive leakage, or through sporadic ‘centrifugal breakout’ (CBO) events, wherein magnetic tension can no longer contain the built-up mass. We argue here that recent empirical results for Balmer-α emission from such B-star CMs strongly favour the CBO mechanism. Most notably, the fact that the onset of such emission depends mainly on the field strength at the Kepler radius, and is largely independent of the stellar luminosity, strongly disfavours any drift/diffusion process, for which the net mass balance would depend on the luminosity-dependent wind feeding rate. In contrast, we show that in a CBO model, the maximum confined mass in the magnetosphere is independent of this wind feeding rate and has a dependence on field strength and Kepler radius that naturally explains the empirical scalings for the onset of H α emission, its associated equivalent width, and even its line profile shapes. However, the general lack of observed Balmer emission in late-B and A-type stars could still be attributed to a residual level of diffusive or drift leakage that does not allow their much weaker winds to fill their CMs to the breakout level needed for such emission; alternatively, this might result from a transition to a metal–ion wind that lacks the requisite hydrogen.

Survival of weak-field seekers inside a TOP trap even beyond the adiabatic condition

In this paper, for the first time in the context of time orbiting potential (TOP) trap, the necessary and sufficient conditions for the adiabatic evolution of weak field seeking states have been quantitatively examined. It has been well accepted since decades that adiabaticity has to be obeyed by the atoms for successful magnetic trapping. However, we show, on the contrary, that atoms can also be confined beyond the adiabatic limit. For the demonstration, we have considered a toy model of a single weak field seeking atom in its ground state and have calculated its survival probability inside a TOP trap. Our findings open new possibilities to relax the restrictions of atom trapping in laboratories.

Gaseous Bose–Einstein condensates

The (gaseous) BECs are introduced: clouds of 106−8 alkali metal atoms, usually 87Rb or 23Na, below ~1 μ‎K. The laser cooling and magnetic trapping are described including the evaporation step needed to reach the conditions for condensation. The magnetooptical and Ioffe–Pritchard traps are described. Imaging methods, both destructive and non-destructive are described. Evidence of condensation is presented; and of interference between separated clouds, thus confirming the coherence of the condensates. The measurement of the condensate fraction is recounted. The Gross–Pitaevskii analysis of condensate properties is given in an appendix. How Bragg spectroscopy is used to obtain the dispersion relation for excitations is detailed. Finally the BEC/BCS crossover is introduced and the role therein of Feshbach resonances.