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We explore a mechanism for ionization in high-velocity (but not yet relativistic) collisions of light atomic particles, one of which being initially in an excited internal state. This mechanism is driven by the generalized Breit interaction and proceeds via radiative energy transport between the colliding particles which has an extremely long range. A comparison of this mechanism with those which are 'standard' for high-velocity collisions shows that it can play a noticeable role in collisions with excited target atoms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The variations of exchange Slater integrals with respect to their order k are not well known. While direct Slater integrals Fk are positive and decreasing when the order increases, this is not stricto sensu the case for exchange integrals Gk. However, two inequalities were published by Racah in his seminal article 'Theory of complex spectra. II'. In this article, we show that the technique used by Racah can be generalized, albeit with cumbersome calculations, to derive further relations, and provide two of them, involving respectively three and four exchange integrals. Such relations can prove useful to detect regularities in complex atomic spectra and classify energy levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a numerical investigation on the impact of the Coulomb interaction in the spiderlike photoelectron momentum distributions (PMDs) of a hydrogen atom ionized by an intense laser pulse. We have shown, by integrating analytical correction terms into the standard semiclassical rescattering model (SRM) to formulate the Coulomb analytically-corrected SRM (AC-SRM), that the interference fringes manifest a systematic shift along the transverse momentum direction upon considering the Coulomb action. A Coulomb correction to the SRM model has rarely been reported before. Analyses are made by varying physical quantities such as the carrier frequency and initial transverse velocity of the ionized electron. In particular, we decipher the impact of the Coulomb interaction with the classical-action phase map scheme, and demonstrate that this effect is more pronounced for smaller momenta in the spiderlike PMDs. It is proven that the presented AC-SRM is simple and effective in accounting for the Coulomb effect, as an alternative correction due to the Coulomb interaction to the standard SRM theory. Also, our phase map scheme is shown to be more powerful than the plain interference fringes in interrogating the Coulomb effect, especially for the first interference minimum. We anticipate that the present AC-SRM can be useful in investigating other strong field processes where the Coulomb interaction is considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To get a carbon-based qubit, we pay attention to the two-electron conduction band of a graphene quantum dot (GQD) in the presence of an external magnetic field and an extrinsic Rashba spin-orbit interaction (SOI). To help understand the formation of the two-electron spectra, we first calculate the tight-binding (TB) spectra. There exist the sensitivity of the conduction band to magnetic fields and the mixing of spin states induced by a Rashba SOI. The two factors inspire the study of the magnetic-field modulation of the conduction band for realizing a spin qubit. We present the method for calculating the electronic structure of a few-electron GQD. The roles of the Coulomb interaction and the Rashba SOI in the two-electron conduction band are investigated. The Coulomb interaction contributes to a singlet-triplet level crossing and the Rashba SOI leads to a singlet-triplet mixing. The fast initialization and coherent manipulation of spin states are demonstrated by the magnetic control of singlet-triplet splitting.

We theoretically study the stationary entanglement of two charged nanomechanical oscillators coupling via Coulomb interaction in an optomechanical system with an additional Kerr medium. We show that the degree of entanglementbetween two nanomechanical oscillators is suppressed by Kerr interaction dueto photon blockade and enhanced by Coulomb coupling strength. We also show other parameters for adjusting and obtaining entanglement, such as the driving power and the frequencies of the two oscillators, and the entanglement is robust against temperature. Our study proves a way for adjusting stationary entanglement between two optomechanical oscillators by Coulomb interaction and Kerr medium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As more and more oil recovery scenarios use seawater, the need to identify the possible mechanisms of wettability state changes in oil reservoirs has never been greater. By using molecular dynamics simulations, this study sheds light on the effect of ions common to seawater (Ca ^2+ , K ^+ , Mg ^2+ , Na ^+ , Cl ^− , HCO ^3− , SO _4 ^2− ) on the affinity between silica and carbonate as the traditional rock types and asphaltene molecules as an important contributing factor of reservoir oil wetness. In the case of carbonate and silica being the reservoir rock types, the measured parameters indicate good agreement with each other, meaning that (HCO _3 ^− & SO _4 ^2− ) and (Na ^+ & Cl ^− ) ions reached maximum bonding energies of (25485, 25511, 4096, and −4093 eV, respectively). As with the surface charge density measurements, the results of the non-bonding energies between the individual atomic structures agree with those from the simulation cell. In the presence of a silica surface, the radial distribution function (RDF) results determine that the peak of the maximum value for the distribution of the ions is 4.2. However, these values range from 3 to 6.6, suggesting that different ions perform better under the influence of carbonate rock. As these ions are distributed in the simulation box along with the adsorption domain, the conditions for sequestering asphaltene from the rock surface are made ideal for dissolution and removal. At equal ion strength, measuring the distance between the center of mass of rocks and asphaltene structures reveals a maximum repulsion force of 22.1 Å and a maximum detachment force of 10.4 Å in the presence of SO _4 ^2− and Na ^+ ions on carbonate and silica surfaces.

The recent development of optical control of electron pulses brings new opportunities and methodologies in the fields of light–electron interaction and ultrafast electron diffraction (UED)/microscopy. Here, by a comprehensive theoretical study, we present a scheme to compress the longitudinal duration of low (⩽1 keV) to medium energy (1–70 keV) electron pulses by the electric field of a THz wave, together with a novel shot-by-shot jitter correction approach by using the magnetic field from the same wave. Our theoretical simulations suggest the compression of the electron pulse duration to a few femtoseconds and even sub-femtosecond. A comprehensive analysis based on typical UED patterns indicates a sub-femtosecond precision of the jitter correction approach. We stress that the energy independence of Coulomb interaction in the compression and the compact structure of THz device lay the foundation of the compression of low energy electron pulses. The combination of the THz compression of the electron pulse and the electron–THz jitter correction opens a way to improve the overall temporal resolution to attosecond for ultrafast electron probes with low to medium energies and high charge number per pulse, and therefore, it will boost the ultrafast detection of transient structural dynamics in surface science and atomically thin film systems.

Achieving a few-femtosecond (fs) temporal resolution in electron diffraction and electron microscopy is essential for directly tracking the electronic processes and the fastest atomic motions in molecule and condensed matter systems. The intrinsic Coulomb interaction among electrons broadens the pulse duration and restricts the temporal resolution. To tackle this issue, the electron pulse compression by the time-varying electric fields at optical, THz and RF wavelengths has been demonstrated recently. However, the Coulomb interaction still exists in the compression process and the impact of the Coulomb interaction to the compression remains largely unaccounted for. In this work, we quantify the impact of the Coulomb interaction and present three intrinsic characters of Coulomb interaction in the compression process: the Coulomb interaction is dynamically suppressed as the compression field strength rises; the electron pulse with arbitrary kinetic energy (eV to MeV) suffers the same amount of Coulomb interaction, i.e. the Coulomb interaction is independent on the kinetic energy in compression; the dynamical suppression of Coulomb interaction within a single pulse gives rise to a dispersion of the temporal focus and impedes the further compression to attosecond. Potential applications based on the revealed characters of the Coulomb interaction in the compression process are discussed. Based on the dynamical evolution of the Coulomb interaction, three stages are identified to describe the compression process, which is beyond the ballistic compression model. Additionally, a robust and noninvasive jitter correction approach matching well with the compression regime is presented and the proof-of-principle experiment demonstrates a sub-fs accuracy.

We have theoretically and experimentally demonstrated an RF compression-based jitter-amplification effect in high-brightness electron source ultrafast electron diffraction (UED), which degrades the temporal resolution significantly. A detailed analysis and simulations reveal the crucial role of the longitudinal and transverse Coulomb interaction for this jitter-amplification effect, which accord very well with experimental results. An optimized compact UED structure for full compression has been proposed, which can suppress the jitter by half and improve the temporal resolution to sub-100 fs. This Coulomb interaction-induced jitter amplification exists in nearly the whole ultrafast physics field where laser-electron synchronization is required. Moreover, it cannot be suppressed completely. The quantified explanation for the mechanism and optimization provides important guidance for photocathode accelerators and other compression-based ultrashort electron pulse generation and precise control.

We have observed thermal gating, i.e. electrostatic gating induced by hot electrons. The effect occurs in a device consisting of two capacitively coupled quantum dots. The double dot system is coupled to a hot electron reservoir on one side (QD1), while the conductance of the second dot (QD2) is monitored. When a bias across QD2 is applied we observe a current which is strongly dependent on the temperature of the heat reservoir. This current can be either enhanced or suppressed, depending on the relative energetic alignment of the QD levels. Thus, the system can be used to control a charge current by hot electrons.

In this work, we develop a general gauge-invariant theory for AC heat current through multi-probe systems. Using the non-equilibrium Green’s function, a general expression for time-dependent electrothermal admittance is obtained where we include the internal potential due to the Coulomb interaction explicitly. We show that the gauge-invariant condition is satisfied for heat current if the self-consistent Coulomb interaction is considered. It is known that the Onsager relation holds for dynamic charge conductance. We show in this work that the Onsager relation for electrothermal admittance is violated, except for a special case of a quantum dot system with a single energy level. We apply our theory to a nano capacitor where the Coulomb interaction plays an essential role. We find that, to the first order in frequency, the heat current is related to the electrochemical capacitance as well as the phase accumulated in the scattering event.

We study the effect of structure asymmetry on the energy spectrum and the far-infrared spectrum (FIR) of a lateral coupled quantum dot. The calculated spectrum shows that the parity break of coupled quantum dot results in more coherent superpositions in the low-lying states and exhibits unique anti-crossing in the two-electron FIR spectrum modulated by a magnetic field. We also find that the Coulomb correlation effect can make the FIR spectrum of coupled quantum dot without strict parity deviate greatly from Kohn theorem, which is just contrary to the symmetric case. Our results therefore suggest that FIR spectrum may be used to determine the symmetry of coupled quantum dot and to evaluate the degree of Coulomb interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]