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Experiments and numerical simulations of inertial particles in underexpanded jets are performed. The structure of the jet is controlled by varying the nozzle pressure ratio, while the influence of particles on emerging shocks and rarefaction patterns is controlled by varying the particle size and mass loading. Ultra-high-speed schlieren and Lagrangian particle tracking are used to experimentally determine the two-phase flow quantities. Three-dimensional simulations are performed using a high-order, low dissipative discretization of the gas phase while particles are tracked individually in a Lagrangian manner. A simple two-way coupling strategy is proposed to handle interphase exchange in the vicinity of shocks. Velocity statistics of each phase are reported for a wide range of pressure ratios, particle sizes, and volume fractions. The extent to which particles affect the location of the Mach disk are quantified and compared to previous work from the literature. Furthermore, a semi-analytic model is presented based on a one-dimensional Fanno flow that takes into account volume displacement by particles and interphase exchange due to drag and heat transfer. The percent shift in Mach disk is found to scale with the mass loading, nozzle pressure ratio, interphase slip velocity, and inversely with the particle diameter.

We present the first experimental observation of quantized Klein tunneling in a bounded Dirac system, implemented by a dimer chain of dielectric microwave resonators. Both the unusual quantized levels and corresponding spinor states hybridized from distinct particle and hole wavefunctions are measured. All observations are in quantitative agreement with the hitherto-untested prediction of Dirac equation. Our results make an important step to realize and understand the particle-hole physics of Klein tunneling in bounded Dirac systems, and also shed light on potential applications for manipulating particle-hole hybridized spinor waves.

The familiar process of bubbles generated via breaking waves in the ocean is foundational to many natural and industrial applications. In this process, large pockets of entrained gas are successively fragmented by the ambient turbulence into smaller and smaller bubbles. The key question is how long it takes for the bubbles to reach terminal sizes for a given system. Despite decades of effort, the reported breakup time from multiple experiments differs significantly. Here, to reconcile those results, rather than focusing on one scale, we measure multiple timescales associated with the process through a unique experiment that resolves bubbles' local deformation and curvature. The results emphasize that the scale separation among various timescales is controlled by the Weber number, similar to how the Reynolds number determines the scale separation in single-phase turbulence, but shows a distinct transition at a critical Weber number.

In sandstorms and thunderclouds, turbulence-induced collisions between solid particles and ice crystals lead to inevitable triboelectrification. The charge segregation is usually size-dependent, with small particles charged negatively and large particles charged positively. In this work, we perform numerical simulations to study the influence of charge segregation on the dynamics of bidispersed inertial particles in turbulence. Direct numerical simulations of homogeneous isotropic turbulence are performed with the Taylor Reynolds number $\mathrm{Re}_{\lambda}=147.5$, while particles are subjected to both electrostatic interactions and fluid drag, with Stokes number of 1 and 10 for small and large particles, respectively. Coulomb repulsion/attraction are shown to effectively inhibit/enhance particle clustering within a short range. Besides, the mean relative velocity between same-size particles is found to rise as the particle charge increases because of the exclusion of low-velocity pairs, while the relative velocity between different-size particles is almost unaffected, emphasizing the dominant roles of differential inertia. The mean Coulomb-turbulence parameter, $\mathrm{Ct}_0$, is then defined to characterize the competition between the Coulomb potential energy and the mean relative kinetic energy. In addition, a model is proposed to quantify the rate at which charged particles approach each other and captures the transition of the particle relative motion from the turbulence-dominated regime to the electrostatic-dominated regime. Finally, the probability distribution function of the approaching rate between particle pairs are examined, and its dependence on the Coulomb force is further discussed using the extended Coulomb-turbulence parameter., Comment: 23 pages, 8 figures

The electric field measurement sensitivity based on the Rydberg atomic vapor cell has great theoretical advantages over traditional dipole antennas. We combine the Rydberg atomic heterodyne receiver and the Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) with high phase detection sensitivity to evaluate the system reception sensitivity based on the transmitted laser phase shift. We conduct a theoretical investigation into the impacts of local microwave electric field frequency detuning, and laser frequency detuning on enhancing the sensitivity of heterodyne Rydberg atomic receiver based on MZI. To optimize the output signal amplitude given the input microwave signal, we derive the steady-state solutions of the atomic density matrix. Numerical results show that laser frequency detuning and local microwave electric field frequency detuning can improve the system detection sensitivity, which can help the system achieve extra sensitivity gain. It also shows that the phase-based readout scheme of heterodyne Rydberg atomic receiver based on MZI can achieve better sensitivity than the intensity-based readout scheme of heterodyne Rydberg atomic receiver., Comment: 15 pages, 7 figures. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:2306.17790

Helicity is a fundamental property of Dirac fermions. Yet, the general rule of how it changes in transport is still lacking. We uncover, theoretically, the universal spinor state transformation and consequently helicity redistribution rule in two cases of transport through potentials of electrostatic and mass types, respectively. The former is dictated by Lorentz boost and its complex counterpart in Klein tunneling regime, which establishes miraculously a unified yet latent connection between helicity, Klein tunneling, and Lorentz boost. The latter is governed by an abstract rotation group we construct, which reduces to SO(2) when acting on the plane of effective mass and momentum. They generate invariant submanifolds, i.e., leaves, that foliate the Hilbert space of Dirac spinors. Our results provide a basis for unified understanding of helicity transport, and may open a new window for exotic helicity-based physics and applications in mesoscopic systems., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures

The dispersed phase in liquid-liquid emulsions and air-liquid mixtures can often be fragmented into smaller sizes by the surrounding turbulent carrier phase. The critical parameter that controls this process is the breakup frequency, which is defined from the breakup kernel in the population balance equation. The breakup frequency controls how long it takes for the dispersed phase reaches the terminal size distribution for given turbulence. In this article, we try to summarize the key experimental results and compile the existing datasets under a consistent framework to find out what is the characteristic timescale of the problem and how to account for the inner density and viscosity of the dispersed phase. Furthermore, by pointing out the inconsistency of existing experimental data, the key important unsolved questions and related problems on the breakup frequency of bubbles and droplets are discussed.

We conduct a theoretical investigation into the impacts of local microwave electric field frequency detuning, laser frequency detuning, and transit relaxation rate on enhancing heterodyne Rydberg atomic receiver sensitivity. To optimize the output signal amplitude given the input microwave signal, we derive the steady-state solutions of the atomic density matrix. Numerical results show that laser frequency detuning and local microwave electric field frequency detuning can improve the system detection sensitivity, which can help the system achieve extra sensitivity gain. It also shows that the heterodyne Rydberg atomic receiver can detect weak microwave signals continuously over a wide frequency range with the same sensitivity or even more sensitivity than the resonance case. To evaluate the transit relaxation effect, a modified Liouville equation is used. We find that the transition relaxation rate increases the time it takes to reach steady state and decreases the sensitivity of the system detection., Comment: 9 pages, 9 figures, 19 references

Fragmentation of bubbles and droplets in turbulence produces a dispersed phase spanning a broad range of scales, encompassing everything from droplets in nanoemulsions to centimeter-sized bubbles entrained in breaking waves. Along with deformation, fragmentation plays a crucial role in enhancing interfacial area, with far-reaching implications across various industries, including food, pharmaceuticals, and ocean engineering. However, understanding and modeling these processes is challenging due to the complexity of anisotropic and inhomogeneous turbulence typically involved, the unknown residence time in regions with different turbulence intensities, and difficulties arising from the density and viscosity ratios. Despite these challenges, recent advances have provided new insights into the underlying physics of deformation and fragmentation in turbulence. This review summarizes existing works in various fields, highlighting key results and uncertainties, and examining the impact on turbulence modulation, drag reduction, and heat and mass transfer.

Fluid elements deform in turbulence by stretching and folding. In this work, by projecting the material deformation tensor onto the largest stretching direction, the dynamics of folding is depicted through the evolution of the material curvature. Results from direct numerical simulation (DNS) show that the curvature growth exhibits two regimes, first a linear stage dominated by folding fluid elements through a persistent velocity Hessian which then transitions to an exponential growth driven by the stretching of already strongly bent fluid elements. This transition leads to strong curvature intermittency at later stages, which can be explained by a proposed curvature-evolution model. The link between velocity Hessian to folding provides a new way to understand the crucial steps in energy cascade and mixing in turbulence beyond the classical linear description.

From air-sea gas exchange, oil pollution, to bioreactors, the ubiquitous fragmentation of bubbles/drops in turbulence has been modelled by relying on the classical Kolmogorov-Hinze paradigm since the 1950s. This framework hypothesizes that bubbles/drops are broken solely by eddies of the same size, even though turbulence is well known for its wide spectrum of scales. Here, by designing an experiment that can physically and cleanly disentangle eddies of various sizes, we report the experimental evidence to challenge this hypothesis and show bubbles are preferentially broken by the sub-bubble-scale eddies. Our work also highlights that fragmentation cannot be quantified solely by the stress criterion or the Weber number; The competition between different time scales is equally important. Instead of being elongated slowly and persistently by flows at their own scales, bubbles are fragmented in turbulence by small eddies via a burst of intense local deformation within a short time.

We experimentally investigate the breakup mechanisms and probability of Hinze-scale bubbles in turbulence. The Hinze scale is defined as the critical bubble size based on the critical mean Weber number, across which the bubble breakup probability was believed to have an abrupt transition from being dominated by turbulence stresses to being suppressed completely by the surface tension. In this work, to quantify the breakup probability of bubbles with sizes close to the Hinze scale and to examine different breakup mechanisms, both bubbles and their surrounding tracer particles were simultaneously tracked. From the experimental results, two Weber numbers, one calculated from the slip velocity between the two phases and the other one acquired from local velocity gradients, are separated and fitted with models that can be linked back to turbulence characteristics. Moreover, we also provide an empirical model to link bubble deformation to the two Weber numbers by extending the relationship obtained from potential flow theory. The proposed relationship between bubble aspect ratio and the Weber numbers seems to work consistently well for a range of bubble sizes. Furthermore, the time traces of the bubble aspect ratio and the two Weber numbers are connected using the linear forced oscillator model. Finally, having access to the distributions of these two Weber numbers provides a unique way to extract the breakup probability of bubbles with sizes close to the Hinze scale.

The optical wireless communication (OWC) with the intensity modulation (IM), requires the modulated radio frequency (RF) signal to be real and non-negative. To satisfy the requirements, this paper proposes two types of mixed orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (X-OFDM) waveform. The Hermitian symmetry (HS) character of the sub-carriers in the frequency domain, guarantees the signal in the time domain to be real, which reduces the spectral efficiency to $1/2$. For the odd sub-carriers in the frequency domain, the signal in the time domain after the inverse fast fourier transform (IFFT) is antisymmetric. For the even sub-carriers in the frequency domain, the signal in the time domain after the IFFT is symmetric. Based on the antisymmetric and symmetric characters, the two types of X-OFDM waveform are designed to guarantee the signal in the time domain to be non-negative, where the direct current (DC) bias is not needed. With $N$ sub-carriers in the frequency domain, the generated signal in the time domain has $3N/2$ points, which further reduces the spectral efficiency to $1/3 = 1/2 \times 2/3$. The numerical simulations show that, the two types of X-OFDM waveform greatly enhance the power efficiency considering the OWC channel with the signal-dependent noise and/or the signal-independent noise., Comment: X. Li, J. Huang, Y. Lyu, J. Luo, J. Zhang, "A Mixed Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (X-OFDM) Waveform for Optical Wireless Communication," \emph{Accepted by 2020 IEEE GLOBECOM Workshop on Optical Wireless Communications (OWC)}, 2020

Future wireless communication system embraces physical-layer signal detection with high sensitivity, especially in the microwave photon level. Currently, the receiver primarily adopts the signal detection based on semi-conductor devices for signal detection, while this paper introduces high-sensitivity photon-level microwave detection based on superconducting structure. We first overview existing works on the photon-level communication in the optical spectrum as well as the microwave photon-level sensing based on superconducting structure in both theoretical and experimental perspectives, including microwave detection circuit model based on Josephson junction, microwave photon counter based on Josephson junction, and two reconstruction approaches under background noise. In addition, we characterize channel modeling based on two different microwave photon detection approaches, including the absorption barrier and the dual-path Handury Brown-Twiss (HBT) experiments, and predict the corresponding achievable rates. According to the performance prediction, it is seen that the microwave photon-level signal detection can increase the receiver sensitivity compared with the state-of-the-art standardized communication system with waveform signal reception, with gain over $10$dB., Comment: 9 pages, 13 figures

We adopt artificial $\Lambda$-type three-level system with superconducting devices for microwave signal detection, where the signal intensity reaches the level of discrete photons instead of continuous waveform. Based on the state transition principles of the three-level system, we propose a statistical model for microwave signal detection. Moreover, we investigate the achievable transmission rate and signal detection based on the statistical model. It is predicted that the proposed detection can achieve significantly higher sensitivity compared with the currently deployed 4G/5G communication system. We further characterize the received signal considering the saturation phonomenon, which reveals negligible performance degradation caused by saturation under weak received power regime., Comment: 12 pages, 18 figures

Laguerre-Gaussian (LG) modes, carrying orbital angular momentum of light, are critical for important applications such as high-capacity optical communications, super-resolution imaging, and multi-dimensional quantum entanglement. Advanced developments in these applications strongly demand reliable and tunable LG mode laser sources, which, however, do not yet exist. Here, we experimentally demonstrate highly-efficient, highly-pure, broadly-tunable, and topological-charge-controllable LG modes from a Janus optical parametric oscillator (OPO). Janus OPO featuring two-face cavity mode is designed to guarantee an efficient evolution from a Gaussian-shaped fundamental pumping mode to a desired LG parametric mode. The output LG mode has a tunable wavelength between 1.5 um and 1.6 um with a conversion efficiency above 15%, a topological charge switchable from -4 to 4, and a mode purity as high as 97%, which provides a high-performance solid-state light source for high-end demands in multi-dimensional multiplexing/demultiplexing, control of spin-orbital coupling between light and atoms, and so on., Comment: Manuscript: 15 pages, 5 figures; Support Information :7 pages, 5 figures

Flow physics plays a key role in nearly every facet of the COVID-19 pandemic. This includes the generation and aerosolization of virus-laden respiratory droplets from a host, its airborne dispersion and deposition on surfaces, as well as the subsequent inhalation of these bioaerosols by unsuspecting recipients. Fluid dynamics is also key to preventative measures such as the use of face masks, hand-washing, ventilation of indoor environments, and even social distancing. This article summarizes what we know, and more importantly, what we need to learn about the science underlying these issues so that we are better prepared to tackle the next outbreak of COVID-19 or a similar disease.

We propose a novel radio-frequency (RF) receiving architecture based on micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) and optical coherent detection module. The architecture converts the received electrical signal into mechanical vibration through the piezoelectric effect and adopts an optical detection module to detect the mechanical vibration. We analyze the response function of piezoelectric film to an RF signal, the noise limited sensitivity of the optical detection module and the system transfer function in the frequency domain. Finally, we adopt simple on-off keying (OOK) modulation with bandwidth 1 kHz and carrier frequency 1 GHz, to numerically evaluate the detection sensitivity. The result shows that, considering the main noise sources in wireless channel and circuits, the signal detection sensitivity can reach around -160 dBm with a 50 $\Omega$ impedance. Such sensitivity significantly outperforms that of the currently deployed Long Term Evolution (LTE) system, when normalizing the transmission bandwidth also to 1 kHz., Comment: 15 pages, 16 figures, 6 tables