The European Research Council has recently funded HOLMES, a new experiment to directly measure the neutrino mass. HOLMES will perform a calorimetric measurement of the energy released in the decay of 163Ho. The calorimetric measurement eliminates sys
tematic uncertainties arising from the use of external beta sources, as in experiments with beta spectrometers. This measurement was proposed in 1982 by A. De Rujula and M. Lusignoli, but only recently the detector technological progress allowed to design a sensitive experiment. HOLMES will deploy a large array of low temperature microcalorimeters with implanted 163Ho nuclei. The resulting mass sensitivity will be as low as 0.4 eV. HOLMES will be an important step forward in the direct neutrino mass measurement with a calorimetric approach as an alternative to spectrometry. It will also establish the potential of this approach to extend the sensitivity down to 0.1 eV. We outline here the project with its technical challenges and perspectives.
Hybrid glasses connect emerging fields of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) with the glass-formation, amorphization, and melting processes of these structurally diverse and chemically versatile systems. Most zeolites, including MOFs, amorphize around t
he glass transition, devitrifying and then melting at much higher temperatures. The relationship between the two processes has so far not been investigated. Herein we show how heating first results in a low density perfect glass, following an order-order transition, leading to a super-strong liquid of low fragility that dynamically controls MOF collapse. A subsequent order-disorder transition creates a high density liquid of greater fragility. After crystallization and melting, subsequent cooling results in a stable glass virtually identical to the high density phase. Furthermore, the wide-ranging melting temperatures of different MOFs suggest these can be differentiated by topology. Our research provides new insight into the stability and functionality of these novel ductile crystalline materials, including the possibility of melt-casting MOFs.
We investigate the strain-induced coupling between a nitrogen-vacancy impurity and a resonant vibrational mode of a diamond nanoresonator. We show that under near-resonant laser excitation of the electronic states of the impurity, this coupling can m
odify the state of the resonator and either cool the resonator close to the vibrational ground state or drive it into a large amplitude coherent state. We derive a semi-classical model to describe both effects and evaluate the stationary state of the resonator mode under various driving conditions. In particular, we find that by exploiting resonant single and multi-phonon transitions between near-degenerate electronic states, the coupling to high-frequency vibrational modes can be significantly enhanced and dominate over the intrinsic mechanical dissipation. Our results show that a single nitrogen-vacancy impurity can provide a versatile tool to manipulate and probe individual phonon modes in nanoscale diamond structures.
We experimentally demonstrate the use of a single electronic spin to measure the quantum dynamics of distant individual nuclear spins from within a surrounding spin bath. Our technique exploits coherent control of the electron spin, allowing us to is
olate and monitor nuclear spins weakly coupled to the electron spin. Specifically, we detect the evolution of distant individual carbon-13 nuclear spins coupled to single nitrogen vacancy centers in a diamond lattice with hyperfine couplings down to a factor of 8 below the electronic spin bare dephasing rate. Potential applications to nanoscale magnetic resonance imaging and quantum information processing are discussed.
A series of 353 red electronic spectra obtained between 1994 and 2010, and of 171 UBV photometric observations of the 2010 eclipse, were analyzed in an effort to better understand the eclipsing binary eps Aur. The main results follow. (1) We attempte
d to recover a spectrum of the companion by disentangling the observed spectra of the eps Aur binary failed, but we were able to disentangle the spectrum of telluric lines and obtain a mean spectrum of the F-type primary star. The latter was then compared to a grid of synthetic spectra for a number of plausible values of T(eff) and log(g), but a reasonably good match was not found. However, we conclude that the observed spectrum is that of a low-gravity star. (2) We examined changes in the complex H-alpha line profiles over the past 16 years, with particular emphasis on the 2009-2011 eclipse period, by subtracting a mean out-of-eclipse H-alpha profile (appropriately shifted in radial velocity) from the observed spectra. We find that the dark disk around the unseen companion has an extended atmosphere that manifests itself via blueshifted and redshifted H-alpha shell absorptions seen projected against the F star. Significantly, the H-alpha shell line first appeared three years before first contact of the optical eclipse when the system was not far past maximum separation. (3) Analyses of radial velocities and central intensities of several strong, unblended spectral lines, as well as UBV photometry, demonstrated that these observables showed apparent multiperiodic variability during eclipse. The dominant period of 66.21 was common to all the observables, but with different phase shifts between these variables. This result strongly supports our earlier suggestion that the photometric variability seen during eclipse is intrinsic to the F star, and therefore, the idea of a central brightening due to a hole in the disk should be abandoned.
Strong confinement of charges in few electron systems such as in atoms, molecules and quantum dots leads to a spectrum of discrete energy levels that are often shared by several degenerate quantum states. Since the electronic structure is key to unde
rstanding their chemical properties, methods that probe these energy levels in situ are important. We show how electrostatic force detection using atomic force microscopy reveals the electronic structure of individual and coupled self-assembled quantum dots. An electron addition spectrum in the Coulomb blockade regime, resulting from a change in cantilever resonance frequency and dissipation during tunneling events, shows one by one electron charging of a dot. The spectra show clear level degeneracies in isolated quantum dots, supported by the first observation of predicted temperature-dependent shifts of Coulomb blockade peaks. Further, by scanning the surface we observe that several quantum dots may reside on what topologically appears to be just one. These images of grouped weakly and strongly coupled dots allow us to estimate their relative coupling strengths.
Contents: 1. Finestructure Constants at the Planck Scale from Multiple Point Principle (D.L.Bennett, L.V. Laperashvili and H.B. Nielsen) 2. Random Dynamics in Starting Levels (D. Bennett, A. Kleppe in H.B. Nielsen), 3. Families of Quarks and Leptons
and Their Mass Matrices from the Approach Unifying Spins and Charges: Prediction for the Fourth Family (G. Bregar, M. Breskvar, D. Lukman and N.S. Mankoc Borstnik) 4. Fermion-Fermion and Boson-Boson Amplitudes: Surprising Similarities (V.V. Dvoeglazov) 5. Antisymmetric Tensor Fields, 4-Vector Fields, Indefinite Metrics and Normalization (V.V. Dvoeglazov) 6. Quantum Gates and Quantum Algorithms with Clifford Algebra Technique (M. Gregoric and N.S. Mankoc Borstnik) 7. From the Starting Lagrange Density to the Effective Fields for Spinors in the Approach Unifying Spins and Charges (N.S. Mankoc Borstnik) 8. New Generations of Particles in the Universe (M.Yu. Khlopov) 9. A Subversive View of Modern Physics (R. Mirman) 10. Mass Spectra are Inherent in Geometry: an Analysis Using the Only Conformal Group Allowing a Universe (R. Mirman) 11. Complex Action, Prearrangement for Future and Higgs Broadening (H.B. Nielsen and M. Ninomiya) 12. Discussion on Dark Matter Candidates from the Approach Unifying Spins and Charges (G. Bregar and N.S. Mankoc Borstnik) 13. Discussion Section Summary on Dark Matter Particle Properties (M.Yu. Khlopov and N.S. Mankoc Borstnik)
