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Coherent phonons, light-induced coherent lattice vibrations in solids, provide a powerful route to engineer structural and electronic degrees of freedom using light. In this manuscript, we formulate an ab initio theory of the displacive excitation of coherent phonons (DECP), the primary mechanism for light-induced structural control in semimetals. Our study - based on the ab initio simulations of the ultrafast electron and coherent-phonon dynamics in presence of electron-phonon interactions - establishes a predictive computational framework for describing the emergence of light-induced structural changes and the ensuing transient band-structure renormalization arising from the DECP mechanism. We validate this framework via a combined theoretical and experimental investigation of coherent phonons in the elemental semimetal antimony. Via a Fourier analysis of time- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (tr-ARPES) measurements, we retrieve information about transient spectral features and quasiparticle renormalization arising from the coherent A1g phonon as a function of momentum, energy, time, and fluence. The qualitative and quantitative agreement between experiment and theory corroborates the first-principles approach formulated in this study. Besides advancing the fundamental understanding of electron-phonon interactions mediated by coherent phonons, this study opens new opportunities for predictively engineering structural and electronic degrees of freedom in semimetals via the DECP mechanism.

The zone-center $E_{2g}$ modes play a crucial role in MgB$_2$, controlling the scattering mechanisms in the normal state as well the superconducting pairing. Here, we demonstrate via first-principles quantum-field theory calculations that, due to the anisotropic electron-phonon interaction, a $hot$-$phonon$ regime where the $E_{2g}$ phonons can achieve significantly larger effective populations than other modes, is triggered in MgB$_2$ by the interaction with an ultra-short laser pulse. Spectral signatures of this scenario in ultrafast pump-probe Raman spectroscopy are discussed in detail, revealing also a fundamental role of nonadiabatic processes in the optical features of the $E_{2g}$ mode., Comment: Article as accepted for publication in Physical Review Letters; 6 pages, 3 figures

Transition metal oxides (TMOs) host a wealth of exotic phenomena ranging from charge, orbital, and magnetic order to nontrivial topological phases and superconductivity. In order to translate these unique materials properties into novel device functionalities, TMOs must be doped. However, the nature of carriers in doped oxides and their conduction mechanism at the atomic scale remain unclear. Recent angle-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy (ARPES) investigations provided new insight into these questions, revealing that the carriers of prototypical metal oxides undergo a transition from a polaronic liquid to a Fermi liquid regime with increasing doping. Here, by performing \textit{ab initio} many-body calculations of the ARPES spectra of TiO$_2$, we show that this transition originates from non-adiabatic polar electron-phonon coupling, and occurs when the frequency of plasma oscillations exceeds that of longitudinal-optical phonons. This finding suggests that a universal mechanism may underlie polaron formation in TMOs, and provides a new paradigm for engineering emergent properties in quantum matter., Comment: To be published in Nature Communications

A prototype detection unit of the KM3NeT deep-sea neutrino telescope has been installed at 3500m depth 80km offshore the Italian coast. KM3NeT in its final configuration will contain several hundreds of detection units. Each detection unit is a mechanical structure anchored to the sea floor, held vertical by a submerged buoy and supporting optical modules for the detection of Cherenkov light emitted by charged secondary particles emerging from neutrino interactions. This prototype string implements three optical modules with 31 photomultiplier tubes each. These optical modules were developed by the KM3NeT Collaboration to enhance the detection capability of neutrino interactions. The prototype detection unit was operated since its deployment in May 2014 until its decommissioning in July 2015. Reconstruction of the particle trajectories from the data requires a nanosecond accuracy in the time calibration. A procedure for relative time calibration of the photomultiplier tubes contained in each optical module is described. This procedure is based on the measured coincidences produced in the sea by the 40K background light and can easily be expanded to a detector with several thousands of optical modules. The time offsets between the different optical modules are obtained using LED nanobeacons mounted inside them. A set of data corresponding to 600 hours of livetime was analysed. The results show good agreement with Monte Carlo simulations of the expected optical background and the signal from atmospheric muons. An almost background-free sample of muons was selected by filtering the time correlated signals on all the three optical modules. The zenith angle of the selected muons was reconstructed with a precision of about 3{\deg}., Comment: Accepted for publication by EPJ C

The NEMO Phase-2 tower is the first detector which was operated underwater for more than one year at the "record" depth of 3500 m. It was designed and built within the framework of the NEMO (NEutrino Mediterranean Observatory) project. The 380 m high tower was successfully installed in March 2013 80 km offshore Capo Passero (Italy). This is the first prototype operated on the site where the italian node of the KM3NeT neutrino telescope will be built. The installation and operation of the NEMO Phase-2 tower has proven the functionality of the infrastructure and the operability at 3500 m depth. A more than one year long monitoring of the deep water characteristics of the site has been also provided. In this paper the infrastructure and the tower structure and instrumentation are described. The results of long term optical background measurements are presented. The rates show stable and low baseline values, compatible with the contribution of 40K light emission, with a small percentage of light bursts due to bioluminescence. All these features confirm the stability and good optical properties of the site., Comment: 12 pages, 17 figures

The results of the analysis of the data collected with the NEMO Phase-2 tower, deployed at 3500 m depth about 80 km off-shore Capo Passero (Italy), are presented. Cherenkov photons detected with the photomultipliers tubes were used to reconstruct the tracks of atmospheric muons. Their zenith-angle distribution was measured and the results compared with Monte Carlo simulations. An evaluation of the systematic effects due to uncertainties on environmental and detector parameters is also included. The associated depth intensity relation was evaluated and compared with previous measurements and theoretical predictions. With the present analysis, the muon depth intensity relation has been measured up to 13 km of water equivalent., Comment: submitted to Astroparticle Physics

The relativistic hydrogen atom in an Euclidean space-time of arbitrary number of space dimensions ($D$) plus one time dimension is revisited. In particular, numerical solutions of the radial Dirac equation for a generalized Coulombian potential proportional to $1/r^{(D-2)}$ are investigated. It is argued that one could not find any physical solution for $D\geq 4$., Comment: 12 pages, 1 figure, 1 table

The first prototype of a photo-detection unit of the future KM3NeT neutrino telescope has been deployed in the deep waters of the Mediterranean Sea. This digital optical module has a novel design with a very large photocathode area segmented by the use of 31 three inch photomultiplier tubes. It has been integrated in the ANTARES detector for in-situ testing and validation. This paper reports on the first months of data taking and rate measurements. The analysis results highlight the capabilities of the new module design in terms of background suppression and signal recognition. The directionality of the optical module enables the recognition of multiple Cherenkov photons from the same $^{40}$K decay and the localization bioluminescent activity in the neighbourhood. The single unit can cleanly identify atmospheric muons and provide sensitivity to the muon arrival directions.

In this paper it is shown how to solve numerically eigenvalue problems associated to second order linear ordinary differential equations, containing also terms which depend on the variable. A didactic presentation of the Numerov Method is given and, in the sequel, it is applied to two quantum non-relativistic problems with well known analytical solutions: the simple harmonic oscillator and the hydrogen atom. The numerical results are compared to those obtained analytically., Comment: in Portuguese, 13 pages, 4 figures

It is shown that there is a simple way to get the quantization equation for the electric and magnetic charges of dyons, $e_ig_j-g_ie_j=m(\hbar c)$, which also shed light to the origin of such quantization., Comment: in Italian

The effects on the non-relativistic dynamics of a system compound by two electrons interacting by a Coulomb potential and with an external harmonic oscillator potential, confined to move in a two dimensional Euclidean space, are investigated. In particular, it is shown that it is possible to determine exactly and in a closed form a finite portion of the energy spectrum and the associated eigeinfunctions for the Schr\"odinger equation describing the relative motion of the electrons, by putting it into the form of a biconfluent Heun equation. In the same framework, another set of solutions of this type can be straightforwardly obtained for the case when the two electrons are submitted also to an external constant magnetic field., Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures

Entanglement is a fundamental resource for quantum information processing, occurring naturally in many-body systems at low temperatures. The presence of entanglement and, in particular, its scaling with the size of system partitions underlies the complexity of quantum many-body states. The quantitative estimation of entanglement in many-body systems represents a major challenge as it requires either full state tomography, scaling exponentially in the system size, or the assumption of unverified system characteristics such as its Hamiltonian or temperature. Here we adopt recently developed approaches for the determination of rigorous lower entanglement bounds from readily accessible measurements and apply them in an experiment of ultracold interacting bosons in optical lattices of approximately $10^5$ sites. We then study the behaviour of spatial entanglement between the sites when crossing the superfluid-Mott insulator transition and when varying temperature. This constitutes the first rigorous experimental large-scale entanglement quantification in a scalable quantum simulator., Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures

The hydrogen atom in two dimensions, described by a Schr\"odinger equation with a Chern-Simons potential, is numerically solved. Both its wave functions and eigenvalues were determined for small values of the principal quantum number $n$. The only possible states correspond to $l=0$. How the result depends on the topological mass of the photon is also discussed. In the case $n=1$, the energy of the fundamental state corresponding to different choice for the photon mass scale are found to be comprehended in the interval $-3,5 \times 10^{-3} eV \leq E \leq -9,0 \times 10^{-2} eV$, corresponding to a mean radius of the electron in the range $ (5.637 \pm 0.005) \times 10^{-8}$~cm $\leq \leq (48.87 \pm 0.03) \times 10^{-8}$~cm. In any case, the planar atom is found to be very weekly bounded showing some features similar to the Rydberg atoms in three dimensions with a Coulombian interaction., Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures

Any physical process can be represented as a quantum channel mapping an initial state to a final state. Hence it can be characterized from the point of view of communication theory, i.e., in terms of its ability to transfer information. Quantum information provides a theoretical framework and the proper mathematical tools to accomplish this. In this context the notion of codes and communication capacities have been introduced by generalizing them from the classical Shannon theory of information transmission and error correction. The underlying assumption of this approach is to consider the channel not as acting on a single system, but on sequences of systems, which, when properly initialized allow one to overcome the noisy effects induced by the physical process under consideration. While most of the work produced so far has been focused on the case in which a given channel transformation acts identically and independently on the various elements of the sequence (memoryless configuration in jargon), correlated error models appear to be a more realistic way to approach the problem. A slightly different, yet conceptually related, notion of correlated errors applies to a single quantum system which evolves continuously in time under the influence of an external disturbance which acts on it in a non-Markovian fashion. This leads to the study of memory effects in quantum channels: a fertile ground where interesting novel phenomena emerge at the intersection of quantum information theory and other branches of physics. A survey is taken of the field of quantum channels theory while also embracing these specific and complex settings., Comment: Review article, 61 pages, 26 figures; 400 references. Final version of the manuscript, typos corrected

Disorder, noise and interaction play a crucial role in the transport properties of real systems, but they are typically hard to control and study both theoretically and experimentally, especially in the quantum case. Here we explore a paradigmatic problem, the diffusion of a wavepacket, by employing ultra-cold atoms in a disordered lattice with controlled noise and tunable interaction. The presence of disorder leads to Anderson localization, while both interaction and noise tend to suppress localization and restore transport, although with completely different mechanisms. When only noise or interaction are present we observe a diffusion dynamics that can be explained by existing microscopic models. When noise and interaction are combined, we observe instead a complex anomalous diffusion. By combining experimental measurements with numerical simulations, we show that such anomalous behavior can be modeled with a generalized diffusion equation, in which the noise- and interaction-induced diffusions enter in an additive manner. Our study reveals also a more complex interplay between the two diffusion mechanisms in regimes of strong interaction or narrowband noise., Comment: 11 pages, 10 figures

In drug discovery research there is a clear and urgent need for non-invasive detection of cell membrane ion channel operation with wide-field capability. Existing techniques are generally invasive, require specialized nano structures, or are only applicable to certain ion channel species. We show that quantum nanotechnology has enormous potential to provide a novel solution to this problem. The nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centre in nano-diamond is currently of great interest as a novel single atom quantum probe for nanoscale processes. However, until now, beyond the use of diamond nanocrystals as fluorescence markers, nothing was known about the quantum behaviour of a NV probe in the complex room temperature extra-cellular environment. For the first time we explore in detail the quantum dynamics of a NV probe in proximity to the ion channel, lipid bilayer and surrounding aqueous environment. Our theoretical results indicate that real-time detection of ion channel operation at millisecond resolution is possible by directly monitoring the quantum decoherence of the NV probe. With the potential to scan and scale-up to an array-based system this conclusion may have wide ranging implications for nanoscale biology and drug discovery., Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures

A complete analysis of multi-mode bosonic Gaussian channels is proposed. We clarify the structure of unitary dilations of general Gaussian channels involving any number of bosonic modes and present a normal form. The maximum number of auxiliary modes that is needed is identified, including all rank deficient cases, and the specific role of additive classical noise is highlighted. By using this analysis, we derive a canonical matrix form of the noisy evolution of n-mode bosonic Gaussian channels and of their weak complementary counterparts, based on a recent generalization of the normal mode decomposition for non-symmetric or locality constrained situations. It allows us to simplify the weak-degradability classification. Moreover, we investigate the structure of some singular multi-mode channels, like the additive classical noise channel that can be used to decompose a noisy channel in terms of a less noisy one in order to find new sets of maps with zero quantum capacity. Finally, the two-mode case is analyzed in detail. By exploiting the composition rules of two-mode maps and the fact that anti-degradable channels cannot be used to transfer quantum information, we identify sets of two-mode bosonic channels with zero capacity., Comment: 37 pages, 3 figures (minor editing), accepted for publication in New Journal of Physics

We discuss recent results on a new analysis regarding models showing Self-Organized Criticality (SOC), and in particular on the OFC one. We show that Probability Density Functions (PDFs) for the avalanche size differences at different times have fat tails with a q-Gaussian shape. This behavior does not depend on the time interval adopted and it is also found when considering energy differences between real earthquakes., Comment: 4 pages, Paper presented at the international conference CTNEXT07, satellite of STATPHYS23, 1-5 july 2007, Catania, Italy http://www.ct.infn.it/ctnext07/

The dragging velocity of a model solid lubricant confined between sliding periodic substrates exhibits a phase transition between two regimes, respectively with quantized and with continuous lubricant center-of-mass velocity. The transition, occurring for increasing external driving force F_ext acting on the lubricant, displays a large hysteresis, and has the features of depinning transitions in static friction, only taking place on the fly. Although different in nature, this phenomenon appears isomorphic to a static Aubry depinning transition in a Frenkel-Kontorova model, the role of particles now taken by the moving kinks of the lubricant-substrate interface. We suggest a possible realization in 2D optical lattice experiments., Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, revtex, in print in Phys. Rev. Lett

A complete degradability analysis of one-mode Gaussian Bosonic channels is presented. We show that apart from the class of channels which are unitarily equivalent to the channels with additive classical noise, these maps can be characterized in terms of weak- and/or anti-degradability. Furthermore a new set of channels which have null quantum capacity is identified. This is done by exploiting the composition rules of one-mode Gaussian maps and the fact that anti-degradable channels can not be used to transfer quantum information., Comment: 23 pages, 3 figures

We study the effects of the topology on the Olami-Feder-Christensen (OFC) model, an earthquake model of self-organized criticality. In particular, we consider a 2D square lattice and a random rewiring procedure with a parameter $0

Final state quark-antiquark interactions give origin to non zero values of the off-diagonal element rho_{1,-1} of the helicity density matrix of vector mesons produced in e+e- annihilations, as confirmed by recent OPAL data on Phi, D^* and K^*'s. New predictions are given for rho_{1,-1} of several mesons produced at large x_E and small p_T -- i.e. collinear with the parent jet -- in the annihilation of polarized e+ and e-; the results depend strongly on the elementary dynamics and allow further non trivial tests of the Standard Model., Comment: LaTeX, 20 pages, 6 ps figures, uses epsfig.sty

The renormalized energy density of a massless scalar field defined in a D-dimensional flat spacetime is computed in the presence of "soft" and "semihard" boundaries, modeled by some smoothly increasing potential functions. The sign of the renormalized energy densities for these different confining situations is investigated. The dependence of this energy on $D$ for the cases of "hard" and "soft/semihard" boundaries are compared., Comment: 36 pages, LaTeX, 4 figures

Some data on the ratio of vector to vector + pseudoscalar mesons, V/(V+P), and the probability of helicity zero vector states, rho_00, are now available from LEP. A possible relation between these two quantities and their interpretation in terms of polarized fragmentation functions are discussed; numerical estimates are given for the relative occupancies of K and K*, D and D*, B and B* states., Comment: 5 pages, no figures

Massless perturbative QCD forbids, at leading order, the exclusive annihilation of proton-antiproton into some charmonium states, which, however, have been observed in the $p\bar p$ channel, indicating the significance of higher order and non perturbative effects in the few GeV energy region. The most well known cases are those of the $^1S_0$ ($\eta_c$) and the $^1P_1$. The case of the $^1D_2$ is considered here and a way of detecting such a state through its typical angular distribution in the radiative decay $^1D_2 \to$ $^1P_1 \gamma$ is suggested. Estimates of the branching ratio $BR(^1D_2 \to p\bar p)$, as given by a quark-diquark model of the nucleon, mass corrections and an instanton induced process are presented., Comment: 9 pages (no figures), Plain TeX, CBPF-NF-014/94, INFNCA-TH-94-5