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Tunable coherent light sources operating in the vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) region in 100-200-nm (6-12 eV) wavelength range have important spectroscopic applications in many research fields, including time-resolved angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES). Recent advances in laser technology have enabled the upconversion of visible femtosecond lasers to the vacuum and extreme ultraviolet regions. However, the complexity of their experimental setups and the scarcity of bulk nonlinear crystals for VUV generation have hampered its widespread use. Here, we propose the use of a free-standing dielectric nanomembranes as a simple and practical method for tunable VUV generation. We demonstrate that third harmonic VUV light is generated with sufficient intensity for spectroscopic applications from commercially available SiO2 nanomemebranes of submicron thicknesses under excitation with visible femtosecond laser pulses. The submicron thickness of the nanomembranes is optimal for maximize the VUV generation efficiency and prevents self-phase modulation and spectral broadening of the fundamental beam. The observed VUV photons are up to 10^7 photons per pulse at 157 nm with 1-kHz repetition rate, corresponding to a conversion efficiency of 10^-6. Moreover, the central VUV wavelength can be tuned in 146-190-nm wavelength range by changing the fundamental wavelength. We also explore material and thickness dependence with experiments and calculations. The presented results suggest that dielectric nanomembranes can be used as a practical nonlinear media for VUV spectroscopic applications.

We consider magnetized orbifolds, where the supersymmetric mass term for a pair of up- and down-type Higgs (super)fields, called $\mu$-term, is localized at the orbifold fixed points, and study the effects on the zero-mode spectra. The zero-mode degeneracy to be identified as the generation in four-dimensional (4D) effective theories is determined by the magnetic fluxes. It is known that multiple Higgs zero-modes appear in general in magnetized orbifold models. We derive the analytic form of the $\mu$-term matrix in the 4D effective theory generated by the localized sources on $T^2/Z_2$ orbifold fixed points, and find that this matrix can lead to a distinctive pattern of the eigenvalues that yields hierarchical $\mu$-terms for the multiple Higgs fields. The lightest ones can be exponentially suppressed due to the localized wavefunctions of zero-modes determined by the fluxes, while the others are of the order of the compactification scale, which can provide a dynamical origin of the electroweak scale as well as a simultaneous decoupling of extra Higgs fields. We also show that a certain linear combination of the lightest Higgs fields could generate the observed mass ratios of down-type quarks through their Yukawa couplings determined by the wavefunctions., Comment: 23 pages, 4 figures, 7 tables

In this paper, we explore a new avenue to a natural explanation of the observed tiny neutrino masses with a dynamical realization of the three-generation structure in the neutrino sector. Under the magnetized background based on $T^2/Z_2$, matter consists of multiply-degenerated zero modes and the whole intergenerational structure is dynamically determined. In this sense, we can conclude that our scenario is favored by minimality, where no degree of freedom remains to deform the intergenerational structure by hand freely. Under the consideration of brane-localized Majorana-type mass terms for an $SU(2)_L$ singlet neutrino, it is sufficient to introduce one Higgs doublet for reproducing the observed neutrino data. In all reasonable flux configurations with three right-handed neutrinos, phenomenologically acceptable parameter configurations are found., Comment: 20 pages, 3 figures, 4 tables; published version from JHEP (v2)

We discuss effects of the brane-localized mass terms on the fixed points of the toroidal orbifold $T^2/Z_2$ under the presence of background magnetic fluxes, where multiple lowest and higher-level Kaluza-Klein (KK) modes are realized before introducing the localized masses in general. Through the knowledge of linear algebra, we find that, in each KK level, one of or more than one of the degenerate KK modes are almost inevitably perturbed, when single or multiple brane-localized mass terms are introduced. When the typical scale of the compactification is far above the electroweak scale or the TeV scale, we apply this mechanism for uplifting unwanted massless or light modes which are prone to appear in models on magnetized orbifolds., Comment: 23 pages, 5 figures, 4 tables, version accepted in PRD