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When laser radiation is skilfully applied, atoms and molecules can be cooled allowing precise measurements and control of quantum systems. This is essential in fundamental studies of physics as well as practical applications such as precision spectroscopy, quantum-statistical-property manifesting ultracold gases, and quantum computing. In laser cooling, repeated cycles of laser photon absorption and direction-independent spontaneous emission can slow atoms and molecules to otherwise unattainable velocities. Simple systems can provide a rigorous testing ground for fundamental theories of physics; one such system is the purely leptonic positronium, an exotic atom of an electron and its antiparticle, the positron. However, the cooling of positronium has hitherto remained unrealised. Here, we demonstrate laser cooling of positronium. A novel laser system of a train of broadband pulses with successively increasing central frequencies was used to overcome major challenges presented by the short lifetime of positronium and the significant Doppler broadening and recoil as a consequence of its very light mass. One-dimensional chirp cooling of the dilute positronium gas in a counter-propagating configuration gave a final velocity distribution corresponding to approximately 1 K in a short time of 100 ns. This study on a pure leptonic system is a major step in the field of low-temperature fundamental physics of antimatter, and is complementary to the laser cooling of antihydrogen, a hadron-containing exotic atom. Progress in this field is vital in elucidating the origin of the matter-antimatter asymmetry in the universe. The application of laser cooling to positronium may afford a unique opportunity to rigorously test bound-state quantum electrodynamics. Moreover, laser cooling of positronium is key to the realisation of Bose-Einstein condensation in this matter-antimatter system.

We have observed photoinduced negative optical conductivity, or gain, in the terahertz frequency range in a GaAs multiple-quantum-well structure in a strong perpendicular magnetic field at low temperatures. The gain is narrow-band: it appears as a sharp peak (linewidth $<$0.45 meV) whose frequency shifts with applied magnetic field. The gain has a circular-polarization selection rule: a strong line is observed for hole-cyclotron-resonance-active polarization. Furthermore, the gain appears only when the exciton $1s$ state is populated, which rules out intraexcitonic transitions to be its origin. Based on these observations, we propose a possible process in which the stimulated emission of a terahertz photon occurs while two free excitons scatter into one biexciton in an energy and angular-momentum conserving manner., Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures

We investigate the electronic reconstruction across the tetragonal-orthorhombic structural transition in FeSe by employing polarization-dependent angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) on detwinned single crystals. Across the structural transition, the electronic structures around the G and M points are modified from four-fold to two-fold symmetry due to the lifting of degeneracy in dxz/dyz orbitals. The dxz band shifts upward at the G point while it moves downward at the M point, suggesting that the electronic structure of orthorhombic FeSe is characterized by a momentum-dependent sign-changing orbital polarization. The elongated directions of the elliptical Fermi surfaces (FSs) at the G and M points are rotated by 90 degrees with respect to each other, which may be related to the absence of the antiferromagnetic order in FeSe., Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures

We study superconducting FeSe (Tc = 9 K) exhibiting the tetragonal-orthorhombic structural transition (Ts = 90 K) without any antiferromagnetic ordering, by utilizing angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. In the detwinned orthorhombic state, the energy position of the dyz orbital band at the Brillouin zone corner is 50 meV higher than that of dxz, indicating the orbital order similar to NaFeAs and BaFe2As2 families. Evidence of orbital order also appears in the hole bands at the Brillouin zone center. Precisely measured temperature dependence using strain-free samples shows that the onset of the orbital ordering (To) occurs very close to Ts, thus suggesting that the electronic nematicity above Ts is considerably weaker in FeSe compared to BaFe2As2 family., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures

Using time-resolved $1s$-$2p$ excitonic Lyman spectroscopy, we study the orthoexciton-to-paraexcitons transfer, following the creation of a high density population of ultracold $1s$ orthoexcitons by resonant two-photon excitation with femtosecond pulses. An observed fast exciton-density dependent conversion rate is attributed to spin exchange between pairs of orthoexcitons. Implication of these results on the feasibility of BEC of paraexcitons in Cu$_2$O is discussed.

The search for possible mixing patterns of charged leptons and neutrinos is important to get clues of the origin of nearly maximal mixings, since there are some preferred bases of the lepton mass matrices given by underlying theories. We systematically examine the mixing patterns which could lead to large lepton mixing angles. We find out 37 mixing patterns are consistent with experimental data if taking into account phase factors in the mixing matrices. Only 6 patterns of them can explain the observed data without any tuning of parameters, while the others need particular choices for phase values., Comment: revised references

We study the low-energy consequences of the mass and mixing angle relations in grand unified theories (GUT), which follow from an assumption that some quarks and leptons are placed in the same GUT multiplets. This assumption is a simple extension of that for the well-known bottom/tau mass ratio, which is one of the most successful predictions of grand unification of matter multiplets. We show that imposing the GUT relations leads naturally to a limited parameter space from the large lepton mixing between the second and third generations., Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures

To search for possible textures of lepton mass matrices, we systematically examine flavor mixing structures which can lead to large lepton mixing angles. We find out 37 mixing patterns are consistent with experimental data, taking into account phase factors in the mixing matrices. Only six of the patterns can explain the observed data without any tuning of parameters, while the others need particular choices for the phase values. It is found that these six mixing patterns are those predicted by the models which have been proposed to account for fermion mass hierarchies. On the other hand, the others may give new flavor mixing structures of lepton mass matrices and therefore new possibilities of model construction., Comment: 21 pages

We study a supersymmetric E6 grand unified model in which the SU(5) 5^* components are twisted in the third generation 27. Supplementing the adjoint Higgs field to a model analyzed previously, we calculate the mass matrices for the up and down quarks and charged leptons. Although the number of free parameters is less than that of observables, an overall fitting to the observed masses and mixing angles is shown to be possible. Most notably, we find two novel, parameter-independent relations between the lepton 2-3 mixing angle and the quark masses and CKM mixing angles that are in good agreement with the large lepton mixing recently observed., Comment: 33 pages, 5 figures, typos corrected

In higher dimensional models where the gauge and gravity fields live in the bulk and the matter fields only in a brane, we point out the importance of the brane (transverse) coordinate modes, which are the Nambu-Goldstone bosons appearing as a result of spontaneous breaking of the translation symmetry. The brane recoil effect suppresses the couplings of higher Kaluza-Klein modes to the matter, and gives a natural resolution to the divergence problem caused by the exchange of infinitely many Kaluza-Klein modes., Comment: 11 pages, 1 eps figure, references added

We analyze fermion mass-matrix structure in an asymptotically non-free model with 4 + 1bar generations. The texture at the GUT scale is uniquely determined by supposing that the masses of heavy up-type quarks (charm as well as top) are realized as their infrared fixed point values. By assuming SO(10) GUT-like relations for Yukawa couplings in this model, this texture can explain all fermion masses and quark mixing with only one small parameter, which is almost equal to the Cabibbo angle., Comment: 22 pages, 6 eps figures, typos corrected, version to be published

We propose a simple texture for the right-handed Majorana mass matrix to give a large $\nu_\mu-\nu_\tau$ mixing angle and hierarchical left-handed neutrino mass pattern. Consistently with the Dirac mass texture of the quark sector realizing the CKM mixing, this naturally explains the recent experimental results on both the atmospheric neutrino anomaly observed by the Superkamiokande collaboration and the solar neutrino problem. In this texture the right-handed Majorana mass of the third generation is of the order of GUT scale, which is favorable for reproducing the observed bottom-tau mass ratio., Comment: 10 pages, LaTeX, comments and references added