Charles Winthrop Clark

National Institute of Standards and Technology | NIST · Quantum Measurement Division

This article reviews recent developments in tests of fundamental physics using atoms and molecules, including the subjects of parity violation, searches for permanent electric dipole moments, tests of the CPT theorem and Lorentz symmetry, searches for spatiotemporal variation of fundamental constants, tests of quantum electrodynamics, tests of gene...

The authors attempt to give a comprehensive discussion of observations of atomic negative-ion resonances throughout the periodic table. A review of experimental and theoretical approaches to the study of negative-ion resonances is given together with a consideration of the various schemes that are used for their classification. In addition to provi...

We use a Mach-Zehnder interferometer to perform neutron holography of a spiral phase plate. The object beam passes through a spiral phase plate, acquiring the phase twist characteristic of orbital angular momentum states. The reference beam passes through a fused silica prism, acquiring a linear phase gradient. The resulting hologram is a fork disl...

A periodic table, containing NIST critically-evaluated data on atomic properties of the elements, revised in December 2016 to incorporate the latest IUPAC nomenclature. The PDF is suitable for high-resolution color printing for desk or wall-chart display. This publication is work of the U.S. Government not subject to copyright. It is vailable onlin...

The quantized orbital angular momentum (OAM) of photons offers an additional degree of freedom and topological protection from noise. Photonic OAM states have therefore been exploited in various applications ranging from studies of quantum entanglement and quantum information science to imaging. The OAM states of electron beams have been shown to b...

We present a proof-of-concept design for an atomtronic rotation sensor consisting of an array of ``double-target'' Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs). A ``target'' BEC is a disk-shaped condensate surrounded by a concentric ring-shaped condensate. A ``double-target'' BEC is two adjacent target BECs whose ring condensates partially overlap. The sensor...

The development of advanced spintronics materials necessitates novel characterization tools with the ability to analyze nanometer-scale spin textures. Neutrons, with their angstrom-sized wavelengths, electric neutrality, and controllable spin states, are uniquely suited for this task. Recent research has prioritized expanding the capabilities of th...

Quantum confinement significantly influences the excited states of sub-10 nm single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs), crucial for advancements in transistor technology and the development of novel opto-electronic materials such as fluorescent ultrashort nanotubes (FUNs). However, the length dependence of this effect in ultrashort SWCNTs is not yet...

Neutron interferometry has played a distinctive role in fundamental science and characterization of materials. Moiré neutron interferometers are candidate next-generation instruments: they offer microscopy-like magnification of the signal, enabling direct camera recording of interference patterns across the full neutron wavelength spectrum. Here we...

The Airy wave packet is a solution to the potential-free Schrodinger equation that exhibits remarkable properties such as self-acceleration, non-diffraction, and self-healing. Although Airy beams are now routinely realized with electromagnetic waves and electrons, the implementation with neutrons has remained elusive due to small transverse coheren...

Phase-grating moiré interferometers (PGMIs) have emerged as promising candidates for the next generation of neutron interferometry, enabling the use of a polychromatic beam and manifesting interference patterns that can be directly imaged by existing neutron cameras. However, the modeling of the various PGMI configurations is limited to cumbersome...

Neural-network state representations of quantum many-body systems are attracting great attention and more rigorous quantitative analysis of their expressibility and complexity is warranted. Our analysis of the restricted Boltzmann machine (RBM) state representation of one-dimensional (1D) quantum spin systems provides new insight into their computa...

Neutron interferometry has played a distinctive role in fundamental science and characterization of materials. Moiré neutron interferometers are candidate next-generation instruments: they offer microscopy-like magnification of the signal, enabling direct camera recording of interference patterns across the full neutron wavelength spectrum. Here we...

Phase-grating moire interferometers (PGMIs) have emerged as promising candidates for the next generation of neutron interferometry, enabling the use of a polychromatic beam and manifesting interference patterns that can be directly imaged by existing neutron cameras. However, the modeling of the various PGMI configurations is limited to cumbersome...

Neural-network state representations of quantum many-body systems are attracting great attention and more rigorous quantitative analysis about their expressibility and complexity is warranted. Our analysis of the restricted Boltzmann machine (RBM) state representation of one-dimensional (1D) quantum spin systems provides new insight into their comp...

Methods of preparation and analysis of structured waves of light, electrons, and atoms have been advancing rapidly. Despite the proven power of neutrons for material characterization and studies of fundamental physics, neutron science has not been able to fully integrate these techniques because of small transverse coherence lengths, the relatively...

We use time-dependent density functional theory to investigate the possibility of hosting organic color centers in (6,6) armchair single-walled carbon nanotubes, which are known to be metallic. Our calculations show that the introduction of sp ³ defects to the surface of (6,6) nanotubes results in new optically-allowed excited states. Some of these...

Methods of preparation and analysis of structured waves of light, electrons, and atoms have been advancing rapidly. Despite the proven power of neutrons for material characterization and studies of fundamental physics, neutron science has not been able to fully integrate such techniques due to small transverse coherence lengths, the relatively poor...

Recent atom interferometry (AI) experiments involving Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs) have been conducted under extreme conditions of volume and interrogation time. Numerical solution of the rotating-frame Gross–Pitaevskii equation (RFGPE), which is the standard mean-field theory applied to these experiments, is impractical due to the excessive co...

We describe an inverse Talbot–Lau neutron grating interferometer that provides an extended autocorrelation length range for quantitative dark-field imaging. To our knowledge, this is the first report of a Talbot–Lau neutron grating interferometer (nTLI) with inverse geometry. We demonstrate a range of autocorrelation lengths (ACL) starting at low t...

Random numbers feature in most cryptographic protocols, including those securing internet traffic. Most random number generators deployed on internet appliances are subject to cryptanalytic attack. We explore generating random numbers on compact quantum computers.

We present a study of how macroscopic flow can be produced in Bose-Einstein condensates confined in a “racetrack” potential by stirring with a wide rectangular barrier. This potential consists of two half-circle channels separated by straight channels of length L and reduces to a ring potential if L=0. We present the results of a flow-production st...

We present a study of how macroscopic flow can be produced in Bose-Einstein condensate confined in a "racetrack" potential by stirring with a wide rectangular barrier. This potential consists of two half-circle channels separated by straight channels of length $L$ and is a ring potential if $L=0$. We present the results of a large set of simulation...

Extreme ultraviolet (EUV) radiation can be converted to visible light using tetraphenyl butadiene (TPB) as a phosphor. 1 µm films of TPB were prepared using thermal vapor deposition of the pure material and by spin coating suspensions of TPB in high-molecular-weight polystyrene/toluene solutions. Calibrated sources and detectors were used to determ...

We have studied the efficacy of stirring a Bose–Einstein condensate confined in a racetrack atom circuit to produce neutral–atom flow. We also investigated the mechanism by which flow is produced.

Trions, charged excitons that are reminiscent of hydrogen and positronium ions, have been intensively studied for energy harvesting, light-emitting diodes, lasing, and quantum computing applications because of their inherent connection with electron spin and dark excitons. However, these quasi-particles are typically present as a minority species a...

Significance Extensive interest has been placed on the techniques to prepare and characterize optical and matter wave orbital angular momentum (OAM) beams and spin correlated OAM beams. They have been shown to be useful in a wide range of applications such as microscopy, quantum information processing, material characterization, and communication p...

Spin-orbit coupling of light has come to the fore in nano-optics and plasmonics, and is a key ingredient of topological photonics and chiral quantum optics. We demonstrate a basic tool for incorporating analogous effects into neutron optics: the generation and detection of neutron beams with coupled spin and orbital angular momentum. $^3$He neutron...

We present a variational model suitable for rapid preliminary design of atom interferometers in a microgravity environment. The model approximates the solution of the three-dimensional rotating-frame Gross-Pitaevskii equation as the sum of Nc Gaussian clouds. Each Gaussian cloud is assumed to have time-dependent center positions, widths, and linear...

We present a variational model suitable for rapid preliminary design of atom interferometers in a microgravity environment. The model approximates the solution of the 3D rotating--frame Gross--Pitaevskii equation (GPE) as the sum of Nc Gaussian clouds. Each Gaussian cloud is assumed to have time--dependent center positions, widths, and linear and q...

The generation and control of neutron orbital angular momentum (OAM) states and spin correlated OAM (spin-orbit) states provides a powerful probe of materials with unique penetrating abilities and magnetic sensitivity. We describe techniques to prepare and characterize neutron spin-orbit states, and provide a quantitative comparison to known proced...

Recent studies in the realization of Majorana Fermion (MF) quasiparticles have focused on engineering the topological superconductivity by combining conventional superconductors and the spin-textured electronic materials. We propose an effective model to create unpaired MFs at the honeycomb lattice edge by generalizing a 2-dimensional topologically...

Recent studies in the realization of Majorana fermion (MF) quasiparticles have focused on engineering topological superconductivity by combining conventional superconductors and spin-textured electronic materials. We propose an effective model to create unpaired MFs at a honeycomb lattice edge by generalizing a 2-dimensional topologically nontrivia...

This document contains a facsimile of the original paper on the Radon transform, "Über die Bestimmung von Funktionen durch ihre Integralwerte längs gewisser Mannigfaltigkeiten," Johann Radon, Berichte über die Verhandlungen der Königlich-Sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig, Mathematisch-Physische Klasse 69, 262–277 (1917), and of an...

Journal club presentation, summarizing the paper "Photonuclear reactions triggered by lightning discharge," Teruaki Enoto, Yuuki Wada, Yoshihiro Furuta, Kazuhiro Nakazawa, Takayuki Yuasa, Kazufumi Okuda, Kazuo Makishima, Mitsuteru Sato, Yousuke Sato, Toshio Nakano, Daigo Umemoto and Harufumi Tsuchiya, Nature 551, 481 (2017)

Rob Dimeo's sketchnote of the journal club presentation

We propose a model to create unpaired Majorana fermions at one edge of a pseudospin-state dependent, time-reversal symmetry noninvariant honeycomb lattice by generalizing a topologically nontrivial Haldane model and introducing textured pairings.

We describe a highly robust method, applicable to both electromagnetic and matter-wave beams, that can produce a beam consisting of a lattice of orbital angular momentum (OAM) states coupled to a two-level system. We also define efficient protocols for controlling and manipulating the lattice characteristics. These protocols are applied in an exper...

We model a sonic black hole analog in a quasi one-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensate, using a Gross-Pitaevskii equation matching the configuration of a recent experiment by Steinhauer. The model agrees well with the experimental observations, with no adjustable parameters, demonstrating their hydrodynamic nature. With enhanced but experimentally...

Analog black/white hole pairs, consisting of a region of supersonic flow, have been achieved in a recent experiment by J. Steinhauer using an elongated Bose-Einstein condensate. A growing standing density wave, and a checkerboard feature in the density-density correlation function, were observed in the supersonic region. We model the density-densit...

We propose an optical circuit for attaining quantum measurement advantage in a system that has no quantum entanglement. Our device produces symmetric two-qubit X -states with controllable anti-diagonal elements, and does not require entangled states as input. We discuss the use of this device in a two-qubit quantum game. When entanglement is absent...

I much enjoyed Soma Banerjee’s article “Meghnad Saha: Physicist and nationalist” (Physics Today, August 2016, page 38), particularly for its bringing attention to Saha’s English translation, with Satyendra Nath Bose, of Albert Einstein’s and Hermann Minkowski’s papers. Their translation was published by the University of Calcutta in 1920.

Abstract at https://aaas.confex.com/aaas/2017/webprogram/Session14417.html Pick up a smart phone, and you engage a dense network of atomic clocks, the most distant maybe 20,000 km away in Earth orbit. Atomtronics seeks to shift even more work to atomic media, using ultracold atoms from Bose-Einstein condensates as the carriers of mass, spin and in...

Contains copies of original papers by Ludwig Zehnder and Ludwig Mach.

Infinite-range interactions are known to facilitate the production of highly entangled states with applications in quantum information and metrology. However, many experimental systems have interactions that decay with distance, and the achievable benefits in this context are much less clear. Combining recent exact solutions with a controlled expan...

An orbital angular momentum (OAM) controller controls OAM of a plurality of neutrons and includes: a substrate; a first surface of the substrate; and a second surface of the substrate disposed opposingly across the substrate from the first surface and including a contoured shape. A process for controlling OAM of neutrons includes: subjecting an OAM...

We simulate transport in an atomtronic circuit of a Bose-Einstein condensate that flows from a source region into a drain through a gate channel. The time-dependent Gross-Pitaevskii equation (GPE) solution matches the data of a recent experiment. The atomtronic circuit is found to be similar to a variable-resistance RLC circuit, which is critically...

Motivated by recent interest in their applications, we report a systematic study of Cs atomic properties calculated by a high-precision relativistic all-order method. Excitation energies, reduced matrix elements, transition rates, and lifetimes are determined for levels with principal quantum numbers $n \leq 12$ and orbital angular momentum quantum...

We propose a method to prepare an entangled spin-orbit state between the spin and the orbital angular momenta of a neutron wavepacket. This spin-orbit state is created by passing neutrons through the center of a quadrupole magnetic field, which provides a coupling between the spin and orbital degrees of freedom. A Ramsey fringe type measurement is...

The day before the Pearl Harbor attack, December 6, 1941, the University of Chicago Metallurgical Laboratory was given four goals: design a plutonium (Pu) bomb; produce Pu by irradiation of uranium (U); extract Pu from the irradiated U; complete this in time to be militarily significant.("Management of the Hanford Engineer Works in World War II", H...

The fundamental dynamics of ultracold atomtronic devices are reflected in their phonon modes of excitation. We probe such a spectrum by applying a harmonically driven potential barrier to a $^{23}$Na Bose-Einstein condensate in a ring-shaped trap. This perturbation excites phonon wavepackets. When excited resonantly, these wavepackets display a reg...

We predict a sequence of magic-zero wavelengths for the Sr excited 5s5p3P0 state, and provide a general roadmap for extracting transition matrix elements using precise frequency measurements. We demonstrate that such measurements can serve as a global benchmark of the spectroscopic accuracy that is required for the development of high-precision pre...

Thermal neutron detection is of vital importance to many disciplines, including neutron scattering, workplace monitoring, and homeland protection. We survey recent results from our collaboration which couple low-pressure noble gas scintillation with novel approaches to neutron absorbing materials and geometries to achieve potentially advantageous d...

We predict a sequence of magic-zero wavelengths for the Sr excited $5s5p~ ^3P_0$ state, and provide a general roadmap for extracting transition matrix elements using precise frequency measurements. We demonstrate that such measurements can serve as a best global benchmark of the spectroscopic accuracy that is required for the development of high-pr...

Interest in the use of synchrotron radiation (SR) as a source of continuum in the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) spectral region was stimulated by the 1956 Physical Review article by Diran Tomboulian and Paul Hartman [1] of Cornell University. In their all-too-brief access to the Cornell 320 MeV electron synchrotron, they showed that SR should be an ext...

Ultracold mixtures of different atomic species have great promise for realizing novel many-body phenomena. In a binary mixture of femions with a large mass difference and repulsive interspecies interactions, a disordered Mott insulator phase can occur. This phase displays an incompressible total density, although the relative density remain compres...