Tomographic Description of a Quantum Wave Packet in an Accelerated Frame.

The tomography of a single quantum particle (i.e., a quantum wave packet) in an accelerated frame is studied. We write the Schrödinger equation in a moving reference frame in which acceleration is uniform in space and an arbitrary function of time. Then, we reduce such a problem to the study of spatiotemporal evolution of the wave packet in an inertial frame in the presence of a homogeneous force field but with an arbitrary time dependence. We demonstrate the existence of a Gaussian wave packet solution, for which the position and momentum uncertainties are unaffected by the uniform force field. This implies that, similar to in the case of a force-free motion, the uncertainty product is unaffected by acceleration. In addition, according to the Ehrenfest theorem, the wave packet centroid moves according to classic Newton's law of a particle experiencing the effects of uniform acceleration. Furthermore, as in free motion, the wave packet exhibits a diffraction spread in the configuration space but not in momentum space. Then, using Radon transform, we determine the quantum tomogram of the Gaussian state evolution in the accelerated frame. Finally, we characterize the wave packet evolution in the accelerated frame in terms of optical and simplectic tomogram evolution in the related tomographic space.

Ring-type multisoliton dynamics in shallow water.

The propagation, in a shallow water, of nonlinear ring waves in the form of multisolitons is investigated theoretically. This is done by solving both analytically and numerically the cylindrical (also referred to as concentric) Korteweg-de Vries equation (cKdVE). The latter describes the propagation of weakly nonlinear and weakly dispersive ring waves in an incompressible, inviscid, and irrotational fluid. The spatiotemporal evolution is determined for a cylindrically symmetric response to the free fall of an initially given multisoliton ring. Analytically, localized solutions in the form of tilted solitons are found. They can be thought as single- or multiring solitons formed on a conic-modulated water surface, with an oblique asymptote in arbitrary radial direction (tilted boundary condition). Conversely, the ring solitons obtained from numerical solutions are localized single- or multiring structures (standard solitons), whose wings vanish along all radial directions (standard boundary conditions). It is found that the wave dynamics of these standard ring-type localized structures differs substantially from that of the tilted structures. A detailed analysis is performed to determine the main features of both multiring localized structures, particularly their break-up, multiplet formation, overlapping of pulses, overcoming of one pulse by another, "amplitude-width" complementarity, etc., that are typically ascribed to a solitonlike behavior. For all the localized structures investigated, the solitonlike character of the rings is found to be preserved during (almost) entire temporal evolution. Due to their cylindrical character, each ring belonging to one of these multiring localized structures experiences the physiological decay of the peak and the physiological increase of the width, respectively, while propagating ("amplitude-width" complementarity). As in the planar geometry, i.e., planar Korteweg-de Vries equation (pKdVE), we show that, in the case of the tilted analytical solutions, the instantaneous product P=(maximumamplitude)×(width)(2) is rigorously constant during all the soliton spatiotemporal evolution. Nevertheless, in the case of the numerical solutions, we show that this product is not preserved; i.e., the instantaneous physiological variations of both peak and width of each ring do not compensate each other as in the tilted analytical case. In fact, the amplitude decay occurs faster than the width increase, so that P decreases in time. This is more evident in the early times than in the asymptotic ones (where actually cKdVE reduces to pKdVE). This is in contrast to previous investigations on the early-time localized solutions of the cKdVE.

From Maxwell's theory of Saturn's rings to the negative mass instability.

The impact of Maxwell's theory of Saturn's rings, formulated in Aberdeen ca 1856, is discussed. One century later, Nielsen, Sessler and Symon formulated a similar theory to describe the coherent instabilities (in particular, the negative mass instability) exhibited by a charged particle beam in a high-energy accelerating machine. Extended to systems of particles where the mutual gravitational attraction is replaced by the electric repulsion, Maxwell's approach was the conceptual basis to formulate the kinetic theory of coherent instability (Vlasov-Maxwell system), which, in particular, predicts the stabilizing role of the Landau damping. However, Maxwell's idea was so fertile that, later on, it was extended to quantum-like models (e.g. thermal wave model), providing the quantum-like description of coherent instability (Schrödinger-Maxwell system) and its identification with the modulational instability (MI). The latter has recently been formulated for any nonlinear wave propagation governed by the nonlinear Schrödinger equation, as in the statistical approach to MI (Wigner-Maxwell system). It seems that the above recent developments may provide a possible feedback to Maxwell's original idea with the extension to quantum gravity and cosmology.

Nonlocal effects in high-energy charged-particle beams.

Within the framework of the thermal wave model, an investigation is made of the longitudinal dynamics of high-energy charged-particle beams. The model includes the nonlinear self-consistent interaction between the beam and its surroundings in terms of a coupling impedance, and when resistive as well as reactive parts are included, the evolution equation becomes a generalized nonlinear Schrödinger equation including a nonlocal nonlinear term. The consequences of the resistive part on the propagation of particle bunches are examined using analytical as well as numerical methods.

Landau damping and coherent structures in narrow-banded 1+1 deep water gravity waves.

We study the modulational instability in surface gravity waves with random phase spectra. Starting from the nonlinear Schrödinger equation and using the Wigner-Moyal transform, we study the stability of the narrow-banded approximation of a typical wind-wave spectrum, i.e., the JONSWAP spectrum. By performing numerical simulations of the nonlinear Schrödinger equation we show that in the unstable regime, the nonlinear stage of the modulational instability is responsible for the formation of coherent structures. Furthermore, a Landau-type damping, due to the incoherence of the waves, whose role is to provide a stabilizing effect against the modulational instability, is both analytically and numerically discussed.