Hydration status influences seed fire tolerance in temperate European herbaceous species.

Prescribed burning is an important management tool in many parts of the world. While natural fires generally occur during the driest and warmest period of the year, prescribed burning is often timed out-of-season, when there is higher soil moisture and lower biomass combustibility. However, fire season may influence seedling recruitment after fire, e.g. through the effect of seed hydration status on fire tolerance. In non-fire-prone temperate regions, anthropogenic fire may occur exclusively in periods outside the growing season with higher soil moisture, which may have negative consequences on seedling recruitment. Fire tolerance of moist and dry seeds of 16 temperate European herbaceous species belonging to four families was assessed using heat treatment of 100 °C for 5 min and subsequent germination trials. Moist seeds of Asteraceae, Poaceae and Brassicaceae had a predominantly negative reaction to the heat treatment, while those of Fabaceae tolerated it or germination was even enhanced. The reaction of dry seeds was completely different, with positive responses in three species of the Fabaceae and fire tolerance in species of other families. Our results point out that hydration status may significantly influence the post-fire germination of seeds. Dry seeds were found to tolerate high heat, while moist seeds were harmed in more than half of the species. This implies that if prescribed burning is applied in temperate grasslands of Europe, it should be timed to dry periods of the dormant season in order to protect seeds from negative effects of fire.

Nonequilibrium Quantum Criticality and Non-Markovian Environment: Critical Exponent of a Quantum Phase Transition.

We show that the critical exponent of a quantum phase transition in a damped-driven open system is determined by the spectral density function of the reservoir. We consider the open-system variant of the Dicke model, where the driven boson mode and also the large N spin couple to independent reservoirs at zero temperature. The critical exponent, which is 1 if there is no spin-bath coupling, decreases below 1 when the spin couples to a sub-Ohmic reservoir.

Parametric amplification of the mechanical vibrations of a suspended nanowire by magnetic coupling to a Bose-Einstein condensate.

We show how the vibrational modes of a nanowire may be coherently manipulated with a Bose-Einstein condensate of ultracold atoms. We consider the magnetomechanical coupling between paramagnetic atoms and a suspended nanowire carrying a dc current. Atomic spin flips produce a backaction onto the wire vibrations, which can lead to mechanical mode amplification. In contrast to systems considered before, the condensate has a finite energy bandwidth in the range of the chemical potential and we explore the consequences of this on the parametric drive. Applying the resolvent method, we determine the threshold coupling and we also find a significant frequency shift of the vibration due to magnetomechanical dressing.

Quantum galvanometer by interfacing a vibrating nanowire and cold atoms.

We evaluate the coupling of a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) of ultracold, paramagnetic atoms to the magnetic field of the current in a mechanically vibrating carbon nanotube within the frame of a full quantum theory. We find that the interaction is strong enough to sense quantum features of the nanowire current noise spectrum by means of hyperfine-state-selective atom counting. Such a nondestructive measurement of the electric current via its magnetic field corresponds to the classical galvanometer scheme, extended to the quantum regime of charge transport. The calculated high sensitivity of the interaction in the nanowire-BEC hybrid systems opens up the possibility of quantum control, which may be further extended to include other relevant degrees of freedom.

Dicke-model phase transition in the quantum motion of a Bose-Einstein condensate in an optical cavity.

We show that the motion of a laser-driven Bose-Einstein condensate in a high-finesse optical cavity realizes the spin-boson Dicke model. The quantum phase transition of the Dicke model from the normal to the superradiant phase corresponds to the self-organization of atoms from the homogeneous into a periodically patterned distribution above a critical driving strength. The fragility of the ground state due to photon measurement induced backaction is calculated.

Excess noise depletion of a Bose-Einstein condensate in an optical cavity.

Quantum fluctuations of a cavity field coupled into the motion of ultracold bosons can be strongly amplified by a mechanism analogous to the Petermann excess noise factor in lasers with unstable cavities. For a Bose-Einstein condensate in a stable optical resonator, the excess noise effect amounts to a significant depletion on long time scales.

Collective excitations and instability of an optical lattice due to unbalanced pumping.

We solve self-consistently the coupled equations of motion for trapped particles and the field of a one-dimensional optical lattice. Optomechanical coupling creates long-range interaction between the particles, whose nature depends crucially on the relative power of the pump beams. For asymmetric pumping, traveling density wavelike collective oscillations arise in the lattice, even in the overdamped limit. By increasing the lattice size or pump asymmetry, these waves can destabilize the lattice.

Geometric resonance cooling of polarizable particles in an optical waveguide.

In the radiation field of an optical waveguide, the Rayleigh scattering of photons is shown to result in a strongly velocity-dependent force on atoms. The pump field, which is injected in the fundamental branch of the waveguide, is favorably scattered by a moving atom into one of the transversely excited branches of propagating modes. All fields involved are far detuned from any resonances of the atom. For a simple polarizable particle, a linear friction force coefficient comparable to that of cavity cooling can be achieved.

Enhanced atom capturing in a high-Q cavity by help of several transverse modes.

We predict a strong enhancement of the capture rate and the friction force for atoms crossing a driven high-Q cavity field if several near degenerate cavity modes are simultaneously coupled to the atom. In contrast to the case of a single TEM00 mode, circular orbits are not stable and damping of the angular and radial motion occurs. Depending on the chosen atom-field detuning the atoms phase lock the cavity modes to create a localized field minimum or maximum at their current positions. This corresponds to a local potential minimum, which the atom drags along with its motion. The stimulated photon redistribution between the modes then creates a large friction force. The effect is further enhanced if the atom is directly driven by a coherent field from the side. Several atoms in the field interact via the cavity modes, which leads to a strongly correlated motion.