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We compare the heat release data of organic glasses with that of amorphous and glass like crystalline solids. Anomalous behavior was found in all these materials, which disagrees with the standard tunneling model. We can explain the most of…
We consider light scattering off a two-dimensional (2D) dipolar array and show how it can be tailored by properly choosing the lattice constant of the order of the incident wavelength. In particular, we demonstrate that such arrays can…
Event horizons are a defining feature of black holes. Consequently, there have been many efforts to probe their existence in astrophysical black hole candidates, spanning ten orders of magnitude in mass. Nevertheless, horizons remain an…
Many spectacular polarimetric images have been obtained in recent years with adaptive optics (AO) instruments at large telescopes because they profit significantly from the high spatial resolution. This paper summarizes some basic…
Coherent backscattering is a coherence effect in the propagation of waves through disordered media involving two or more scattering events. Here, we report on the observation of coherent backscattering from individual atoms and their mirror…
We revisit the gravitational lensing phenomenon using a new visualization technique. It consists in projecting the observers sky into the source plane, what gives rise to a folded and stretched surface. This provides a clear graphical tool…
Diffraction is a manifestation of light at edge due to its wavelike nature. The well-known diffraction phenomena are Fresnel and Fraunhofer, they find variety of applications individually. But the synergy of two phenomena is not studied and…
Faced with the Kauzmann paradox, glasses have always been a puzzle for condensed matter theorists. We show that in a new picture of condensed matter, which takes into account the coherent interaction mechanisms of QED, glasses are nothing…
We revisit certain features of an assumed spherically symmetric perfect fluid dark matter halo in the light of the observed data of our galaxy
Gravitational waves act like lenses for the light propagating through them. This phenomenon is described using the vector formalism employed for ordinary gravitational lenses, which was proved to be applicable also to a non-stationary…
The temporal evolution of an atomic wave packet interacting with object and reference electromagnetic waves is investigated beyond the weak perturbation of the initial state. It is shown that the diffraction of an ultracold atomic beam by…
Numeric simulations based on the Huygens-Fresnel method allow one to develop intuition about the behavior of coherent light in diffraction and interference experiments. They give an opportunity to numerically observe and appreciate a number…
We present a proposal of a new type of telescopes using a rotating parabolic strip as the primary mirror. It is the most principal modification of the design of telescopes from the times of Galileo and Newton. In order to demonstrate the…
Quasicrystals are nonperiodic structures having no translational symmetry but nonetheless possessing long-range order. The material properties of quasicrystals, particularly their low-temperature behavior, defy easy description. We present…
Geometrical optics is extended so as to provide a model for spinning light rays via the coadjoint orbits of the Euclidean group characterized by color and spin. This leads to a theory of ``geometrical spinoptics'' in refractive media.…
The characterization of the optical properties of the atmosphere in the near UV, in particular the tropospheric aerosol stratification, clouds optical depth and spatial distribution are common in the field of atmospheric physics, due to…
We calculate the relative permittivity of a cold atomic gas under weak probe illumination, up to second order in the density. Within the framework of a diagrammatic representation method, we identify all the second order diagrams that enter…
We consider the propagation of light in a anisotropic medium with a topological line defect in the realm of geometrical optics. It is shown that the effective geometry perceived by light propagating in such medium is that of a spacial…
A random matrix approach to glassy physics is introduced. It leads to a class of models which exhibit both, glassy low-temperature phases, and double-- and single-well configurations in their potential energy. The distribution of parameters…
Geometrically decorated two-dimensional (2D) discrete surfaces can be more effective than conventional smooth reflectors in managing wave radiation. Constructive non-specular wave scattering permits the scattering angle to be other than…