arXiv subjects

S. V. Prants

Publications and source records attributed to S. V. Prants.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2012

Lagrangian study of transport and mixing in a mesoscale eddy street

We use dynamical systems approach and Lagrangian tools to study surface transport and mixing of water masses in a selected coastal region of the Japan Sea with moving mesoscale eddies associated with the Primorskoye Current. Lagrangian trajectories are computed for a large number of particles in an interpolated velocity field generated by a numerical regional multi-layer eddy-resolving circulation model. We compute finite-time Lyapunov exponents for a comparatively long period of time by the method developed and plot the Lyapunov synoptic map quantifying surface transport and mixing in that region. This map uncovers the striking flow structures along the coast with a mesoscale eddy street and repelling material lines. We propose new Lagrangian diagnostic tools --- the time of exit of particles off a selected box, the number of changes of the sign of zonal and meridional velocities --- to study transport and mixing by a pair of strongly interacting eddies often visible at sea-surface temperature satellite images in that region. We develop a technique to track evolution of clusters of particles, streaklines and material lines. The Lagrangian tools used allow us to reveal mesoscale eddies and their structure, to track different phases of the coastal flow, to find inhomogeneous character of transport and mixing on mesoscales and submesoscales and to quantify mixing by the values of exit times and the number of times particles wind around the eddy's center.

physics.ao-ph↗

arXiv2012

Mechanism of destruction of transport barriers in geophysical jets with Rossby waves

The mechanism of destruction of a central transport barrier in a dynamical model of a geophysical zonal jet current in the ocean or the atmosphere with two propagating Rossby waves is studied. We develop a method for computing a central invariant curve which is an indicator of existence of the barrier. Breakdown of this curve under a variation of the Rossby wave amplitudes and onset of chaotic cross-jet transport happen due to specific resonances producing stochastic layers in the central jet. The main result is that there are resonances breaking the transport barrier at unexpectedly small values of the amplitudes that may have serious impact on mixing and transport in the ocean and the atmosphere. The effect can be found in laboratory experiments with azimuthal jets and Rossby waves in rotating tanks under specific values of the wave numbers that are predicted in the theory.

nlin.CD↗

arXiv2012

Geometric optics with atomic beams scattered by a detuned standing laser wave

We report on theoretical and numerical study of propagation of atomic beams crossing a detuned standing-wave laser beam in the geometric optics limit. The interplay between external and internal atomic degrees of freedom is used to manipulate the atomic motion along the optical axis by light. By adjusting the atom-laser detuning, we demonstrate how to focus, split and scatter atomic beams in a real experiment. The novel effect of chaotic scattering of atoms at a regular near-resonant standing wave is found numerically and explained qualitatively. Some applications of the effects found are discussed.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2012

Matter-wave chaos with a cold atom in a standing-wave laser field

Coherent motion of cold atoms in a standing-wave field is interpreted as a propagation in two optical potentials. It is shown that the wave-packet dynamics can be either regular or chaotic with transitions between these potentials after passing field nodes. Manifestations of de Broglie-wave chaos are found in the behavior of the momentum and position probabilities and the Wigner function. The probability of those transitions depends on the ratio of the squared detuning to the Doppler shift and is large in that range of the parameters where the classical motion is shown to be chaotic.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2012

Group-theoretical approach to study atomic motion in a laser field

Group-theoretical approach is applied to study behavior of lossless two-level atoms in a standing-wave laser field. Due to the recoil effect, the internal and external atomic degrees of freedom become coupled. The internal dynamics is described quantum mechanically in terms of the SU(2) group parameters. The evolution operator is found in an explicit way after solving a single ODE for one of the group parameters. The translational motion in a standing wave is governed by the classical Hamilton equations which are coupled to the SU(2) group equations. It is shown that the full set of equations may be chaotic in some ranges of the control parameters and initial conditions. It means physically that there are regimes of motion with chaotic center-of-mass motion and irregular internal dynamics. It is established that the chaotic regime is specified by the character of oscillations of the group parameter characterizing the mean interaction energy between the atom and the laser field. It is shown that the effect of chaotic walking can be observed in a real experiment with cold atoms crossing a standing-wave laser field.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2012

Theory of dissipative chaotic atomic transport in an optical lattice

We study dissipative transport of spontaneously emitting atoms in a 1D standing-wave laser field in the regimes where the underlying deterministic Hamiltonian dynamics is regular and chaotic. A Monte Carlo stochastic wavefunction method is applied to simulate semiclassically the atomic dynamics with coupled internal and translational degrees of freedom. It is shown in numerical experiments and confirmed analytically that chaotic atomic transport can take the form either of ballistic motion or a random walking with specific statistical properties. The character of spatial and momentum diffusion in the ballistic atomic transport is shown to change abruptly in the atom-laser detuning regime where the Hamiltonian dynamics is irregular in the sense of dynamical chaos. We find a clear correlation between the behavior of the momentum diffusion coefficient and Hamiltonian chaos probability which is a manifestation of chaoticity of the fundamental atom-light interaction in the diffusive-like dissipative atomic transport. We propose to measure a linear extent of atomic clouds in a 1D optical lattice and predict that, beginning with those values of the mean cloud's momentum for which the probability of Hamiltonian chaos is close to 1, the linear extent of the corresponding clouds should increase sharply. A sensitive dependence of statistical characteristics of dissipative transport on the values of the detuning allows to manipulate the atomic transport by changing the laser frequency.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2011

Effect of dynamical traps on chaotic transport in a meandering jet flow

We continue our study of chaotic mixing and transport of passive particles in a simple model of a meandering jet flow [Prants, et al, Chaos {\bf 16}, 033117 (2006)]. In the present paper we study and explain phenomenologically a connection between dynamical, topological, and statistical properties of chaotic mixing and transport in the model flow in terms of dynamical traps, singular zones in the phase space where particles may spend arbitrary long but finite time [Zaslavsky, Phys. D {\bf 168--169}, 292 (2002)]. The transport of passive particles is described in terms of lengths and durations of zonal flights which are events between two successive changes of sign of zonal velocity. Some peculiarities of the respective probability density functions for short flights are proven to be caused by the so-called rotational-islands traps connected with the boundaries of resonant islands (including the vortex cores) filled with the particles moving in the same frame and the saddle traps connected with periodic saddle trajectories. Whereas, the statistics of long flights can be explained by the influence of the so-called ballistic-islands traps filled with the particles moving from a frame to frame.

nlin.CD↗

arXiv2009

Detecting barrier to cross-jet Lagrangian transport and its destruction in a meandering flow

Cross-jet transport of passive scalars in a kinematic model of the meandering laminar two-dimensional incompressible flow which is known to produce chaotic mixing is studied. We develop a method for detecting barriers to cross-jet transport in the phase space which is a physical space for our model. Using tools from theory of nontwist maps, we construct a central invariant curve and compute its characteristics that may serve good indicators of the existence of a central transport barrier, its strength, and topology. Computing fractal dimension, length, and winding number of that curve in the parameter space, we study in detail change of its geometry and its destruction that are caused by local bifurcations and a global bifurcation known as reconnection of separatrices of resonances. Scenarios of reconnection are different for odd and even resonances. The central invariant curves with rational and irrational (noble) values of winding numbers are arranged into hierarchical series which are described in terms of continued fractions. Destruction of central transport barrier is illustrated for two ways in the parameter space: when moving along resonant bifurcation curves with rational values of the winding number and along curves with noble (irrational) values.

nlin.CD↗

arXiv2008

Manifestation of Hamiltonian chaos in an open quantum system with ballistic atoms in an optical lattice

Manifestation of dynamical instability and Hamiltonian chaos in the fundamental near-resonant matter-radiation interaction has been found analitically and in a Monte Carlo simulation in the behavior of atoms moving in a rigid optical lattice. Character of diffusion of spontaneously emitting atoms changes abruptly in the range of the values of parameters and initial conditions where their Hamiltonian dynamics is shown to be chaotic

quant-ph↗

arXiv2007

Unstable periodic orbits in a chaotic meandering jet flow

We study the origin and bifurcations of typical classes of unstable periodic orbits in a jet flow that was introduced before as a kinematic model of chaotic advection, transport and mixing of passive scalars in meandering oceanic and atmospheric currents. A method to detect and locate the unstable periodic orbits and classify them by the origin and bifurcations is developed. We consider in detail period-1 and period-4 orbits playing an important role in chaotic advection. We introduce five classes of period-4 orbits: western and eastern ballistic ones, whose origin is associated with ballistic resonances of the fourth order, rotational ones, associated with rotational resonances of the second and fourth orders, and rotational-ballistic ones associated with a rotational-ballistic resonance. It is a new kind of nonlinear resonances that may occur in chaotic flow with jets and/or circulation cells. Varying the perturbation amplitude, we track out the origin and bifurcations of the orbits for each class.

nlin.CD↗

arXiv2007

Nonlinear control of chaotic walking of atoms in an optical lattice

Centre-of-mass atomic motion in an optical lattice near the resonance is shown to be a chaotic walking due to the interplay between coherent internal atomic dynamics and spontaneous emission. Statistical properties of chaotic atomic motion can be controlled by the single parameter, the detuning between the atomic transition frequency and the laser frequency. We derive a Fokker-Planck equation in the energetic space to describe the atomic transport near the resonance and demonstrate numerically how to manipulate the atomic motion varying the detuning.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2007

Theory of chaotic atomic transport in an optical lattice

A semiclassical theory of chaotic atomic transport in a one-dimensional nondissipative optical lattice is developed. Using the basic equations of motion for the Bloch and translational atomic variables, we derive a stochastic map for the synchronized component of the atomic dipole moment that determines the center-of-mass motion. We find the analytical relations between the atomic and lattice parameters under which atoms typically alternate between flying through the lattice and being trapped in the wells of the optical potential. We use the stochastic map to derive formulas for the probability density functions (PDFs) for the flight and trapping events. Statistical properties of chaotic atomic transport strongly depend on the relations between the atomic and lattice parameters. We show that there is a good quantitative agreement between the analytical PDFs and those computed with the stochastic map and the basic equations of motion for different ranges of the parameters. Typical flight and trapping PDFs are shown to be broad distributions with power law ``heads'' with the slope -1.5 and exponential ``tails''. The lengths of the power law and exponential parts of the PDFs depend on the values of the parameters and can be varied continuously. We find analytical conditions, under which deterministic atomic transport has fractal properties, and explain a hierarchical structure of the dynamical fractals.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2006

Chaotic mixing and transport in a meandering jet flow

Mixing and transport of passive particles are studied in a simple kinematic model of a meandering jet flow motivated by the problem of lateral mixing and transport in the Gulf Stream. We briefly discuss a model streamfunction, Hamiltonian advection equations, stationary points, and bifurcations. The phase portrait of the chosen model flow in the moving reference frame consists of a central eastward jet, chains of northern and southern circulations, and peripheral westward currents. Under a periodic perturbation of the meander's amplitude, the topology of the phase space is complicated by the presence of chaotic layers and chains of oscillatory and ballistic islands with sticky boundaries immersed into a stochastic sea. Typical chaotic trajectories of advected particles are shown to demonstrate a complicated behavior with long flights in both the directions of motion intermittent with trapping in the circulation cells being stuck to the boundaries of vortex cores and resonant islands. Transport is asymmetric in the sense that mixing between the circulations and the peripheral currents is, in general, different from mixing between the circulations and the jet. The transport properties are characterized by probability distribution functions (PDFs) of durations and lengths of flights. Both the PDFs exhibit at their tails power-law decay with different values of exponents.

nlin.CD↗

arXiv2006

Nonlinear coherent dynamics of an atom in an optical lattice

We consider a simple model of lossless interaction between a two-level single atom and a standing-wave single-mode laser field which creates a one-dimensional optical lattice. Internal dynamics of the atom is governed by the laser field which is treated to be classical with a large number of photons. Center-of-mass classical atomic motion is governed by the optical potential and the internal atomic degree of freedom. The resulting Hamilton-Schrödinger equations of motion are a five-dimensional nonlinear dynamical system with two integrals of motion. The main focus of the paper is chaotic atomic motion that may be quantified strictly by positive values of the maximal Lyapunov exponent. It is shown that atom, depending on the value of its total energy, can either oscillate chaotically in a well of the optical potential or fly ballistically with weak chaotic oscillations of its momentum or wander in the optical lattice changing the direction of motion in a chaotic way. In the regime of chaotic wandering atomic motion is shown to have fractal properties. We find a useful tool to visualize complicated atomic motion -- Poincaré mapping of atomic trajectories in an effective three-dimensional phase space onto planes of atomic internal variables and momentum. We find common features with typical non-hyperbolic Hamiltonian systems -- chains of resonant islands of different sizes embedded in a stochastic sea, stochastic layers, bifurcations, and so on. The phenomenon of sticking of atomic trajectories to boundaries of regular islands, that should have a great influence to atomic transport in optical lattices, is found and demonstrated numerically.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2005

Entanglement, fidelity, and quantum-classical correlations with an atom walking in a quantized cavity field

Stability and instability of quantum evolution are studied in the interaction between a two-level atom with photon recoil and a quantized field mode in an ideal cavity, the basic model of cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED). It is shown that the Jaynes-Cummings dynamics can be unstable in the regime of chaotic walking of the atomic center-of-mass in the quantized field of a standing wave in the absence of any kind of interaction with environment. This kind of quantum instability manifests itself in strong variations of reduced quantum purity and entropy, correlating with the respective classical Lyapunov exponent, and in exponential sensitivity of fidelity of quantum states to small variations in the atom-field detuning. The connection between quantum entanglement and fidelity and the center-of-mass motion is clarified analytically and numerically for a few regimes of that motion. The results are illustrated with two specific initial field states: the Fock and coherent ones. Numerical experiments demonstrate various manifestations of the quantum-classical correspondence, including dynamical chaos and fractals, which can be, in principle, observed in real experiments with atoms and photons in high finesse cavities.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2005

Nonlinear Hamiltonian dynamics of Lagrangian transport and mixing in the ocean

Methods of dynamical system's theory are used for numerical study of transport and mixing of passive particles (water masses, temperature, salinity, pollutants, etc.) in simple kinematic ocean models composed with the main Eulerian coherent structures in a randomly fluctuating ocean -- a jet-like current and an eddy. Advection of passive tracers in a periodically-driven flow consisting of a background stream and an eddy (the model inspired by the phenomenon of topographic eddies over mountains in the ocean and atmosphere) is analyzed as an example of chaotic particle's scattering and transport. A numerical analysis reveals a nonattracting chaotic invariant set $Λ$ that determines scattering and trapping of particles from the incoming flow. It is shown that both the trapping time for particles in the mixing region and the number of times their trajectories wind around the vortex have hierarchical fractal structure as functions of the initial particle's coordinates. Scattering functions are singular on a Cantor set of initial conditions, and this property should manifest itself by strong fluctuations of quantities measured in experiments. The Lagrangian structures in our numerical experiments are shown to be similar to those found in a recent laboratory dye experiment at Woods Hole. Transport and mixing of passive particles is studied in the kinematic model inspired by the interaction of a jet current (like the Gulf Stream or the Kuroshio) with an eddy in a noisy environment. We demonstrate a non-trivial phenomenon of noise-induced clustering of passive particles and propose a method to find such clusters in numerical experiments. These clusters are patches of advected particles which can move together in a random velocity field for comparatively long time.

nlin.CD↗

arXiv2005

Noise-induced clustering in Hamiltonian systems

The motion of oscillatory-like nonlinear Hamiltonian systems, driven by a weak noise, is considered. A general method to find regions of stability in the phase space of a randomly-driven system, based on a specific Poincaré map, is proposed and justified. Physical manifestations of these regions of stability, the so-called coherent clusters, are demonstrated with two models in ocean physics. We find bunches of sound rays propagating coherently in an underwater waveguide through a randomly fluctuating ocean at long distances. We find clusters of passive particles to be advected coherently by a random two-dimensional flow modelling mixing around a topographic eddy in the ocean.

nlin.CD↗

arXiv2005

On the quantum (in)stability in cavity QED

The stability and instability of quantum motion is studied in the context of cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED). It is shown that the Jaynes-Cummings dynamics can be unstable in the regime of chaotic walking of an atom in the quantized field of a standing wave in the absence of any other interaction with environment. This quantum instability manifests itself in strong variations of quantum purity and entropy and in exponential sensitivity of fidelity of quantum states to small variations in the atom-field detuning. It is quantified in terms of the respective classical maximal Lyapunov exponent that can be estimated in appropriate in-out experiments.

quant-ph↗