This dissertation discusses a number of theoretical models of coupled bosonic modes, all closely related to the Bose-Hubbard dimer. In studying these models, we will repeatedly return to two unifying themes: the classical structure underlying quantum dynamics and the impact of weakly coupling a system to an environment. Or, more succinctly, semiclassical methods and open quantum systems. Our primary motivation for studying models such as the Bose-Hubbard is their relevance to ongoing ultracold atom experiments. We review these experiments, derive the Bose-Hubbard model in their context and briefly discuss its limitations in the first half of Chapter 1. In its second half, we review the theory of open quantum systems and the master equation description of the dissipative Bose-Hubbard model. This opening chapter constitutes a survey of existing results, rather than original work. In Chapter 2, we turn to the mean-field limit of the Bose-Hubbard model. After reviewing the striking localization phenomena predicted by the mean-field (and confirmed by experiment), we identify the first corrections to this picture for the dimer. The most interesting of these is the dynamical tunneling between the self-trapping points of the mean-field. We derive an accurate analytical expression for the tunneling rate using semiclassical techniques. We continue studying the dynamics near the self-trapping fixed points in Chapter 3, focusing on corrections to the mean-field that arise at larger nonlinearities and on shorter time scales than dynamical tunneling. We study the impact of dissipation on coherence and entanglement near the fixed points, and explain it in terms of the structure of the classical phase space. The last chapter of the dissertation is also devoted to a dissipative bosonic dimer model, but one arising in a very different physical context. Abandoning optical lattices, we consider the problem of formulating a quantum model of operation of the cylindrical anode magnetron, a vacuum tube crossed-field microwave amplifier. We derive an effective dissipative dimer model and study its relationship to the classical description. Our dimer model is a first step towards the analysis of solid-state analogs of such devices.

O óxido nítrico (NO) tem papel relevante nas diversas funções fisiológicas do organismo e nos mais variados sistemas que o compõe. Sabe-se que esta molécula é um constituinte normal do ar exalado na respiração de humanos e de animais. Tem como funções modular respostas inflamatórias e imunes bem como atuar na regulação do tônus vascular da musculatura lisa das vias aéreas. Esta molécula vem sendo reconhecida como importante marcador de lesão pulmonar, o que despertou a intensa investigação do NO no ar exalado. Uma metodologia não invasiva, de baixo custo e de fácil aplicação está sendo extensivamente estudada para a captação do ar exalado através do seu resfriamento e condensação, denominada Condensado do Exalado Pulmonar (CEP). É grande o interesse no estudo de doenças pulmonares inflamatórias, no entanto, observa-se uma considerável carência de evidências acerca dos níveis de concentração de mediadores inflamatórios, como o NO em amostras de indivíduos hígidos utilizando o CEP. Diante disso, decidiu-se elaborar um protótipo de aparato para coleta do condensado e empregar esta técnica para determinar valores de concentração de NO em uma amostra de voluntários hígidos. A metodologia de coleta utilizada foi baseada nas recomendações da força tarefa da American Thoracic Society/European Respiratory Society (ATS/ERS) para procedimentos de coleta de condensado, com o intuito de evitar erros metodológicos, padronizar e trazer mais evidências para auxiliar a inserção do método na rotina clínica, além de disponibilizá-lo para novas pesquisas. Para isto foram selecionados 116 indivíduos adultos hígidos de ambos os sexos, com idade entre 20 e 70 anos. O protótipo de aparato utilizado na pesquisa foi de fabricação artesanal e desenvolvido na Divisão de Cirurgia Torácica e Cardiovascular da Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo- FMRP/USP, visto que os aparatos comerciais são todos importados, de custo elevado e que ainda não forneceram evidências suficientes de que algum destes seria o padrão ouro para a coleta. O aparato foi eficiente para coletar o CEP e o NO foi detectável em todas as amostras. A média de NO foi de 13±14,4µM, e não houve correlação com o gênero (p=0,847) e idade (p=0,811). Não foi observado correlação entre o NO e o volume de CEP coletado (p=0,944). O volume de CEP coletado é dependente do volume exalado total (p<0,001). A partir destes resultados pode-se verificar que o aparato é viável e eficiente. Não foram encontradas correlações entre a concentração de NO no CEP, idade e o gênero. O presente estudo poderá contribuir com futuras pesquisas de caráter comparativo e fornecer mais uma opção de aparato para coleta do condensado do exalado pulmonar, provendo baixo custo, reprodutibilidade e reutilização do aparato / Nitric oxide (NO) plays an important role in various physiological functions in the body and in various systems that compose it. It is known that this molecule is a normal constituent of exhaled breath in humans and animals. Its functions modulate inflammatory and immune responses as well as act in the regulation of vascular tone of smooth muscles of the airways. This molecule has been recognized as an important marker of lung injury, which sparked intense investigation of exhaled NO. A non-invasive method, low cost and easy application has been extensively studied to collect the exhaled air through its cooling and condensation, termed exhaled breath condensate. There is great interest in the study of inflammatory lung diseases, however, there is a considerable lack of evidence about the concentration levels of inflammatory mediators such NO in samples of healthy individuals using exhaled breath condensate. Given this, it was decided to develop a prototype apparatus for collecting exhaled breath condensate (EBC) and employ this technique to determine concentration values of nitric oxide in a sample of healthy volunteers. The sampling methodology based on the recommendations of the task force of the American Thoracic Society / European Respiratory Society (ATS / ERS) for procedures using for collection of condensate, in order to avoid methodological errors, standardize and bring more evidence to support the inclusion of the method in clinical routine, and make it available for further research. We selected 116 healthy adults of both gender, aged between 20 and 70. The prototype apparatus used in the research was designed, produced and developed in the Division of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, University of São Paulo-FMRP / USP. The commercial devices are all imported, expensive and not yet provided sufficient evidence that any of these would be the gold standard for collection. The apparatus was efficient to collect the EBC and NO was detectable in all samplesThe average NO was 14.4 ± 13 µM, and there was no correlation with gender (p = 0.847) and age (p = 0.811). There was no correlation between NO and the volume of collected EBC (p = 0.944). The volume of collected EBC is dependent on the total exhaled volume (p <0.001). From these results it can be seen that the apparatus is feasible and efficient. No correlation was found between the concentration of NO in the EBC, age and gender. The present study may contribute to future comparative studies of character and provide another option for apparatus for collecting condensate, providing low cost, reliability and reusability of the apparatus

Lung cancer (LC) is often diagnosed at advanced stage and as a result, survival rates are low. Recent studies describe exhaled breath and exhaled breath condensate (EBC) as a potential non-invasive method of sampling the airways for assessing inflammation of the respiratory system, and possibly for the early detection of LC. It was hypothesised that higher concentrations of markers and protein will be present in the EBC of LC patients compared to those of normal controls and healthy smokers, and may aid in assessing lung status. Methods: The gaseous phase of breath was investigated for volatile organic compound (VOC) patterns using an electronic nose (eNose) system, in addition to off-line measurements of carbon monoxide (CO) and nitric oxide (NO) levels. The aqueous phase, EBC, was collected during tidal breathing through a glass collection device cooled to 4??C by ice. Nitrite/nitrate (NOx) and pH levels were determined by a fluorescent modification of the Griess method, and silicon chip sensor pH meter, respectively. Protein levels in EBC were examined with a bicinchoninic acid (BCA) assay, silver staining and PAGE techniques, while the levels of tumour markers, CYFRA 21-1 and CEA, were quantified by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA). Results: The eNose machine was not able to produce characteristic VOC profiles from exhaled breath unique to each study group, while no significant difference was observed for mean NOx concentrations in the LC group when compared to other subjects (p=0.8824). Higher protein levels were found in the EBC of LC patient compared to normal controls (p=0.0204), with subsequent measurements of elevated CEA levels observed in the LC group when compared to non-smokers and smokers (p=0.023). Conclusion: This study showed that protein can be detected in the exhaled breath condensate of patients, with a significantly elevated amount in the samples from newly diagnosed LC patients. The mechanism for these differences remains to be determined but may be related to inflammatory changes within the airway, such as vascular protein leakage and release of mediators. Future work may aim to identify the upregulated proteins, and focus on proteomics and tissue microarrays to explore candidate proteins.

It has been known that volatile oil and gas condensate reservoirs cannot be modeled accurately with conventional black-oil models. One variation to the black-oil approach is the modified black-oil (MBO) model that allows the use of a simple, and less expensive computational algorithm than a fully compositional model that can result in significant timesaving in full field studies. The MBO model was tested against the fully compositional model and performances of both models were compared using various production and injection scenarios for a rich gas condensate reservoir. The software used to perform the compositional and MBO runs were Eclipse 300 and Eclipse 100 versions 2002A. The effects of black-oil PVT table generation methods, uniform composition and compositional gradient with depth, initialization methods, location of the completions, production and injection rates, kv/kh ratios on the performance of the MBO model were investigated. Vertical wells and horizontal wells with different drain hole lengths were used. Contrary to the common belief that oil-gas ratio versus depth initialization gives better representation of original fluids in place, initializations with saturation pressure versus depth gave closer original fluids in place considering the true initial fluids in place are given by the fully compositional model initialized with compositional gradient. Compared to the compositional model, results showed that initially there was a discrepancy in saturation pressures with depth in the MBO model whether it was initialized with solution gas-oil ratio (GOR) and oil-gas ratio (OGR) or dew point pressure versus depth tables. In the MBO model this discrepancy resulted in earlier condensation and lower oil production rates than compositional model at the beginning of the simulation. Unrealistic vaporization in the MBO model was encountered in both natural depletion and cycling cases. Oil saturation profiles illustrated the differences in condensate saturation distribution for the near wellbore area and the entire reservoir even though the production performance of the models was in good agreement. The MBO model representation of compositional phenomena for a gas condensate reservoir proved to be successful in the following cases: full pressure maintenance, reduced vertical communication, vertical well with upper completions, and producer set as a horizontal well.

Altering the wettability of reservoir rock using fluoro-chemical treatments has proved to be a viable solution to the condensate blocking problem in gas wells. Alteration of rock wettability to neutral-wet is the primary reason for improvement in gas and condensate relative permeabilities. Stability/compatibility test, drop tests and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis along with core flood results were used to characterize wettability changes. XPS tests, drop tests, and relative permeability measurements were conducted and correlated with each other. It is shown that XPS analysis and imbibition tests provide a quantitative measure of chemical adsorption and surface modification, but only a qualitative measure of the possible change in relative permeability. As such these simple analytical tools may be used as a screening tool. A positive but imperfect empirical correlation was obtained with results from core flood experiments. The varying concentration of fluorine observed on the rock surface was found to be directly correlated to the wettability change in the rock, which in turn is responsible for improving the deliverability of wells in gas condensate/volatile oil reservoirs. The method discussed in this thesis can be used to identify chemical treatments to change rock wettability and, therefore, relative permeability. This provides a simple, quick and inexpensive way to screen chemicals as wettability altering agents and relative permeability modifiers which saves time, cost and effort. / text

The correlation function is the critical ingredient for Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) sum-rule methods that are used to predict hadronic properties. Thus, in order to perform a sum-rule analysis of hybrids, we need to compute a correlation function involving an operator that probes hybrid states composed to quark-antiquark pair with a gluonic excitation. Using particular combinations of quark and gluon fields and Dirac matrices, we construct currents that probe hybrid states with various J^{PC} quantum numbers. We compute the correlation function to order g_s^3 in QCD, obtaining both perturbative and condensate contributions. The focus here is on light quarkonium and strangeonium hybrids, which involve quark masses small compared to the external momentum scale (m_q^2 << Q^2). While for light quarkonium the calculations are performed in the massless limit, for strangeonium we include a strange quark mass correction to the perturbative result. While the details of the calculations outlined throughout this thesis are outlined for J^{PC} = 0^{+-} and 1^{--} due to interest in the exotic quantum numbers 0^{+-}, ultimately the correlation function is computed for all J^{PC} values with J=0,1. Comparison with existing results for a subset of these J^{PC} quantum numbers provides a validation of our calculations.

An apparatus for producing atomic-gas Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) of 87-Rb atoms is described. The apparatus produces 87-Rb BECs in a dual-chamber vacuumsystem that incorporates magnetic transport of trapped atoms from the magneto-optical trapping cell to the BEC production cell via the operation of a series of overlapping magnet coils. The design, construction, and operation of the apparatus are described in detail.The apparatus is used to study the creation of quantized vortices in BECs by the merging and interference of multiple trapped condensates. In this experiment, a single harmonic potential well is partitioned into three sections by an optical barrier,enabling the simultaneous formation of three independent, uncorrelated BECs. The BECs may either merge together during their growth, or, for high-energy barriers, the BECs can be merged together by barrier removal after their formation. Either process may instigate vortex formation in the resulting BEC, depending on the initially indeterminate relative phases of the condensates and the merging rate.

Cooperative effects in many-particle systems can be exploited to achieve measurement outcomes not possible with independent probe particles. We explore two measurement applications based on the cooperative phenomenon of superradiance or on correlated quantum states closely related to superradiance. In the first application we study the off-resonant superradiant Raman scattering of light from an ultracold Bose atomic vapor. We investigate the temperature dependence of superradiance for a trapped vapor and show that in the regime where superradiance occurs on a timescale comparable to a trap frequency, scattering takes place preferentially from atoms in the lowest trap levels due to Doppler dephasing. As a consequence, below the critical temperature for Bose condensation, absorption images of transmitted light serve as a direct probe of the condensed state. Subsequently, we consider a pure condensate and study the time-dependent spatial features of transmitted light, obtaining good qualitative agreement with recent imaging experiments. Inclusion of quantum fluctuations in the initial stages of the superradiant emission accounts well for shot-to-shot fluctuations. Secondly, we have used simulated annealing, a global optimization strategy, to systematically search for correlated quantum interferometer input states that approach the Heisenberg limited uncertainty in estimates of the interferometer phase shift. That limit improves over the standard quantum limit to the phase sensitivity of interferometric measurements by a factor of 1√N, where N is the number of interfering particles. We compare the performance of these states to that of other non-classical states already known to yield Heisenberg limited uncertainty.

It has been known that volatile oil and gas condensate reservoirs cannot be modeled accurately with conventional black-oil models. One variation to the black-oil approach is the modified black-oil (MBO) model that allows the use of a simple, and less expensive computational algorithm than a fully compositional model that can result in significant timesaving in full field studies. The MBO model was tested against the fully compositional model and performances of both models were compared using various production and injection scenarios for a rich gas condensate reservoir. The software used to perform the compositional and MBO runs were Eclipse 300 and Eclipse 100 versions 2002A. The effects of black-oil PVT table generation methods, uniform composition and compositional gradient with depth, initialization methods, location of the completions, production and injection rates, kv/kh ratios on the performance of the MBO model were investigated. Vertical wells and horizontal wells with different drain hole lengths were used. Contrary to the common belief that oil-gas ratio versus depth initialization gives better representation of original fluids in place, initializations with saturation pressure versus depth gave closer original fluids in place considering the true initial fluids in place are given by the fully compositional model initialized with compositional gradient. Compared to the compositional model, results showed that initially there was a discrepancy in saturation pressures with depth in the MBO model whether it was initialized with solution gas-oil ratio (GOR) and oil-gas ratio (OGR) or dew point pressure versus depth tables. In the MBO model this discrepancy resulted in earlier condensation and lower oil production rates than compositional model at the beginning of the simulation. Unrealistic vaporization in the MBO model was encountered in both natural depletion and cycling cases. Oil saturation profiles illustrated the differences in condensate saturation distribution for the near wellbore area and the entire reservoir even though the production performance of the models was in good agreement. The MBO model representation of compositional phenomena for a gas condensate reservoir proved to be successful in the following cases: full pressure maintenance, reduced vertical communication, vertical well with upper completions, and producer set as a horizontal well.

The kiln drying of wood produces huge amounts of vapour. The vapour is released to the environment when the process purges some of the saturated hot air. The main environmental issue regarding the use of kiln drying process are the release of the water vapour which contains organic contaminants. Some of them are hazardous to human health. In addition, there are some wood particles which may released with the water vapour purging process. In this research, the vapour is condensed and analysed for its organic contaminants and their biodegradability. The result showed that the dominant contaminants present in the condensate were ethanol and methanol with the concentration of approximately 65 mg/L and 25 mg/L respectively. The average COD concentration of the condensate was 159 ± 40 mg/L. The analysis also showed that the contaminants were biodegradable. In order to treat the wastewater, a trickling filter process using bark chips as a support medium was used to treat an artificial wastewater. The artificial wastewater contained the dominant contaminant present in the wood drying condensate. In the experiment, different sizes of bark chips were used. In addition, the loading rate of the treatment system was varied by changing the flow rate and contaminant concentration. The 30 cm long trickling filter using bark chips varying between of 2.8 – 4 mm diameter as the support medium gave a maximum removal of 36.4 % with removal capacity of 8.34 kg COD/m³bed•day at a flow rate of 2.8 cm/min and average inlet COD load of 20.4 kg COD/m3bed•day. The trickling filter with bark chips varying between 5.6 – 8 mm diameter as the support medium was operated using variations in contaminant concentration and flow rate. The operation using different inlet concentration gave the highest removal rate of 13.5 kg COD/m3bed•day at average initial load of 84.9 kg COD/m³bed•day, flow rate of 2.8 cm/min and theoretical initial concentration of 680 mg/L. The trickling filter operated with flow rate variation showed the highest removal rate of 10 kg COD/m³bed•day at an average inlet load of 53.3 kg COD/m³bed•day and flow rate of 7.1 cm/min. The removal rate of the contaminants in treatment was limited. There is a number of possible explanations. First is the active surface area, which indicating the area where the contact between the biofilm surface and feed happened. The active surface area increased as the flow rate increased. Second is the residence time of the feed in the bed. The residence time of the feed varied with the flow rate. It decreased as the flow rate increased. Third is the influence of the contaminants in the feed. The presence of methanol and methanol in the feed inhibited each other’s degradation. The dimention of a full-scale biotrickling filter to be used in actual kiln was also estimated. The estimation was made based on the maximum removal rate and optimum flow rate obtained in the experiments. The result of the estimation showed to obtain significant removal, the required bed would have to be 2.35 m in diameter and 160 in height.