Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Physics / Itzhak Ben-Itzhak / The use of ultrafast lasers allows one to study and even control quantum mechanical systems on their natural timescales. Our aim is to study the fragmentation of small molecules in strong laser fields as a means to gain understanding of molecular dynamics and light-matter interactions. Our research group has utilized fast, positively charged molecular ion beams as targets to study and control fragmentation by strong laser fields. This approach allows for detection of all molecular fragments including neutrals, and a coincidence three-dimensional momentum imaging technique is used to characterize the fragmentation. A natural extension of these types of studies is to expand the types of molecular systems that can be studied, from positively charged molecules to neutral and negatively charged molecules. To that end, the primary technical development of this dissertation involved the generation and use of fast, negatively charged molecular beams. Using fast molecular anion beams as targets allows for the study of fragmentation in which all fragments are neutral. As a demonstration, we employ this capability to study F2- dissociation and photodetachment. The dissociation pathways are identified and used to evaluate the initial vibrational population of the F2- beam. The role of dissociation in photodetachment is also explored, and we find that it competes with other dissociative (F+F) and non-dissociative (F2) photodetachment mechanisms. Also highlighted are studies of fragmentation of LiO-, in which the dissociation into Li+O- fragments provides information about the structure of Li O-, including the bond dissociation energy, which was found to be larger than values based on theory. Studies of the autodetachment lifetimes of Li O- were also performed using a pump-probe technique. Additional experimental advancements have made successful pump-probe studies of the ionization of HD+ and Ar2+ possible. Enhancement in the ionization of dissociating HD+ and Ar2+ was observed at surprisingly large internuclear separation where the fragments are expected to behave like separate atoms. The analysis methods used to quantify this enhancement are also described. Finally, the production of excited Rydberg D* fragments from D2 molecules was studied utilizing a state-selective detection method. The carrier-envelope phase dependence of D* formation was found to depend on the range of excited final states of the atomic fragments. We also measured the excited state population of the D* fragments. Together, the studies presented in this work provide new information about fragmentation of positive, negative, and neutral molecules in strong laser fields, and the experimental developments serve as building blocks for future studies that will lead to a better understanding of molecular dynamics.

The main focus of this project was to prepare transparent and conductive electrodes (TCEs). TCEs were made out of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), reduced graphene oxide (rGO), and polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP). Based on the theoretical aspect, MWCNTs has emerged as a promising nanofiller in the polymer matrix due to its high electrical conductivity. As a nanofiller, MWCNTs were used with a small ratio of rGO with PVP as a polymer matrix in this project to prepare TCEs having low sheet resistance with high transparency. An appropriate amount of PVP has been shown to be a good combination with MWCNTs and rGO in the solvent to keep MWCNTs dispersed for a long time. Carboxyl group (-COOH) functionalized MWCNTs (FMWCNTs) was produced in a controlled oxidative procedure due to enabling good dispersion of FMWCNTs in water and ethanol solvents. In contrast, water dispersible rGO was chemically prepared by using GO and sodium borohydride where GO was produced from graphite by using improved Hummer's method. Drop casting and spray coating methods were applied to fabricate TCEswhere only water was used as the solvent for drop casted TCEs and a mixing ratio of water and ethanol was 70:30 as solvent for spray coated TCEs. It was also determined in this project that the spray coating method was more suitable for preparing TCEs rather than thedrop casting method due to easy fabrication, large area coating possibility, and the smoothness of the coated film surface. The sheet resistance was obtained as 5026 Ω/ ⃣  where the transparency was 65% in the case of the drop casted electrode for the ratio of rGO:FMWCNTs:PVP was 1.2:60:1 with 0.02 mg FMWCNTs. In the case of spray coated electrode at the same ratio of rGO:FMWCNTs:PVP, the sheet resistance was measured as 5961 Ω/ ⃣  where the transparency was 73%. But in the case of 60:1 mass ratio of FMWCNTs:PVP with 0.02 mg FMWCNTs, the sheet resistance was 7729 Ω/ ⃣  and transparency was 77% for spray coated electrode. So, it is clear that the sheet resistance was improved by adding a small mass ratio of rGO with FMWCNTs:PVP.

O complexo formado pela molécula de tetraciclina com o íon de magnésio é capaz de impedir a replicação do material genético no ribossomo bacteriano, tornando a tetraciclina um excelente antibiótico. Outra aplicação da tetraciclina, ligada ao íon európio, consiste em estimar a concentração de colesterol no sangue a partir das mudanças do espectro de emissão. Tal técnica apresenta uma resposta imediata e confiável, comparada às técnicas atuais. Emgeral, o espectro de absorção e emissão da tetraciclina é bastante sensível aos íons alojados e ao pH do solvente que o conjunto está imerso. Entretanto, o espectro de absorção teórico em solvente foi obtido com simples modelos contínuos que não consideram interações específicas impostas pelo ambiente no líquido, além da escassez de estudos teóricos para os complexos. Nossa proposta é obter o espectro de absorção eletrônica da tetraciclina e dos complexos formados com os íons Mg e Eu. Além disso, analisamos as mudanças de intensidade e deslocamentos dos máximos das bandas nos sistemas mencionados, em função do pH do solvente e do posicionamento do íon, estimando seu correto posicionamento. Realizamos a simulação clássica usando a técnica de Monte Carlo aplicando o potencial de Lennard-Jones mais Coulomb para cada átomo da molécula de tetraciclina e dos complexos em água. O espectro de absorção eletrônica foi obtido a partir da teoria funcional da densidade dependente do tempo considerando diversos modelos para descrição do solvente e do íon. Em geral, obtivemos uma boa descrição qualitativa dos espectros, quando comparado com os resultados experimentais. Os deslocamentos das bandas e mudanças de intensidades foram bem descritos pelos modelos que utilizaram a simulação clássica para gerar as configurações. Porém cada modelo privilegiou uma propriedade de um determinado sistema, tanto para as diferentes formas da tetraciclina quanto para a presença de íons. Palavras-chaves: tetraciclina, magnésio-tetraciclina, európio-tetraciclina, espectro de absorção, teoria do funcional da densidade dependente do tempo, simulação por Monte Carlo / The complex formed by the tetracycline molecule with the magnesium ion is able to avoid the replication of the genetic material in bacterial ribosome, making tetracycline an excellent antibiotic. Another application of tetracycline attached to the europium ion, is to evaluate the concentration of cholesterol in the blood from the changes in the emission spectrum. This technique presents an immediate and reliable response compared to current techniques. In general, the absorption and emission spectrum of tetracycline is sensitive to ions coupled and the pH of the solvent that the complex is immersed. However, the theoretical absorption spectrum in solvent was obtained with simple continuum models that do not consider specific interactions imposed by the liquid environment, and also the lack of theoretical studies for the complexes. Our proposal is to obtain the electronic absorption spectrum of tetracycline and complexes formed with the ions Mg and Eu. In addition, we analyze the changes in intensity and peak shifts of the bands in the systems mentioned as the function of pH of the solvent and the position of the ion, and estimating the correct position of the ion. We performed a simulation using the classical Monte Carlo technique applying the Lennard-Jones plus Coulomb potential for each atom of the molecule tetracycline and complexes in water. The electronic absorption spectrum was obtained with the time dependent density functional theory considering several models to describe the solvent and ion. In general, we obtained a good qualitative description of the spectra when compared to the experimental results. The shift of the bands and intensity changes were well described by the used models on classical simulation. However, each model favored one property of the system, both for the different forms of tetracycline and for the presence of ions. Keywords: tetracycline, magnesium-tetracycline, europium-tetracycline, absorption spectrum, time dependent density functional theory, Monte Carlo simulation

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Based on a multi-mode multi-level Jaynes-Cummings model and multi-photon resonance theory, a set of universal two-qubit and three-qubit gates has been realized where dual-rail qubits are encoded in cavities. In this way, the information has been stored in cavities and the off-resonant levels have been eliminated by the theory of an effective two-level Hamiltonian. A further model, namely the spin-J model, has been introduced so that a complete population inversion for levels of interest has been achieved and periodic multilevel multi-photon models have been performed. The combination of the two models has been employed to address two-level, three-level, four-level, and even five-level configurations. Considering the present cavity-QED experiments, several numerical simulations have been designed in order to check the robustness of the logic gates to variations in experimentally important parameters including the coupling constants and the detunings. Finally, based on Liouville's equation, and the wave-function treatments, the impact of decoherence processes on the fidelity of the qubit states in the iSWAP and the Fredkin gates has been studied. This thesis may have applications to quantum information processing, involving logic with simple quantum bits, with the possible application to the building of a quantum computer.

This thesis studies three aspects of gravity in quantum field theory. First quantum gravity effects are investigated using effective field theory techniques. In particular, we consider quantum gravity effects in grand unified theory and study their effects on the unification of the masses in such models. We find that the fermion masses unification conditions receive a sizeable correction from the quantum gravitational effects and one thus cannot predict the high energy unification only by the extrapolation from low energy physics without the understanding of gravitational effect in high energy. Secondly we study quantum field theory in curved spacetime in order to understand further about some of the properties of gravity. Keeping gravity as background field we discuss modified gravity theories in different set of parameters called frames; they are the Jordan frame and the Einstein frame respectively. We show how to map gravitational theories at the quantum field theoretical level. The key observation is that there is a non-trivial Jacobian. It can be interpreted as boundary term. Finally we investigate a new canonical quantisation paradigm. In that framework, quantum gravity is power counting renormalisable. Furthermore, the theory is unitary and the problem of time is solved. We use this framework to calculate the solution for the quantum wave function and the semiclassical Hamilton-Jacob function. We study the Hawking-Bekenstein entropy in the spherical symmetric mini-superspace for Schwarzschild black hole, and find that it can be produced naturally from first principles. Importantly it is accompanied naturally by non-thermal quantum correction terms which is generally believed to restore the information loss.

In this thesis we study several topics within the subject of extra dimensions and composite Higgs models. We first look at a scenario with a warped extra dimension known as the Randall-Sundrum (RS) model, and put all Standard Model fields in the bulk. We investigate various aspects of the model and argue that the presence of higher dimensional operators in the 5D bulk has a non-negligible effect on the electroweak precision observables, meaning that current electroweak constraints on non-custodial warped models could be weaker than previously thought. Then, using holographic techniques, we study correlations between the top partner masses and the Higgs potential in composite Higgs models. It is known that a light Higgs (~ 125 GeV) generally requires light top partners at around 700-800 GeV. However in these calculations the 5D volume is always fixed such that the 5D cutoff is around ~ MPl. The effect of lowering this 5D cutoff has been studied previously in bulk RS models as a way of reducing constraints from some flavour and electroweak precision observables, these models were dubbed "Little Randall-Sundrum models". Here we consider a similar setup in the context of holographic composite Higgs models and show that reducing the 5D cutoff leads to a lighter Higgs without a lowering of the top partner masses or an increase in fine-tuning. We find that the model is perfectly consistent with a 125 GeV Higgs and top partners above 1 TeV. This reduced 5D cutoff implies an intermediate scale between the electroweak scale and the Planck scale. Lastly we consider a similar warped model with a low 5D cutoff, except this time our goal is to study diphoton signals from Kaluza-Klein gravitons in a warped extra dimension. With a KK graviton of mass 750 GeV and spin-1 states at ~ 2:5 TeV, we show that having a low 5D cutoff increases the diphoton signal and the decay to gluons. With this model we show that we can explain the recently observed diphoton excess in terms of a Kaluza-Klein graviton from a holographic composite Higgs model, while keeping other decay channels within the relevant experimental bounds.

Laser systems and a linear radiofrequency (rf) Paul trap with an integrated co-axial cavity have been developed for experiments in cavity QED and probabilistic entanglement. Single 40Ca+ ions and large Coulomb crystals have been trapped routinely and laser cooled with long trapping lifetimes. A technique to achieve precise overlap of the pseudopotential minimum of the rf-field with the cavity mode has been implemented through variable capacitors in the resonant rf-circuit used to drive the trap. Three-dimensional micromotion compensation has been implemented. An 894 nm laser has been frequency stabilised to a Pound-Drever-Hall cavity which is in turn stabilised to atomic Cs using polarisation spectroscopy. The Allan variance of the error signal has been reduced to less than a kilohertz on timescales greater than a second. A novel implementation of the scanning cavity transfer lock has been developed to transfer the stability of the 894 nm laser to the 397 nm ion cooling and 866 nm repumping lasers. The bandwidth of the system has been increased to 380 Hz and the Allan variance of the error signal has been reduced to less than ten kilohertz on timescales of greater than a second. The pseudopotential minimum of the rf field has been overlapped optimally with the optical cavity mode through mapping of the fluorescence from cavity-field repumped ions as a function of their displacement. Coupling to the cavity mode has been confirmed by observation of resonant fluorescence into the cavity mode using the cavity-assisted Raman transition process. The thesis demonstrates that the setup is ready for the controlled production of single photons with pre-determined polarisation states, and progression onto new schemes to entangle multiple ions that are coupled to the optical cavity mode.

Deformations of nuclear fuel assemblies have been observed in nuclear power plants since the mid-90s. Such deformations are generally called bowing effects. Fuel assemblies under high irradiation undergo growth and creep induced by high loading forces and low skeleton stiffness of the assemblies which gives permanent deformations and modifies moderation regions. Hence, giving an unpredicted neutron flux spectrum, power distribution, and isotopic concentrations in the burnt fuel. The aim of this thesis is to study the effects of local fuel bowing in terms of power distribution and isotopic composition changes through simulations of the reactor core.  The reactor is simulated with realistic bowing maps and previous deterministically simulated realistic fuel data from a present reactor by deploying the Monte Carlo method using the nuclear reactor code Serpent 2. Two subparts of a full reactor core with fuel from separate fuel cycles are investigated in 2D using burnup. To quantify the impact of the bowing, the change in power distribution and the induced isotopic composition change are calculated by a relative difference between a nominal case and a simulation with perturbed fuel assemblies. The results are presented in colormaps, for visualization. The isotopic composition for U235, U238, Pu239, Nd148, and Cm244 are investigated. Also, statistical uncertainty estimations in the composition of the depleted fuel are done by multiple calculations of the same geometry while changing the seed of random variables in the Monte Carlo calculation. The mean value and the standard deviation in the mass density of U235 and Pu239 are calculated for two pins together with histograms with a normal fit for each case to clarify the mathematical distribution of the calculations.  The simulations performed in this thesis have detected clear impacts of the reactor behavior in terms of power distribution and isotopic composition in the burnt fuel introduced by the bowing. Assembly perturbations of about 10 mm may locally introduce a 10 % relative difference in power density and U235 content between the nominal and the bowed case at 15 MWd/kgU burnup. The power and the isotopic composition changes agree with expectations from the bowing maps.

Entanglement is an established resource in quantum information processing, and there is a clear imperative to study many-body systems both in quantum technology applications and for probing fundamental physical laws. Ion trap cavity quantum electrodynamics is a highly promising platform for research. Prerequisites are the controlled coupling of many ions to the cavity field along with the ability to initialize the quantum states and drive coherent transitions between them. A coaxial ion trap and high finesse cavity system has been shown to couple strings of up to five ions to the cavity mode with nearly optimal coupling strength thanks to precise control over their positions in the standing wave and their mutual Coulomb interaction. The predictive power of the theoretical model demonstrates that the scheme can be extended to more ions or to higher coupling regimes. In a separate experiment it has been demonstrated that a quantum state can be initialized, before coherently transferring the population to a qubit state through the cavity interaction. The emission of polarized photons in the cavity mode has been measured, taking the system closer to the generation of cluster states for quantum information research and fundamental studies in many-body entanglement. Building on the aforementioned work, an infrastructure has been put in place for the direct observation of vacuum Rabi oscillations between a single ion and the cavity. In this scheme, the contribution to the dynamics from the dominant incoherent channel is minimized through post-selection of the data. As a quantum system coupled to a reservoir with memory, it will provide experimental constraints on theoretical work in the field of non-Markovian dynamics.