The importance of Dr. Robert Kerr in Canadian history is not large, but he played a significant role in the early years of what is now Ontario. Though his Canadian years were spent largely in active military service and, after his discharge, at Kingston and in the Niagara peninsula, nevertheless, in the compact and sparse settlements and posts of the times he was widely known and influential. M...

Polarization independent liquid crystal (LC) microlens arrays based on controlling the spatial distribution of the Kerr constants of blue phase LC are simulated. Each sub-lens with a parabolic distribution of Kerr constants results in a parabolic phase profile when a homogeneous electric field is applied. We evaluate the phase distribution under different applied voltages, and the focusing prop...

Comment: This is a draft of an introductory chapter on the Kerr spacetime that is intended for use in the book “The Kerr spacetime”, currently being edited by Susan Scott, Matt Visser, and David Wiltshire. This chapter is intended as a teaser and brief introduction to the mathematics and physics of the Kerr spacetime — it is not, nor is it intended to be, a complete and exhaustive survey of eve...

We prove the existence of a family of initial data for the Einstein vacuum equation which can be interpreted as the data for two Kerr-like black holes in an arbitrary location and with spins pointing in arbitrary directions. We also provide a method to compute them. If the mass parameter of one of the black holes is zero, then this family reduces exactly to the Kerr initial data. The existence ...

— Chandrasekhar separated the Dirac equation for spinning and massive particles in Kerr geometry into radial and angular parts. In the present review, we present solutions of the complete wave equation and discuss how the Dirac wave scatters off Kerr black holes. The eigenfunctions, eigenvalues and reflection and transmission coefficients are computed for different Kerr parameters. We compare t...

We report observations of the dynamics of electromagnetically induced transparency EIT in a system when the ground states are Stark shifted. Interactions of this type exhibit large optical nonlinearities called Kerr nonlinearities, and have numerous applications. The EIT Kerr nonlinearity is relatively slow, which is a limiting factor that may make many potential applications impossible. Using ...

We predict that the effective nonlinear optical susceptibility can be tailored using the Purcell effect. While this is a general physical principle that applies to a wide variety of nonlinearities, we specifically investigate the Kerr nonlinearity. We show theoretically that using the Purcell effect for frequencies close to an atomic resonance can substantially influence the resultant Kerr nonl...

Apparatus and techniques are demonstrated which allow gas phase dc electro-optic Kerr effect measurements to be made with 0.1% absolute accuracy and nanoradian sensitivity. Measurements of the electric-field-induced birefringence of a gas are calibrated against a liquid Kerr cell, which is in turn calibrated absolutely in situ. Some of the problems addressed in this work are control of stray bi...

We show that the frame of the Kerr spinning particle consists of two topologically coupled strings. One of them is the Kerr singular ring representing a string with an orientifold world-sheet. It has electromagnetic excitations (traveling waves), which corresponds to the old model of the Kerr’s microgeon. The excitations induce the appearance of the extra axial string which is topologically cou...

It is shown numerically that strange matter rings permit a continuous transition to the extreme Kerr black hole. The multipoles as defined by Geroch and Hansen are studied and suggest a universal behaviour for bodies approaching the extreme Kerr solution parametrically. The appearance of a ‘throat region’, a distinctive feature of the extreme Kerr spacetime, is observed. With regard to stabilit...