Metastable states such as gels and glasses that are commonly seen in nanoparticle suspensions have found application in a wide range of products including toothpaste, hand cream, paints, and car tires. The equilibrium and metastable state behavior of nanoparticle suspensions are often described by simple fluid models where particles are treated as having hard cores and interacting with short-ra...

We report on the observation of two types of current driven transitions in metastable vortex lattices. The metastable states, which are missed in usual slow transport measurements, are detected with a fast transport technique in the vortex lattice of undoped 2H-NbSe2. The transitions are seen by following the evolution of these states when driven by a current. At low currents we observe an equi...

We investigate the metastable behaviour of reversible Markov chains on countable infinite state spaces. Based on a definition of metastable sets, we compute precisely the mean exit time from a metastable set. Under additional size and regularity properties of metastable sets, we establish asymptotic sharp estimates on the Poincaré and logarithmic Sobolev constant. The main ingredient are capaci...

As all state holding elements, Muller C-elements are prone to metastable upsets [1], [2], [3]. In case of an input spike or a short overlap of both input signals, a metastable state may arise in the element. The cause for the problem is that the storage loop starts to flip its state but while doing so, the input is removed and the loop is left in an undecided state. Based only on the characteri...

We simultaneously confine fermionic metastable 3He atoms and bosonic metastable 4He atoms in a magneto-optical trap. The trapped clouds, containing up to 1.5 x 10(8) atoms of each isotope, are characterized by measuring ions and metastable helium atoms escaping from the trap. Optical pumping of 3He atoms to a nontrapped hyperfine state is investigated and it is shown that large atom numbers can...

We study the nonequilibrium dynamics of quantum jumps in a one-dimensional chain of atoms. Each atom is driven on a strong transition to a short-lived state and on a weak transition to a metastable state. We choose the metastable state to be a Rydberg state so that when an atom jumps to the Rydberg state, it inhibits or enhances jumps in the neighboring atoms. This leads to rich spatiotemporal ...

Encoding equilibrium states of matter in the format of phase diagrams is among the basic, and at the same time most fruitful concepts in solid state and materials chemistry. Its appealing stringency is related to the fact that any equilibrium state of matter, as characterized by its phase content (defined by the phases present, their compositions, and concentrations) and the respective componen...