660 research outputs found
Charge and orbital order in Fe_3O_4
Charge and orbital ordering in the low-temperature monoclinic structure of
magnetite (Fe_3O_4) is investigated using LSDA+U. While the difference between
t_{2g} minority occupancies of Fe^{2+}_B and Fe^{3+}_B cations is large and
gives direct evidence for charge ordering, the screening is so effective that
the total 3d charge disproportion is rather small. The charge order has a
pronounced [001] modulation, which is incompatible with the Anderson criterion.
The orbital order agrees with the Kugel-Khomskii theory.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
Long range polarization attraction between two different likely charged macroions
It is known that in a water solution with multivalent counterions (Z-ions),
two likely charged macroions can attract each other due to correlations of
Z-ions adsorbed on their surfaces. This "correlation" attraction is
short-ranged and decays exponentially with increasing distance between
macroions at characteristic distance A/2\pi, where A is the average distance
between Z-ions on the surfaces of macroions. In this work, we show that an
additional long range "polarization" attraction exists when the bare surface
charge densities of the two macroions have the same sign, but are different in
absolute values. The key idea is that with adsorbed Z-ions, two insulating
macroions can be considered as conductors with fixed but different electric
potentials. Each potential is determined by the difference between the entropic
bulk chemical potential of a Z-ion and its correlation chemical potential at
the surface of the macroion determined by its bare surface charge density. When
the two macroions are close enough, they get polarized in such a way that their
adjacent spots form a charged capacitor, which leads to attraction. In a salt
free solution this polarization attractive force is long ranged: it decays as a
power of the distance between the surfaces of two macroions, d. The
polarization force decays slower than the van der Waals attraction and
therefore is much larger than it in a large range of distances. In the presence
of large amount of monovalent salt, when A/2\pi<< d<< r_s (r_s is the
Debye-H\"{u}ckel screening radius), this force is still much stronger than the
van der Waals attraction and the correlation attraction mentioned above.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures. Small change in the text, no change in result
Charge ordering in the spinels AlVO and LiVO
We develop a microscopic theory for the charge ordering (CO) transitions in
the spinels AlVO and LiVO (under pressure). The high degeneracy
of CO states is lifted by a coupling to the rhombohedral lattice deformations
which favors transition to a CO state with inequivalent V(1) and V(2) sites
forming Kagom\'e and trigonal planes respectively. We construct an extended
Hubbard type model including a deformation potential which is treated in
unrestricted Hartree Fock approximation and describes correctly the observed
first-order CO transition. We also discuss the influence of associated orbital
order. Furthermore we suggest that due to different band fillings AlVO
should remain metallic while LiVO under pressure should become a
semiconductor when charge disproportionation sets in
Direct test of defect mediated laser induced melting theory for two dimensional solids
We investigate by direct numerical solution of appropriate renormalization
flow equations, the validity of a recent dislocation unbinding theory for laser
induced freezing/melting in two dimensions. The bare elastic moduli and
dislocation fugacities which are inputs to the flow equations are obtained for
three different 2-d systems (hard disk, inverse power and the
Derjaguin-Landau-Verwey-Overbeek potentials) from a restricted Monte Carlo
simulation sampling only configurations {\em without} dislocations. We conclude
that (a) the flow equations need to be correct at least up to third order in
defect fugacity to reproduce meaningful results, (b) there is excellent
quantitative agreement between our results and earlier conventional Monte Carlo
simulations for the hard disk system and (c) while the qualitative form of the
phase diagram is reproduced for systems with soft potentials there is some
quantitative discrepancy which we explain.Comment: 11 pages, 14 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.
Motor skill learning in the middle-aged: limited development of motor chunks and explicit sequence knowledge
The present study examined whether middle-aged participants, like young adults, learn movement patterns by preparing and executing integrated sequence representations (i.e., motor chunks) that eliminate the need for external guidance of individual movements. Twenty-four middle-aged participants (aged 55–62) practiced two fixed key press sequences, one including three and one including six key presses in the discrete sequence production task. Their performance was compared with that of 24 young adults (aged 18–28). In the middle-aged participants motor chunks as well as explicit sequence knowledge appeared to be less developed than in the young adults. This held especially with respect to the unstructured 6-key sequences in which most middle-aged did not develop independence of the key-specific stimuli and learning seems to have been based on associative learning. These results are in line with the notion that sequence learning involves several mechanisms and that aging affects the relative contribution of these mechanisms
Field theory for size- and charge asymmetric primitive model of electrolytes. Mean-field stability analysis and pretransitional effects
The primitive model of ionic systems is investigated within a field-theoretic
description for the whole range of size-, \lambda, and charge, Z, ratios of the
two ionic species. Two order parameters (OP) are identified, and their
relations to physically relevant quantities are described for various values of
\lambda and Z. Instabilities of the disordered phase associated with the two
OP's are determined in the mean-field approximation.
A gas-liquid separation occurs for any Z and \lambda different from 1. In
addition, an instability with respect to various types of periodic ordering of
the two kinds of ions is found
Role of Orbitals in the Physics of Correlated Electron Systems
Rich properties of systems with strongly correlated electrons, such as
transition metal oxides, is largely connected with an interplay of different
degrees of freedom in them: charge, spin, orbital ones, as well as crystal
lattice. Specific and often very important role is played by orbital degrees of
freedom. In this comment I will shortly summarize the main concepts and discuss
some of the well-known manifestations of orbital degrees of freedom, but will
mostly concentrate on a recent development in this field.Comment: To be published in "Comments on Solid State Physics", part of
"Physica Scripta
Self-trapped electrons and holes in PbBr crystals
We have directly observed self-trapped electrons and holes in PbBr
crystals with electron-spin-resonance (ESR) technique. The self-trapped states
are induced below 8 K by two-photon interband excitation with pulsed
120-fs-width laser light at 3.10 eV. Spin-Hamiltonian analyses of the ESR
signals have revealed that the self-trapping electron centers are the dimer
molecules of Pb along the crystallographic a axis and the
self-trapping hole centers are those of Br with two possible
configurations in the unit cell of the crystal. Thermal stability of the
self-trapped electrons and holes suggests that both of them are related to the
blue-green luminescence band at 2.55 eV coming from recombination of spatially
separated electron-hole pairs.Comment: 8 pages (7 figures, 2 tables), ReVTEX; revised the text and figures
1, 4, and
- …