22,175 research outputs found
Myelin figures: the buckling and flow of wet soap
Myelin figures are interfacial structures formed when certain surfactants
swell in excess water. Here, I present data and model calculations suggesting
myelin formation and growth is due to the fluid flow of surfactant, driven by
the hydration gradient at the dry surfactant/water interface; a simple model
based on this idea qualitatively reproduces the various myelin growth behaviors
observed in different experiments. From a detailed experimental observation of
how myelins develop from a planar precursor structure, I identify a mechanical
instability that may underlie myelin formation. These results indicate the
mixed mechanical character of the surfactant lamellar structure, where fluid
and elastic properties coexist, is what enables the formation and growth of
myelins.Comment: 11 pages, 10 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. E. Corrected
figures/typo
The effect of inelastic processes on tunneling
We study an electron that interacts with phonons or other linear or nonlinear
excitations as it resonantly tunnels. The method we use is based on mapping a
many-body problem in a large variational space exactly onto a one-body problem.
The method is conceptually simpler than previous Green's function approaches,
and allows the essentially exact numerical solution of much more general
problems. We solve tunneling problems with transverse channels, multiple sites
coupled to phonons, and multiple phonon degrees of freedom and excitations.Comment: 12 pages, REVTex, 4 figures in compressed tar .ps forma
Comment on ``Superconducting PrBa_2Cu_3O_x''
Recently, Zou et al. (Phys. Rev. Lett. 80, 1074, 1998) reported the
observation of bulk superconductivity (SC) for a PrBa_2Cu_3O_x (Pr123) single
crystal grown by the traveling-solvent floating zone (TSFZ) method. The aim of
this Comment is to show the inconsistency of the value of effective magnetic
moment \mu_{eff} reported by Zou et al. (2.92\mu_B) with their magnetic
susceptibility data. The estimation made directly from their data points gives
a considerably smaller value of \mu_{eff}=2.09\mu_B. At the same time the
values of mu_{eff}=2.9\mu_B and 3.1\mu_B were obtained for our Pr123 single
crystals grown by flux method for H||ab-plane and H||c-axis, respectively. This
suggests that Pr occupies only about a half of the RE sites in TSFZ crystal.
The other half of the RE sites is occupied most probably by the nonmagnetic Ba.
Noteworthy, SC with T_c=43 K was observed earlier for
Pr_{0.5}Ca_{0.5}Ba_2Cu_3O_{7-y} thin films. Ba^{2+} has a larger ionic radius
than Pr^{3+} and so the substitution of Ba for Pr could give a natural
explanation not only for the SC in TSFZ Pr123 but also for the elongation of
the distance between the CuO_2 planes observed by Zou et al.Comment: Slightly extended version of Comment accepted to Phys. Rev. Lett.
(v.81, N24, 1998), tentatevely to be publ. 14Dec98. 1 page, REVTex; 1 EPS fi
Switching barrier scaling near bifurcation points for non-Gaussian noise
We study noise-induced switching of a system close to bifurcation parameter
values where the number of stable states changes. For non-Gaussian noise, the
switching exponent, which gives the logarithm of the switching rate, displays a
non-power-law dependence on the distance to the bifurcation point. This
dependence is found for Poisson noise. Even weak additional Gaussian noise
dominates switching sufficiently close to the bifurcation point, leading to a
crossover in the behavior of the switching exponent
Reversible Fluorination of Graphene: towards a Two-Dimensional Wide Bandgap Semiconductor
We report the synthesis and evidence of graphene fluoride, a two-dimensional
wide bandgap semiconductor derived from graphene. Graphene fluoride exhibits
hexagonal crystalline order and strongly insulating behavior with resistance
exceeding 10 G at room temperature. Electron transport in graphene
fluoride is well described by variable-range hopping in two dimensions due to
the presence of localized states in the band gap. Graphene obtained through the
reduction of graphene fluoride is highly conductive, exhibiting a resistivity
of less than 100 k at room temperature. Our approach provides a new
path to reversibly engineer the band structure and conductivity of graphene for
electronic and optical applications.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, revtex, to appear in PR
The backbone of the climate network
We propose a method to reconstruct and analyze a complex network from data
generated by a spatio-temporal dynamical system, relying on the nonlinear
mutual information of time series analysis and betweenness centrality of
complex network theory. We show, that this approach reveals a rich internal
structure in complex climate networks constructed from reanalysis and model
surface air temperature data. Our novel method uncovers peculiar wave-like
structures of high energy flow, that we relate to global surface ocean
currents. This points to a major role of the oceanic surface circulation in
coupling and stabilizing the global temperature field in the long term mean
(140 years for the model run and 60 years for reanalysis data). We find that
these results cannot be obtained using classical linear methods of multivariate
data analysis, and have ensured their robustness by intensive significance
testing.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure
Magnetic behavior of nanocrystalline ErCo2
We have investigated the magnetic behavior of the nanocrystalline form of a
well-known Laves phase compound, ErCo2 - the bulk form of which has been known
to undergo an interesting first-order ferrimagnetic ordering near 32 K -
synthesized by high-energy ball-milling. It is found that, in these
nanocrystallites, Co exhibits ferromagnetic order at room temperature as
inferred from the magnetization data. However, the magnetic transition
temperature for Er sublattice remains essentially unaffected as though the
(Er)4f-Co(3d) coupling is weak on Er magnetism. The net magnetic moment as
measured at high fields, sat at 120 kOe, is significantly reduced with respect
to that for the bulk in the ferrimagnetically ordered state and possible
reasons are outlined. We have also compared the magnetocaloric behavior for the
bulk and the nano particles.Comment: JPCM, in pres
The , , and decays in the perturbative QCD approach
Two-body non-leptonic charmed decays , ,
and are analyzed in perturbative QCD approach, where
and denote the light pseudoscalar meson and vector meson, respectively.
We test the meson wave function by a fit with experimental data of
six channels. We give the branching ratios of all the charmed B decay
channels, most of which agree with experiments amazingly well. The predicted
decays can be confronted with the future experimental data. By
straightforward calculations, our pQCD approach gives the right relative strong
phase of with experiments. We also predict the percentage of
transverse polarizations in decay channels.Comment: 25 pages, 4 figure
On the structure of the scalar mesons and
We investigate the structure of the scalar mesons and
within realistic meson-exchange models of the and
interactions. Starting from a modified version of the J\"ulich model for
scattering we perform an analysis of the pole structure of the
resulting scattering amplitude and find, in contrast to existing models, a
somewhat large mass for the ( MeV,
MeV). It is shown that our model provides a description of
data comparable in quality with those of
alternative models. Furthermore, the formalism developed for the
system is consistently extended to the interaction leading to a
description of the as a dynamically generated threshold effect
(which is therefore neither a conventional state nor a
bound state). Exploring the corresponding pole position the
is found to be rather broad ( MeV,
MeV). The experimentally observed smaller width results from the influence of
the nearby threshold on this pole.Comment: 25 pages, 15 Postscript figure
Evidence for Interlayer Electronic Coupling in Multilayer Epitaxial Graphene from Polarization Dependent Coherently Controlled Photocurrent Generation
Most experimental studies to date of multilayer epitaxial graphene on C-face
SiC have indicated that the electronic states of different layers are decoupled
as a consequence of rotational stacking. We have measured the third order
nonlinear tensor in epitaxial graphene as a novel approach to probe interlayer
electronic coupling, by studying THz emission from coherently controlled
photocurrents as a function of the optical pump and THz beam polarizations. We
find that the polarization dependence of the coherently controlled THz emission
expected from perfectly uncoupled layers, i.e. a single graphene sheet, is not
observed. We hypothesize that the observed angular dependence arises from weak
coupling between the layers; a model calculation of the angular dependence
treating the multilayer structure as a stack of independent bilayers with
variable interlayer coupling qualitatively reproduces the polarization
dependence, providing evidence for coupling.Comment: submitted to Nano Letter
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