1,361 research outputs found
Worker mobility under attack? Explaining labour market chauvinism in the EU
The aim of this paper is to investigate citizen views on the free movement of workers within the European Union (EU). We are interested in how situational and relational factors affect labour market chauvinist attitudes. Drawing on the threat theory, we advance new hypotheses on the role of intertemporal relative deprivation in amplifying chauvinist inclinations. From the intergroup contact theory and transnational approaches, we borrow insights on the role played by cross-border experiences and inclusion in discursive and associational networks in containing chauvinism. The analysis uses the original \u2018Reconciling Economic and Social Europe\u2019 (REScEU) survey conducted in six EU countries (i.e., France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and Sweden) in the fall of 2016. The article shows that \u2013 though rooted in class and status positions \u2013 chauvinist attitudes are clearly sensitive to contingent situations and lifeworld experiences
How does the geodesic rule really work for global symmetry breaking first order phase transitions?
The chain of events usually understood to lead to the formation of
topological defects during phase transitions is known as the Kibble mechanism.
A central component of the mechanism is the so-called ``geodesic rule''.
Although in the Abelian Higgs model the validity of the geodesic rule has been
questioned recently, it is known to be valid on energetic grounds for a global
U(1) symmetry breaking transition. However, even for these globally symmetric
models no dynamical analisys of the rule has been carried to this date, and
some points as to how events proceed still remain obscure. This paper tries to
clarify the dynamics of the geodesic rule in the context of a global U(1)
model. With an appropriate ansatz for the field modulus we find a family of
analytical expressions, phase walls, that accounts for both geodesic and
nongeodesic configurations. We then show how the latter ones are unstable and
decay into the former by nucleating pairs of defects. Finnally, we try to give
a physical perspective of how the geodesic rule might really work in these
transitions.Comment: 10 pages, 9 multiple figre
Epsilon-Near-Zero Al-Doped ZnO for Ultrafast Switching at Telecom Wavelengths: Outpacing the Traditional Amplitude-Bandwidth Trade-Off
Transparent conducting oxides have recently gained great attention as
CMOS-compatible materials for applications in nanophotonics due to their low
optical loss, metal-like behavior, versatile/tailorable optical properties, and
established fabrication procedures. In particular, aluminum doped zinc oxide
(AZO) is very attractive because its dielectric permittivity can be engineered
over a broad range in the near infrared and infrared. However, despite all
these beneficial features, the slow (> 100 ps) electron-hole recombination time
typical of these compounds still represents a fundamental limitation impeding
ultrafast optical modulation. Here we report the first epsilon-near-zero AZO
thin films which simultaneously exhibit ultra-fast carrier dynamics (excitation
and recombination time below 1 ps) and an outstanding reflectance modulation up
to 40% for very low pump fluence levels (< 4 mJ/cm2) at the telecom wavelength
of 1.3 {\mu}m. The unique properties of the demonstrated AZO thin films are the
result of a low temperature fabrication procedure promoting oxygen vacancies
and an ultra-high carrier concentration. As a proof-of-concept, an all-optical
AZO-based plasmonic modulator achieving 3 dB modulation in 7.5 {\mu}m and
operating at THz frequencies is numerically demonstrated. Our results overcome
the traditional "modulation depth vs. speed" trade-off by at least an order of
magnitude, placing AZO among the most promising compounds for
tunable/switchable nanophotonics.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figures, 1 tabl
Intercalation and dynamics of hydrated Fe2+ in the vermiculites from Santa Olalla and Ojén
Although the intercalation of Fe3+ into layered phyllosicilicates-especially into smectites-attracted much attention in the past two decades, the information about Fe2+ loaded phyllosilicates is sparse. Here we present an investigation of the Fe2+ exchanged vermiculites from Santa Olalla and Ojén (Andalusia, Spain) by means of Mössbauer spectroscopy. The room temperature Mössbauer spectra are very similar to those of the starting compounds (Na forms) except for a decrease of the contribution of structural Fe3+ and a concomitant increase of the contribution of Fe2+ sites, indicating an internal redox process. The extent of this redox reaction is different for the two vermiculites. Thus, the intercalated Fe2+ acts as an electron mediator from the external medium to the structural Fe3+ ions. A new component attributable to intercalated Fe2+ is practically invisible in the room temperature Mössbauer spectra, but increases strongly and continuously during cooling to 4.2 K, where it is the dominant feature of the Mössbauer patterns. At 4.2 K, its quadruple splitting amounts to 3.31 mm/s, which is in excellent agreement with the quadrupole slitting of Fe2+ coordinated to six water molecules in a highly symmetric octahedral arrangement. The strong decrease of the Mössbauer-Lamb factor of this component with increasing temperature indicates a weak bonding of the Fe 2+ in the interlayer space
Threshold Resummed Spectra in B -> Xu l nu Decays in NLO (I)
We evaluate thresholds resummed spectra in B -> Xu l nu decays in
next-to-leading order. We present results for the distribution in E_X and in
m_X^2/E_X^2, for the distribution in E_X and E_l and for the distribution in
E_X, where E_X and m_X are the energy and the invariant mass of the final
hadronic state Xu respectively and E_l is the energy of the charged lepton. We
explicitly show that all these spectra (where there is no integration over the
hadronic energy) can be directly related to the photon spectrum in B -> Xs
gamma via short-distance coefficient functions.Comment: 33 pages, no figures. The section on the double distribution in the
hadron and electron energies has been largely rewritten with an improved
resummation scheme. Small stylistic changes in the remaining sections.
References adde
Neutral Higgs-pair production at Linear Colliders within the general 2HDM: quantum effects and triple Higgs boson self-interactions
The pairwise production of neutral Higgs bosons is analyzed in the context of
the future linear colliders, such as the ILC and CLIC, within the general
Two-Higgs-Doublet Model (2HDM). The corresponding cross-sections are computed
at the one-loop level in full compliance with the current phenomenological
bounds and the stringent theoretical constraints inherent to the consistency of
the model. We uncover regions across the 2HDM parameter space, mainly for low
tan\beta near 1 and moderate values of the relevant lambda_5 parameter, wherein
the radiative corrections to the Higgs-pair production cross sections can
comfortably reach 50% This behavior can be traced back to the enhancement
capabilities of the trilinear Higgs self-interactions -- a trademark feature of
the 2HDM, with no counterpart in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model.
Interestingly enough, the quantum effects are positive for energies around 500
GeV, thereby producing a significant enhancement in the expected number of
events precisely around the fiducial startup energy of the ILC. The Higgs-pair
production rates can be substantial, typically amounting to a few thousand
events per 500 inverse femtobarn of integrated luminosity. In contrast, the
corrections are negative in the highest energy range (1 TeV). We also compare
the exclusive pairwise production of Higgs bosons with the inclusive gauge
boson fusion channels leading to 2H+X finals states, and also with the
exclusive triple Higgs boson production. We find that these multiparticle final
states can be highly complementary in the overall Higgs bosons search strategy.Comment: 42 pages, 23 figures, 10 tables. Accepted in Phys. Rev. D (the
published version is shorter
Polarization proximity effect in isolator crystal pairs
We experimentally studied the polarization dynamics (orientation and
ellipticity) of near infrared light transmitted through magnetooptic Yttrium
Iron Garnet crystal pairs using a modified balanced detection scheme. When the
pair separation is in the sub-millimeter range, we observed a proximity effect
in which the saturation field is reduced by up to 20%. 1D magnetostatic
calculations suggest that the proximity effect originates from magnetostatic
interactions between the dipole moments of the isolator crystals. This
substantial reduction of the saturation field is potentially useful for the
realization of low-power integrated magneto-optical devices.Comment: submitted to Optics Letter
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