732 research outputs found
New Enhanced Tunneling in Nuclear Processes
The small sub-barrier tunneling probability of nuclear processes can be
dramatically enhanced by collision with incident charged particles.
Semiclassical methods of theory of complex trajectories have been applied to
nuclear tunneling, and conditions for the effects have been obtained. We
demonstrate the enhancement of alpha particle decay by incident proton with
energy of about 0.25 MeV. We show that the general features of this process are
common for other sub-barrier nuclear processes and can be applied to nuclear
fission.Comment: RevTex4, 2 figure
Vortex liquid crystals in anisotropic type II superconductors
In a type II superconductor in a moderate magnetic field, the superconductor
to normal state transition may be described as a phase transition in which the
vortex lattice melts into a liquid. In a biaxial superconductor, or even a
uniaxial superconductor with magnetic field oriented perpendicular to the
symmetry axis, the vortices acquire elongated cross sections and interactions.
Systems of anisotropic, interacting constituents generally exhibit liquid
crystalline phases. We examine the possibility of a two step melting in
homogeneous type II superconductors with anisotropic superfluid stiffness from
a vortex lattice into first a vortex smectic and then a vortex nematic at high
temperature and magnetic field. We find that fluctuations of the ordered phase
favor an instability to an intermediate smectic-A in the absence of intrinsic
pinning
Two-dimensional tunneling in a SQUID
Traditionally quantum tunneling in a static SQUID is studied on the basis of
a classical trajectory in imaginary time under a two-dimensional potential
barrier. The trajectory connects a potential well and an outer region crossing
their borders in perpendicular directions. In contrast to that main-path
mechanism, a wide set of trajectories with components tangent to the border of
the well can constitute an alternative mechanism of multi-path tunneling. The
phenomenon is essentially non-one-dimensional. Continuously distributed paths
under the barrier result in enhancement of tunneling probability. A type of
tunneling mechanism (main-path or multi-path) depends on character of a state
in the potential well prior to tunneling.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figure
Microscopic theory of thermal phase slips in clean narrow superconducting wires
We consider structure of a thermal phase-slip center for a simple microscopic
model of a clean one-dimensional superconductors in which superconductivity
occurs only within one conducting channel or several identical channels.
Surprisingly, the Eilenberger equations describing the saddle-point
configuration allow for exact analytical solution in the whole temperature and
current range. This solution allows us to derive a closed expression for the
free-energy barrier, which we use to compute its temperature and current
dependences
Current-voltage characteristic of narrow superconducting wires: bifurcation phenomena
The current-voltage characteristics of long and narrow superconducting
channels are investigated using the time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau equations
for complex order parameter. We found out that the steps in the current voltage
characteristic can be associated with bifurcations of either steady or
oscillatory solution. We revealed typical instabilities which induced the
singularities in current-voltage characteristics, and analytically estimated
period of oscillations and average voltage in the vicinity of the critical
currents. Our results show that these bifurcations can substantially complicate
dynamics of the order parameter and eventually lead to appearance of such
phenomena as multistability and chaos. The discussed bifurcation phenomena
sheds a light on some recent experimental findings
Direct experimental observation of binary agglomerates in complex plasmas
A defocusing imaging technique has been used as a diagnostic to identify
binary agglomerates (dimers) in complex plasmas. Quasi-two-dimensional plasma
crystal consisting of monodisperse spheres and binary agglomerates has been
created where the agglomerated particles levitate just below the spherical
particles without forming vertical pairs. Unlike spherical particles, the
defocused images of binary agglomerates show distinct, stationary/periodically
rotating interference fringe patterns. The results can be of fundamental
importance for future experiments on complex plasmas
Theory of terahertz electric oscillations by supercooled superconductors
We predict that below T_c a regime of negative differential conductivity
(NDC) can be reached. The superconductor should be supercooled to T<T_c in the
normal phase under DC voltage. In such a nonequilibrium situation the NDC of
the superconductor is created by the excess conductivity of the fluctuation
Cooper pairs. We propose NDC of supercooled superconductors to be used as an
active medium for generation of electric oscillations. Such generators can be
used in the superconducting electronics as a new type THz source of radiation.
Oscillations can be modulated by the change of the bias voltage, electrostatic
doping by a gate electrode when the superconductor is the channel of a field
effect transistor, or by light. When small amplitude oscillations are
stabilized near the critical temperature T_c the generator can be used as a
bolometer. The essential for the applications NDC is predicted by the solution
of the Boltzmann kinetic equation for the metastable in the normal phase Cooper
pairs. Boltzmann equation for fluctuation Cooper pairs is a result of
state-of-the-art application of the microscopic theory of superconductivity.
Our theoretical conclusions are based on some approximations like time
dependent Ginzburg-Landau theory, but nevertheless can reliably predict
appearance of NDC. The maximal frequency at which superconductors can operate
as generators is determined by the critical temperature \hbar omega_max ~ k_B
T_c. For high-T_c superconductors this maximal frequency falls well inside the
terahertz range. Technical conditions to avoid nucleation of the
superconducting phase are briefly discussed. We suggest that nanostructured
high-T_c superconductors patterned in a single chip can give the best technical
performance of the proposed oscillator.Comment: 7 page
Practical dispersion relations for strongly coupled plasma fluids
Very simple explicit analytical expressions are discussed, which are able to
describe the dispersion relations of longitudinal waves in strongly coupled
plasma systems such as one-component plasma and weakly screened Yukawa fluids
with a very good accuracy. Applications to other systems with soft pairwise
interactions are briefly discussed.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures; Related to arXiv:1711.0615
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