Kinetic Monte Carlo simulation of the nitridation of the GaAs (100) surfaces

We present, in this work, our preliminary results of a systematic theoretical study of the adsorption of N over As-terminated GaAs (100) (2$\times$1) surfaces. We analyzed the changes in the bond-lenghts, bond-angles and the energetics involved before and after deposition. Our results show that the N-atoms will prefer the unoccupied sites of the surface, close to the As dimer. The presence of the N pushes the As dimer out of the surface, leading to the anion exchange between the N and As atoms. Based on our results, we discussed about the kinetics of the N islands formation during epitaxial growth of the III-Nitrides.Comment: 4 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in Braz. J. Phys., special number, Proceedings of BWSP-12, 12th Brazilian Workshop on Semiconductor Physic

Tracing the magnetic field morphology of the Lupus I molecular cloud

Deep R-band CCD linear polarimetry collected for fields with lines-of-sight toward the Lupus I molecular cloud is used to investigate the properties of the magnetic field within this molecular cloud. The observed sample contains about 7000 stars, almost 2000 of them with polarization signal-to-noise ratio larger than 5. These data cover almost the entire main molecular cloud and also sample two diffuse infrared patches in the neighborhood of Lupus I. The large scale pattern of the plane-of-sky projection of the magnetic field is perpendicular to the main axis of Lupus I, but parallel to the two diffuse infrared patches. A detailed analysis of our polarization data combined with the Herschel/SPIRE 350 um dust emission map shows that the principal filament of Lupus I is constituted by three main clumps acted by magnetic fields having different large-scale structure properties. These differences may be the reason for the observed distribution of pre- and protostellar objects along the molecular cloud and its apparent evolutive stage. On the other hand, assuming that the magnetic field is composed by a large-scale and a turbulent components, we find that the latter is rather similar in all three clumps. The estimated plane-of-sky component of the large-scale magnetic field ranges from about 70 uG to 200 uG in these clumps. The intensity increases towards the Galactic plane. The mass-to-magnetic flux ratio is much smaller than unity, implying that Lupus I is magnetically supported on large scales.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures. Accepted for publication in Ap

Electron-scale shear instabilities: magnetic field generation and particle acceleration in astrophysical jets

Strong shear flow regions found in astrophysical jets are shown to be important dissipation regions, where the shear flow kinetic energy is converted into electric and magnetic field energy via shear instabilities. The emergence of these self-consistent fields make shear flows significant sites for radiation emission and particle acceleration. We focus on electron-scale instabilities, namely the collisionless, unmagnetized Kelvin-Helmholtz instability (KHI) and a large-scale dc magnetic field generation mechanism on the electron scales. We show that these processes are important candidates to generate magnetic fields in the presence of strong velocity shears, which may naturally originate in energetic matter outburst of active galactic nuclei and gamma-ray bursters. We show that the KHI is robust to density jumps between shearing flows, thus operating in various scenarios with different density contrasts. Multidimensional particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations of the KHI, performed with OSIRIS, reveal the emergence of a strong and large-scale dc magnetic field component, which is not captured by the standard linear fluid theory. This dc component arises from kinetic effects associated with the thermal expansion of electrons of one flow into the other across the shear layer, whilst ions remain unperturbed due to their inertia. The electron expansion forms dc current sheets, which induce a dc magnetic field. Our results indicate that most of the electromagnetic energy developed in the KHI is stored in the dc component, reaching values of equipartition on the order of $10^{-3}$ in the electron time-scale, and persists longer than the proton time-scale. Particle scattering/acceleration in the self generated fields of these shear flow instabilities is also analyzed

Fisher matrix forecasts for astrophysical tests of the stability of the fine-structure constant

We use Fisher Matrix analysis techniques to forecast the cosmological impact of astrophysical tests of the stability of the fine-structure constant to be carried out by the forthcoming ESPRESSO spectrograph at the VLT (due for commissioning in late 2017), as well by the planned high-resolution spectrograph (currently in Phase A) for the European Extremely Large Telescope. Assuming a fiducial model without $\alpha$ variations, we show that ESPRESSO can improve current bounds on the E\"{o}tv\"{o}s parameter---which quantifies Weak Equivalence Principle violations---by up to two orders of magnitude, leading to stronger bounds than those expected from the ongoing tests with the MICROSCOPE satellite, while constraints from the E-ELT should be competitive with those of the proposed STEP satellite. Should an $\alpha$ variation be detected, these measurements will further constrain cosmological parameters, being particularly sensitive to the dynamics of dark energy.Comment: Phys. Lett. B (in press

Transverse electron-scale instability in relativistic shear flows

Electron-scale surface waves are shown to be unstable in the transverse plane of a shear flow in an initially unmagnetized plasma, unlike in the (magneto)hydrodynamics case. It is found that these unstable modes have a higher growth rate than the closely related electron-scale Kelvin-Helmholtz instability in relativistic shears. Multidimensional particle-in-cell simulations verify the analytic results and further reveal the emergence of mushroom-like electron density structures in the nonlinear phase of the instability, similar to those observed in the Rayleigh Taylor instability despite the great disparity in scales and different underlying physics. Macroscopic ($\gg c/\omega_{pe}$) fields are shown to be generated by these microscopic shear instabilities, which are relevant for particle acceleration, radiation emission and to seed MHD processes at long time-scales

Generation and detection of bound entanglement

We propose a method for the experimental generation of two different families of bound entangled states of three qubits. Our method is based on the explicit construction of a quantum network that produces a purification of the desired state. We also suggest a route for the experimental detection of bound entanglement, by employing a witness operator plus a test of the positivity of the partial transposes