A phenomenological model for magnetoresistance in granular polycrystalline colossal magnetoresistive materials: the role of spin polarised tunnelling at the grain boundaries

It has been observed that in bulk and polycrystalline thin films of collossal magnetoresistive (CMR) materials the magnetoresistance follows a different behaviour compared to single crystals or single crystalline films below the ferromagnetic transition temperature Tc. In this paper we develop a phenomenological model to explain the magnetic field dependence of resistance in granular CMR materials taking into account the spin polarised tunnelling at the grain boundaries. The model has been fitted to two systems, namely, La0.55Ho0.15Sr0.3MnO3 and La1.8Y0.5Ca0.7Mn2O7. From the fitted result we have separated out, in La0.55Ho0.15Sr0.3MnO3, the intrinsic contribution from the intergranular contribution to the magnetoresistance coming from spin polarised tunnelling at the grain boundaries. It is observed that the temperature dependence of the intrinsic contribution to the magnetoresistance in La0.55Ho0.15Sr0.3MnO3 follows the prediction of double exchange model for all values of field.Comment: 14 pages + 5 figures, postscript (to appear in Journal of Applied Physics

Low Mass Gluino within the Sparticle Landscape, Implications for Dark Matter, and Early Discovery Prospects at LHC-7

We analyze supergravity models that predict a low mass gluino within the landscape of sparticle mass hierarchies. The analysis includes a broad class of models that arise in minimal and in non-minimal supergravity unified frameworks and in extended models with additional $U(1)^n_X$ hidden sector gauge symmetries. Gluino masses in the range $(350-700)$ GeV are investigated. Masses in this range are promising for early discovery at the LHC at $\sqrt s =7$ TeV (LHC-7). The models exhibit a wide dispersion in the gaugino-Higgsino eigencontent of their LSPs and in their associated sparticle mass spectra. A signature analysis is carried out and the prominent discovery channels for the models are identified with most models needing only $\sim 1 \rm fb^{-1}$ for discovery at LHC-7. In addition, significant variations in the discovery capability of the low mass gluino models are observed for models in which the gluino masses are of comparable size due to the mass splittings in different models and the relative position of the light gluino within the various sparticle mass hierarchies. The models are consistent with the current stringent bounds from the Fermi-LAT, CDMS-II, XENON100, and EDELWEISS-2 experiments. A subclass of these models, which include a mixed-wino LSP and a Higgsino LSP, are also shown to accommodate the positron excess seen in the PAMELA satellite experiment.Comment: 37 pages, 8 figures, Published in PR

Study of one-dimensional nature of (Sr,Ba)_2Cu(PO_4)_2 and BaCuP_2O_7 via 31P NMR

The magnetic behavior of the low-dimensional phosphates (Sr,Ba)_2 Cu(PO_4)_2 and BaCuP_2O_7 was investigated by means of magnetic susceptibility and ^{31}P nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) measurements. We present here the NMR shift K(T), the spin-lattice 1/T_1 and spin-spin 1/T_2 relaxation-rate data over a wide temperature range 0.02 K < T < 300 K. The T-dependence of the NMR K(T) is well described by the S=1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnetic chain model with an intrachain exchange of J/k_B = 165 K, 151 K, and 108 K in Sr_2Cu(PO_4)_2, Ba_2Cu(PO_4)_2, and BaCuP_2O_7, respectively. Our measurements suggest the presence of magnetic ordering at 0.8 K in BaCuP_2O_7 (J/k_B = 108 K). For all the samples, we find that 1/T_1 is nearly T-independent at low-temperatures (1 K < T < 10 K), which is theoretically expected for 1D chains when relaxation is dominated by fluctuations of the staggered susceptibility. At high temperatures, 1/T_1 varies nearly linearly with temperature