5,842 research outputs found
Keeping promises: Interview with Professor Christian Grönroos
Professor Christian Grönroos, from the Hanken School of Economics at Helsinki in Finland, recently selected as a Legend in Marketing, shares his vision of the future for marketing
Seeing Majorana fermions in time-of-flight images of spinless fermions coupled by s-wave pairing
The Chern number, nu, as a topological invariant that identifies the winding
of the ground state in the particle-hole space, is a definitive theoretical
signature that determines whether a given superconducting system can support
Majorana zero modes. Here we show that such a winding can be faithfully
identified for any superconducting system (p-wave or s-wave with spin-orbit
coupling) through a set of time-of-flight measurements, making it a diagnostic
tool also in actual cold atom experiments. As an application, we specialize the
measurement scheme for a chiral topological model of spinless fermions. The
proposed model only requires the experimentally accessible s-wave pairing and
staggered tunnelling that mimics spin-orbit coupling. By adiabatically
connecting this model to Kitaev's honeycomb lattice model, we show that it
gives rise to nu = \pm 1 phases, where vortices bind Majorana fermions, and
nu=\pm 2 phases that emerge as the unique collective state of such vortices.
Hence, the preparation of these phases and the detection of their Chern numbers
provide an unambiguous signature for the presence of Majorana modes. Finally,
we demonstrate that our detection procedure is resilient against most
inaccuracies in experimental control parameters as well as finite temperature.Comment: 9+4 pages, 11 figures, expanded versio
Connection between slow and fast dynamics of molecular liquids around the glass transition
The mean-square displacement (MSD) was measured by neutron scattering at
various temperatures and pressures for a number of molecular glass-forming
liquids. The MSD is invariant along the glass-transition line at the pressure
studied, thus establishing an ``intrinsic'' Lindemann criterion for any given
liquid. A one-to-one connection between the MSD's temperature dependence and
the liquid's fragility is found when the MSD is evaluated on a time scale of
approximately 4 nanoseconds, but does not hold when the MSD is evaluated at
shorter times. The findings are discussed in terms of the elastic model and the
role of relaxations, and the correlations between slow and fast dynamics are
addressed.Comment: accepted by Phys Rev E (2010
Mesoscopic structure of pectin in solution
Mesoscopic structure of pectin with different molecular characteristics was investigated by means of small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), electrokinetic measurements and data modelling. The influence of a broad range of pH (2-7) on chain conformation in the dilute and semi-diluted regime was investigated. Scattering data and concomitant analysis revealed two length scales at all environmental conditions studied. pH showed greater influence at acidic values (pH 2.0) enhancing the globular component of the structure due to association of galacturonic acid residues. Double logarithmic scattering intensity plots revealed fractal dimensions of 1.9 ±0.2 in the low-q regime and 1.5 ±0.2 in the high q-region, irrespectively of the specific environment. Increase in branching of RG-I regions of the polysaccharide chains enhanced the compact conformation irrespectively of the pH or concentration. The present work shows that radical changes in pectin conformation can be induced only under strongly acidic conditions a finding that has important consequences in tailoring the technological performance of these biopolymer
The Classical Relativistic Quark Model in the Rest-Frame Wigner-Covariant Coulomb Gauge
The system of N scalar particles with Grassmann-valued color charges plus the
color SU(3) Yang-Mills field is reformulated on spacelike hypersurfaces. The
Dirac observables are found and the physical invariant mass of the system in
the Wigner-covariant rest-frame instant form of dynamics (covariant Coulomb
gauge) is given. From the reduced Hamilton equations we extract the second
order equations of motion both for the reduced transverse color field and the
particles. Then, we study this relativistic scalar quark model, deduced from
the classical QCD Lagrangian and with the color field present, in the N=2
(meson) case. A special form of the requirement of having only color singlets,
suited for a field-independent quark model, produces a ``pseudoclassical
asymptotic freedom" and a regularization of the quark self-energy.Comment: 81 pages, RevTe
On the correlation between fragility and stretching in glassforming liquids
We study the pressure and temperature dependences of the dielectric
relaxation of two molecular glassforming liquids, dibutyl phtalate and
m-toluidine. We focus on two characteristics of the slowing down of relaxation,
the fragility associated with the temperature dependence and the stretching
characterizing the relaxation function. We combine our data with data from the
literature to revisit the proposed correlation between these two quantities. We
do this in light of constraints that we suggest to put on the search for
empirical correlations among properties of glassformers. In particular, argue
that a meaningful correlation is to be looked for between stretching and
isochoric fragility, as both seem to be constant under isochronic conditions
and thereby reflect the intrinsic effect of temperature
Impact of Metabolomics in Symbiosis Research
In symbiotic associations, there is a constant molecular complexity that allows establishment and maintenance of the relationship. Metabolomic profiles have enabled researchers to explain symbiotic associations in terms of their underlying molecules and interactions between the symbiotic partners. In this review, we have selected studies on symbioses as examples that have helped to explain the metabolic integration of bacterial symbionts and their hosts in an effort to understand the molecular fingerprint of animal-microbial symbioses
Influence of pH on mechanical relaxations in high solids lm-pectin preparations
The influence of pH on the mechanical relaxation of LM-pectin in the presence of co-solute has been investigated by means of differential scanning calorimetry, ζ-potential measurements and small deformation dynamic oscillation in shear. pH was found to affect the conformational properties of the polyelectrolyte altering its structural behaviour. Cooling scans in the vicinity of the glass transition region revealed a remarkable change in the viscoelastic functions as the polyelectrolyte rearranges from extended (neutral pH) to compact conformations (acidic pH). This conformational rearrangement was experimentally observed to result in early vitrification at neutral pH values where dissociation of galacturonic acid residues takes place. Time-temperature superposition of the mechanical shift factors and theoretical modeling utilizing WLF kinetics confirmed the accelerated kinetics of glass transition in the extended pectin conformation at neutral pH. Determination of the relaxation spectra of the samples using spectral analysis of the master curves revealed that the relaxation of macromolecules occurs within ~0.1 s regardless of the solvent pH
Exploring the origin of Turbulent Taylor rolls
Since Taylor's seminal paper, the existence of large-scale quasi-axisymmetric
structures has been a matter of interest when studying Taylor-Couette flow. In
this manuscript, we probe their formation in the highly turbulent regime by
conducting a series of numerical simulations at a fixed Reynolds number
while varying the Coriolis parameter to analyze the flow
characteristics as the structures arise and dissipate. We show how the Coriolis
force induces a one-way coupling between the radial and azimuthal velocity
fields inside the boundary layer, but in the bulk there is a two-way coupling
that causes competing effects. We discuss how this complicates the analogy of
narrow-gap Taylor-Couette to other convective flows. We then compare these
statistics to a similar shear flow without no-slip boundary layers, showing how
this double coupling causes very different effects. We finish by reflecting on
the possible origins of turbulent Taylor rolls
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