1,574 research outputs found
Electrical characteristics of amorphous silicon schottky barriers
The behaviour of the admittance of an a-Si Schottky barrier as a function of bias, small signal measuring frequency and temperature is not well understood. In this thesis model calculations are described which are both well defined and comprehensive in their description of the Schottky barrier admittance. These calculations allow a better understanding of experimental admittance plots. Various methods are developed for finding, from Schottky barrier admittance measurements, the density of states in the a-Si mobility gap. The methods are essentially developments of the model admittance calculations, and it should be stressed that the reliability of the deduced density of states depends on the correctness of the initial model premises. In particular it is assumed that the gap state capture cross-sections are all equal and independent of energy. Experimental admittance measurements are presented for an n-type doped a-Si Schottky barrier. The measurements are quite consistent with the developed theory and an estimate of the density of states in the upper half of the mobility gap is calculated. The average value is ~ 10(^17) cm(^-3)eV(^-1) and there is a minimum situated approximately at 0.3 eV below the conduction band mobility edge. This result is in approximate agreement with the density of states deduced by the DLTS technique. It is also deduced from current-voltage measurements that, of the existing theories, Diffusion Theory probably best describes the leakage current in a-Si Schottky barriers. This deduction is arrived at using some novel analysis
Plans for a Neutron EDM Experiment at SNS
The electric dipole moment of the neutron, leptons, and atoms provide a
unique window to Physics Beyond the Standard Model. We are currently developing
a new neutron EDM experiment (the nEDM Experiment). This experiment, which will
be run at the 8.9 A Neutron Line at the Fundamental Neutron Physics Beamline
(FNPB) at the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) at the Oak Ridge National
Laboratory, will search for the neutron EDM with a sensitivity two orders of
magnitude better than the present limit. In this paper, the motivation for the
experiment, the experimental method, and the present status of the experiment
are discussed.Comment: 9 Pages, 4 Figures, submitted to the proceedings of the Second
Meeting of the APS Topical Group on Hadronic Physics, Nashville, TN, October
22-24, 200
Discovery and Follow-up of Rotating Radio Transients with the Green Bank and LOFAR Telescopes
We have discovered 21 Rotating Radio Transients (RRATs) in data from the
Green Bank Telescope (GBT) 350-MHz Drift-scan and the Green Bank North
Celestial Cap pulsar surveys using a new candidate sifting algorithm. RRATs are
pulsars with sporadic emission that are detected through their bright single
pulses rather than Fourier domain searches. We have developed {\tt RRATtrap}, a
single-pulse sifting algorithm that can be integrated into pulsar survey data
analysis pipelines in order to find RRATs and Fast Radio Bursts. We have
conducted follow-up observations of our newly discovered sources at several
radio frequencies using the GBT and Low Frequency Array (LOFAR), yielding
improved positions and measurements of their periods, dispersion measures, and
burst rates, as well as phase-coherent timing solutions for four of them. The
new RRATs have dispersion measures (DMs) ranging from 15 to 97 pc cm,
periods of 240 ms to 3.4 s, and estimated burst rates of 20 to 400 pulses
hr at 350 MHz. We use this new sample of RRATs to perform statistical
comparisons between RRATs and canonical pulsars in order to shed light on the
relationship between the two populations. We find that the DM and spatial
distributions of the RRATs agree with those of the pulsars found in the same
survey. We find evidence that slower pulsars (i.e. ms) are
preferentially more likely to emit bright single pulses than are faster pulsars
( ms), although this conclusion is tentative. Our results are consistent
with the proposed link between RRATs, transient pulsars, and canonical pulsars
as sources in various parts of the pulse activity spectrum.Comment: 18 pages, 13 figures, 5 tables, published in Ap
A millisecond pulsar in a stellar triple system
Gravitationally bound three-body systems have been studied for hundreds of
years and are common in our Galaxy. They show complex orbital interactions,
which can constrain the compositions, masses, and interior structures of the
bodies and test theories of gravity, if sufficiently precise measurements are
available. A triple system containing a radio pulsar could provide such
measurements, but the only previously known such system, B1620-26 (with a
millisecond pulsar, a white dwarf, and a planetary-mass object in an orbit of
several decades), shows only weak interactions. Here we report precision timing
and multi-wavelength observations of PSR J0337+1715, a millisecond pulsar in a
hierarchical triple system with two other stars. Strong gravitational
interactions are apparent and provide the masses of the pulsar (1.4378(13)
Msun, where Msun is the solar mass and the parentheses contain the uncertainty
in the final decimal places) and the two white dwarf companions (0.19751(15)
Msun and 0.4101(3) Msun), as well as the inclinations of the orbits (both
approximately 39.2 degrees). The unexpectedly coplanar and nearly circular
orbits indicate a complex and exotic evolutionary past that differs from those
of known stellar systems. The gravitational field of the outer white dwarf
strongly accelerates the inner binary containing the neutron star, and the
system will thus provide an ideal laboratory in which to test the strong
equivalence principle of general relativity.Comment: 17 pages, 3 figures, 1 table. Published online by Nature on 5 Jan
2014. Extremely minor differences with published version may exis
A Radio Pulsar/X-ray Binary Link
Radio pulsars with millisecond spin periods are thought to have been spun up
by transfer of matter and angular momentum from a low-mass companion star
during an X-ray-emitting phase. The spin periods of the neutron stars in
several such low-mass X-ray binary (LMXB) systems have been shown to be in the
millisecond regime, but no radio pulsations have been detected. Here we report
on detection and follow-up observations of a nearby radio millisecond pulsar
(MSP) in a circular binary orbit with an optically identified companion star.
Optical observations indicate that an accretion disk was present in this system
within the last decade. Our optical data show no evidence that one exists
today, suggesting that the radio MSP has turned on after a recent LMXB phase.Comment: published in Scienc
Anatomy and Three-Dimensional Reconstructions of the Brain of the White Whale (Delphinapterus leucas) From Magnetic Resonance Images
Magnetic resonance imaging offers a means of observing the internal structure of the brain where traditional procedures of embedding, sectioning, staining, mounting, and microscopic examination of thousands of sections are not practical. Furthermore, internal structures can be analyzed in their precise quantitative spatial interrelationships, which is difficult to accomplish after the spatial distortions often accompanying histological processing. For these reasons, magnetic resonance imaging makes specimens that were traditionally difficult to analyze, more accessible. In the present study, images of the brain of a white whale (Beluga) Delphinapterus leucas were scanned in the coronal plane at 119 antero-posterior levels. Fromthese scans, a computer-generated three-dimensional model was constructed using the programs VoxelViewand VoxelMath (Vital Images, Inc.). This model, wherein details of internal and external morphology are represented in three-dimensional space, was then resectioned in orthogonal planes to produce corresponding series of âvirtualâ sections in the horizontal and sagittal planes. Sections in all three planes display the sizes and positions of such structures as the corpus callosum, internal capsule, cerebral peduncles, cerebral ventricles, certain thalamic nuclear groups, caudate nucleus, ventral striatum, pontine nuclei, cerebellar cortex and white matter, and all cerebral cortical sulci and gyri
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