Spinon Phonon Interaction and Ultrasonic Attenuation in Quantum Spin Liquids

Several experimental candidates for quantum spin liquids have been discovered in the past few years which appear to support gapless fermionic $S = {1\over 2}$ excitations called spinons. The spinons may form a Fermi sea coupled to a $U(1)$ gauge field, and may undergo a pairing instability. We show that despite being charge neutral, the spinons couple to phonons in exactly the same way that electrons do in the long wavelength limit. Therefore we can use sound attenuation to measure the spinon mass and lifetime. Furthermore, transverse ultrasonic attenuation is a direct probe of the onset of pairing because the Meissner effect of the gauge field causes a "rapid fall" of the attenuation at $T_c$ in addition to the reduction due to the opening of the energy gap. This phenomenon, well known in clean superconductors, may reveal the existence of the U(1) gauge field.Comment: 4+epsilon pages of main text + 12 pages of supplementary materia

Automatic rendezvous system testing at the Flight Robotics Laboratory

The Flight Robotics Laboratory of MSFC provides sophisticated real time simulation capability in the study of human/system interactions of remote systems. This paper will describe the Flight Robotics Facility of NASA/MSFC, the hardware-in-the-loop simulation configuration, and test results

Ocean shrimp report 1979 season

Statewide Pacific ocean shrimp, Pandalus jordani, landings totaled 2,237.7 mt (4,922,857 lb), down 3,745 mt (8,240,386 lb) from the 1978 catch of 5,983.3 mt (13,163,243 lb). The 1979 landings are the lowest since 1976 when 1,545.5 mt (3,400,191 lb) were landed. Area A (Eureka-Crescent City)landings dropped to 1,842.5 mt (4,053,605 lb) from 5,046.3 mt (11,101,895 lb) landed during the previous season. No landings were made in Area B-1 (Fort Bragg). Only 2.0 mt (4,385 lb) were reported caught in Area B-2 (Bodega Bay). Record landings of 393.1 mt (864,867 lb) were made in Area C (Morro Bay-Avila), surpassing the previous record of 90.4 mt (199,000 lb) landed in 1953. In Area A a record 71 vessels, 34 double-rigged and 37 single-rigged, shrimped during the season. Average catch per hour was a low .15 mt (338 lb) and .22 mt (490 1b) for single-rig and double-rig vessels, respectively. In Area C average catch per hour was .23 mt (508 lb) and .42 mt (924 lb) for single-rig and double-rig vessels, respectively. Area A shrimp catches were dominated by 1-year-old shrimp throughout most of the season. The age composition in Area C shifted predominately from 2-year-old shrimp in May and June to predominately 1-year-old shrimp in July, August, October, and November. Area A was closed for one month from July 15 to August 15 because closure criteria of less than .16 mt (350 lb) per hour for two consecutive weeks was met and year class composition exceeded 70% of 1-year-old shrimp. The season was closed October 14 when the catch per hour criterion was exceeded again. (18pp.

KUV 01584-0939: A Helium-transferring Cataclysmic Variable with an Orbital Period of 10 Minutes

High speed photometry of KUV 01584-0939 (alias Cet3) shows that is has a period of 620.26 s. Combined with its hydrogen-deficient spectrum, this implies that it is an AM CVn star. The optical modulation is probably a superhump, in which case the orbital period will be slightly shorter than what we have observed.Comment: Published by PASP. See also the latest Early-Release Research Paper website of the PAS

A Variational Monte Carlo Study of the Current Carried by a Quasiparticle

With the use of Gutzwiller-projected variational states, we study the renormalization of the current carried by the quasiparticles in high-temperature superconductors and of the quasiparticle spectral weight. The renormalization coefficients are computed by the variational Monte Carlo technique, under the assumption that quasiparticle excitations may be described by Gutzwiller-projected BCS quasiparticles. We find that the current renormalization coefficient decreases with decreasing doping and tends to zero at zero doping. The quasiparticle spectral weight Z_+ for adding an electron shows an interesting structure in k space, which corresponds to a depression of the occupation number k just outside the Fermi surface. The perturbative corrections to those quantities in the Hubbard model are also discussed.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figure