The problem of uniqueness in the reduced description of adsorption on the wedge-shaped substrate

In the reduced one-dimensional description of the adsorption on the wedge-shaped substrate the mid-point interface height serves as the order parameter. We point at the ambiguity which appears in the transfer-matrix approach to this problem. We also propose how to avoid this problem by introducing the appropriate order parameter.Comment: 7 pages, 4 Postscript figures, uses psfrag.sty; double reference remove

Origin of dips in tunneling dI/dV characteristics of cuprates

Extensive efforts have been made to understand the electronic properties of high-Tc superconductors. One feature which has been discussed in the literature during the past few years is the dips in tunneling conductances obtained in cuprates. In this contribution, we focus our attention on the origin of these dips. On the basis of experimental data obtained in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8 and YBa2Cu3O7, we show that the dips appear naturally in tunneling spectra due to a superposition of the peaks and humps and, therefore, have no physical meaning.Comment: 2 pages including 3 figures. To appear in Physica C (proceedings of the M2S-VIII Dresden Conference

A possible scenario for the mechanism of high-Tc superconductivity based on experimental data

The issue of the mechanism of high-Tc superconductivity remains open. In this contribution, we propose a new scenario for the mechanism of superconductivity in cuprates based on analysis of experimental data, mainly tunneling, neutron scattering and muon-spin-relaxation data, made earlier (see e.g. Mod. Phys. Lett. B 19 (2005) 743). A specific feature of this scenario is the mechanism of the establishment of long-range phase coherence among Cooper pairs, based on recent experimental data obtained in nonsuperconducting materials.Comment: 2 pages with 2 figures (Dresden conference

The oxygen isotope effect on critical temperature in superconducting copper oxides

The isotope effect provided a crucial key to the development of the BCS (Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer) microscopic theory of superconductivity for conventional superconductors. In superconducting cooper oxides (cuprates) showing an unconventional type of superconductivity, the oxygen isotope effect is very peculiar: the exponential coefficient strongly depends on doping level. No consensus has been reached so far on the origin of the isotope effect in the cuprates. Here we show that the oxygen isotope effect in cuprates is in agreement with the bisoliton theory of superconductivity.Comment: 3 pages including 4 figures; version 2 is with minor correction

Noninvasiveness and time symmetry of weak measurements

Measurements in classical and quantum physics are described in fundamentally different ways. Nevertheless, one can formally define similar measurement procedures with respect to the disturbance they cause. Obviously, strong measurements, both classical and quantum, are invasive -- they disturb the measured system. We show that it is possible to define general weak measurements, which are noninvasive: the disturbance becomes negligible as the measurement strength goes to zero. Classical intuition suggests that noninvasive measurements should be time symmetric (if the system dynamics is reversible) and we confirm that correlations are time-reversal symmetric in the classical case. However, quantum weak measurements -- defined analogously to their classical counterparts -- can be noninvasive but not time symmetric. We present a simple example of measurements on a two-level system which violates time symmetry and propose an experiment with quantum dots to measure the time-symmetry violation in a third-order current correlation function.Comment: 19 pages, 5 figures, more information at http://www.fuw.edu.pl/~abednorz/tasym

Interfacial fluctuations near the critical filling transition

We propose a method to describe the short-distance behavior of an interface fluctuating in the presence of the wedge-shaped substrate near the critical filling transition. Two different length scales determined by the average height of the interface at the wedge center can be identified. On one length scale the one-dimensional approximation of Parry et al. \cite{Parry} which allows to find the interfacial critical exponents is extracted from the full description. On the other scale the short-distance fluctuations are analyzed by the mean-field theory.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figure

Bosonic versus fermionic pairs of topological spin defects in monolayered high-T_c superconductors

The energy associated with bosonic and fermionic pairs of topological spin defects in doped antiferromagnetic quantum spin-1/2 square lattice is estimated within a resonating valence bond scenario, as described by a t-t'-J-like model Hamiltonian, plus a t-perpendicular, responsible of a three-dimensional screening of the electrostatic repulsion within the bosonic pairs. For parameters appropriate for monolayered high-T_c superconductors, both fermionic and bosonic pairs show x^2-y^2 symmetry. We find a critical value of doping such that the energy of the bosonic pairs goes below twice the energy of two fermionic pairs at their Fermi level. This finding could be related to the onset of high-T_c superconductivity.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures. To be published in Phys. Rev.

Violation of Leggett-Garg inequalities in quantum measurements with variable resolution and back-action

Quantum mechanics violates Leggett-Garg inequalities because the operator formalism predicts correlations between different spin components that would correspond to negative joint probabilities for the outcomes of joint measurements. However, the uncertainty principle ensures that such joint measurements cannot be implemented without errors. In a sequential measurement of the spin components, the resolution and back-action errors of the intermediate measurement can be described by random spin flips acting on an intrinsic joint probability. If the error rates are known, the intrinsic joint probability can be reconstructed from the noisy statistics of the actual measurement outcomes. In this paper, we use the spin-flip model of measurement errors to analyze experimental data on photon polarization obtained with an interferometric setup that allows us to vary the measurement strength and hence the balance between resolution and back-action errors. We confirm that the intrinsic joint probability obtained from the experimental data is independent of measurement strength and show that the same violation of the Leggett-Garg inequality can be obtained for any combination of measurement resolution and back-action.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figure

Optical differentiation between cashmere and other textile fibres by laser diffraction

This paper reports a novel method to differentiate cashmere from synthetic fibres and even from other wool fibres with the help of laser diffraction patterns. In the diffraction pattern, only natural fibres depict additional spots above and below the actual diffraction plane. These spots can be used to distinguish different fibre materials by comparing their length-to-height aspect ratio with standard values. Especially, it can be recognized that the diffraction lines above and below the diffraction plane are significantly longer and finer for cashmere fibres than for any other wool

Doping dependence of the mass enhancement in (Pb,Bi)_2 Sr_2 Ca Cu_2 O_8 at the antinodal point in the superconducting and normal state

Angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) is used to study the mass renormalization of the charge carriers in the high-T_c superconductor (Pb,Bi)_2Sr_2CaCu_2O_8 in the vicinity of the (pi,0) point in the superconducting and the normal state. Using matrix element effects at different photon energies and due to a high momentum and energy resolution the bonding and the antibonding bands could be separated in the whole dopant range. A huge anisotropic coupling to a bosonic collective mode is observed below T_c for both bands in particular for the underdoped case. Above T_c, the more isotropic coupling to a continuum or a mode at much higher energy is significantly weaker.Comment: 4 revtex pages, 4 eps figure