4,776 research outputs found
Total Chiral Symmetry Breaking during Crystallization: Who needs a "Mother Crystal"?
Processes that can produce states of broken chiral symmetry are of particular
interest to physics, chemistry and biology. Chiral symmetry breaking during
crystallization of sodium chlorate occurs via the production of secondary
crystals of the same handedness from a single "mother crystal" that seeds the
solution. Here we report that a large and "symmetric" population of D- and
L-crystals moves into complete chiral purity disappearing one of the
enantiomers. This result shows: (i) a new symmetry breaking process
incompatible with the hypothesis of a single "mother crystal"; (ii) that
complete symmetry breaking and chiral purity can be achieved from an initial
system with both enantiomers. These findings demand a new explanation to the
process of total symmetry breaking in crystallization without the intervention
of a "mother crystal" and open the debate on this fascinating phenomenon. We
present arguments to show that our experimental data can been explained with a
new model of "complete chiral purity induced by nonlinear autocatalysis and
recycling".Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, Added reference
The susceptibility and excitation spectrum of (VO)PO in ladder and dimer chain models
We present numerical results for the magnetic susceptibility of a Heisenberg
antiferromagnetic spin ladder, as a function of temperature and the spin-spin
interaction strengths and . These are contrasted with new
bulk limit results for the dimer chain. A fit to the experimental
susceptibility of the candidate spin-ladder compound vanadyl pyrophosphate,
(VO)PO, gives the parameters meV and meV. With these values we predict a singlet-triplet energy gap of
meV, and give a numerical estimate of the ladder triplet
dispersion relation . In contrast, a fit to the dimer chain model
leads to meV and meV, which predicts a gap of meV.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figures available upon request, RevTex 3.0, preprint
ORNL-CCIP-94-04 / RAL-94-02
Complete homochirality induced by the nonlinear autocatalysis and recycling
A nonlinear autocatalysis of a chiral substance is shown to achieve
homochirality in a closed system, if the back-reaction is included. Asymmetry
in the concentration of two enantiomers or the enantiometric excess increases
due to the nonlinear autocatalysis. Furthermore, when the back-reaction is
taken into account, the reactant supplied by the decomposition of the
enantiomers is recycled to produce more and more the dominant one, and
eventually the homochirality is established.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
From 'River Cottage' to 'Chicken Run': Hugh Fearnley-Whttingstall and the class politics of ethical consumption
Lifestyle television provides a key site through which to explore the dilemmas of ethical consumption, as the genre shifts to consider the ethics of different consumption practices and taste cultures. UK television cook Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's TV programmes offer fertile ground not only for thinking about television personalities as lifestyle experts and moral entrepreneurs, but also for thinking about how the meanings and uses of their television image are inflected by genre. In this article we explore how the shift from the lifestyled downshifting narrative of the River Cottage series to the 'campaigning culinary documentary' Hugh's Chicken Run exposes issues of celebrity, class and ethics. While both series are concerned with ethical consumption, they work in different ways to reveal a distinction between 'ethical' and 'unethical' consumption practices and positions - positions that are inevitably classed
Magnetic Properties of (VO)_2P_2O_7 from Frustrated Interchain Coupling
Neutron-scattering experiments on (VO)_2P_2O_7 reveal both a gapped magnon
dispersion and an unexpected, low-lying second mode. The proximity and
intensity of these modes suggest a frustrated coupling between the alternating
spin chains. We deduce the minimal model containing such a frustration, and
show that it gives an excellent account of the magnon dispersion, static
susceptibility and electron spin resonance absorption. We consider two-magnon
states which bind due to frustration, and demonstrate that these may provide a
consistent explanation for the second mode.Comment: RevTeX, 5 pages, 6 figures, compressed from first versio
Second Low Temperature Phase Transition in Frustrated UNi_4B
Hexagonal UNi_4B is magnetically frustrated, yet it orders
antiferromagnetically at T_N = 20 K. However, one third of the U-spins remain
paramagnetic below this temperature. In order to track these spins to lower
temperature, we measured the specific heat C of \unib between 100 mK and 2 K,
and in applied fields up to 9 T. For zero field there is a sharp kink in C at
330 mK, which we interpret as an indication of a second phase
transition involving paramagnetic U. The rise in between 7 K and
330 mK and the absence of a large entropy liberated at may be due to a
combination of Kondo screening effects and frustration that strongly modifies
the low T transition.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Magnetic excitations and effects of magnetic fields on the spin-Peierls transition in CuGeO
We analyze the magnetic excitations of a spin-1/2 antiferromagnetic
Heisenberg model with alternating nearest neighbor interactions and uniform
second neighbor interactions recently proposed to describe the spin-Peierls
transition in CuGeO. We show that there is good agreement between the
calculated excitation dispersion relation and the experimental one. We have
also shown that this model reproduces satisfactorily the experimental results
for the magnetization vs. magnetic field curve and its saturation value. The
model proposed also reproduces qualitatively some features of the magnetic
phase diagram of this compound and the overall behavior of the magnetic
specific heat in the presence of applied magnetic fields.Comment: 12 pages Revtex v2.0 + 4 figures postscripts include
S=1/2 chains and spin-Peierls transition in TiOCl
We study TiOCl as an example of an S=1/2 layered Mott insulator. From our
analysis of new susceptibility data, combined with LDA and LDA+U band structure
calculations, we conclude that orbital ordering produces quasi-one-dimensional
spin chains and that TiOCl is a new example of Heisenberg-chains which undergo
a spin-Peierls transition. The energy scale is an order of magnitude larger
than that of previously known examples. The effects of non-magnetic Sc
impurities are explained using a model of broken finite chains.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures (color); details on crystal growth added; to be
published in Phys. Rev.
Thermodynamic Properties and Elementary Excitations in Quantum Sine-Gordon Spin System KCuGaF6
Thermodynamic properties and elementary excitations in
one-dimensional Heisenberg antiferromagnet KCuGaF were investigated by
magnetic susceptibility, specific heat and ESR measurements. Due to the
Dzyaloshinsky-Moriya interaction with alternating -vectors and/or the
staggered -tensor, the staggered magnetic field is induced when subjected to
external magnetic field. Specific heat in magnetic field clearly shows the
formation of excitation gap, which is attributed to the staggered magnetic
field. The specific heat data was analyzed on the basis of the quantum
sine-Gordon (SG) model. We observed many ESR modes including one soliton and
three breather excitations characteristic of the quantum SG model.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, to appear in J. Phys. Soc. Jpn., vol. 76, no.
Spin-Peierls Dimerization of a s=1/2 Heisenberg Antiferromagnet on a Square Lattice
Dimerization of a spin-half Heisenberg antiferromagnet on a square lattice is
investigated for several possible dimerized configurations, some of which are
shown to have lower ground state energies than the others. In particular, the
lattice deformations resulting in alternate stronger and weaker couplings along
both the principal axes of a square lattice are shown to result in a larger
gain in magnetic energy. In addition, a `columnar' configuration is shown to
have a lower ground state energy and a faster increase in the energy gap
parameter than a `staggered' configuration. The inclusion of unexpanded
exchange coupling leads to a power law behaviour for the magnetic energy gain
and energy gap, which is qualitatively different from that reported earlier.
Instead of increasing as , the two quantities depend on
as This is true both in the near critical
regime as well as in the far regime . It is suggested that the unexpanded exchange coupling is as much a source
of the logarithmic dependence as a correction due to the contribution of
umklapp processes. Staggered magnetization is shown to follow the same -dependence in all the configurations in the small -regime, while for
, it follows the power law .Comment: 12 pages, 7 Postscript figures, RevTex forma
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