107 research outputs found
Study of the heating effect contribution to the nonlinear dielectric response of a supercooled liquid
We present a detailed study of the heating effects in dielectric measurements
carried out on a liquid. Such effects come from the dissipation of the electric
power in the liquid and give a contribution to the nonlinear third harmonics
susceptibility chi_3 which depends on the frequency and temperature. This study
is used to evaluate a possible `spurious' contribution to the recently measured
nonlinear susceptibility of an archetypical glassforming liquid (Glycerol).
Those measurements have been shown to give a direct evaluation of the number of
dynamically correlated molecules temperature dependence close to the glass
transition temperature T_g~190K (Crauste-Thibierge et al., Phys. Rev. Lett
104,165703(2010)). We show that the heating contribution is totally negligible
(i) below 204K at any frequency; (ii) for any temperature at the frequency
where the third harmonics response chi_3 is maximum. Besides, this heating
contribution does not scale as a function of f/f_{\alpha}, with f_{\alpha}(T)
the relaxation frequency of the liquid. In the high frequency range, when
f/f_{\alpha} >= 1, we find that the heating contribution is damped because the
dipoles cannot follow instantaneously the temperature modulation due to the
heating phenomenon. An estimate of the magnitude of this damping is given.Comment: 25 pages, 10 figures, Accepted for publication in Journal of Chemical
Physic
Destruction of superconductivity in disordered materials : a dimensional crossover
The disorder-induced Superconductor-to-Insulator Transition in amorphous
NbSi two-dimensional thin films is studied for different niobium
compositions through a variation of the sample thickness . We show that
the critical thickness , separating a superconducting regime from an
insulating one, increases strongly with diminishing , thus attaining values
of over 100 {\AA}. The corresponding phase diagram in the plane is
inferred and related to the three-dimensional situation. The two-dimensional
Superconductor-to-Insulator Transition well connects with the three-dimensional
Superconductor-to-Metal Transition
Evidence of growing spatial correlations at the glass transition from nonlinear response experiments
The ac nonlinear dielectric response of glycerol was
measured close to its glass transition temperature to investigate the
prediction that supercooled liquids respond in an increasingly non-linear way
as the dynamics slows down (as spin-glasses do). We find that
indeed displays several non trivial features. It is peaked
as a function of the frequency and obeys scaling as a function of
, with the relaxation time of the liquid. The height
of the peak, proportional to the number of dynamically correlated molecules
, increases as the system becomes glassy, and decays as a
power-law of over several decades beyond the peak. These findings
confirm the collective nature of the glassy dynamics and provide the first
direct estimate of the dependence of .Comment: 22 pages, 6 figures. With respect to v1, a few new sentences were
added in the introduction and conclusion, references were updated, some typos
corrected
Effect of annealing on the superconducting properties of a-Nb(x)Si(1-x) thin films
a-Nb(x)Si(1-x) thin films with thicknesses down to 25 {\AA} have been
structurally characterized by TEM (Transmission Electron Microscopy)
measurements. As-deposited or annealed films are shown to be continuous and
homogeneous in composition and thickness, up to an annealing temperature of
500{\deg}C. We have carried out low temperature transport measurements on these
films close to the superconductor-to-insulator transition (SIT), and shown a
qualitative difference between the effect of annealing or composition, and a
reduction of the film thickness on the superconducting properties of a-NbSi.
These results question the pertinence of the sheet resistance R_square as the
relevant parameter to describe the SIT.Comment: 9 pages, 12 figure
Superspin glass aging behavior in textured and nontextured frozen ferrofluid
The effect of magnetic anisotropy-axis alignment of individual nanoparticles
on the collective aging behavior in the superspin glass state of a frozen
ferrofluid has been investigated. The ferrofluid studied here consists of
maghemite nanoparticles (\gamma-Fe2O3, mean diameter = 8.6 nm) dispersed in
glycerin at a volume fraction of ~15%. The low temperature aging behavior has
been explored through 'zero-field cooled magnetization' (ZFCM) relaxation
measurements using SQUID magnetometry. The ZFCM response functions were found
to scale with effective age of the system in both textured and non-textured
superspin glass states, but with markedly different scaling exponents, \mu. The
value of {\mu} was found to shift from ~0.9 in non-textured case to ~ 0.6 in
the textured case, despite the identical cooling protocol used in both
experiments
Anisotropy-axis orientation effect on the magnetization of {\gamma}-Fe2O3 frozen ferrofluid
The effect of magnetic anisotropy-axis alignment on the superparamagnetic
(SPM) and superspin glass (SSG) states in a frozen ferrofluid has been
investigated. The ferrofluid studied here consists of maghemite nanoparticles
(\gamma-Fe2O3, mean diameter = 8.6 nm) dispersed in glycerine at a volume
fraction of ~15%. In the high temperature SPM state, the magnetization of
aligned ferrofluid increased by a factor varying between 2 and 4 with respect
to that in the randomly oriented state. The negative interaction energy
obtained from the Curie-Weiss fit to the high temperature susceptibility in the
SPM states as well as the SSG phase onset temperature determined from the
linear magnetization curves were found to be rather insensitive to the
anisotropy axis alignment. The low temperature aging behaviour, explored via
"zero-field cooled magnetization" (ZFCM) relaxation measurements, however, show
distinct difference in the aging dynamics in the anisotropy-axis aligned and
randomly oriented SSG states.Comment: to appear in Journal of Physics D: Applied Physic
Muon-induced background in the EDELWEISS dark matter search
A dedicated analysis of the muon-induced background in the EDELWEISS dark
matter search has been performed on a data set acquired in 2009 and 2010. The
total muon flux underground in the Laboratoire Souterrain de Modane (LSM) was
measured to be \,muons/m/d. The
modular design of the muon-veto system allows the reconstruction of the muon
trajectory and hence the determination of the angular dependent muon flux in
LSM. The results are in good agreement with both MC simulations and earlier
measurements. Synchronization of the muon-veto system with the phonon and
ionization signals of the Ge detector array allowed identification of
muon-induced events. Rates for all muon-induced events and of WIMP-like events were extracted. After
vetoing, the remaining rate of accepted muon-induced neutrons in the
EDELWEISS-II dark matter search was determined to be at 90%\,C.L. Based on
these results, the muon-induced background expectation for an anticipated
exposure of 3000\,\kgd\ for EDELWEISS-3 is
events.Comment: 21 pages, 16 figures, Accepted for publication in Astropart. Phy
Monitoring of platinum surface contamination in seven Dutch hospital pharmacies using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry
Quantitative Analysis of Mechanisms That Govern Red Blood Cell Age Structure and Dynamics during Anaemia
Mathematical modelling has proven an important tool in elucidating and quantifying mechanisms that govern the age structure and population dynamics of red blood cells (RBCs). Here we synthesise ideas from previous experimental data and the mathematical modelling literature with new data in order to test hypotheses and generate new predictions about these mechanisms. The result is a set of competing hypotheses about three intrinsic mechanisms: the feedback from circulating RBC concentration to production rate of immature RBCs (reticulocytes) in bone marrow, the release of reticulocytes from bone marrow into the circulation, and their subsequent ageing and clearance. In addition we examine two mechanisms specific to our experimental system: the effect of phenylhydrazine (PHZ) and blood sampling on RBC dynamics. We performed a set of experiments to quantify the dynamics of reticulocyte proportion, RBC concentration, and erythropoietin concentration in PHZ-induced anaemic mice. By quantifying experimental error we are able to fit and assess each hypothesis against our data and recover parameter estimates using Markov chain Monte Carlo based Bayesian inference. We find that, under normal conditions, about 3% of reticulocytes are released early from bone marrow and upon maturation all cells are released immediately. In the circulation, RBCs undergo random clearance but have a maximum lifespan of about 50 days. Under anaemic conditions reticulocyte production rate is linearly correlated with the difference between normal and anaemic RBC concentrations, and their release rate is exponentially correlated with the same. PHZ appears to age rather than kill RBCs, and younger RBCs are affected more than older RBCs. Blood sampling caused short aperiodic spikes in the proportion of reticulocytes which appear to have a different developmental pathway than normal reticulocytes. We also provide evidence of large diurnal oscillations in serum erythropoietin levels during anaemia
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