Tuning surface metallicity and ferromagnetism by hydrogen adsorption at the polar ZnO(0001) surface

The adsorption of hydrogen on the polar Zn-ended ZnO(0001) surface has been investigated by density functional {\it ab-initio} calculations. An on top H(1x1) ordered overlayer with genuine H-Zn chemical bonds is shown to be energetically favorable. The H covered surface is metallic and spin-polarized, with a noticeable magnetic moment at the surface region. Lower hydrogen coverages lead to strengthening of the H-Zn bonds, corrugation of the surface layer and to an insulating surface. Our results explain experimental observations of hydrogen adsorption on this surface, and not only predict a metal-insulator transition, but primarily provide a method to reversible switch surface magnetism by varying the hydrogen density on the surface.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Effect of spin-orbit interaction on a magnetic impurity in the vicinity of a surface

We propose a new mechanism for surface-induced magnetic anisotropy to explain the thickness-dependence of the Kondo resistivity of thin films of dilute magnetic alloys. The surface anisotropy energy, generated by spin-orbit coupling on the magnetic impurity itself, is an oscillating function of the distance d from the surface and decays as 1/d^2. Numerical estimates based on simple models suggest that this mechanism, unlike its alternatives, gives rise to an effect of the desired order of magnitude.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Reversible enhancement of the magnetism of ultrathin Co films by H adsorption

By means of ab initio calculations, we have investigated the effect of H adsorption in the structural, electronic and magnetic properties of ultrathin Co films on Ru(0001). Our calculations predict that H occupies hollow sites preserving the two-dimensional 3-fold symmetry. The formation of a complete H overlayer leads to a very stable surface with strong H-Co bonds. H tends to suppress surface features, in particular, the enhancement of the magnetic moments of the bare film. The H-induced effects are mostly confined to the Co atoms bonded to H, independent of the H coverage or of the thickness and the structure of the Co film. However, for partial H coverages a significant increase occurs in the magnetic moment for the surface Co atoms not bonded to H, leading to a net enhancement of surface magnetism.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, 3 table

A Curious History of Sunspot Penumbrae: An Update

The ratio of penumbral to umbral area of sunspots is an important topic for solar and geophysical studies. Hathaway (Solar Physics, 286, 347, 2013) found a curious behaviour in this parameter for small sunspot groups (areas smaller than 100 millionths of solar hemisphere, msh) using records from Royal Greenwich Observatory (RGO). Hathaway showed that penumbra-umbra ratio decreased smoothly from more than 7 in 1905 to lower than 3 by 1930 and then increased to almost 8 in 1961. Thus, Hathaway proposed the existence of a secular variation in the penumbra-umbra area ratio. In order to confirm that secular variation, we employ data of the sunspot catalogue published by the Coimbra Astronomical Observatory (COI) for the period 1929-1941. Our results disagree with the penumbra-umbra ratio found by Hathaway for that period. However, the behaviour of this ratio for large (areas greater or equal than 100 msh) and small groups registered in COI during 1929-1941 is similar to data available from RGO for the periods 1874-1914 and 1950-1976. Nevertheless, while the average values and time evolution of the ratio in large groups is similar to the ratio for small groups according to Coimbra data (1929-1941) it is not analogous for RGO data for the same period. We also found that the behaviour of the penumbra-umbra area ratio for smaller groups in both observatories is significantly different. The main difference between the area measurements made in Coimbra and RGO is associated with the umbra measurements. We would like to stress that the two observatories used different methods of observation and while in COI both methodology and instruments did not change during the study period, some changes were carried out in RGO that could have affected measurements of umbra and penumbra. These facts illustrate the importance of the careful recovery of past solar data.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in "Solar Physics

Pseudospectral versus finite-differences schemes in the numerical integration of stochastic models of surface growth

We present a comparison between finite differences schemes and a pseudospectral method applied to the numerical integration of stochastic partial differential equations that model surface growth. We have studied, in 1+1 dimensions, the Kardar, Parisi and Zhang model (KPZ) and the Lai, Das Sarma and Villain model (LDV). The pseudospectral method appears to be the most stable for a given time step for both models. This means that the time up to which we can follow the temporal evolution of a given system is larger for the pseudospectral method. Moreover, for the KPZ model, a pseudospectral scheme gives results closer to the predictions of the continuum model than those obtained through finite difference methods. On the other hand, some numerical instabilities appearing with finite difference methods for the LDV model are absent when a pseudospectral integration is performed. These numerical instabilities give rise to an approximate multiscaling observed in the numerical simulations. With the pseudospectral approach no multiscaling is seen in agreement with the continuum model.Comment: 13 single column pages, RevTeX, 6 eps fig