Quantum Hall Ferromagnetism in a Two-Dimensional Electron System

Experiments on a nearly spin degenerate two-dimensional electron system reveals unusual hysteretic and relaxational transport in the fractional quantum Hall effect regime. The transition between the spin-polarized (with fill fraction $\nu = 1/3$) and spin-unpolarized ($\nu = 2/5$) states is accompanied by a complicated series of hysteresis loops reminiscent of a classical ferromagnet. In correlation with the hysteresis, magnetoresistance can either grow or decay logarithmically in time with remarkable persistence and does not saturate. In contrast to the established models of relaxation, the relaxation rate exhibits an anomalous divergence as temperature is reduced. These results indicate the presence of novel two-dimensional ferromagnetism with a complicated magnetic domain dynamic.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figure

Finite Difference Modeling of Seismic Responses to Intersecting Fracture Sets

Fractured reservoir characterization is becoming increasingly important for the petroleum industry. Currentmethods for this task are developed based on effectivemedia theory, which assumes the cracks or fractures in a reservoir are much smaller than the seismic wavelength. A discrete fracturemodel has to be used for large-scale fractures. We describe an approach of using a finite difference method for modeling seismic wave propagation in rock formations with intersecting fracture sets. We then use the code to study the behavior of seismic waves, particularly scattering due to such fracture sets with various spacing and compliances. The scattering pattern due to fractures varies azimuthally. We find that converted PS and PSP waves from the bottom of the fractured layers show strong interference by the scattered waves. We observe coherent scattered waves in shot gathers parallel to the fracture orientation and significant backscattering at near offsets and forward scattering at far offsets in the gathers normal to the fracture orientation. When two sets of fractures are present, scattering becomes stronger and more complex scattered waves appear in the gathers. The scattering becomes stronger with increasing the fracture compliances and decreasing spacing (still on the order of seismic wave length). When the fracture sets are not orthogonal to each other, the gathers still show coherent scattering in the fracture orientations. Azimuthal characteristics of the scattered waves may be used to analyze fracture orientations, spacing, and relative compliance of intersecting fracture sets.Shell GameChangerMassachusetts Institute of Technology. Earth Resources Laborator

Pancharatnam-Berry phase in condensate of indirect excitons

We report on the observation of the Pancharatnam-Berry phase in a condensate of indirect excitons (IXs) in a GaAs coupled quantum well structure. The Pancharatnam-Berry phase leads to phase shifts of interference fringes in IX interference patterns. Correlations are found between the phase shifts, polarization pattern of IX emission, and onset of IX spontaneous coherence. The Pancharatnam-Berry phase is acquired due to coherent spin precession in IX condensate. The effect of the Pancharatnam-Berry phase on the IX phase pattern is described in terms of an associated momentum.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures + 2 pages supplemental material, 3 supplemental figure

High Bias Transport and Magnetometer Design in Open Quantum Dots

We report transport measurements as a function of bias in open semiconductor quantum dots. These measurements are well described by an effective electron temperature derived from Joule heating at the point contacts and cooling by Wiedemann-Franz out-diffusion of thermal electrons. Using this model, we propose and analyze a quantum dot based sensor which measures absolute magnetic field at micron scales with a noise floor of $\sim 50 \mu\phi_{0} / \sqrt{Hz}$ at 300 mK.Comment: 10 pages including 3 figure

Spin-Orbit Coupling, Antilocalization, and Parallel Magnetic Fields in Quantum Dots

We investigate antilocalization due to spin-orbit coupling in ballistic GaAs quantum dots. Antilocalization that is prominent in large dots is suppressed in small dots, as anticipated theoretically. Parallel magnetic fields suppress both antilocalization and also, at larger fields, weak localization, consistent with random matrix theory results once orbital coupling of the parallel field is included. In situ control of spin-orbit coupling in dots is demonstrated as a gate-controlled crossover from weak localization to antilocalization.Comment: related papers at http://marcuslab.harvard.ed

Hybridization of electron subbands in a double quantum well at quantizing magnetic field

We employ magnetocapacitance and far-infrared spectroscopy techniques to study the spectrum of the double-layer electron system in a parabolic quantum well with a narrow tunnel barrier in the centre. For gate-bias-controlled asymmetric electron density distributions in this soft two-subband system we observe both individual subband gaps and double layer gaps at integer filling factor $\nu$. The bilayer gaps are shown to be either trivial common for two subbands or caused by hybridization of electron subbands in magnetic field. We describe the observed hybrid gaps at $\nu=1$ and $\nu=2$ within a simple model for the modified bilayer spectrum.Comment: REVTeX, 24 pages, 9 figures included. Submitted to Phys. Rev.

Computation of 3D Frequency-Domain Waveform Kernals for c(x,y,z) Media

Seismic tomography, as typically practiced on both the exploration, crustal, and global scales, considers only the arrival times of selected sets of phases and relies primarily on WKBJ theory during inversion. Since the mid 1980’s, researchers have explored, largely on a theoretical level, the possibility of inverting the entire seismic record. Due to the ongoing advances in CPU performance, full waveform inversion is finally becoming feasible on select problems with promising results emerging from frequency-domain methods. However, frequency-domain techniques using sparse direct solvers are currently constrained by memory limitations in 3D where they exhibit a O(n4) worst-case bound on memory usage. We sidestep this limitation by using a hybrid approach, calculating frequency domain Green’s functions for the scalar wave equation by driving a high-order, time-domain, finite-difference (FDTD) code to steady state using a periodic source. The frequency-domain response is extracted using the phase sensitive detection (PSD) method recently developed by Nihei and Li (2006). The resulting algorithm has an O(n3) memory footprint and is amenable to parallelization in the space, shot, or frequency domains. We demonstrate this approach by generating waveform inversion kernels for fully c(x,y,z) models. Our test examples include a realistic VSP experiment using the geometry and velocity models obtained from a site in Western Wyoming, and a deep crustal reflection/refraction profile based on the LARSE II geometry and the SCEC community velocity model. We believe that our 3D solutions to the scalar Helmholtz equation, for models with upwards of 100 million degrees of freedom, are the largest examples documented in the open geophysical literature. Such results suggest that iterative 3D waveform inversion is an achievable goal in the near future.Shell GameChangerMassachusetts Institute of Technology. Earth Resources Laborator

A Novel Application of Time Reversed Acoustics: Salt Dome Flank Imaging Using Walk Away VSP Surveys

In the past few years, there has been considerable research and interest in a topic known by various names, such as Time Reverse Acoustics (TRA), Time Reverse Mirrors (TRM), and Time Reverse Cavities (TRC), which exploits reciprocity and the time symmetric property of the wave equation. Very little of this work has been directed at the seismic exploration imaging problem. In fact, most of the work has had application in sonar, medical and non-destructive testing applications. Here we present some initial results of applying this technology to the seismic imaging of a salt dome flank. We create a set of synthetic traces representing a multi-level, walk away VSP for a model composed of a simplified Gulf of Mexico vertical velocity gradient and an embedded overhanging salt dome. To process these data, we first apply the concepts of TRA to the synthetic traces. This creates a set of stacked traces without having to perform any velocity analysis or complicated processing. Each of these stacked traces is equivalent to the output of a spatially coincident, or zero offset, down hole source and receiver pair. Thus we have the equivalent of a zero offset seismic section as if it were collected from down hole sources and receivers. After having applied the TRA concepts, we then apply conventional post stack depth migration to this zero offset section to produce the final image of the salt dome flank. Our results show a very good image of the salt. In fact, the image created is nearly identical to an image actually using data from down hole, zero offset source and receiver pairs. The simplicity of the TRA implementation provides a virtually automated method to create a stacked section as if it had been collected from the reference frame of the borehole containing the VSP survey.Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Earth Resources Laborator