3,601 research outputs found
Stability of the Bragg glass phase in a layered geometry
We study the stability of the dislocation-free Bragg glass phase in a layered
geometry consisting of coupled parallel planes of d=1+1 vortex lines lying
within each plane, in the presence of impurity disorder. Using renormalization
group, replica variational calculations and physical arguments we show that at
temperatures the 3D Bragg glass phase is always stable for weak
disorder. It undergoes a weakly first order transition into a decoupled 2D
vortex glass upon increase of disorder.Comment: RevTeX. Submitted to EP
Discovery of Solar Rieger Periodicities in Another Star
The Rieger periods are solar cycles with a time scale of months, which are
present in both flaring activity and sunspot occurrence. These short-term
periodicities, tentatively explained by equatorially trapped Rossby-type waves
modulating the emergence of magnetic flux at the surface, are considered a
peculiar and not yet fully understood solar phenomenon. We chose a stellar
system with solar characteristics, UX Arietis, and performed a timing analysis
of two 9-year datasets of radio and optical observations. The analysis reveals
a 294-day cycle. When the two 9-year datasets are folded with this period, a
synchronization of the peak of the optical light curve (i.e., the minimum spot
coverage) with the minimum radio flaring activity is observed. This close
relationship between two completly independent curves makes it very likely that
the 294-day cycle is real. We conclude that the process invoked for the Sun of
a periodical emergence of magnetic flux may also be applied to UX Arietis and
can explain the cyclic flaring activity triggered by interactions between
successive cyclic emergences of magnetic flux.Comment: 4 Pages, 1 table, 3 figures (quality of Fig. 1 degraded to match the
requested size), needs aa.cls, accepted to be published as a letter in
Astronomy & Astrophysic
Dephasing due to nonstationary 1/f noise
Motivated by recent experiments with Josephson qubits we propose a new
phenomenological model for 1/f noise due to collective excitations of
interacting defects in the qubit's environment. At very low temperatures the
effective dynamics of these collective modes are very slow leading to
pronounced non-Gaussian features and nonstationarity of the noise. We analyze
the influence of this noise on the dynamics of a qubit in various regimes and
at different operation points. Remarkable predictions are absolute time
dependences of a critical coupling and of dephasing in the strong coupling
regime.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, to be published in the proceedings of the Vth
Rencontres de Moriond in Mesoscopic Physic
Proximity effect on hydrodynamic interaction between a sphere and a plane measured by Force Feedback Microscopy at different frequencies
In this article, we measure the viscous damping and the associated
stiffness of a liquid flow in sphere-plane geometry in a large frequency
range. In this regime, the lubrication approximation is expected to dominate.
We first measure the static force applied to the tip. This is made possible
thanks to a force feedback method. Adding a sub-nanometer oscillation of the
tip, we obtain the dynamic part of the interaction with solely the knowledge of
the lever properties in the experimental context using a linear transformation
of the amplitude and phase change. Using a Force Feedback Microscope (FFM)we
are then able to measure simultaneously the static force, the stiffness and the
dissipative part of the interaction in a broad frequency range using a single
AFM probe. Similar measurements have been performed by the Surface Force
Apparatus with a probe radius hundred times bigger. In this context the FFM can
be called nano-SFA
Dephasing by a nonstationary classical intermittent noise
We consider a new phenomenological model for a classical
intermittent noise and study its effects on the dephasing of a two-level
system. Within this model, the evolution of the relative phase between the
states is described as a continuous time random walk (CTRW). Using
renewal theory, we find exact expressions for the dephasing factor and identify
the physically relevant various regimes in terms of the coupling to the noise.
In particular, we point out the consequences of the non-stationarity and
pronounced non-Gaussian features of this noise, including some new anomalous
and aging dephasing scenarii.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev.
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