Breakdown of the lattice polaron picture in La0.7Ca0.3MnO3 single crystals

When heated through the magnetic transition at Tc, La0.7Ca0.3MnO3 changes from a band metal to a polaronic insulator. The Hall constant R_H, through its activated behavior and sign anomaly, provides key evidence for polaronic behavior. We use R_H and the Hall mobility to demonstrate the breakdown of the polaron phase. Above 1.4Tc, the polaron picture holds in detail, while below, the activation energies of both R_H and the mobility deviate strongly from their polaronic values. These changes reflect the presence of metallic, ferromagnetic fluctuations, in the volume of which the Hall effect develops additional contributions tied to quantal phases.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, final version to appear in Phys. Rev. B Rapi

Using media to improve the informed consent process for youth undergoing pediatric endoscopy and their parents.

Background and study aims Youth undergoing pediatric endoscopic procedures and their parents demonstrate suboptimal comprehension of the informed consent (IC) process. We developed informational videos discussing key IC elements for pediatric endoscopy and evaluated their effects on youth and parental comprehension of the IC process. Patients and methods A randomized controlled trial of the video intervention was performed among youth undergoing endoscopy and their parents at an academic children's hospital. Randomization occurred at the time of enrollment using permutated blocks. Following the IC process with the proceduralist, subjects underwent structured interviews to assess IC comprehension. An Informed Consent Overall Score (ICOS: range 0 - 4) for comprehension was calculated. Results Seventy-seven pairs of children and their parents participated. Intervention recipients (N = 37 pairs) demonstrated higher ICOS scores as compared to control counterparts (mean (standard deviation): 3.6 (0.7) v. 2.9 (0.9), intervention v. control parents, P < 0.0001 and 2.7 (1.1) v. 1.7 (1.1), intervention v. control youth, P < 0.0001). Conclusions A media intervention addressing key elements of the IC process for pediatric endoscopy was effective in improving comprehension of IC for youth undergoing endoscopic procedures and their parents

TeV leptogenesis in Z-prime models and its collider probe

We show that the U(1)-prime models linked with the seesaw mechanism at TeV scale can lead to a successful baryogenesis through soft leptogenesis with a resonant behavior in the B parameter. Such a consideration constrains the Z-prime mass to be larger than 2-3 TeV depending on the seesaw scale and the spharelon rate. Together with multi-TeV Z-prime, large sneutrino-antisneutrino mixing and CP violating phenomena required by TeV leptogenesis could be searched for in future colliders by observing the distinct same-sign dilepton--dichargino as well as dislepton--diHiggs signatures.Comment: 10 pages with 2 figure

Berry's phase contribution to the anomalous Hall effect of gadolinium

When conduction electrons are forced to follow the local spin texture, the resulting Berry phase can induce an anomalous Hall effect (AHE). In gadolinium, as in double-exchange magnets, the exchange interaction is mediated by the conduction electrons and the AHE may therefore resemble that of chromium dioxide and other metallic double-exchange ferromagnets. The Hall resistivity, magnetoresistance, and magnetization of single crystal gadolinium were measured in fields up to 30 T. Measurements between 2 K and 400 K are consistent with previously reported data. A scaling analysis for the Hall resistivity as a function of the magnetization suggests the presence of a Berry's-phase contribution to the anomalous Hall effect.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Molecular dynamics study of the fragmentation of silicon doped fullerenes

Tight binding molecular dynamics simulations, with a non orthogonal basis set, are performed to study the fragmentation of carbon fullerenes doped with up to six silicon atoms. Both substitutional and adsorbed cases are considered. The fragmentation process is simulated starting from the equilibrium configuration in each case and imposing a high initial temperature to the atoms. Kinetic energy quickly converts into potential energy, so that the system oscillates for some picoseconds and eventually breaks up. The most probable first event for substituted fullerenes is the ejection of a C2 molecule, another very frequent event being that one Si atom goes to an adsorbed position. Adsorbed Si clusters tend to desorb as a whole when they have four or more atoms, while the smaller ones tend to dissociate and sometimes interchange positions with the C atoms. These results are compared with experimental information from mass abundance spectroscopy and the products of photofragmentation.Comment: Seven two-column pages, six postscript figures. To be published in Physical Review

In an Attempt to Introduce Long-range Interactions into Small-world Networks

Distinguishing the long-range bonds with the regular ones, the critical temperature of the spin-lattice Guassian model built on two typical Small-world Networks (SWNs) is studied. The results show much difference from the classical case, and thus may induce some more accurate discussion on the critical properties of the spin-lattice systems combined with the SWNs.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, 18 referenc

Neutrino Oscillations and Collider Test of the R-parity Violating Minimal Supergravity Model

We study the R-parity violating minimal supergravity models accounting for the observed neutrino masses and mixing, which can be tested in future collider experiments. The bi-large mixing can be explained by allowing five dominant tri-linear couplings $\lambda'_{1,2,3}$ and $\lambda_{1,2}$. The desired ratio of the atmospheric and solar neutrino mass-squared differences can be obtained in a very limited parameter space where the tree-level contribution is tuned to be suppressed. In this allowed region, we quantify the correlation between the three neutrino mixing angles and the tri-linear R-parity violating couplings. Qualitatively, the relations $| \lambda'_1 | < | \lambda'_2| \sim | \lambda'_3|$, and $|\lambda_1| \sim |\lambda_2|$ are required by the large atmospheric neutrino mixing angle $\theta_{23}$ and the small angle $\theta_{13}$, and the large solar neutrino mixing angle $\theta_{12}$, respectively. Such a prediction on the couplings can be tested in the next linear colliders by observing the branching ratios of the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP). For the stau or the neutralino LSP, the ratio $|\lambda_1|^2: |\lambda_2|^2: |\lambda_1|^2 + |\lambda_2|^2$ can be measured by establishing $Br(e\nu): Br(\mu\nu) : Br(\tau\nu)$ or $Br(\nu e^\pm \tau^\mp ): Br(\nu\mu^\pm\tau^\mp) : Br(\nu\tau^\pm\tau^\mp)$, respectively. The information on the couplings $\lambda'_i$ can be drawn by measuring $Br(l_i t \bar{b}) \propto |\lambda'_i|^2$ if the neutralino LSP is heavier than the top quark.Comment: RevTex, 25 pages, 8 eps figure