Graphene-based spin-pumping transistor

We demonstrate with a fully quantum-mechanical approach that graphene can function as gate-controllable transistors for pumped spin currents, i.e., a stream of angular momentum induced by the precession of adjacent magnetizations, which exists in the absence of net charge currents. Furthermore, we propose as a proof of concept how these spin currents can be modulated by an electrostatic gate. Because our proposal involves nano-sized systems that function with very high speeds and in the absence of any applied bias, it is potentially useful for the development of transistors capable of combining large processing speeds, enhanced integration and extremely low power consumption

Graphene as a non-magnetic spin-current lens

In spintronics, the ability to transport magnetic information often depends on the existence of a spin current traveling between two different magnetic objects acting as source and probe. A large fraction of this information never reaches the probe and is lost because the spin current tends to travel omni-directionally. We propose that a curved boundary between a gated and a non-gated region within graphene acts as an ideal lens for spin currents despite being entirely of non-magnetic nature. We show as a proof of concept that such lenses can be utilized to redirect the spin current that travels away from a source onto a focus region where a magnetic probe is located, saving a considerable fraction of the magnetic information that would be otherwise lost.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figure

Dynamic RKKY interaction in graphene

The growing interest in carbon-based spintronics has stimulated a number of recent theoretical studies on the RKKY interaction in graphene, based on which the energetically favourable alignment between magnetic moments embedded in this material can be calculated. The general consensus is that the strength of the RKKY interaction in graphene decays as 1/D3 or faster, where D is the separation between magnetic moments. Such an unusually fast decay for a 2-dimensional system suggests that the RKKY interaction may be too short ranged to be experimentally observed in graphene. Here we show in a mathematically transparent form that a far more long ranged interaction arises when the magnetic moments are taken out of their equilibrium positions and set in motion. We not only show that this dynamic version of the RKKY interaction in graphene decays far more slowly but also propose how it can be observed with currently available experimental methods.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, submitte

Dynamic RKKY interaction between magnetic moments in graphene nanoribbons

Graphene has been identified as a promising material with numerous applications, particularly in spintronics. In this paper we investigate the peculiar features of spin excitations of magnetic units deposited on graphene nanoribbons and how they can couple through a dynamical interaction mediated by spin currents. We examine in detail the spin lifetimes and identify a pattern caused by vanishing density of states sites in pristine ribbons with armchair borders. Impurities located on these sites become practically invisible to the interaction, but can be made accessible by a gate voltage or doping. We also demonstrate that the coupling between impurities can be turned on or off using this characteristic, which may be used to control the transfer of information in transistor-like devices.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figure

Homogeneous metallicities and radial velocities for Galactic globular clusters. II. New CaT metallicities for 28 distant and reddened globular clusters

Although the globular clusters in the Milky Way have been studied for a long time, a significant fraction of them lack homogeneous metallicity and radial velocity measurements. In an earlier paper we presented the first part of a project to obtain metallicities and radial velocities of Galactic globular clusters from multiobject spectroscopy of their member stars using the ESO Very Large Telescope. In this paper we add metallicities and radial velocities for a new sample of 28 globular clusters, including in particular globular clusters in the MW halo and the Galactic bulge. Together with our previous results, this study brings the number of globular clusters with homogeneous measurements to $\sim 69$ \% of those listed in the W. Harris' catalogue. As in our previous work, we have used the CaII triplet lines to derive metallicities and radial velocities. For most of the clusters in this study, this is the first analysis based on spectroscopy of individual member stars. The metallicities derived from the CaII triplet are then compared to the results of our parallel study based on spectral fitting in the optical region and the implications for different calibrations of the CaII triplet line strengths are discussed. We also comment on some interesting clusters and investigate the presence of an abundance spread in the globular clusters here. A hint of a possible intrinsic spread is found for NGC 6256, which therefore appears to be a good candidate for further study.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysic

Predicting Intermediate Storage Performance for Workflow Applications

Configuring a storage system to better serve an application is a challenging task complicated by a multidimensional, discrete configuration space and the high cost of space exploration (e.g., by running the application with different storage configurations). To enable selecting the best configuration in a reasonable time, we design an end-to-end performance prediction mechanism that estimates the turn-around time of an application using storage system under a given configuration. This approach focuses on a generic object-based storage system design, supports exploring the impact of optimizations targeting workflow applications (e.g., various data placement schemes) in addition to other, more traditional, configuration knobs (e.g., stripe size or replication level), and models the system operation at data-chunk and control message level. This paper presents our experience to date with designing and using this prediction mechanism. We evaluate this mechanism using micro- as well as synthetic benchmarks mimicking real workflow applications, and a real application.. A preliminary evaluation shows that we are on a good track to meet our objectives: it can scale to model a workflow application run on an entire cluster while offering an over 200x speedup factor (normalized by resource) compared to running the actual application, and can achieve, in the limited number of scenarios we study, a prediction accuracy that enables identifying the best storage system configuration

Gemini spectra of 12000K white dwarf stars

We report signal-to-noise ratio SNR ~ 100 optical spectra for four DA white dwarf stars acquired with the GMOS spectrograph of the 8m Gemini north telescope. These stars have 18<g<19 and are around Teff ~ 12000 K, were the hydrogen lines are close to maximum. Our purpose is to test if the effective temperatures and surface gravities derived from the relatively low signal-to-noise ratio ( ~ 21) optical spectra acquired by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey through model atmosphere fitting are trustworthy. Our spectra range from 3800A to 6000A, therefore including H beta to H9. The H8 line was only marginally present in the SDSS spectra, but is crucial to determine the gravity. When we compare the values published by Kleinman et al. (2004) and Eisenstein et al. (2006) with our line-profile (LPT) fits, the average differences are: Delta Teff ~ 320 K, systematically lower in SDSS, and Delta log g ~ 0.24 dex, systematically larger in SDSS. The correlation between gravity and effective temperature can only be broken at wavelengths bluer than 3800 A. The uncertainties in Teff are 60% larger, and in log g larger by a factor of 4, than the Kleinman et al. (2004) and Eisenstein et al. (2006) internal uncertainties.Comment: 11 pages and 8 figure

Finding RR Lyrae Stars with SkyMapper: an Observational Test

One of the major science goals of the SkyMapper Survey of the Southern Hemisphere sky is the determination of the shape and extent of the halo of the Galaxy. In this paper we quantify the likely efficiency and completeness of the survey as regards the detection of RR Lyrae variable stars, which are excellent tracers of the halo stellar population. We have accomplished this via observations of the RR Lyrae-rich globular cluster NGC 3201. We find that for single epoch uvgri observations followed by two further epochs of g, r imaging, as per the intended three-epoch survey strategy, we recover known RR Lyraes with a completeness exceeding 90%. We also investigate boundaries in the gravity-sensitive single-epoch two-color diagram that yield high completeness and high efficiency (i.e., minimal contamination by non-RR Lyraes) and the general usefulness of this diagram in separating populations.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, to appear in the Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia (PASA), published by Cambridge University Pres