Measurement of the complex Faraday angle in thin-film metals and high temperature superconductors

A sensitive polarization modulation technique uses photoelastic modulation and hetrodyne detection to simultaneously measure the Faraday rotation and induced ellipticity in light transmitted by semiconducting and metallic samples. The frequencies measured are in the mid-infrared and correspond to the spectral lines of a CO2 laser. The measured temperature range is continuous and extends from 35 to 330K. Measured samples include GaAs and Si substrates, gold and copper films, and YBCO and BSCCO high temperature superconductors.Comment: 12 pages of text, 6 figures, fixed typos in formulas, added figur

Models for Enhanced Absorption in Inhomogeneous Superconductors

We discuss the low-frequency absorption arising from quenched inhomogeneity in the superfluid density rho_s of a model superconductor. Such inhomogeneities may arise in a high-T_c superconductor from a wide variety of sources, including quenched random disorder and static charge density waves such as stripes. Using standard classical methods for treating randomly inhomogeneous media, we show that both mechanisms produce additional absorption at finite frequencies. For a two-fluid model with weak mean-square fluctuations <(d rho_s)^2 > in rho_s and a frequency-independent quasiparticle conductivity, the extra absorption has oscillator strength proportional to the quantity <(d rho_s)^2>/rho_s, as observed in some experiments. Similar behavior is found in a two-fluid model with anticorrelated fluctuations in the superfluid and normal fluid densities. The extra absorption typically occurs as a Lorentzian centered at zero frequency. We present simple model calculations for this extra absorption under conditions of both weak and strong fluctuations. The relation between our results and other model calculations is briefly discussed

A Low Noise Thermometer Readout for Ruthenium Oxide Resistors

The thermometer and thermal control system, for the Absolute Radiometer for Cosmology, Astrophysics, and Diffuse Emission (ARCADE) experiment, is described, including the design, testing, and results from the first flight of ARCADE. The noise is equivalent to about 1 Omega or 0.15 mK in a second for the RuO_2 resistive thermometers at 2.7 K. The average power dissipation in each thermometer is 1 nW. The control system can take full advantage of the thermometers to maintain stable temperatures. Systematic effects are still under investigation, but the measured precision and accuracy are sufficient to allow measurement of the cosmic background spectrum. Journal-ref: Review of Scientific Instruments Vol 73 #10 (Oct 2002)Comment: 5 pages text 7 figure

Facial Cosmetics Have Little Effect on Attractiveness Judgments Compared with Identity

The vast majority of women in modern societies use facial cosmetics, which modify facial cues to attractiveness. However, the size of this increase remains unclear - how much more attractive are individuals after an application of cosmetics? Here, we utilised a 'new statistics' approach, calculating the effect size of cosmetics on attractiveness using a within-subjects design, and compared this with the effect size due to identity - that is, the inherent differences in attractiveness between people. Women were photographed with and without cosmetics, and these images were rated for attractiveness by a second group of participants. The proportion of variance in attractiveness explained by identity was much greater than the variance within models due to cosmetics. This result was unchanged after statistically controlling for the perceived amount of cosmetics that each model used. Although cosmetics increase attractiveness, the effect is small, and the benefits of cosmetics may be inflated in everyday thinking. © 2015, Pion Limited. All rights reserved

Site-specific Mutants of Oncomodulin: 1H NMR and optical stopped-flow studies of the effect on the metal binding properties of an Asp59 → Glu59 substitution in the calcium-specific site

Abstract High resolution 1H nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and optical stopped-flow techniques have been used to study the metal binding properties of a site-specific mutant of bacterial recombinant oncomodulin in which glutamate has replaced a liganding aspartate at position 59 in the CD calcium-binding site. In particular we have followed the replacement of calcium by lutetium in bacterial recombinant oncomodulin and D59E oncomodulin to provide a measure of the protein's preferences for metal ions of different ionic radii. The result of the Asp----Glu substitution is to make the mutant oncomodulin more similar to rat parvalbumin in terms of its relative CD- and EF-domain affinities for lutetium(III), that is to increase its affinity for metal ions with smaller ionic radii. This finding supports the original hypothesis that the presence of Asp at sequence position 59 is an important factor in the reduced preference of the CD site of oncomodulin for smaller metals such as magnesium (Williams, T. C., Corson, D. C., Sykes, B. D., and MacManus, J. P. (1987) J. Biol. Chem. 262, 6248-6256). However, our studies show that both the CD and the EF sites are affected by this single residue substitution suggesting that many factors play a role in the metal binding affinity and interaction between the two sites

Deformation of a nearly hemispherical conducting drop due to an electric field: theory and experiment

We consider, both theoretically and experimentally, the deformation due to an electric field of a pinned nearly-hemispherical static sessile drop of an ionic fluid with a high conductivity resting on the lower substrate of a parallel plate capacitor. Using both numerical and asymptotic approaches we find solutions to the coupled electrostatic and augmented Young–Laplace equations which agree very well with the experimental results. Our asymptotic solution for the drop interface extends previous work in two ways, namely to drops that have zero-field contact angles that are not exactly π/2 and to higher order in the applied electric field, and provides useful predictive equations for the changes in the height, contact angle and pressure as functions of the zero-field contact angle, drop radius, surface tension and applied electric field. The asymptotic solution requires some numerical computations, and so a surprisingly accurate approximate analytical asymptotic solution is also obtained

Conductivity Due to Classical Phase Fluctuations in a Model For High-T_c Superconductors

We consider the real part of the conductivity, \sigma_1(\omega), arising from classical phase fluctuations in a model for high-T_c superconductors. We show that the frequency integral of that conductivity, \int_0^\infty \sigma_1 d\omega, is non-zero below the superconducting transition temperature $T_c$, provided there is some quenched disorder in the system. Furthermore, for a fixed amount of quenched disorder, this integral at low temperatures is proportional to the zero-temperature superfluid density, in agreement with experiment. We calculate \sigma_1(\omega) explicitly for a model of overdamped phase fluctuations.Comment: 4pages, 2figures, submitted to Phys.Rev.

Possible Pseudogap Phase in QCD

Thermal pion fluctuations, in principle, can completely disorder the phase of the quark condensate and thus restore chiral symmetry. If this happens before the quark condensate melts, strongly-interacting matter will be in the pseudogap state just above the chiral phase transition. The quark condensate does not vanish locally and quarks acquire constituent masses in the pseudogap phase, despite chiral symmetry is restored.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure; v2: references added; v3: argumerts modified; v4: minor changes; v5: a misprint correcte

^{7}Li NMR Study of Heavy Fermion LiV2O4 Containing Magnetic Defects

We present a systematic study of the variations of the ^{7}Li NMR properties versus magnetic defect concentration up to 0.83 mol% within the spinel structure of polycrystalline powder samples and a collection of small single crystals of LiV2O4 in the temperature range from 0.5 to 4.2 K. We also report static magnetization measurements and ac magnetic susceptibility measurements at 14 MHz on the samples at low temperatures. Both the NMR spectrum and nuclear spin-lattice relaxation rate are inhomogeneous in the presence of the magnetic defects. The NMR data for the powders are well explained by assuming that (i) there is a random distribution of magnetic point defects, (ii) the same heavy Fermi liquid is present in the samples containing the magnetic defects as in magnetically pure LiV2O4, and (iii) the influences of the magnetic defects and of the Fermi liquid on the magnetization and NMR properties are separable. In the single crystals, somewhat different behaviors are observed. Remarkably, the magnetic defects in the powder samples show evidence of spin freezing below T ~ 1.0 K, whereas in the single crystals with similar magnetic defect concentration no spin freezing was found down to 0.5 K. Thus different types of magnetic defects and/or interactions between them appear to arise in the powders versus the crystals, possibly due to the substantially different synthesis conditions of the powders and crystals.Comment: 18 pages typeset in 2 columns, 16 figures; submitted to PR

Transport properties of heterogeneous materials derived from Gaussian random fields: Bounds and Simulation

We investigate the effective conductivity ($\sigma_e$) of a class of amorphous media defined by the level-cut of a Gaussian random field. The three point solid-solid correlation function is derived and utilised in the evaluation of the Beran-Milton bounds. Simulations are used to calculate $\sigma_e$ for a variety of fields and volume fractions at several different conductivity contrasts. Relatively large differences in $\sigma_e$ are observed between the Gaussian media and the identical overlapping sphere model used previously as a `model' amorphous medium. In contrast $\sigma_e$ shows little variability between different Gaussian media.Comment: 15 pages, 14 figure