Disclinations, dislocations and continuous defects: a reappraisal

Disclinations, first observed in mesomorphic phases, are relevant to a number of ill-ordered condensed matter media, with continuous symmetries or frustrated order. They also appear in polycrystals at the edges of grain boundaries. They are of limited interest in solid single crystals, where, owing to their large elastic stresses, they mostly appear in close pairs of opposite signs. The relaxation mechanisms associated with a disclination in its creation, motion, change of shape, involve an interplay with continuous or quantized dislocations and/or continuous disclinations. These are attached to the disclinations or are akin to Nye's dislocation densities, well suited here. The notion of 'extended Volterra process' takes these relaxation processes into account and covers different situations where this interplay takes place. These concepts are illustrated by applications in amorphous solids, mesomorphic phases and frustrated media in their curved habit space. The powerful topological theory of line defects only considers defects stable against relaxation processes compatible with the structure considered. It can be seen as a simplified case of the approach considered here, well suited for media of high plasticity or/and complex structures. Topological stability cannot guarantee energetic stability and sometimes cannot distinguish finer details of structure of defects.Comment: 72 pages, 36 figure

Binding of Holes to Magnetic Impurities in a Strongly Correlated System

The effect of a magnetic (S=1/2) impurity coupled to a 2D system of correlated electrons (described by the t--J model) is studied by exact diagonalisations. It is found that, if the exchange coupling of the impurity with the neighboring spins is ferromagnetic or weakly antiferromagnetic, an extra hole can form bound states of different spatial symmetries with the impurity extending to a few lattice spacings. The binding energy is maximum when the impurity is completely decoupled (vacancy) and vanishes for an antiferromagnetic coupling exceeding $\sim 0.3 J$. Several peaks appear in the single hole spectral function below the lower edge of the quasiparticle band as signatures of the d-, s- and p-wave boundstates.Comment: Latex 11 pages, postscript files in uuencoded form, report# LPQTH-94/

Resonant finite-size impurities in graphene, unitary limit and Friedel oscillations

Unitary limit for model point scatterers in graphene is known to reveal low-energy resonances. The same limit could be achieved from hybridization of band electrons with the localized impurity level positioned in the vicinity of the Fermi level. The finite size defects represent an easier realization of the effective unitary limit, occurring when the Fermi wavelength induced by the potential becomes of the order of the size of the defect. We calculate the induced electron density and find two signatures of a strong impurity, independent of its specific realization. The dependence of the impurity-induced electron density on the distance changes near resonances from ~r^{-3} to ~r^{-2}. The total number of induced particles at the resonance is equal to one per degree of spin and valley degeneracy. The effects of doping on the induced density are found.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, published versio

Resonant Impurity Scattering in a Strongly Correlated Electron Model

Scattering by a single impurity introduced in a strongly correlated electronic system is studied by exact diagonalization of small clusters. It is shown that an inert site which is spinless and unable to accomodate holes can give rise to strong resonant scattering. A calculation of the local density of state reveals that, for increasing antiferromagnetic exchange coupling, d, s and p-wave symmetry bound states in which a mobile hole is trapped by the impurity potential induced by a local distortion of the antiferromagnetic background successively pull out from the continuum.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures available on request, report LPQTH-93-2

Predicting dislocation climb: Classical modeling versus atomistic simulations

The classical modeling of dislocation climb based on a continuous description of vacancy diffusion is compared to recent atomistic simulations of dislocation climb in body-centered cubic iron under vacancy supersaturation [Phys. Rev. Lett. 105 095501 (2010)]. A quantitative agreement is obtained, showing the ability of the classical approach to describe dislocation climb. The analytical model is then used to extrapolate dislocation climb velocities to lower dislocation densities, in the range corresponding to experiments. This allows testing of the validity of the pure climb creep model proposed by Kabir et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 105 095501 (2010)]

The global response of relativistic radiation belt electrons to the January 1997 magnetic cloud

In January 1997 a large fleet of NASA and US military satellites provided the most complete observations to date of the changes in \u3e2 MeV electrons during a geomagnetic storm. Observations at geosynchronous orbit revealed a somewhat unusual two-peaked enhancement in relativistic electron fluxes [ Reeves et al., 1998]. In the heart of the radiation belts at L ≈ 4, however, there was a single enhancement followed by a gradual decay. Radial profiles from the POLAR and GPS satellites revealed three distinct phases. (1) In the acceleration phase electron fluxes increased simultaneously at L ≈ 4–6. (2) During the passage of the cloud the radiation belts were shifted radially outward and then relaxed earthward. (3) For several days after the passage of the cloud the radial gradient of the fluxes flattened, increasing the fluxes at higher L-shells. These observations provide evidence that the acceleration of relativistic electrons takes place within the radiation belts and is rapid. Both magnetospheric compression and radial diffusion can cause a redistribution of electron fluxes within the magnetosphere that make the event profiles appear quite different when viewed at different L-shells