1,786 research outputs found
Localization and superconducting proximity effect in sandwiched potassium films
Thin films of alkali metals when sandwiched at both surfaces by thin metal
films loose their conductance. The superconducting proximity effect is used to
investigate the change in the alkali film. On the length scale of the film
thickness the electronic properties of the alkali film do not change noticeably
although its conductance is dramatically reduced, corresponding to localized
electrons.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figure
Superconducting proximity effects in metals with a repulsive pairing interaction
Studies of the superconducting proximity effect in normal
conductor/superconductor junctions almost universally assume no
effective electron-electron coupling in the region. While such an
approximation leads to a simple description of the proximity effect, it is
unclear how it could be rigorously justified. We reveal a much more complex
picture of the proximity effect in bilayers, where is a clean s-wave
BCS superconductor and is a simple metal with a repulsive effective
electron coupling. We elucidate the proximity effect behavior using a highly
accurate method to self-consistently solve the Bogoliubov-deGennes equations.
We present our results for a wide range of values of the interface scattering,
the Fermi wave vector mismatch, the temperature, and the ratio of the
effective interaction strengths in the and region. We find that the
repulsive interaction, represented by a negative , strongly alters the
signatures of the proximity effect as can be seen in the spatial dependence of
the Cooper pair amplitude and the pair potential, as well as in the local
density of states near the interface.Comment: 12 pages, including 10 figures. To appear in Phys. Rev.
Towards understanding the variability in biospheric CO2 fluxes:Using FTIR spectrometry and a chemical transport model to investigate the sources and sinks of carbonyl sulfide and its link to CO2
Understanding carbon dioxide (CO2) biospheric processes is of great importance because the terrestrial exchange drives the seasonal and interannual variability of CO2 in the atmosphere. Atmospheric inversions based on CO2 concentration measurements alone can only determine net biosphere fluxes, but not differentiate between photosynthesis (uptake) and respiration (production). Carbonyl sulfide (OCS) could provide an important additional constraint: it is also taken up by plants during photosynthesis but not emitted during respiration, and therefore is a potential means to differentiate between these processes. Solar absorption Fourier Transform InfraRed (FTIR) spectrometry allows for the retrievals of the atmospheric concentrations of both CO2 and OCS from measured solar absorption spectra. Here, we investigate co-located and quasi-simultaneous FTIR measurements of OCS and CO2 performed at five selected sites located in the Northern Hemisphere. These measurements are compared to simulations of OCS and CO2 using a chemical transport model (GEOS-Chem). The coupled biospheric fluxes of OCS and CO2 from the simple biosphere model (SiB) are used in the study. The CO2 simulation with SiB fluxes agrees with the measurements well, while the OCS simulation reproduced a weaker drawdown than FTIR measurements at selected sites, and a smaller latitudinal gradient in the Northern Hemisphere during growing season when comparing with HIPPO (HIAPER Pole-to-Pole Observations) data spanning both hemispheres. An offset in the timing of the seasonal cycle minimum between SiB simulation and measurements is also seen. Using OCS as a photosynthesis proxy can help to understand how the biospheric processes are reproduced in models and to further understand the carbon cycle in the real world
Monte Carlo Simulation of the Heisenberg Antiferromagnet on a Triangular Lattice: Topological Excitations
We have simulated the classical Heisenberg antiferromagnet on a triangular
lattice using a local Monte Carlo algorithm. The behavior of the correlation
length , the susceptibility at the ordering wavevector , and
the spin stiffness clearly reflects the existence of two temperature
regimes -- a high temperature regime , in which the disordering
effect of vortices is dominant, and a low temperature regime ,
where correlations are controlled by small amplitude spin fluctuations. As has
previously been shown, in the last regime, the behavior of the above quantities
agrees well with the predictions of a renormalization group treatment of the
appropriate nonlinear sigma model. For , a satisfactory fit of the
data is achieved, if the temperature dependence of and is
assumed to be of the form predicted by the Kosterlitz--Thouless theory.
Surprisingly, the crossover between the two regimes appears to happen in a very
narrow temperature interval around .Comment: 13 pages, 8 Postscript figure
Derivation of tropospheric methane from TCCON CH₄ and HF total column observations
The Total Carbon Column Observing Network (TCCON) is a global ground-based network of Fourier transform spectrometers that produce precise measurements of column-averaged dry-air mole fractions of atmospheric methane (CH₄). Temporal variability in the total column of CH₄ due to stratospheric dynamics obscures fluctuations and trends driven by tropospheric transport and local surface fluxes that are critical for understanding CH₄ sources and sinks. We reduce the contribution of stratospheric variability from the total column average by subtracting an estimate of the stratospheric CH₄ derived from simultaneous measurements of hydrogen fluoride (HF). HF provides a proxy for stratospheric CH₄ because it is strongly correlated to CH₄ in the stratosphere, has an accurately known tropospheric abundance (of zero), and is measured at most TCCON stations. The stratospheric partial column of CH₄ is calculated as a function of the zonal and annual trends in the relationship between CH₄ and HF in the stratosphere, which we determine from ACE-FTS satellite data. We also explicitly take into account the CH₄ column averaging kernel to estimate the contribution of stratospheric CH₄ to the total column. The resulting tropospheric CH₄ columns are consistent with in situ aircraft measurements and augment existing observations in the troposphere
Evidence for a Bulk Complex Order-Parameter in Y0.9Ca0.1Ba2Cu3O7-delta Thin Films
We have measured the penetration depth of overdoped Y0.9Ca0.1Ba2Cu3O7-delta
(Ca-YBCO) thin films using two different methods. The change of the penetration
depth as a function of temperature has been measured using the parallel plate
resonator (PPR), while its absolute value was obtained from a quasi-optical
transmission measurements. Both sets of measurements are compatible with an
order parameter of the form: Delta*dx2-y2+i*delta*dxy, with Delta=14.5 +- 1.5
meV and delta=1.8 meV, indicating a finite gap at low temperature. Below 15 K
the drop of the scattering rate of uncondensed carriers becomes steeper in
contrast to a flattening observed for optimally doped YBCO films. This decrease
supports our results on the penetration depth temperature dependence. The
findings are in agreement with tunneling measurements on similar Ca-YBCO thin
films.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figure
Atmospheric greenhouse gases retrieved from SCIAMACHY: comparison to ground-based FTS measurements and model results
SCIAMACHY onboard ENVISAT (launched in 2002) enables the retrieval of global long-term column-averaged dry air mole fractions of the two most important anthropogenic greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane (denoted XCO_2 and XCH_4). In order to assess the quality of the greenhouse gas data obtained with the recently introduced v2 of the scientific retrieval algorithm WFM-DOAS, we present validations with ground-based Fourier Transform Spectrometer (FTS) measurements and comparisons with model results at eight Total Carbon Column Observing Network (TCCON) sites providing realistic error estimates of the satellite data. Such validation is a prerequisite to assess the suitability of data sets for their use in inverse modelling.
It is shown that there are generally no significant differences between the carbon dioxide annual increases of SCIAMACHY and the assimilation system CarbonTracker (2.00 ± 0.16 ppm yr^(−1) compared to 1.94 ± 0.03 ppm yr−1 on global average). The XCO_2 seasonal cycle amplitudes derived from SCIAMACHY are typically larger than those from TCCON which are in turn larger than those from CarbonTracker. The absolute values of the northern hemispheric TCCON seasonal cycle amplitudes are closer to SCIAMACHY than to CarbonTracker and the corresponding differences are not significant when compared with SCIAMACHY, whereas they can be significant for a subset of the analysed TCCON sites when compared with CarbonTracker. At Darwin we find discrepancies of the seasonal cycle derived from SCIAMACHY compared to the other data sets which can probably be ascribed to occurrences of undetected thin clouds. Based on the comparison with the reference data, we conclude that the carbon dioxide data set can be characterised by a regional relative precision (mean standard deviation of the differences) of about 2.2 ppm and a relative accuracy (standard deviation of the mean differences) of 1.1–1.2 ppm for monthly average composites within a radius of 500 km.
For methane, prior to November 2005, the regional relative precision amounts to 12 ppb and the relative accuracy is about 3 ppb for monthly composite averages within the same radius. The loss of some spectral detector pixels results in a degradation of performance thereafter in the spectral range currently used for the methane column retrieval. This leads to larger scatter and lower XCH_4 values are retrieved in the tropics for the subsequent time period degrading the relative accuracy. As a result, the overall relative precision is estimated to be 17 ppb and the relative accuracy is in the range of about 10–20 ppb for monthly averages within a radius of 500 km.
The derived estimates show that the SCIAMACHY XCH_4 data set before November 2005 is suitable for regional source/sink determination and regional-scale flux uncertainty reduction via inverse modelling worldwide. In addition, the XCO2 monthly data potentially provide valuable information in continental regions, where there is sparse sampling by surface flask measurements
Generic Finite Size Enhancement of Pairing in Mesoscopic Fermi Systems
The finite size dependent enhancement of pairing in mesoscopic Fermi systems
is studied under the assumption that the BCS approach is valid and that the two
body force is size independent. Different systems are investigated such as
superconducting metallic grains and films as well atomic nuclei. It is shown
that the finite size enhancement of pairing in these systems is in part due to
the presence of a surface which accounts quite well for the data of nuclei and
explains a good fraction of the enhancement in Al grains.Comment: Updated version 17/02/0
Collinear N\'eel-type ordering in partially frustrated lattices
We consider two partially frustrated S = 1/2 antiferromagnetic spin systems
on the triangular and pentagonal lattices. In an elementary plaquette of the
two lattices, one bond has exchange interaction strength () whereas all other bonds have exchange interaction strength unity. We show
that for less than a critical value , collinear
N\'eel-type ordering is possible in the ground state. The ground state energy
and the excitation spectrum have been determined using linear spin wave theory
based on the Holstein-Primakoff transformation.Comment: Four pages, LaTeX, Four postscripts figures, Phys. Rev. B58, 73
(1998
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