Luttinger liquid superlattices: realization of gapless insulating phases

We investigate Luttinger Liquid superlattices, a periodic structure composed of two kinds of one-dimensional systems of interacting electrons. We calculate several properties of the low-energy sector: the effective charge and spin velocities, the compressibility, various correlation functions, the Landauer conductance and the Drude weight. The low-energy properties are subsumed into effective parameters, much like homogeneous one-dimensional systems. A generic result is the weighted average nature of these parameters, in proportion to the spatial extent of the underlying subunits, pointing to the possibility of ``engineered'' structures. As a specific realization, we consider a one-dimensional Hubbard superlattice, which consists of a periodic arrangement of two long Hubbard chains with different coupling constants and different hopping amplitudes. This system exhibits a rich phase diagram with several phases, both metallic and insulating. We have found that gapless insulating phases are present over a wide range of parameters.Comment: 16 pages, 15 figures, RevTeX

Empowering Female High School Students for STEM Futures: Career Exploration and Leadership Development at Scientella

Women remain underrepresented in STEM fields, with a major STEM pipeline leakage occurring between high school and post-secondary education. Past research suggests that providing female high school students with opportunities for problem-solving, prosocial behaviors and working towards authentic communal goals can improve their perceptions of STEM and the attractiveness of STEM careers. Building on this prior research, we investigate Scientella, a US-based, student-run organization that provides out-of-school consulting projects, mentorships and webinars to female high school students. Drawing on the direct experiences of Scientella’s co-founders and analyzing program survey data, we explore how Scientella provides these opportunities, the benefits realized by students, and the challenges faced by the organization. Survey data show that involvement in Scientella’s activities provides students with benefits related to STEM career exploration and counter-stereotypical STEM skill development, including career discovery, industry engagement and practical experience, and the development of collaboration, communication and social research skills. The admissions of Scientella student leaders to STEM majors in selective US colleges indicates the promise of Scientella’s approach, and that providing students with opportunities to engage in STEM-themed career exploration and leadership development could be an effective strategy to increase female STEM participation in post-secondary education and the pursuit of subsequent career opportunities

Lorentz-violating nonminimal coupling contributions in mesonic hydrogen atoms and generation of photon higher-order derivative terms

We have studied the contributions of Lorentz-violating CPT-odd and CPT-even nonminimal couplings to the energy spectrum of the mesonic hydrogen and the higher-order radiative corrections to the effective action of the photon sector of a Lorentz-violating version of the scalar electrodynamics. By considering the complex scalar field describes charged mesons (pion or kaon), the non-relativistic limit of the model allows to attain upper-bounds by analyzing its contribution to the mesonic hydrogen energy. By using the experimental data for the $1S$ strong correction shift and the pure QED transitions $4P \rightarrow 3P$, the best upper-bound for the CPT-odd coupling is $<10^{-12}\text{eV}^{-1}$ and for the CPT-even one is $<10^{-16}\text{eV}^{-2}$. Besides, the CPT-odd radiative correction to the photon action is a dimension-5 operator which looks like a higher-order Carroll-Field-Jackiw term. The CPT-even radiative contribution to the photon effective action is a dimension-6 operator which would be a higher-order derivative version of the minimal CPT-even term of the standard model extension

Extreme thermopower anisotropy and interchain transport in the quasi-one-dimensional metal Li(0.9)Mo(6)O(17)

Thermopower and electrical resistivity measurements transverse to the conducting chains of the quasi-one-dimensional metal Li(0.9)Mo(6)O(17) are reported in the temperature range 5 K = 400 K the interchain transport is determined by thermal excitation of charge carriers from a valence band ~ 0.14 eV below the Fermi level, giving rise to a large, p-type thermopower that coincides with a small, n-type thermopower along the chains. This dichotomy -- semiconductor-like in one direction and metallic in a mutually perpendicular direction -- gives rise to substantial transverse thermoelectric (TE) effects and a transverse TE figure of merit among the largest known for a single compound.Comment: PRL in press, manuscript (5pp, 4 Fig.'s) and Supplementary Material (3pp, 3 Fig.'s