1,047 research outputs found
Could One Find Petroleum Using Neutrino Oscillations in Matter?
In neutrino physics, it is now widely believed that neutrino oscillations are
influenced by the presence of matter, modifying the energy spectrum produced by
a neutrino beam traversing the Earth. Here, we will discuss the reverse
problem, i.e. what could be learned about the Earth's interior from a single
neutrino baseline energy spectrum, especially about the Earth's mantle. We will
use a statistical analysis with a low-energy neutrino beam under very
optimistic assumptions. At the end, we will note that it is hard to find
petroleum with such a method, though it is not too far away from technical
feasibility.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, EPL LaTeX. Final version to be published in
Europhys. Let
Apparent Metallic Behavior at B = 0 of a two-dimensional electron system in AlAs
We report the observation of metallic-like behavior at low temperatures and
zero magnetic field in two dimensional (2D) electrons in an AlAs quantum well.
At high densities the resistance of the sample decreases with decreasing
temperature, but as the density is reduced the behavior changes to insulating,
with the resistance increasing as the temperature is decreased. The effect is
similar to that observed in 2D electrons in Si-MOSFETs, and in 2D holes in SiGe
and GaAs, and points to the generality of this phenomenon
QUaD: A High-Resolution Cosmic Microwave Background Polarimeter
We describe the QUaD experiment, a millimeter-wavelength polarimeter designed
to observe the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) from a site at the South Pole.
The experiment comprises a 2.64 m Cassegrain telescope equipped with a
cryogenically cooled receiver containing an array of 62 polarization-sensitive
bolometers. The focal plane contains pixels at two different frequency bands,
100 GHz and 150 GHz, with angular resolutions of 5 arcmin and 3.5 arcmin,
respectively. The high angular resolution allows observation of CMB temperature
and polarization anisotropies over a wide range of scales. The instrument
commenced operation in early 2005 and collected science data during three
successive Austral winter seasons of observation.Comment: 23 pages, author list and text updated to reflect published versio
Kagome silicene: a novel exotic form of two-dimensional epitaxial silicon
Since the discovery of graphene, intensive efforts have been made in search
of novel two-dimensional (2D) materials. Decreasing the materials
dimensionality to their ultimate thinness is a promising route to unveil new
physical phenomena, and potentially improve the performance of devices. Among
recent 2D materials, analogs of graphene, the group IV elements have attracted
much attention for their unexpected and tunable physical properties. Depending
on the growth conditions and substrates, several structures of silicene,
germanene, and stanene can be formed. Here, we report the synthesis of a Kagome
lattice of silicene on aluminum (111) substrates. We provide evidence of such
an exotic 2D Si allotrope through scanning tunneling microscopy (STM)
observations, high-resolution core-level (CL) and angle-resolved photoelectron
spectroscopy (ARPES) measurements, along with Density Functional Theory
calculations.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figure
Determination of the (3x3)-Sn/Ge(111) structure by photoelectron diffraction
At a coverage of about 1/3 monolayer, Sn deposited on Ge(111) below 550 forms
a metastable (sqrt3 x sqrt3)R30 phase. This phase continuously and reversibly
transforms into a (3x3) one, upon cooling below 200 K. The photoemission
spectra of the Sn 4d electrons from the (3x3)-Sn/Ge(111) surface present two
components which are attributed to inequivalent Sn atoms in T4 bonding sites.
This structure has been explored by photoelectron diffraction experiments
performed at the ALOISA beamline of the Elettra storage ring in Trieste
(Italy). The modulation of the intensities of the two Sn components, caused by
the backscattering of the underneath Ge atoms, has been measured as a function
of the emission angle at fixed kinetic energies and viceversa. The bond angle
between Sn and its nearest neighbour atoms in the first Ge layer (Sn-Ge1) has
been measured by taking polar scans along the main symmetry directions and it
was found almost equivalent for the two components. The corresponding bond
lengths are also quite similar, as obtained by studying the dependence on the
photoelectron kinetic energy, while keeping the photon polarization and the
collection direction parallel to the Sn-Ge1 bond orientation (bond emission). A
clear difference between the two bonding sites is observed when studying the
energy dependence at normal emission, where the sensitivity to the Sn height
above the Ge atom in the second layer is enhanced. This vertical distance is
found to be 0.3 Angstroms larger for one Sn atom out of the three contained in
the lattice unit cell. The (3x3)-Sn/Ge(111) is thus characterized by a
structure where the Sn atom and its three nearest neighbour Ge atoms form a
rather rigid unit that presents a strong vertical distortion with respect to
the underneath atom of the second Ge layer.Comment: 10 pages with 9 figures, added reference
Spontaneous coherence and the quantum Hall Effect in triple-layer electron systems
We investigate spontaneous interlayer phase coherence and the occurrence of
the quantum Hall effect in triple-layer electron systems. Our work is based on
a simple tight-binding model that greatly facilitates calculations and whose
accuracy is verified by comparison with recent experiments. By calculating the
ground state in an unrestricted Hartree-Fock approximation and the
collective-mode spectrum in a time-dependent Hartree-Fock approximation, we
construct a phase diagram delimiting regions in the parameter space of the
model where the integer quantum Hall effect occurs in the absence of interlayer
tunneling.Comment: To appear in Phys. Rev. B, 20 pages, 5 PostScript figures uuencoded
with TeX fil
Massive torsion modes, chiral gravity, and the Adler-Bell-Jackiw anomaly
Regularization of quantum field theories introduces a mass scale which breaks
axial rotational and scaling invariances. We demonstrate from first principles
that axial torsion and torsion trace modes have non-transverse vacuum
polarization tensors, and become massive as a result. The underlying reasons
are similar to those responsible for the Adler-Bell-Jackiw (ABJ) and scaling
anomalies. Since these are the only torsion components that can couple
minimally to spin 1/2 particles, the anomalous generation of masses for these
modes, naturally of the order of the regulator scale, may help to explain why
torsion and its associated effects, including CPT violation in chiral gravity,
have so far escaped detection. As a simpler manifestation of the reasons
underpinning the ABJ anomaly than triangle diagrams, the vacuum polarization
demonstration is also pedagogically useful. In addition it is shown that the
teleparallel limit of a Weyl fermion theory coupled only to the left-handed
spin connection leads to a counter term which is the Samuel-Jacobson-Smolin
action of chiral gravity in four dimensions.Comment: 7 pages, RevTeX fil
Static lattice distortions and the structure of Au/Si(111)-(5Ă—1): An x-ray-diffraction study
Grazing-incidence x-ray diffraction has been used to determine the atomic arrangement in the 5Ă—1 structure of Au on Si(111). The main features of this structure are partially occupied rows of gold atoms in low-symmetry sites. The density of Au atoms is highly asymmetric in the direction perpendicular to the rows. The substrate atoms in the top double layer are shifted up to 1 Ă… from their bulk position. The structure has a disordered 5Ă—2 periodicity due to the variation of the interatomic Au-Au distances within a row in the [011ÂŻ] direction. The model is consistent with recent scanning-tunneling-microscopy topographs
Spontaneous Interlayer Coherence in Double-Layer Quantum Hall Systems: Symmetry Breaking Interactions, In-Plane Fields and Phase Solitons
At strong magnetic fields double-layer two-dimensional-electron-gas systems
can form an unusual broken symmetry state with spontaneous inter-layer phase
coherence. The system can be mapped to an equivalent system of pseudospin
particles with pseudospin-dependent interactions and easy-plane magnetic order.
In this paper we discuss how the presence of a weak interlayer tunneling term
alters the properties of double-layer systems when the broken symmetry is
present. We use the energy functional and equations of motion derived earlier
to evaluate the zero-temperature response functions of the double-layer system
and use our results to discuss analogies between this system and
Josephson-coupled superconducting films. We also present a qualitative picture
of the low-energy charged excitations of this system. We show that parallel
fields induce a highly collective phase transition to an incommensurate state
with broken translational symmetry.Comment: 26 pages, RevTex, 8 postscript figures (submitted to Phys. Rev. B
Heat flow of the Earth and resonant capture of solar 57-Fe axions
In a very conservative approach, supposing that total heat flow of the Earth
is exclusively due to resonant capture inside the Earth of axions, emitted by
57-Fe nuclei on Sun, we obtain limit on mass of hadronic axion: m_a<1.8 keV.
Taking into account release of heat from decays of 40-K, 232-Th, 238-U inside
the Earth, this estimation could be improved to the value: m_a<1.6 keV. Both
the values are less restrictive than limits set in devoted experiments to
search for 57-Fe axions (m_a<216-745 eV), but are much better than limits
obtained in experiments with 83-Kr (m_a<5.5 keV) and 7-Li (m_a<13.9-32 keV).Comment: 8 page
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