Open educational resources and teaching in the 21st century: questions concerning authority

As a source of materials for education the Web is, to a large extent, shifting ground. Open Educational Resources (OER) provided by Higher Education Institutions constitute, at least in principle, a reliable category of Web-based resources given their association with traditional forms of expert authority. Nevertheless, OER embody different aspects of academic thinking and practice, competing, in an unlevelled field, with other sources that may provide a much more immediate appeal in that they afford quick and easy consumption of information delivered in a piecemeal, often uncritical, fashion. This paper draws upon a piece of research in the area of ‘online informal learning’ to illustrate issues arising from the availability of open content and, in particular, OER. This research suggests a number of aspects related to the impact of open content on assumed boundaries between teacher/learner, formal/informal learning, training/education, content/presentation and, crucially, in how the blurring of these boundaries may have an impact on the location of ‘value’ within views of education in which marketing and business discourses predominate. The paper argues that, despite the need for critical debate on issues regarding validation, current arguments focusing on ‘expertise’ risk diluting its significance in subtle yet fundamental ways

Fundamental Oscillation Periods of the Interlayer Exchange Coupling beyond the RKKY Approximation

A general method for obtaining the oscillation periods of the interlayer exchange coupling is presented. It is shown that it is possible for the coupling to oscillate with additional periods beyond the ones predicted by the RKKY theory. The relation between the oscillation periods and the spacer Fermi surface is clarified, showing that non-RKKY periods do not bear a direct correspondence with the Fermi surface. The interesting case of a FCC(110) structure is investigated, unmistakably proving the existence and relevance of non-RKKY oscillations. The general conditions for the occurrence of non-RKKY oscillations are also presented.Comment: 34 pages, 10 figures ; to appear in J. Phys.: Condens. Mat

Nontopological self-dual Maxwell-Higgs vortices

We study the existence of self-dual nontopological vortices in generalized Maxwell-Higgs models recently introduced in Ref. \cite{gv}. Our investigation is explicitly illustrated by choosing a sixth-order self-interaction potential, which is the simplest one allowing the existence of nontopological structures. We specify some Maxwell-Higgs models yielding BPS nontopological vortices having energy proportional to the magnetic flux, $\Phi_{B}$, and whose profiles are numerically achieved. Particularly, we investigate the way the new solutions approach the boundary values, from which we verify their nontopological behavior. Finally, we depict the profiles numerically found, highlighting the main features they present.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Explicit Actions for Electromagnetism with Two Gauge Fields with Only one Electric and one Magnetic Physical Fields

We extend the work of Mello et al. based in Cabbibo and Ferrari concerning the description of electromagnetism with two gauge fields from a variational principle, i.e. an action. We provide a systematic independent derivation of the allowed actions which have only one magnetic and one electric physical fields and are invariant under the discrete symmetries $P$ and $T$. We conclude that neither the Lagrangian, nor the Hamiltonian, are invariant under the electromagnetic duality rotations. This agrees with the weak-strong coupling mixing characteristic of the duality due to the Dirac quantization condition providing a natural way to differentiate dual theories related by the duality rotations (the energy is not invariant). Also the standard electromagnetic duality rotations considered in this work violate both $P$ and $T$ by inducing Hopf terms (theta terms) for each sector and a mixed Maxwell term. The canonical structure of the theory is briefly addressed and the 'magnetic' gauge sector is interpreted as a ghost sector.Comment: v2: 12 pages; References added, discussion concerning degrees of freedom corrected; v3: is now used the standard normalization of 1/4 in the actions; the possibility of theta being a pseudo-scalar implied a title changing; eq (23) added; signs corrected in equations (39,45-47); references adde

Flavour symmetries in a renormalizable SO(10) model

In the context of a renormalizable supersymmetric SO(10) Grand Unified Theory, we consider the fermion mass matrices generated by the Yukawa couplings to a $\mathbf{10} \oplus \mathbf{120} \oplus \bar{\mathbf{126}}$ representation of scalars. We perform a complete investigation of the possibilities of imposing flavour symmetries in this scenario; the purpose is to reduce the number of Yukawa coupling constants in order to identify potentially predictive models. We have found that there are only 14 inequivalent cases of Yukawa coupling matrices, out of which 13 cases are generated by $Z_n$ symmetries, with suitable $n$, and one case is generated by a $Z_2 \times Z_2$ symmetry. A numerical analysis of the 14 cases reveals that only two of them---dubbed A and B in the present paper---allow good fits to the experimentally known fermion masses and mixings.Comment: 36 pages, no figures, revised fits using newer data, added fit for case A, added references, new appendices concerning the SO(10) scalar potential and inequalities for the vacuum expectation values, conclusions unchanged; some minor changes, matches published versio

Scotogenic model for co-bimaximal mixing

We present a scotogenic model, i.e. a one-loop neutrino mass model with dark right-handed neutrino gauge singlets and one inert dark scalar gauge doublet $\eta$, which has symmetries that lead to co-bimaximal mixing, i.e. to an atmospheric mixing angle $\theta_{23} = 45^\circ$ and to a $CP$-violating phase $\delta = \pm \pi/2$, while the mixing angle $\theta_{13}$ remains arbitrary. The symmetries consist of softly broken lepton numbers $L_\alpha$ ($\alpha = e,\mu,\tau$), a non-standard $CP$ symmetry, and three $Z_2$ symmetries. We indicate two possibilities for extending the model to the quark sector. Since the model has, besides $\eta$, three scalar gauge doublets, we perform a thorough discussion of its scalar sector. We demonstrate that it can accommodate a Standard Model-like scalar with mass $125\, \mathrm{GeV}$, with all the other charged and neutral scalars having much higher masses.Comment: v2 - 23 pages, 5 figures, minor changes requested by refere

Strain-Modified RKKY Interaction in Carbon Nanotubes

For low-dimensional metallic structures, such as nanotubes, the exchange coupling between localized magnetic dopants is predicted to decay slowly with separation. The long-range character of this interaction plays a significant role in determining the magnetic order of the system. It has previously been shown that the interaction range depends on the conformation of the magnetic dopants in both graphene and nanotubes. Here we examine the RKKY interaction in carbon nanotubes in the presence of uniaxial strain for a range of different impurity configurations. We show that strain is capable of amplifying or attenuating the RKKY interaction, significantly increasing certain interaction ranges, and acting as a switch: effectively turning on or off the interaction. We argue that uniaxial strain can be employed to significantly manipulate magnetic interactions in carbon nanotubes, allowing an interplay between mechanical and magnetic properties in future spintronic devices. We also examine the dimensional relationship between graphene and nanotubes with regards to the decay rate of the RKKY interaction.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, submitte