779 research outputs found
Can Students Change Their Homework Behavior After The Midterm? Does It Help?
Using the Internet to administer homework allows us to determine if students change their homework habits during a semester and if this change results in an improvement in grades. 
Robust Fabry-Perot interference in dual-gated BiSe devices
We study Fabry-Perot interference in hybrid devices, each consisting of a
mesoscopic superconducting disk deposited on the surface of a three-dimensional
topological insulator. Such structures are hypothesized to contain protected
zero modes known as Majorana fermions bound to vortices. The interference
manifests as periodic conductance oscillations of magnitude .
These oscillations show no strong dependence on bulk carrier density or sample
thickness, suggesting that they result from phase coherent transport in surface
states. However, the Fabry-Perot interference can be tuned by both top and back
gates, implying strong electrostatic coupling between the top and bottom
surfaces of topological insulator.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures. Accepted by Appl. Phys. Let
Exploiting neutron-rich radioactive ion beams to constrain the symmetry energy
The Modular Neutron Array (MoNA) and 4 Tm Sweeper magnet were used to measure
the free neutrons and heavy charged particles from the radioactive ion beam
induced 32Mg + 9Be reaction. The fragmentation reaction was simulated with the
Constrained Molecular Dynamics model(CoMD), which demonstrated that the
of the heavy fragments and free neutron multiplicities were observables
sensitive to the density dependence of the symmetry energy at sub-saturation
densities. Through comparison of these simulations with the experimental data
constraints on the density dependence of the symmetry energy were extracted.
The advantage of radioactive ion beams as a probe of the symmetry energy is
demonstrated through examination of CoMD calculations for stable and
radioactive beam induced reactions
Three-body correlations in the ground-state decay of 26O
Background: Theoretical calculations have shown that the energy and angular
correlations in the three-body decay of the two-neutron unbound O26 can provide
information on the ground-state wave function, which has been predicted to have
a dineutron configuration and 2n halo structure.
Purpose: To use the experimentally measured three-body correlations to gain
insight into the properties of O26, including the decay mechanism and
ground-state resonance energy.
Method: O26 was produced in a one-proton knockout reaction from F27 and the
O24+n+n decay products were measured using the MoNA-Sweeper setup. The
three-body correlations from the O26 ground-state resonance decay were
extracted. The experimental results were compared to Monte Carlo simulations in
which the resonance energy and decay mechanism were varied.
Results: The measured three-body correlations were well reproduced by the
Monte Carlo simulations but were not sensitive to the decay mechanism due to
the experimental resolutions. However, the three-body correlations were found
to be sensitive to the resonance energy of O26. A 1{\sigma} upper limit of 53
keV was extracted for the ground-state resonance energy of O26.
Conclusions: Future attempts to measure the three-body correlations from the
ground-state decay of O26 will be very challenging due to the need for a
precise measurement of the O24 momentum at the reaction point in the target
Population of neutron unbound states via two-proton knockout reactions
The two-proton knockout reaction 9Be(26Ne,O2p) was used to explore excited
unbound states of 23O and 24O. In 23O a state at an excitation energy of
2.79(13) MeV was observed. There was no conclusive evidence for the population
of excited states in 24O.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, Proc. 9th Int. Spring Seminar on Nucl. Phys.
Changing Facets of Nuclear Structure, May 20-34, 200
Search for unbound 15Be states in the 3n+12Be channel
15Be is expected to have low-lying 3/2+ and 5/2+ states. A first search did
not observe the 3/2+ [A. Spyrou et al., Phys. Rev. C 84, 044309 (2011)],
however, a resonance in 15Be was populated in a second attempt and determined
to be unbound with respect to 14Be by 1.8(1) MeV with a tentative spin-parity
assignment of 5/2+ [J. Snyder et al., Phys. Rev. C 88, 031303(R) (2013)].
Search for the predicted 15Be 3/2+ state in the three-neutron decay channel. A
two-proton removal reaction from a 55 MeV/u 17C beam was used to populate
neutron-unbound states in 15Be. The two-, three-, and four-body decay energies
of the 12Be + neutron(s) detected in coincidence were reconstructed using
invariant mass spectroscopy. Monte Carlo simulations were performed to extract
the resonance and decay properties from the observed spectra. The low-energy
regions of the decay energy spectra can be described with the first excited
unbound state of 14Be (E_x=1.54 MeV, E_r=0.28 MeV). Including a state in 15Be
that decays through the first excited 14Be state slightly improves the fit at
higher energies though the cross section is small. A 15Be component is not
needed to describe the data. If the 3/2+ state in 15Be is populated, the decay
by three-neutron emission through 14Be is weak, less than or equal to 11% up to
4 MeV. In the best fit, 15Be is unbound with respect to 12Be by 1.4 MeV
(unbound with respect to $14Be by 2.66 MeV) with a strength of 7%.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, accepted in Physical Review
Energy distributions from three-body decaying many-body resonances
We compute energy distributions of three particles emerging from decaying
many-body resonances. We reproduce the measured energy distributions from
decays of two archetypal states chosen as the lowest and
-resonances in C populated in -decays. These states are
dominated by sequential, through the Be ground state, and direct decays,
respectively. These decay mechanisms are reflected in the ``dynamic'' evolution
from small, cluster or shell-model states, to large distances, where the
coordinate or momentum space continuum wavefunctions are accurately computed.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures. Accepted for publication in Physical Review
Letter
Is Fire a Disturbance in Grasslands?
Many grasslands, and in particular the tallgrass prairies of North America, are generally thought to be maintained by periodic fire. Semantic disagreement among researchers, however, threatens to hamper discussion of fire as an ecological force in grassland ecosystems. Some authors emphasize that fires are disturbances (or perturbations) since these fires disrupt or alter ecosystem states, trends, and dynamics (e.g., accumulating nitrogen is volatilized, plant and animal communities change in composition). Other researchers point out that, because these fire-induced disruptions and alterations can maintain the status quo of the ecosystem (e. g., prevent it from becoming woodland), it is the lack of fire rather than fire itself that should be considered a disturbance. We argue that, since both points of view are useful, there is little to be gained by labeling loosely either fire or the lack thereof as a disturbance in grassland ecosystems
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