Ballistic Composite Fermions in Semiconductor Nanostructures

We report the results of two fundamental transport measurements at a Landau level filling factor $\nu$ of 1/2. The well known ballistic electron transport phenomena of quenching of the Hall effect in a mesoscopic cross-junction and negative magnetoresistance of a constriction are observed close to B~=~0 and $\nu~=~ 1/2$. The experimental results demonstrate semi-classical charge transport by composite fermions, which consist of electrons bound to an even number of flux quanta.Comment: 9 pages TeX 3.1415 C version 6.1, 3 PostScript figure

High-energy spin waves in the spin-1 square-lattice antiferromagnet La2_2NiO4_4

Inelastic neutron scattering is used to study the magnetic excitations of the $S=1$ square-lattice antiferromagnet La$_2$NiO$_4$. We find that the spin waves cannot be described by a simple classical (harmonic) Heisenberg model with only nearest-neighbor interactions. The spin-wave dispersion measured along the antiferromagnetic Brillouin-zone boundary shows a minimum energy at the $(1/2,0)$ position as is observed in some $S=1/2$ square-lattice antiferromagnets. Thus, our results suggest that the quantum dispersion renormalization effects or longer-range exchange interactions observed in cuprates and other $S=1/2$ square-lattice antiferromagnets are also present in La$_2$NiO$_4$. We also find that the overall intensity of the spin-wave excitations is suppressed relative to linear spin-wave theory indicating that covalency is important. Two-magnon scattering is also observed

Calorons in Weyl Gauge

We demonstrate by explicit construction that while the untwisted Harrington-Shepard caloron $A_\mu$ is manifestly periodic in Euclidean time, with period $\beta=\frac{1}{T}$, when transformed to the Weyl ($A_0=0$) gauge, the caloron gauge field $A_i$ is periodic only up to a large gauge transformation, with winding number equal to the caloron's topological charge. This helps clarify the tunneling interpretation of these solutions, and their relation to Chern-Simons numbers and winding numbers.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures, a sign typo in equation 27 is correcte

Does the Reading of Different Orthographies Produce Distinct Brain Activity Patterns? An ERP Study

Orthographies vary in the degree of transparency of spelling-sound correspondence. These range from shallow orthographies with transparent grapheme-phoneme relations, to deep orthographies, in which these relations are opaque. Only a few studies have examined whether orthographic depth is reflected in brain activity. In these studies a between-language design was applied, making it difficult to isolate the aspect of orthographic depth. In the present work this question was examined using a within-subject-and-language investigation. The participants were speakers of Hebrew, as they are skilled in reading two forms of script transcribing the same oral language. One form is the shallow pointed script (with diacritics), and the other is the deep unpointed script (without diacritics). Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded while skilled readers carried out a lexical decision task in the two forms of script. A visual non-orthographic task controlled for the visual difference between the scripts (resulting from the addition of diacritics to the pointed script only). At an early visual-perceptual stage of processing (∼165 ms after target onset), the pointed script evoked larger amplitudes with longer latencies than the unpointed script at occipital-temporal sites. However, these effects were not restricted to orthographic processing, and may therefore have reflected, at least in part, the visual load imposed by the diacritics. Nevertheless, the results implied that distinct orthographic processing may have also contributed to these effects. At later stages (∼340 ms after target onset) the unpointed script elicited larger amplitudes than the pointed one with earlier latencies. As this latency has been linked to orthographic-linguistic processing and to the classification of stimuli, it is suggested that these differences are associated with distinct lexical processing of a shallow and a deep orthography

Surveying Battery Cell Sections to Determine the Composition and Spatial Distribution of Discharge Products using an Automated Microprobe

Determining the spatial distribution and composition of hydrohetaerolite in polished sections of discharged Leclanché cells requires the measurement of oxygen concentrations on microcrystalline material. This can be done if the composition of the mounting medium is included in the matrix correction of raw intensities. The method of Pouchou and Pichoir (PAP) is used initially to correct raw intensities obtained from surveys of microcrystalline standard material. Mean analyses agree well with the known compositions provided a correction is made for the oxygen content of the mounting medium. The same correction is then applied to the raw data collected when surveying cell sections, yielding spatially correlated analyses of hydro-hetaerolite formed as a discharge product. The surveying technique could be applied to lead-acid, Leclanché and alkaline cells

Evolution and Nucleosynthesis of AGB stars in Three Magellanic Cloud Clusters

We present stellar evolutionary sequences for asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars in the Magellanic Cloud clusters NGC 1978, NGC 1846 and NGC 419. The new stellar models for the three clusters match the observed effective temperatures on the giant branches, the oxygen-rich to carbon-rich transition luminosities, and the AGB-tip luminosities. A major finding is that a large amount of convective overshoot (up to 3 pressure scale heights) is required at the base of the convective envelope during third dredge-up in order to get the correct oxygen-rich to carbon-rich transition luminosity. The stellar evolution sequences are used as input for detailed nucleosynthesis calculations. For NGC 1978 and NGC 1846 we compare our model results to the observationally derived abundances of carbon and oxygen. We find that additional mixing processes (extra-mixing) are required to explain the observed abundance patterns. For NGC 1846 we conclude that non-convective extra-mixing processes are required on both the RGB and the AGB, in agreement with previous studies. For NGC 1978 it is possible to explain the C/O and 12C/13C abundances of both the O-rich and the C-rich AGB stars by assuming that the material in the intershell region contains high abundances of both C and O. This may occur during a thermal pulse when convective overshoot at the inner edge of the flash-driven convective pocket dredges C and O from the core to the intershell. For NGC 419 we provide our predicted model abundance values although there are currently no published observed abundance studies for the AGB stars in this cluster.Comment: 16 figures, 3 tables, Accepted for publication in Ap

Determinants of adults' intention to vaccinate against pandemic swine flu

This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Background: Vaccination is one of the cornerstones of controlling an influenza pandemic. To optimise vaccination rates in the general population, ways of identifying determinants that influence decisions to have or not to have a vaccination need to be understood. Therefore, this study aimed to predict intention to have a swine influenza vaccination in an adult population in the UK. An extension of the Theory of Planned Behaviour provided the theoretical framework for the study. Methods: Three hundred and sixty two adults from the UK, who were not in vaccination priority groups, completed either an online (n = 306) or pen and paper (n = 56) questionnaire. Data were collected from 30th October 2009, just after swine flu vaccination became available in the UK, and concluded on 31st December 2009. The main outcome of interest was future swine flu vaccination intentions. Results: The extended Theory of Planned Behaviour predicted 60% of adults’ intention to have a swine flu vaccination with attitude, subjective norm, perceived control, anticipating feelings of regret (the impact of missing a vaccination opportunity), intention to have a seasonal vaccine this year, one perceived barrier: “I cannot be bothered to get a swine flu vaccination” and two perceived benefits: “vaccination decreases my chance of getting swine flu or its complications” and “if I get vaccinated for swine flu, I will decrease the frequency of having to consult my doctor,” being significant predictors of intention. Black British were less likely to intend to have a vaccination compared to Asian or White respondents. Conclusions: Theoretical frameworks which identify determinants that influence decisions to have a pandemic influenza vaccination are useful. The implications of this research are discussed with a view to maximising any future pandemic influenza vaccination uptake using theoretically-driven applications.This article is available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund

Phase-field approach to heterogeneous nucleation

We consider the problem of heterogeneous nucleation and growth. The system is described by a phase field model in which the temperature is included through thermal noise. We show that this phase field approach is suitable to describe homogeneous as well as heterogeneous nucleation starting from several general hypotheses. Thus we can investigate the influence of grain boundaries, localized impurities, or any general kind of imperfections in a systematic way. We also put forward the applicability of our model to study other physical situations such as island formation, amorphous crystallization, or recrystallization.Comment: 8 pages including 7 figures. Accepted for publication in Physical Review

Brane-world black holes and the scale of gravity

A particle in four dimensions should behave like a classical black hole if the horizon radius is larger than the Compton wavelength or, equivalently, if its degeneracy (measured by entropy in units of the Planck scale) is large. For spherically symmetric black holes in 4 + d dimensions, both arguments again lead to a mass threshold MC and degeneracy scale Mdeg of the order of the fundamental scale of gravity MG. In the brane-world, deviations from the Schwarzschild metric induced by bulk effects alter the horizon radius and effective four-dimensional Euclidean action in such a way that MC \simeq Mdeg might be either larger or smaller than MG. This opens up the possibility that black holes exist with a mass smaller than MG and might be produced at the LHC even if M>10 TeV, whereas effects due to bulk graviton exchanges remain undetectable because suppressed by inverse powers of MG. Conversely, even if black holes are not found at the LHC, it is still possible that MC>MG and MG \simeq 1TeV.Comment: 4 pages, no figur