14,736 research outputs found
Identification of the Atomic Scale Structures of the Gold-Thiol Interfaces of Molecular Nanowires by Inelastic Tunneling Spectroscopy
We examine theoretically the effects of the bonding geometries at the
gold-thiol interfaces on the inelastic tunneling spectra of propanedithiolate
(PDT) molecules bridging gold electrodes and show that inelastic tunneling
spectroscopy combined with theory can be used to determine these bonding
geometries experimentally. With the help of density functional theory, we
calculate the relaxed geometries and vibrational modes of extended molecules
each consisting of one or two PDT molecules connecting two gold nanoclusters.
We formulate a perturbative theory of inelastic tunneling through molecules
bridging metal contacts in terms of elastic transmission amplitudes, and use
this theory to calculate the inelastic tunneling spectra of the gold-PDT-gold
extended molecules. We consider PDT molecules with both trans and gauche
conformations bound to the gold clusters at top, bridge and hollow bonding
sites. Comparing our results with the experimental data of Hihath et al. [Nano
Lett. 8, 1673 (2008)], we identify the most frequently realized conformation in
the experiment as that of trans molecules top-site bonded to both electrodes.
We find the switching from the 42 meV vibrational mode to the 46 meV mode
observed in the experiment to be due to the transition of trans molecules from
mixed top-bridge to pure top-site bonding geometries. Our results also indicate
that gauche molecular conformations and hollow site bonding did not contribute
significantly to the experimental inelastic tunneling spectra. For pairs of PDT
molecules connecting the gold electrodes in parallel we find total elastic
conductances close to twice those of single molecules bridging the contacts
with similar bonding conformations and small splittings of the vibrational mode
energies for the modes that are the most sensitive to the molecule-electrode
bonding geometries.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures, 1 table. arXiv admin note: significant text
overlap with arXiv:1103.2378;
http://jcp.aip.org/resource/1/jcpsa6/v136/i1/p014703_s
Unusual conductance of polyyne-based molecular wires
We report a full self-consistent ab initio calculation of the current-voltage
curve and the conductance of thiolate capped polyynes in contact with gold
electrodes. We find the conductance of polyynes an order of magnitude larger
compared with other conjugated oligomers. The reason lies in the position of
the Fermi level deep in the HOMO related resonance. With the conductance weakly
dependent on the applied bias and almost independent of the length of the
molecular chain, polyynes appear as nearly perfect molecular wires.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, 3 table
Consequences of a Change in the Galactic Environment of the Sun
The interaction of the heliosphere with interstellar clouds has attracted
interest since the late 1920's, both with a view to explaining apparent
quasi-periodic climate "catastrophes" as well as periodic mass extinctions.
Until recently, however, models describing the solar wind - local interstellar
medium (LISM) interaction self-consistently had not been developed. Here, we
describe the results of a two-dimensional (2D) simulation of the interaction
between the heliosphere and an interstellar cloud with the same properties as
currently, except that the neutral H density is increased from the present
value of n(H) ~ 0.2 cm^-3 to 10 cm^-3. The mutual interaction of interstellar
neutral hydrogen and plasma is included. The heliospheric cavity is reduced
considerably in size (approximately 10 - 14 AU to the termination shock in the
upstream direction) and is highly dynamical. The interplanetary environment at
the orbit of the Earth changes markedly, with the density of interstellar H
increasing to ~2 cm^-3. The termination shock itself experiences periods where
it disappears, reforms and disappears again. Considerable mixing of the shocked
solar wind and LISM occurs due to Rayleigh-Taylor-like instabilities at the
nose, driven by ion-neutral friction. Implications for two anomalously high
concentrations of 10Be found in Antarctic ice cores 33 kya and 60 kya, and the
absence of prior similar events, are discussed in terms of density enhancements
in the surrounding interstellar cloud. The calculation presented here supports
past speculation that the galactic environment of the Sun moderates the
interplanetary environment at the orbit of the Earth, and possibly also the
terrestrial climate.Comment: 23 pages, 2 color plates (jpg), 3 figures (eps
Universal decay of scalar turbulence
The asymptotic decay of passive scalar fields is solved analytically for the
Kraichnan model, where the velocity has a short correlation time. At long
times, two universality classes are found, both characterized by a distribution
of the scalar -- generally non-Gaussian -- with global self-similar evolution
in time. Analogous behavior is found numerically with a more realistic flow
resulting from an inverse energy cascade.Comment: 4 pages, 3 Postscript figures, submitted to PR
Lagrangian Velocity Statistics in Turbulent Flows: Effects of Dissipation
We use the multifractal formalism to describe the effects of dissipation on
Lagrangian velocity statistics in turbulent flows. We analyze high Reynolds
number experiments and direct numerical simulation (DNS) data. We show that
this approach reproduces the shape evolution of velocity increment probability
density functions (PDF) from Gaussian to stretched exponentials as the time lag
decreases from integral to dissipative time scales. A quantitative
understanding of the departure from scaling exhibited by the magnitude
cumulants, early in the inertial range, is obtained with a free parameter
function D(h) which plays the role of the singularity spectrum in the
asymptotic limit of infinite Reynolds number. We observe that numerical and
experimental data are accurately described by a unique quadratic D(h) spectrum
which is found to extend from to , as
the signature of the highly intermittent nature of Lagrangian velocity
fluctuations.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, to appear in PR
Set-Theoretic Types for Polymorphic Variants
Polymorphic variants are a useful feature of the OCaml language whose current
definition and implementation rely on kinding constraints to simulate a
subtyping relation via unification. This yields an awkward formalization and
results in a type system whose behaviour is in some cases unintuitive and/or
unduly restrictive. In this work, we present an alternative formalization of
poly-morphic variants, based on set-theoretic types and subtyping, that yields
a cleaner and more streamlined system. Our formalization is more expressive
than the current one (it types more programs while preserving type safety), it
can internalize some meta-theoretic properties, and it removes some
pathological cases of the current implementation resulting in a more intuitive
and, thus, predictable type system. More generally, this work shows how to add
full-fledged union types to functional languages of the ML family that usually
rely on the Hindley-Milner type system. As an aside, our system also improves
the theory of semantic subtyping, notably by proving completeness for the type
reconstruction algorithm.Comment: ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Functional Programming, Sep
2016, Nara, Japan. ICFP 16, 21st ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on
Functional Programming, 201
Dynamic mean-field and cavity methods for diluted Ising systems
We compare dynamic mean-field and dynamic cavity as methods to describe the
stationary states of dilute kinetic Ising models. We compute dynamic mean-field
theory by expanding in interaction strength to third order, and compare to the
exact dynamic mean-field theory for fully asymmetric networks. We show that in
diluted networks the dynamic cavity method generally predicts magnetizations of
individual spins better than both first order ("naive") and second order
("TAP") dynamic mean field theory
Log-Poisson Cascade Description of Turbulent Velocity Gradient Statistics
The Log-Poisson phenomenological description of the turbulent energy cascade
is evoked to discuss high-order statistics of velocity derivatives and the
mapping between their probability distribution functions at different Reynolds
numbers. The striking confirmation of theoretical predictions suggests that
numerical solutions of the flow, obtained at low/moderate Reynolds numbers can
play an important quantitative role in the analysis of experimental high
Reynolds number phenomena, where small scales fluctuations are in general
inaccessible from direct numerical simulations
Localness of energy cascade in hydrodynamic turbulence, II. Sharp spectral filter
We investigate the scale-locality of subgrid-scale (SGS) energy flux and
inter-band energy transfers defined by the sharp spectral filter. We show by
rigorous bounds, physical arguments and numerical simulations that the spectral
SGS flux is dominated by local triadic interactions in an extended turbulent
inertial-range. Inter-band energy transfers are also shown to be dominated by
local triads if the spectral bands have constant width on a logarithmic scale.
We disprove in particular an alternative picture of ``local transfer by
nonlocal triads,'' with the advecting wavenumber mode at the energy peak.
Although such triads have the largest transfer rates of all {\it individual}
wavenumber triads, we show rigorously that, due to their restricted number,
they make an asymptotically negligible contribution to energy flux and
log-banded energy transfers at high wavenumbers in the inertial-range. We show
that it is only the aggregate effect of a geometrically increasing number of
local wavenumber triads which can sustain an energy cascade to small scales.
Furthermore, non-local triads are argued to contribute even less to the
space-average energy flux than is implied by our rigorous bounds, because of
additional cancellations from scale-decorrelation effects. We can thus recover
the -4/3 scaling of nonlocal contributions to spectral energy flux predicted by
Kraichnan's ALHDIA and TFM closures. We support our results with numerical data
from a pseudospectral simulation of isotropic turbulence with
phase-shift dealiasing. We conclude that the sharp spectral filter has a firm
theoretical basis for use in large-eddy simulation (LES) modeling of turbulent
flows.Comment: 42 pages, 9 figure
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