46,610 research outputs found
Observation of fine one-dimensionally disordered layers in silicon carbide
The improved resolution of synchrotron edge-topography is enabling thinner (less than 100 microns), silicon carbide crystals to be studied, and is providing a more detailed and wider database on polytype depth profiles. Fine long-period and one-dimensionally-disordered layers, 5-25 microns thick, can now be confidently resolved and are found to be very common features, often in association with high-defect density bands. These features are illustrated in this paper using three examples. A new long period polytype LPP (152H/456R) has been discovered and reported here for the first time
Pre-terrestrial oxidation products in carbonaceous meteorites identified by Mossbauer spectroscopy
The occurrence of ferric bearing assemblages, comprising phyllosilicates, oxide hydroxides and magnetite, in carbonaceous chondrites (CC) indicates that these meteorites underwent pre-terrestrial, sub-aqueous oxidation reactions. Reported here are results of a Mossbauer spectral study of a suite of CC demonstrating that a variety of ferrous and ferric bearing phases may be distinguished in different classes of this meteorite type
Stability of Elastic Glass Phases in Random Field XY Magnets and Vortex Lattices in Type II Superconductors
A description of a dislocation-free elastic glass phase in terms of domain
walls is developed and used as the basis of a renormalization group analysis of
the energetics of dislocation loops added to the system. It is found that even
after optimizing over possible paths of large dislocation loops, their energy
is still very likely to be positive when the dislocation core energy is large.
This implies the existence of an equilibrium elastic glass phase in three
dimensional random field X-Y magnets, and a dislocation free,
bond-orientationally ordered ``Bragg glass'' phase of vortices in dirty Type II
superconductors.Comment: 12 pages, Revtex, no figures, submitted to Phys Rev Letter
A near zero velocity dispersion stellar component in the Canes Venatici dwarf spheroidal galaxy
We present a spectroscopic survey of the newly-discovered Canes Venatici
dwarf galaxy using the Keck/DEIMOS spectrograph. Two stellar populations of
distinct kinematics are found to be present in this galaxy: an extended,
metal-poor component, of half-light radius 7'.8(+2.4/-2.1), which has a
velocity dispersion of 13.9(+3.2/-2.5) km/s, and a more concentrated
(half-light radius 3'.6(+1.1/-0.8) metal-rich component of extremely low
velocity dispersion. At 99% confidence, the upper limit to the central velocity
dispersion of the metal-rich population is 1.9 km/s. This is the lowest
velocity dispersion ever measured in a galaxy. We perform a Jeans analysis on
the two components, and find that the dynamics of the structures can only be
consistent if we adopt extreme (and unlikely) values for the scale length and
velocity dispersion of the metal-poor population. With a larger radial velocity
sample and improved measurements of the density profile of the two populations,
we anticipate that it will be possible to place strong constraints on the
central distribution of the dark matter in this galaxy.Comment: 5 pages, 7 figures, accepted by MNRA
Quantum Collective Creep: a Quasiclassical Langevin Equation Approach
The dynamics of an elastic medium driven through a random medium by a small
applied force is investigated in the low-temperature limit where quantum
fluctuations dominate. The motion proceeds via tunneling of segments of the
manifold through barriers whose size grows with decreasing driving force .
In the limit of small drive, at zero-temperature the average velocity has the
form . For strongly
dissipative dynamics, there is a wide range of forces where the dissipation
dominates and the velocity--force characteristics takes the form
, with the
action for a typical tunneling event, the force dependence being determined by
the roughness exponent of the -dimensional manifold. This result
agrees with the one obtained via simple scaling considerations. Surprisingly,
for asymptotically low forces or for the case when the massive dynamics is
dominant, the resulting quantum creep law is {\it not} of the usual form with a
rate proportional to ; rather we find corresponding to and , with the naive scaling exponent for massive
dynamics. Our analysis is based on the quasi-classical Langevin approximation
with a noise obeying the quantum fluctuation--dissipation theorem. The many
space and time scales involved in the dynamics are treated via a functional
renormalization group analysis related to that used previously to treat the
classical dynamics of such systems. Various potential difficulties with these
approaches to the multi-scale dynamics -- both classical and quantum -- are
raised and questions about the validity of the results are discussed.Comment: RevTeX, 30 pages, 8 figures inserte
Quantum Resistive Transition in Type II Superconductors under Magnetic Field
It is shown that, within a Ginzburg-Landau (GL) formalism, the
superconducting fluctuation is insulating at zero temperature even if the
fluctuation dynamics is metallic (dissipative). Based on this fact, the low
temperature behavior of the -line and the resistivity curves near a
zero temperature transition are discussed. In particular, it is pointed out
that the neglect of quantum fluctuations in data analysis of the dc resistivity
may lead to an under-estimation of the values near zero temperature.Comment: 7 page
Numerical Study on Aging Dynamics in the 3D Ising Spin-Glass Model. II. Quasi-Equilibrium Regime of Spin Auto-Correlation Function
Using Monte Carlo simulations, we have studied isothermal aging of
three-dimensional Ising spin-glass model focusing on quasi-equilibrium behavior
of the spin auto-correlation function. Weak violation of the time translational
invariance in the quasi-equilibrium regime is analyzed in terms of {\it
effective stiffness} for droplet excitations in the presence of domain walls.
Within the range of computational time window, we have confirmed that the
effective stiffness follows the expected scaling behavior with respect to the
characteristic length scales associated with droplet excitations and domain
walls, whose growth law has been extracted from our simulated data. Implication
of the results are discussed in relation to experimental works on ac
susceptibilities.Comment: 18 pages, 6 figure
Localization of thermal packets and metastable states in Sinai model
We consider the Sinai model describing a particle diffusing in a 1D random
force field. As shown by Golosov, this model exhibits a strong localization
phenomenon for the thermal packet: the disorder average of the thermal
distribution of the relative distance y=x-m(t), with respect to the
(disorder-dependent) most probable position m(t), converges in the limit of
infinite time towards a distribution P(y). In this paper, we revisit this
question of the localization of the thermal packet. We first generalize the
result of Golosov by computing explicitly the joint asymptotic distribution of
relative position y=x(t)-m(t) and relative energy u=U(x(t))-U(m(t)) for the
thermal packet. Next, we compute in the infinite-time limit the localization
parameters Y_k, representing the disorder-averaged probabilities that k
particles of the thermal packet are at the same place, and the correlation
function C(l) representing the disorder-averaged probability that two particles
of the thermal packet are at a distance l from each other. We moreover prove
that our results for Y_k and C(l) exactly coincide with the thermodynamic limit
of the analog quantities computed for independent particles at equilibrium in a
finite sample of length L. Finally, we discuss the properties of the
finite-time metastable states that are responsible for the localization
phenomenon and compare with the general theory of metastable states in glassy
systems, in particular as a test of the Edwards conjecture.Comment: 17 page
Electron-Phonon Coupling Origin of the resistivity in YNi_{2}B_{2}C Single Crystals
Resistivity measurements from 4.2 K up to 300 K were made on YNi_{2}B_{2}C
single crystals with Tc=15.5 K. The resulting rho(T) curve shows a perfect
Bloch-Grueneisen (BG) behavior, with a very small residual resistivity which
indicates the low impurity content and the high cristallographic quality of the
samples. The value lambda_{tr}=0.53 for the transport electron-phonon coupling
constant was obtained by using the high-temperature constant value of d(rho)/dT
and the plasma frequency reported in literature. The BG expression for the
phononic part of the resistivity rho_{ph}(T) was then used to fit the data in
the whole temperature range, by approximating alpha^{2}_{tr}F(Omega) with the
experimental phonon spectral density G(Omega) multiplied by a two-step
weighting function to be determined by the fit. The resulting fitting curve
perfectly agrees with the experimental points. We also solved the real-axis
Eliashberg equations in both s- and d-wave symmetries under the approximation
alpha^{2}F(Omega)= alpha^{2}_{tr}F(Omega). We found that the value of
lambda_{tr} here determined in single-band approximation is quite compatible
with Tc and the gap Delta experimentally observed. Finally, we calculated the
normalized tunneling conductance, whose comparison with break-junction tunnel
data gives indication of the possible s-wave symmetry for the order parameter
in YNi_{2}B_{2}C.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures. Proceedings of SATT10 Conference, to be published
in Int. J. Mod. Phys.
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