529 research outputs found
Masses and mixings in grand-unified models
We make a general study of SO(10) models with type-II see-saw dominance and show that an excellent fit can be obtained for fermion masses and mixings, also in comparison with other realistic SO(10) models
Flavour-changing decays of a 125 GeV Higgs-like particle
We study possible flavour-violating couplings of a 125 GeV Higgs boson. We consider all the constraints from low-energy flavour processes and we find that some lepton-flavour–violating Higgs decays are in the reach of LHC
The cutaneous 'rabbit' illusion affects human primary sensory cortex somatopically
We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study neural correlates of a robust somatosensory illusion that can dissociate tactile perception from physical stimulation. Repeated rapid stimulation at the wrist, then near the elbow, can create the illusion of touches at intervening locations along the arm, as if a rabbit hopped along it. We examined brain activity in humans using fMRI, with improved spatial resolution, during this version of the classic cutaneous rabbit illusion. As compared with control stimulation at the same skin sites (but in a different order that did not induce the illusion), illusory sequences activated contralateral primary somatosensory cortex, at a somatotopic location corresponding to the filled-in illusory perception on the forearm. Moreover, the amplitude of this somatosensory activation was comparable to that for veridical stimulation including the intervening position on the arm. The illusion additionally activated areas of premotor and prefrontal cortex. These results provide direct evidence that illusory somatosensory percepts can affect primary somatosensory cortex in a manner that corresponds somatotopically to the illusory percept
Beam Test of a Segmented Foil SEM Grid
A prototype Secondary-electron Emission Monitor (SEM) was installed in the 8
GeV proton transport line for the MiniBooNE experiment at Fermilab. The SEM is
a segmented grid made with 5 um Ti foils, intended for use in the 120 GeV NuMI
beam at Fermilab. Similar to previous workers, we found that the full
collection of the secondary electron signal requires a bias voltage to draw the
ejected electrons cleanly off the foils, and this effect is more pronounced at
larger beam intensity. The beam centroid and width resolutions of the SEM were
measured at beam widths of 3, 7, and 8 mm, and compared to calculations.
Extrapolating the data from this beam test, we expect a centroid and width
resolutions of 20um and 25 um, respectively, in the NuMI beam which has 1 mm
spot size.Comment: submitted to Nucl. Instr. Meth.
Microstructural Investigations of Novel High Temperature Alloys Based on NiAl-(Cr,Mo)
Apart from the reported transition from the fibrous morphology in NiAl-34Cr to lamellae by adding 0.6 at.% Mo, further morphology transformations along the eutectic trough in the NiAl-(Cr,Mo) alloys were observed. Compositions with at least 10.3 at.% Cr have lamellar morphology while the first tendency to fiber formation was found at 9.6 at.% Cr. There is a compositional range, where both lamellae and fibers are present in the microstructure and a further decrease in Cr to 1.8at.% Cr results in fully fibrous morphology. Alongside these morphology changes of the (Cr,Mo) reinforcing phase, its volume fraction was found to be from 41 to 11 vol.% confirming the trend predicted by the CALPHAD approach. For mixed morphologies in-situ X-ray diffraction experiments performed between room and liquidus temperature accompanied by EDX measurements reveal the formation of a gradient in composition for the solid solution. A new Mo-rich NiAl-9.6Cr-10.3Mo alloy clearly shows this effect in the as-cast state. Moreover, crystallographic orientation examination yields two different types of colonies in this composition. In the first colony type, the orientation relationship between NiAl matrix and (Cr,Mo) reinforcing phase was (100) (100) and ⟨100⟩ ⟨100⟩ . An orientation relationship described by a rotation of almost 60° about ⟨111⟩ was found in the second colony type. In both cases, no distinct crystallographic plane as phase boundary was observe
Two-parameter neutrino mass matrices with two texture zeros
We reanalyse Majorana-neutrino mass matrices M_nu with two texture zeros, by
searching for viable hybrid textures in which the non-zero matrix elements of
M_nu have simple ratios. Referring to the classification scheme of Frampton,
Glashow and Marfatia, we find that the mass matrix denoted by A1 allows the
ratios (M_nu)_{mu mu} : (Mnu)_{tau tau} = 1:1 and (M_nu)_{e tau} : (Mnu)_{mu
tau} = 1:2. There are analogous ratios for texture A2. With these two hybrid
textures, one obtains, for instance, good agreement with the data if one
computes the three mixing angles in terms of the experimentally determined
mass-squared differences Delta m^2_21 and Delta m^2_31. We could not find
viable hybrid textures based on mass matrices different from those of cases A1
and A2.Comment: 10 pages, no figures, minor changes, some references adde
Fine-tuning and naturalness issues in the two-zero neutrino mass textures
In this paper we analyze the compatibility of two-zero neutrino Majorana
textures with the recent experimental data. Differently from previous works, we
use the experimental data to fix the values of the non-vanishing mass matrix
entries and study in detail the correlations and degree of fine-tuning among
them, which is also a measure of how naturally a given texture is able to
describe all neutrino data. This information is then used to expand the
textures in powers of the Cabibbo angle; extracting random O(1) coefficients,
we show that only in few cases such textures reproduce the mixing parameters in
their 3 sigma ranges.Comment: 13 pages, 14 figures. Version to appear in NP
On the Stereochemistry of the Cations in the Doping Block of Superconducting Copper-Oxides
Metal-oxygen complexes containing Cu,- Tl-, Hg-, Bi- and Pb-cations are
electronically active in superconducting copper-oxides by stabilizing single
phases with enhanced , whereas other metal-oxygen complexes deteriorate
copper-oxide superconductivity. Cu, Tl, Hg, Bi, Pb in their actual oxidation
states are closed shell or inert pair ions. Their electronic
configurations have a strong tendency to polarize the oxygen environment. The
closed shell ions with low lying
excitations form linear complexes through hybridization polarizing
the apical oxygens. Comparatively low excitation energies
distinguish from other closed shell
ions deteriorating copper-oxide superconductivity, {\it e.g.} .Comment: 5 pages, uses REVTEX. To be published in: J. Superconductivity, Proc.
Int. Workshop on "Phase Separation, Electronic Inhomogenities and Related
Mechanisms for High T_c Superconductors", Erice (Sicily) 9-15 July 199
Methane adsorption on graphene from first principles including dispersion interaction
The methane-graphene interaction is studied using density functional theory complemented with a semiempirical dispersion correction scheme (DFT-D), an ab initio van der Waals density functional (vdW-DF) ansatz as well as using Møller Plesset perturbation theory (MP2). The adsorption energy of 0.17 eV and the molecular distance of 3.28 Å obtained from the MP2 calculations are close to the experimental data, while the vdW-DF scheme results either in a realistic adsorption energy or a realistic adsorption geometry, depending on the underlying exchange-correlation functional. The present implementation of DFT-D overbinds about as much as bare DFT calculations underbind, but yields a meaningful adsorption height
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