Tunable diffusion of magnetic particles in a quasi-one-dimensional channel

The diffusion of a system of ferromagnetic dipoles confined in a quasi-one-dimensional parabolic trap is studied using Brownian dynamics simulations. We show that the dynamics of the system is tunable by an in-plane external homogeneous magnetic field. For a strong applied magnetic field, we find that the mobility of the system, the exponent of diffusion and the crossover time among different diffusion regimes can be tuned by the orientation of the magnetic field. For weak magnetic fields, the exponent of diffusion in the subdiffusive regime is independent of the orientation of the external field.Comment: 9 pages, 13 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. E (2013

Are Magnetic Wind-Driving Disks Inherently Unstable?

There have been claims in the literature that accretion disks in which a centrifugally driven wind is the dominant mode of angular momentum transport are inherently unstable. This issue is considered here by applying an equilibrium-curve analysis to the wind-driving, ambipolar diffusion-dominated, magnetic disk model of Wardle & Konigl (1993). The equilibrium solution curves for this class of models typically exhibit two distinct branches. It is argued that only one of these branches represents unstable equilibria and that a real disk/wind system likely corresponds to a stable solution.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, to be published in ApJ, vol. 617 (2004 Dec 20). Uses emulateapj.cl

The split-operator technique for the study of spinorial wavepacket dynamics

The split-operator technique for wave packet propagation in quantum systems is expanded here to the case of propagating wave functions describing Schr\"odinger particles, namely, charge carriers in semiconductor nanostructures within the effective mass approximation, in the presence of Zeeman effect, as well as of Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit interactions. We also demonstrate that simple modifications to the expanded technique allow us to calculate the time evolution of wave packets describing Dirac particles, which are relevant for the study of transport properties in graphene.Comment: 19 pages, 4 figure

Modelling of epitaxial film growth with a Ehrlich-Schwoebel barrier dependent on the step height

The formation of mounded surfaces in epitaxial growth is attributed to the presence of barriers against interlayer diffusion in the terrace edges, known as Ehrlich-Schwoebel (ES) barriers. We investigate a model for epitaxial growth using a ES barrier explicitly dependent on the step height. Our model has an intrinsic topological step barrier even in the absence of an explicit ES barrier. We show that mounded morphologies can be obtained even for a small barrier while a self-affine growth, consistent with the Villain-Lai-Das Sarma equation, is observed in absence of an explicit step barrier. The mounded surfaces are described by a super-roughness dynamical scaling characterized by locally smooth (faceted) surfaces and a global roughness exponent $\alpha>1$. The thin film limit is featured by surfaces with self-assembled three-dimensional structures having an aspect ratio (height/width) that may increase or decrease with temperature depending on the strength of step barrier.Comment: To appear in J. Phys. Cond. Matter; 3 movies as supplementary materia

Vector field models of modified gravity and the dark sector

We present a comprehensive investigation of cosmological constraints on the class of vector field formulations of modified gravity called Generalized Einstein-Aether models. Using linear perturbation theory we generate cosmic microwave background and large-scale structure spectra for general parameters of the theory, and then constrain them in various ways. We investigate two parameter regimes: a dark-matter candidate where the vector field sources structure formation, and a dark-energy candidate where it causes late-time acceleration. We find that the dark matter candidate does not fit the data, and identify five physical problems that can restrict this and other theories of dark matter. The dark energy candidate does fit the data, and we constrain its fundamental parameters; most notably we find that the theory's kinetic index parameter $n_{\mathrm{ae}}$ can differ significantly from its $\Lambda$CDM value.Comment: 16 pages, 11 figure

Minkowski space structure of the Higgs potential in 2HDM: II. Minima, symmetries, and topology

We continue to explore the consequences of the recently discovered Minkowski space structure of the Higgs potential in the two-Higgs-doublet model. Here, we focus on the vacuum properties. The search for extrema of the Higgs potential is reformulated in terms of 3-quadrics in the 3+1-dimensional Minkowski space. We prove that 2HDM cannot have more than two local minima in the orbit space and that a twice-degenerate minimum can arise only via spontaneous violation of a discrete symmetry of the Higgs potential. Investigating topology of the 3-quadrics, we give concise criteria for existence of non-contractible paths in the Higgs orbit space. We also study explicit symmetries of the Higgs potential/lagrangian and their spontaneous violation from a wider perspective than usual.Comment: 27 pages, 5 figure