607 research outputs found
Bidirectional Heuristic Search Reconsidered
The assessment of bidirectional heuristic search has been incorrect since it
was first published more than a quarter of a century ago. For quite a long
time, this search strategy did not achieve the expected results, and there was
a major misunderstanding about the reasons behind it. Although there is still
wide-spread belief that bidirectional heuristic search is afflicted by the
problem of search frontiers passing each other, we demonstrate that this
conjecture is wrong. Based on this finding, we present both a new generic
approach to bidirectional heuristic search and a new approach to dynamically
improving heuristic values that is feasible in bidirectional search only. These
approaches are put into perspective with both the traditional and more recently
proposed approaches in order to facilitate a better overall understanding.
Empirical results of experiments with our new approaches show that
bidirectional heuristic search can be performed very efficiently and also with
limited memory. These results suggest that bidirectional heuristic search
appears to be better for solving certain difficult problems than corresponding
unidirectional search. This provides some evidence for the usefulness of a
search strategy that was long neglected. In summary, we show that bidirectional
heuristic search is viable and consequently propose that it be reconsidered.Comment: See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying file
Effects of impurities on Tamm-like lanthanide-metal surface states
The effects of isolated residual-gas adsorbates on the local electronic
structure of the Dy(0001) surface were spatially mapped by scanning tunneling
microscopy and spectroscopy at 12 K. Less than 15 A away from an adsorbate, a
strong reduction of the intensity and a significant increase of the width of
the majority component of the surface state due to impurity scattering were
observed, with essentially no change of the minority component; this reflects a
high lateral localization of the Tamm-like surface state. Furthermore, an
adsorbate-induced state was found that behaves metastable.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, accepted as Brief Report for Physical Review
Surface-electronic structure of La(0001) and Lu(0001)
Most spectroscopic methods for studying the electronic structure of metal
surfaces have the disadvantage that either only occupied or only unoccupied
states can be probed, and the signal is cut at the Fermi edge. This leads to
significant uncertainties, when states are very close to the Fermi level. By
performing low-temperature scanning tunneling spectroscopy and ab initio
calculations, we study the surface-electronic structure of La(0001) and
Lu(0001), and demonstrate that in this way detailed information on the
surface-electronic structure very close to the Fermi energy can be derived with
high accuracy.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, 1 table submitted to PR
Rashba Effect at Magnetic Metal Surfaces
We give experimental and theoretical evidence of the Rashba effect at the
magnetic rare-earth metal surface Gd(0001). The Rashba effect is substantially
enhanced and the Rashba parameter changes its sign when a metal-oxide surface
layer is formed. The experimental observations are quantitatively described by
ab initio calculations that give a detailed account of the near-surface charge
density gradients causing the Rashba effect. Since the sign of the Rashba
splitting depends on the magnetization direction, the findings open up new
opportunities for the study of surface and interface magnetism.Comment: 4 Fig
Temperature-induced reversal of magnetic interlayer exchange coupling
For epitaxial trilayers of the magnetic rare-earth metals Gd and Tb, exchange
coupled through a non-magnetic Y spacer layer, element-specific hysteresis
loops were recorded by the x-ray magneto-optical Kerr effect at the rare-earth
thresholds. This allowed us to quantitatively determine the strength of
interlayer exchange coupling (IEC). In addition to the expected oscillatory
behavior as a function of spacer-layer thickness , a temperature-induced
sign reversal of IEC was observed for constant , arising from
magnetization-dependent electron reflectivities at the magnetic interfaces.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures; accepted version; minor changes and new Figs. 2
and 4 containing more dat
Ce-L3-XAS study of the temperature dependence of the 4f occupancy in the Kondo system Ce2Rh3Al9
We have used temperature dependent x-ray absorption at the Ce-L3 edge to
investigate the recently discovered Kondo compound Ce2Rh3Al9. The systematic
changes of the spectral lineshape with decreasing temperature are analyzed and
found to be related to a change in the occupation number, n_f, as the
system undergoes a transition into a Kondo state. The temperature dependence of
indicates a characteristic temperature of 150K, which is clearly related
with the high temperature anomaly observed in the magnetic susceptibility of
the same system. The further anomaly observed in the resistivity of this system
at low temperature (ca. 20K) has no effect on n_f and is thus not of Kondo
origin.Comment: 7 pages, three figures, submitted to PR
XANES study of rare-earth valency in LRu4P12 (L = Ce and Pr)
Valency of Ce and Pr in LRu4P12 (L = Ce and Pr) was studied by L2,3-edge
x-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES) spectroscopy. The Ce-L3 XANES
spectrum suggests that Ce is mainly trivalent, but the 4f state strongly
hybridizes with ligand orbitals. The band gap of CeRu4P12 seems to be formed by
strong hybridization of 4f electrons. Pr-L2 XANES spectra indicate that Pr
exists in trivalent state over a wide range in temperature, 20 < T < 300 K. We
find that the metal-insulator (MI) transition at TMI = 60 K in PrRu4P12 does
not originate from Pr valence fluctuation.Comment: 4 page
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