397 research outputs found
A precisely controlled, low range humidity system
Development of environmental control system for determining effects of relative humidity and dry heat on inactivation of microorganism
Critical spin-flip scattering at the helimagnetic transition of MnSi
We report spherical neutron polarimetry (SNP) and discuss the spin-flip
scattering cross sections as well as the chiral fraction close to the
helimagnetic transition in MnSi. For our study, we have developed a
miniaturised SNP device that allows fast data collection when used in small
angle scattering geometry with an area detector. Critical spin-flip scattering
is found to be governed by chiral paramagnons that soften on a sphere in
momentum space. Carefully accounting for the incoherent spin-flip background,
we find that the resulting chiral fraction decreases gradually above the
helimagnetic transition reflecting a strongly renormalised chiral correlation
length with a temperature dependence in excellent quantitative agreement with
the Brazovskii theory for a fluctuation-induced first order transition.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
Design requirements for laminar airflow clean rooms and devices
Laminar airflow and airborne contamination control concepts with clean room specifications and laminar flow facility design
Quantum bicriticality in the heavy-fermion metamagnet YbAgGe
Bicritical points, at which two distinct symmetry-broken phases become
simultaneously unstable, are typical for spin-flop metamagnetism.
Interestingly, the heavy-fermion compound YbAgGe also possesses such a
bicritical point (BCP) with a low temperature T_BCP ~ 0.3 K at a magnetic field
of mu_0 H_BCP ~ 4.5 T. In its vicinity, YbAgGe exhibits anomalous behavior that
we attribute to the influence of a quantum bicritical point (QBCP), that is
close in parameter space yet can be reached by tuning T_BCP further to zero.
Using high-resolution measurements of the magnetocaloric effect, we demonstrate
that the magnetic Grueneisen parameter Gamma_H indeed both changes sign and
diverges as required for quantum criticality. Moreover, Gamma_H displays a
characteristic scaling behavior but only on the low-field side, H < H_BCP,
indicating a pronounced asymmetry with respect to the critical field. We
speculate that the small value of T_BCP is related to the geometric frustration
of the Kondo-lattice of YbAgGe.Comment: submitted to PR
Mott metal-insulator transition on compressible lattices
The critical properties of the finite temperature Mott endpoint are
drastically altered by a coupling to crystal elasticity, i.e., whenever it is
amenable to pressure tuning. Similar as for critical piezoelectric
ferroelectrics, the Ising criticality of the electronic system is preempted by
an isostructural instability, and long-range shear forces suppress microscopic
fluctuations. As a result, the endpoint is governed by Landau criticality. Its
hallmark is thus a breakdown of Hooke's law of elasticity with a non-linear
strain-stress relation characterized by a mean-field exponent. Based on a
quantitative estimate, we predict critical elasticity to dominate the
temperature range DeltaT/Tc ~ 8% close to the Mott endpoint of
kappa-(BEDT-TTF)2X.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figure
Emergent Lorentz symmetry with vanishing velocity in a critical two-subband quantum wire
We consider a quantum wire with two subbands of spin-polarized electrons in
the presence of strong interactions. We focus on the quantum phase transition
when the second subband starts to get filled as a function of gate voltage.
Performing a one-loop renormalization group (RG) analysis of the effective
Hamiltonian, we identify the critical fixed-point theory as a conformal field
theory having an enhanced SU(2) symmetry and central charge 3/2. While the
fixed point is Lorentz invariant, the effective 'speed of light' nevertheless
vanishes at low energies due to marginally irrelevant operators leading to a
diverging critical specific heat coefficient.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, minor changes, published versio
Linearly polarized GHz magnetization dynamics of spin helix modes in the ferrimagnetic insulator CuOSeO
Linear dichroism -- the polarization dependent absorption of electromagnetic
waves -- is routinely exploited in applications as diverse as structure
determination of DNA or polarization filters in optical technologies. Here
filamentary absorbers with a large length-to-width ratio are a prerequisite.
For magnetization dynamics in the few GHz frequency regime strictly linear
dichroism was not observed for more than eight decades. Here, we show that the
bulk chiral magnet CuOSeO exhibits linearly polarized magnetization
dynamics at an unexpectedly small frequency of about 2 GHz. Unlike optical
filters that are assembled from filamentary absorbers, the magnet provides
linear polarization as a bulk material for an extremely wide range of
length-to-width ratios. In addition, the polarization plane of a given mode can
be switched by 90 via a tiny variation in width. Our findings shed a
new light on magnetization dynamics in that ferrimagnetic ordering combined
with anisotropic exchange interaction offers strictly linear polarization and
cross-polarized modes for a broad spectrum of sample shapes. The discovery
allows for novel design rules and optimization of microwave-to-magnon
transduction in emerging microwave technologies.Comment: 20 pages, 4 figure
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