17,414 research outputs found
Optical Hall conductivity in bulk and nanostructured graphene beyond the Dirac approximation
We present a perturbative method for calculating the optical Hall
conductivity in a tight-binding framework based on the Kubo formalism. The
method involves diagonalization only of the Hamiltonian in absence of the
magnetic field, and thus avoids the computational problems usually arising due
to the huge magnetic unit cells required to maintain translational invariance
in presence of a Peierls phase. A recipe for applying the method to numerical
calculations of the magneto-optical response is presented. We apply the
formalism to the case of ordinary and gapped graphene in a next-nearest
neighbour tight-binding model as well as graphene antidot lattices. In both
case, we find unique signatures in the Hall response, that are not captured in
continuum (Dirac) approximations. These include a non-zero optical Hall
conductivity even when the chemical potential is at the Dirac point energy.
Numerical results suggest that this effect should be measurable in experiments.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, accepted in Physical Review
Optical second harmonic generation from Wannier excitons
Excitonic effects in the linear optical response of semiconductors are
well-known and the subject of countless experimental and theoretical studies.
For the technologically important second order nonlinear response, however,
description of excitonic effects has proved to be difficult. In this work, a
simplified three-band Wannier exciton model of cubic semiconductors is applied
and a closed form expression for the complex second harmonic response function
including broadening is derived. Our calculated spectra are found to be in
excellent agreement with the measured response near the band edge. In addition,
a very substantial enhancement of the nonlinear response is predicted for the
transparency region
The Integral Burst Alert System (IBAS)
We describe the INTEGRAL Burst Alert System (IBAS): the automatic software
for the rapid distribution of the coordinates of the Gamma-Ray Bursts detected
by INTEGRAL. IBAS is implemented as a ground based system, working on the
near-real time telemetry stream. During the first six months of operations, six
GRB have been detected in the field of view of the INTEGRAL instruments and
localized by IBAS. Positions with an accuracy of a few arcminutes are currently
distributed by IBAS to the community for follow-up observations within a few
tens of seconds of the event.Comment: 7 pages, latex, 5 figures, Accepted for publication on A&A Special
Issue on First Science with INTEGRA
A mapping approach to synchronization in the "Zajfman trap": stability conditions and the synchronization mechanism
We present a two particle model to explain the mechanism that stabilizes a
bunch of positively charged ions in an "ion trap resonator" [Pedersen etal,
Phys. Rev. Lett. 87 (2001) 055001]. The model decomposes the motion of the two
ions into two mappings for the free motion in different parts of the trap and
one for a compressing momentum kick. The ions' interaction is modelled by a
time delay, which then changes the balance between adjacent momentum kicks.
Through these mappings we identify the microscopic process that is responsible
for synchronization and give the conditions for that regime.Comment: 12 pages, 9 figures; submitted to Phys Rev
Sterile neutrinos in the Milky Way: Observational constraints
We consider the possibility of constraining decaying dark matter by looking
out through the Milky Way halo. Specifically we use Chandra blank sky
observations to constrain the parameter space of sterile neutrinos. We find
that a broad band in parameter space is still open, leaving the sterile
neutrino as an excellent dark matter candidate.Comment: Submitted to ApJL, 4 pages, 4 figure
ISO far-infrared observations of rich galaxy clusters II. Sersic 159-03
The far-infrared emission from rich galaxy clusters is investigated. Maps
have been obtained by ISO at 60, 100, 135, and 200 microns using the PHT-C
camera. Ground based imaging and spectroscopy were also acquired. Here we
present the results for the cooling flow cluster Sersic 159-03. An infrared
source coincident with the dominant cD galaxy is found. Some off-center sources
are also present, but without any obvious counterparts.Comment: 6 pages, 4 postscript figures, accepted for publication in `Astronomy
and Astrophysics
Entanglement entropy of fermions in any dimension and the Widom conjecture
We show that entanglement entropy of free fermions scales faster then area
law, as opposed to the scaling for the harmonic lattice, for example.
We also suggest and provide evidence in support of an explicit formula for the
entanglement entropy of free fermions in any dimension , as the size of a subsystem
, where is the Fermi surface and
is the boundary of the region in real space. The expression for the constant
is based on a conjecture due to H. Widom. We
prove that a similar expression holds for the particle number fluctuations and
use it to prove a two sided estimates on the entropy .Comment: Final versio
The Rigidly Rotating Magnetosphere of Sigma Ori E
We attempt to characterize the observed variability of the magnetic
helium-strong star sigma Ori E in terms of a recently developed rigidly
rotating magnetosphere model. This model predicts the accumulation of
circumstellar plasma in two co-rotating clouds, situated in magnetohydrostatic
equilibrium at the intersection between magnetic and rotational equators. We
find that the model can reproduce well the periodic modulations observed in the
star's light curve, H alpha emission-line profile, and longitudinal field
strength, confirming that it furnishes an essentially correct, quantitative
description of the star's magnetically controlled circumstellar environment.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, accepted by Ap
A Study of Snippet Length and Informativeness: Behaviour, Performance and User Experience
The design and presentation of a Search Engine Results Page (SERP) has been subject to much research. With many contemporary aspects of the SERP now under scrutiny, work still remains in investigating more traditional SERP components, such as the result summary. Prior studies have examined a variety of different aspects of result summaries, but in this paper we investigate the influence of result summary length on search behaviour, performance and user experience. To this end, we designed and conducted a within-subjects experiment using the TREC AQUAINT news collection with 53 participants. Using Kullback-Leibler distance as a measure of information gain, we examined result summaries of different lengths and selected four conditions where the change in information gain was the greatest: (i) title only; (ii) title plus one snippet; (iii) title plus two snippets; and (iv) title plus four snippets. Findings show that participants broadly preferred longer result summaries, as they were perceived to be more informative. However, their performance in terms of correctly identifying relevant documents was similar across all four conditions. Furthermore, while the participants felt that longer summaries were more informative, empirical observations suggest otherwise; while participants were more likely to click on relevant items given longer summaries, they also were more likely to click on non-relevant items. This shows that longer is not necessarily better, though participants perceived that to be the case - and second, they reveal a positive relationship between the length and informativeness of summaries and their attractiveness (i.e. clickthrough rates). These findings show that there are tensions between perception and performance when designing result summaries that need to be taken into account
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