Charge Order Superstructure with Integer Iron Valence in Fe2OBO3

Solution-grown single crystals of Fe2OBO3 were characterized by specific heat, Mossbauer spectroscopy, and x-ray diffraction. A peak in the specific heat at 340 K indicates the onset of charge order. Evidence for a doubling of the unit cell at low temperature is presented. Combining structural refinement of diffraction data and Mossbauer spectra, domains with diagonal charge order are established. Bond-valence-sum analysis indicates integer valence states of the Fe ions in the charge ordered phase, suggesting Fe2OBO3 is the clearest example of ionic charge order so far.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures. Fig. 3 is available in higher resolution from the authors. PRL in prin

Complete controllability of quantum systems

Sufficient conditions for complete controllability of $N$-level quantum systems subject to a single control pulse that addresses multiple allowed transitions concurrently are established. The results are applied in particular to Morse and harmonic-oscillator systems, as well as some systems with degenerate energy levels. Morse and harmonic oscillators serve as models for molecular bonds, and the standard control approach of using a sequence of frequency-selective pulses to address a single transition at a time is either not applicable or only of limited utility for such systems.Comment: 8 pages, expanded and revised versio

Displacement energy of unit disk cotangent bundles

We give an upper bound of a Hamiltonian displacement energy of a unit disk cotangent bundle $D^*M$ in a cotangent bundle $T^*M$, when the base manifold $M$ is an open Riemannian manifold. Our main result is that the displacement energy is not greater than $C r(M)$, where $r(M)$ is the inner radius of $M$, and $C$ is a dimensional constant. As an immediate application, we study symplectic embedding problems of unit disk cotangent bundles. Moreover, combined with results in symplectic geometry, our main result shows the existence of short periodic billiard trajectories and short geodesic loops.Comment: Title slightly changed. Close to the version published online in Math Zei

High Temperature Conductance of the Single Electron Transistor

The linear conductance of the single electron transistor is determined in the high temperature limit. Electron tunneling is treated nonperturbatively by means of a path integral formulation and the conductance is obtained from Kubo's formula. The theoretical predictions are valid for arbitrary conductance and found to explain recent experimental data.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Quantum Brownian Motion With Large Friction

Quantum Brownian motion in the strong friction limit is studied based on the exact path integral formulation of dissipative systems. In this limit the time-nonlocal reduced dynamics can be cast into an effective equation of motion, the quantum Smoluchowski equation. For strongly condensed phase environments it plays a similar role as master equations in the weak coupling range. Applications for chemical, mesoscopic, and soft matter systems are discussed and reveal the substantial role of quantum fluctuations.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures, to appear in: Chaos: "100 years of Brownian motion

Phase Diffusion in Localized Spatio-Temporal Amplitude Chaos

We present numerical simulations of coupled Ginzburg-Landau equations describing parametrically excited waves which reveal persistent dynamics due to the occurrence of phase slips in sequential pairs, with the second phase slip quickly following and negating the first. Of particular interest are solutions where these double phase slips occur irregularly in space and time within a spatially localized region. An effective phase diffusion equation utilizing the long term phase conservation of the solution explains the localization of this new form of amplitude chaos.Comment: 4 pages incl. 5 figures uucompresse

Geometrothermodynamics

We present the fundamentals of geometrothermodynamics, an approach to study the properties of thermodynamic systems in terms of differential geometric concepts. It is based, on the one hand, upon the well-known contact structure of the thermodynamic phase space and, on the other hand, on the metric structure of the space of thermodynamic equilibrium states. In order to make these two structures compatible we introduce a Legendre invariant set of metrics in the phase space, and demand that their pullback generates metrics on the space of equilibrium states. We show that Weinhold's metric, which was introduced {\it ad hoc}, is not contained within this invariant set. We propose alternative metrics which allow us to redefine the concept of thermodynamic length in an invariant manner and to study phase transitions in terms of curvature singularities.Comment: Revised version, to be published in Jour. Math. Phy

Spin-orbit coupling effect on quantum Hall ferromagnets with vanishing Zeeman energy

We present the phase diagram of a ferromagnetic quantum Hall effect liquid in a narrow quantum well with vanishing single-particle Zeeman splitting, $\epsilon_{{\rm Z}}$ and pronounced spin-orbit coupling. Upon decreasing $\epsilon_{{\rm Z}}$, the spin-polarization field of a liquid takes, first, the easy-axis configuration, followed by the formation of a helical state, which affects the transport and NMR properties of a liquid and the form of topological defects in it. The analysis is extended over high odd integer filling factors.Comment: This revised version takes into account easy-axis terms in the energy and offers a corrected phase diagram of the ferromagnetic QHE liquid. Analysis is extended over higher filling factor

Thermodynamic Geometry Of Charged Rotating BTZ Black Holes

We study the thermodynamics and the thermodynamic geometries of charged rotating BTZ (CR-BTZ) black holes in (2+1)-gravity. We investigate the thermodynamics of these systems within the context of the Weinhold and Ruppeiner thermodynamic geometries and the recently developed formalism of geometrothermodynamics (GTD). Considering the behavior of the heat capacity and the Hawking temperature, we show that Weinhold and Ruppeiner geometries cannot describe completely the thermodynamics of these black holes and of their limiting case of vanishing electric charge. In contrast, the Legendre invariance imposed on the metric in GTD allows one to describe the CR-BTZ black holes and their limiting cases in a consistent and invariant manner