264 research outputs found
Relative palatability and efficacy of brodifacoum-25D conservation rodenticide pellets for mouse eradication on Midway Atoll
Invasive mice (Mus spp.) can negatively impact island species and ecosystems. Because fewer island rodent eradications have been attempted for mice compared to rats (Rattus spp.), less is known about efficacy and palatability of rodenticide baits for mouse eradications. We performed a series of bait acceptance and efficacy cage trials using a standard formulation of brodifacoum-based rodenticide on wild-caught mice from Sand Island, Midway Atoll, to help inform a proposed eradication there. Mice were offered ad libitum brodifacoum pellets along with various alternative food sources, and a “no choice” treatment group received only bait pellets. Mortality in the no choice trial was 100%; however, when offered alternative foods, mice preferred the alternative diets to the bait, leading to low mortality (40%). Because there was concern that the bittering agent Bitrex® in the formulation may have reduced palatability, we conducted a subsequent trial comparing brodifacoum bait with and without Bitrex. Mortality in the with-Bitrex treatment group was slightly higher, indicating that the bittering agent was not likely responsible for low efficacy. Laboratory trials cannot account for the numerous environmental and behavioral factors that influence bait acceptance nor replicate the true availability of alternative food sources in the environment, so low efficacy results from these trials should be interpreted cautiously and not necessarily as a measure of the likelihood of success or failure of a proposed eradication
The origin of the anomalously strong influence of out-of-plane disorder on high-Tc superconductivity
The electronic structure of Bi2Sr2-xRxCuOy(R=La, Eu) near the (pi,0) point of
the first Brillouin zone was studied by means of angle-resolved photoemission
spectroscopy (ARPES). The temperature T* above which the pseudogap structure in
the ARPES spectrum disappears was found to have an R dependence that is
opposite to that ofthe superconducting transition temperature Tc. This
indicates that the pseudogap state is competing with high-Tc superconductivity,
and the large Tc suppression observed with increasing the out-of-plane disorder
is due to the stabilization of the pseudogap state.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Bi-layer splitting in overdoped high cuprates
Recent angle-resolved photoemission data for overdoped Bi2212 are explained.
Of the peak-dip-hump structure, the peak corresponds the component
of a hole condensate which appears at . The fluctuating part of this same
condensate produces the hump. The bilayer splitting is large enough to produce
a bonding hole and an electron antibonding quasiparticle Fermi surface. Smaller
bilayer splittings observed in some experiments reflect the interaction of the
peak structure with quasiparticle states near, but not at, the Fermi surface.Comment: 4 pages with 2 figures - published versio
The types of Mott insulator
There are two classes of Mott insulators in nature, distinguished by their
responses to weak doping. With increasing chemical potential, Type I Mott
insulators undergo a first order phase transition from the undoped to the doped
phase. In the presence of long-range Coulomb interactions, this leads to an
inhomogeneous state exhibiting ``micro-phase separation.'' In contrast, in Type
II Mott insulators charges go in continuously above a critical chemical
potential. We show that if the insulating state has a broken symmetry, this
increases the likelihood that it will be Type I. There exists a close analogy
between these two types of Mott insulators and the familiar Type I and Type II
superconductors
Origin of the Pseudogap in High-Temperature Cuprate Superconductors
Cuprate high-temperature superconductors exhibit a pseudogap in the normal
state that decreases monotonically with increasing hole doping and closes at x
\approx 0.19 holes per planar CuO2 while the superconducting doping range is
0.05 < x < 0.27 with optimal Tc at x \approx 0.16. Using ab initio quantum
calculations at the level that leads to accurate band gaps, we found that
four-Cu-site plaquettes are created in the vicinity of dopants. At x \approx
0.05 the plaquettes percolate, so that the Cu dx2y2/O p{\sigma} orbitals inside
the plaquettes now form a band of states along the percolating swath. This
leads to metallic conductivity and below Tc to superconductivity. Plaquettes
disconnected from the percolating swath are found to have degenerate states at
the Fermi level that split and lead to the pseudogap. The pseudogap can be
calculated by simply counting the spatial distribution of isolated plaquettes,
leading to an excellent fit to experiment. This provides strong evidence in
favor of inhomogeneous plaquettes in cuprates.Comment: 24 pages (4 pages main text plus 20 pages supplement
Dispersive charge density wave excitations and temperature dependent commensuration in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+{\delta}
Experimental evidence on high-Tc cuprates reveals ubiquitous charge density
wave (CDW) modulations, which coexist with superconductivity. Although the CDW
had been predicted by theory, important questions remain about the extent to
which the CDW influences lattice and charge degrees of freedom and its
characteristics as functions of doping and temperature. These questions are
intimately connected to the origin of the CDW and its relation to the
mysterious cuprate pseudogap. Here, we use ultrahigh resolution resonant
inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) to reveal new CDW character in underdoped
Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+{\delta} (Bi2212). At low temperature, we observe dispersive
excitations from an incommensurate CDW that induces anomalously enhanced phonon
intensity, unseen using other techniques. Near the pseudogap temperature T*,
the CDW persists, but the associated excitations significantly weaken and the
CDW wavevector shifts, becoming nearly commensurate with a periodicity of four
lattice constants. The dispersive CDW excitations, phonon anomaly, and
temperature dependent commensuration provide a comprehensive momentum space
picture of complex CDW behavior and point to a closer relationship with the
pseudogap state
Inhomogeneous d-wave superconducting state of a doped Mott insulator
Recent scanning tunneling microscope (STM) measurements discovered remarkable
electronic inhomogeneity, i.e. nano-scale spatial variations of the local
density of states (LDOS) and the superconducting energy gap, in the high-Tc
superconductor BSCCO. Based on the experimental findings we conjectured that
the inhomogeneity arises from variations in local oxygen doping level and may
be generic of doped Mott insulators which behave rather unconventionally in
screening the dopant ionic potentials at atomic scales comparable to the short
coherence length. Here, we provide theoretical support for this picture. We
study a doped Mott insulator within a generalized t-J model, where doping is
accompanied by ionic Coulomb potentials centered in the BiO plane. We calculate
the LDOS spectrum, the integrated LDOS, and the local superconducting gap, make
detailed comparisons to experiments, and find remarkable agreement with the
experimental data. We emphasize the unconventional screening in a doped Mott
insulator and show that nonlinear screening dominates at nano-meter scales
which is the origin of the electronic inhomogeneity. It leads to strong
inhomogeneous redistribution of the local hole density and promotes the notion
of a local doping concentration. We find that the inhomogeneity structure
manifests itself at all energy scales in the STM tunneling differential
conductance, and elucidate the similarity and the differences between the data
obtained in the constant tunneling current mode and the same data normalized to
reflect constant tip-to-sample distance. We also discuss the underdoped case
where nonlinear screening of the ionic potential turns the spatial electronic
structure into a percolative mixture of patches with smaller pairing gaps
embedded in a background with larger gaps to single particle excitations.Comment: 19 pages, final versio
Phase Separation Models for Cuprate Stripe Arrays
An electronic phase separation model provides a natural explanation for a
large variety of experimental results in the cuprates, including evidence for
both stripes and larger domains, and a termination of the phase separation in
the slightly overdoped regime, when the average hole density equals that on the
charged stripes. Several models are presented for charged stripes, showing how
density waves, superconductivity, and strong correlations compete with quantum
size effects (QSEs) in narrow stripes. The energy bands associated with the
charged stripes develop in the middle of the Mott gap, and the splitting of
these bands can be understood by considering the QSE on a single ladder.Comment: significant revisions: includes island phase, 16 eps figures, revte
Giant phonon anomalies and central peak due to charge density wave formation in YBaCuO
The electron-phonon interaction is a major factor influencing the competition
between collective instabilities in correlated-electron materials, but its role
in driving high-temperature superconductivity in the cuprates remains poorly
understood. We have used high-resolution inelastic x-ray scattering to monitor
low-energy phonons in YBaCuO (superconducting
K), which is close to a charge density wave (CDW) instability. Phonons in a
narrow range of momentum space around the CDW ordering vector exhibit extremely
large superconductivity-induced lineshape renormalizations. These results imply
that the electron-phonon interaction has sufficient strength to generate
various anomalies in electronic spectra, but does not contribute significantly
to Cooper pairing. In addition, a quasi-elastic "central peak" due to CDW
nanodomains is observed in a wide temperature range above and below ,
suggesting that the gradual onset of a spatially inhomogeneous CDW domain state
with decreasing temperature is a generic feature of the underdoped cuprates
A Theory for High- Superconductors Considering Inhomogeneous Charge Distribution
We propose a general theory for the critical and pseudogap
temperature dependence on the doping concentration for high- oxides,
taking into account the charge inhomogeneities in the planes. The well
measured experimental inhomogeneous charge density in a given compound is
assumed to produce a spatial distribution of local . These differences
in the local charge concentration is assumed to yield insulator and metallic
regions, possibly in a stripe morphology. In the metallic region, the
inhomogeneous charge density yields also spatial distributions of
superconducting critical temperatures and zero temperature gap
. For a given sample, the measured onset of vanishing gap
temperature is identified as the pseudogap temperature, that is, , which
is the maximum of all . Below , due to the distribution of
's, there are some superconducting regions surrounded by insulator or
metallic medium. The transition to a superconducting state corresponds to the
percolation threshold among the superconducting regions with different
's. To model the charge inhomogeneities we use a double branched
Poisson-Gaussian distribution. To make definite calculations and compare with
the experimental results, we derive phase diagrams for the BSCO, LSCO and YBCO
families, with a mean field theory for superconductivity using an extended
Hubbard Hamiltonian. We show also that this novel approach provides new
insights on several experimental features of high- oxides.Comment: 7 pages, 5 eps figures, corrected typo
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