1,906 research outputs found
Plasmon assisted transport through disordered array of quantum wires
Phononless plasmon assisted thermally activated transport through a long
disordered array of finite length quantum wires is investigated analytically.
Generically strong electron plasmon interaction in quantum wires results in a
qualitative change of the temperature dependence of thermally activated
resistance in comparison to phonon assisted transport. At high temperatures,
the thermally activated resistance is determined by the Luttinger liquid
interaction parameter of the wires.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure, final version as publishe
Prior knowledge about events depicted in scenes decreases oculomotor exploration.
The visual input that the eyes receive usually contains temporally continuous information about unfolding events. Therefore, humans can accumulate knowledge about their current environment. Typical studies on scene perception, however, involve presenting multiple unrelated images and thereby render this accumulation unnecessary. Our study, instead, facilitated it and explored its effects. Specifically, we investigated how recently-accumulated prior knowledge affects gaze behavior. Participants viewed sequences of static film frames that contained several 'context frames' followed by a 'critical frame'. The context frames showed either events from which the situation depicted in the critical frame naturally followed, or events unrelated to this situation. Therefore, participants viewed identical critical frames while possessing prior knowledge that was either relevant or irrelevant to the frames' content. In the former case, participants' gaze behavior was slightly more exploratory, as revealed by seven gaze characteristics we analyzed. This result demonstrates that recently-gained prior knowledge reduces exploratory eye movements
Influence of prior knowledge on eye movements to scenes as revealed by hidden Markov models.
Human visual experience usually provides ample opportunity to accumulate knowledge about events unfolding in the environment. In typical scene perception experiments, however, participants view images that are unrelated to each other and, therefore, they cannot accumulate knowledge relevant to the upcoming visual input. Consequently, the influence of such knowledge on how this input is processed remains underexplored. Here, we investigated this influence in the context of gaze control. We used sequences of static film frames arranged in a way that allowed us to compare eye movements to identical frames between two groups: a group that accumulated prior knowledge relevant to the situations depicted in these frames and a group that did not. We used a machine learning approach based on hidden Markov models fitted to individual scanpaths to demonstrate that the gaze patterns from the two groups differed systematically and, thereby, showed that recently accumulated prior knowledge contributes to gaze control. Next, we leveraged the interpretability of hidden Markov models to characterize these differences. Additionally, we report two unexpected and interesting caveats of our approach. Overall, our results highlight the importance of recently acquired prior knowledge for oculomotor control and the potential of hidden Markov models as a tool for investigating it
Magnetism and exchange interaction of small rare-earth clusters; Tb as a representative
Here we follow, both experimentally and theoretically, the development of
magnetism in Tb clusters from the atomic limit, adding one atom at a time. The
exchange interaction is, surprisingly, observed to drastically increase
compared to that of bulk, and to exhibit irregular oscillations as a function
of the interatomic distance. From electronic structure theory we find that the
theoretical magnetic moments oscillate with cluster size in exact agreement
with experimental data. Unlike the bulk, the oscillation is not caused by the
RKKY mechanism. Instead, the inter-atomic exchange is shown to be driven by a
competition between wave-function overlap of the 5d shell and the on-site
exchange interaction, which leads to a competition between ferromagnetic
double-exchange and antiferromagnetic super-exchange. This understanding opens
up new ways to tune the magnetic properties of rare-earth based magnets with
nano-sized building blocks
Multi-shell gold nanowires under compression
Deformation properties of multi-wall gold nanowires under compressive loading
are studied. Nanowires are simulated using a realistic many-body potential.
Simulations start from cylindrical fcc(111) structures at T=0 K. After
annealing cycles axial compression is applied on multi-shell nanowires for a
number of radii and lengths at T=300 K. Several types of deformation are found,
such as large buckling distortions and progressive crushing. Compressed
nanowires are found to recover their initial lengths and radii even after
severe structural deformations. However, in contrast to carbon nanotubes
irreversible local atomic rearrangements occur even under small compressions.Comment: 1 gif figure, 5 ps figure
The structural properties of the multi-layer graphene/4H-SiC(000-1) system as determined by Surface X-ray Diffraction
We present a structural analysis of the multi-layer graphene-4HSiC(000-1})
system using Surface X-Ray Reflectivity. We show for the first time that
graphene films grown on the C-terminated (000-1}) surface have a
graphene-substrate bond length that is very short (0.162nm). The measured
distance rules out a weak Van der Waals interaction to the substrate and
instead indicates a strong bond between the first graphene layer and the bulk
as predicted by ab-initio calculations. The measurements also indicate that
multi-layer graphene grows in a near turbostratic mode on this surface. This
result may explain the lack of a broken graphene symmetry inferred from
conduction measurements on this system [C. Berger et al., Science 312, 1191
(2006)].Comment: 9 pages with 6 figure
Theoretical Aspects of the Fractional Quantum Hall Effect in Graphene
We review the theoretical basis and understanding of electronic interactions
in graphene Landau levels, in the limit of strong correlations. This limit
occurs when inter-Landau-level excitations may be omitted because they belong
to a high-energy sector, whereas the low-energy excitations only involve the
same level, such that the kinetic energy (of the Landau level) is an
unimportant constant. Two prominent effects emerge in this limit of strong
electronic correlations: generalised quantum Hall ferromagnetic states that
profit from the approximate four-fold spin-valley degeneracy of graphene's
Landau levels and the fractional quantum Hall effect. Here, we discuss these
effects in the framework of an SU(4)-symmetric theory, in comparison with
available experimental observations.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures; review for the proceedings of the Nobel
Symposium on Graphene and Quantum Matte
Crossover from Electronic to Atomic Shell Structure in Alkali Metal Nanowires
After making a cold weld by pressing two clean metal surfaces together, upon
gradually separating the two pieces a metallic nanowire is formed, which
progressively thins down to a single atom before contact is lost. In previous
experiments [1,2] we have observed that the stability of such nanowires is
influenced by electronic shell filling effects, in analogy to shell effects in
metal clusters [3]. For sodium and potassium at larger diameters there is a
crossover to crystalline wires with shell-closings corresponding to the
completion of additional atomic layers. This observation completes the analogy
between shell effects observed for clusters and nanowires.Comment: 4 page
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