The courage and involvement

В статье рассматриваются результаты ряда танатосоциологических проектов, реализованных за рубежом в конце XX – начале XXI вв. Особое внимание уделяется методологии исследований, показаны эвристические возможности применения качественных методов при изучении проблемы смерти. Проанализировав танатосоциологические изыскания, автор делает вывод о том, что их проведение потребовало от ученых не только профессионализма, но и личного мужества и участия в паллиативной деятельности.The article discusses the results of a number thanatosociological projects implemented abroad in the late XX – early XXI centuries. Special attention is paid to research methodology, illustrates the heuristic possibilities of applying qualitative methods in the study of the problem of death. After analyzing thanatosociological research, the author concludes that the conduct demanded that scientists not only professionalism, but also personal courage and involvement in palliative care activities

Transport implications of Fermi arcs in the pseudogap phase of the cuprates

We derive the fermionic contribution to the longitudinal and Hall conductivities within a Kubo formalism, using a phenomenological Greens function which has been previously developed to describe photoemission data in the pseudogap phase of the cuprates. We find that the in-plane electrical and thermal conductivities are metallic-like, showing a universal limit behavior characteristic of a d-wave spectrum as the scattering rate goes to zero. In contrast, the c-axis resistivity and the Hall number are insulating-like, being divergent in the same limit. The relation of these results to transport data in the pseudogap phase is discussed.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figure

Coulomb drag in quantum circuits

We study drag effect in a system of two electrically isolated quantum point contacts (QPC), coupled by Coulomb interactions. Drag current exhibits maxima as a function of QPC gate voltages when the latter are tuned to the transitions between quantized conductance plateaus. In the linear regime this behavior is due to enhanced electron-hole asymmetry near an opening of a new conductance channel. In the non-linear regime the drag current is proportional to the shot noise of the driving circuit, suggesting that the Coulomb drag experiments may be a convenient way to measure the quantum shot noise. Remarkably, the transition to the non-linear regime may occur at driving voltages substantially smaller than the temperature.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figure

Josephson current noise above Tc in superconducting tunnel junctions

Tunnel junction between two superconductors is considered in the vicinity of the critical temperature. Superconductive fluctuations above Tc give rise to the noise of the ac Josephson current although the current itself is zero in average. As a result of fluctuations, current noise spectrum is peaked at the Josephson frequency, which may be considered as precursor of superconductivity in the normal state. Temperature dependence and shape of the Josephson current noise resonance line is calculated for various junction configurations.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figure

Magnetoconductivity of low-dimensional disordered conductors at the onset of the superconducting transition

Magnetoconductivity of the disordered two- and three-dimensional superconductors is addressed at the onset of superconducting transition. In this regime transport is dominated by the fluctuation effects and we account for the interaction corrections coming from the Cooper channel. In contrast to many previous studies we consider strong magnetic fields and various temperature regimes, which allow to resolve the existing discrepancies with the experiments. Specifically, we find saturation of the fluctuations induced magneto-conductivity for both two- and three-dimensional superconductors at already moderate magnetic fields and discuss possible dimensional crossover at the immediate vicinity of the critical temperature. The surprising observation is that closer to the transition temperature weaker magnetic field provides the saturation. It is remarkable also that interaction correction to magnetoconductivity coming from the Cooper channel, and specifically the so called Maki-Thompson contribution, remains to be important even away from the critical region.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur