Microfluidic immunomagnetic multi-target sorting – a model for controlling deflection of paramagnetic beads

We describe a microfluidic system that uses a magnetic field to sort paramagnetic beads by deflecting them in the direction normal to the flow. Our experiments systematically study the dependence of the beads’ deflection on: bead size and susceptibility, magnet strength, fluid speed and viscosity, and device geometry. We also develop a design parameter that can aid in the design of microfluidic devices for immunomagnetic multi-target sorting

Optical probes of the quantum vacuum: The photon polarization tensor in external fields

The photon polarization tensor is the central building block of an effective theory description of photon propagation in the quantum vacuum. It accounts for the vacuum fluctuations of the underlying theory, and in the presence of external electromagnetic fields, gives rise to such striking phenomena as vacuum birefringence and dichroism. Standard approximations of the polarization tensor are often restricted to on-the-light-cone dynamics in homogeneous electromagnetic fields, and are limited to certain momentum regimes only. We devise two different strategies to go beyond these limitations: First, we aim at obtaining novel analytical insights into the photon polarization tensor for homogeneous fields, while retaining its full momentum dependence. Second, we employ wordline numerical methods to surpass the constant-field limit.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures; typo in Eq. (5) corrected (matches journal version

THE INFLUENCE OF MANUALLY ADJUSTING THE RUNNING SPEED ON THE IMPACT ACCELERATION OF THE TIBIA DURING TREADMILL RUNNING

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of pressing the speed key on the treadmill console to change the running speed on the impact acceleration of the tibia during treadmill running. Twenty-seven subjects were asked to run on the treadmill and increase the speed gradually until their preferred speed within two minutes. Then the subjects were required to adjust their running speed manually every two minutes. The peak impact accelerations of the right and left tibia were measured for 30 seconds at the 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th, and 10thminutes. The results showed that there are greater peaks of impact acceleration of the tibia when some subjects pressed the speed key on the treadmill console to change their running speed. It is suggested that the position of the speed key of the treadmill be close to the runner

Revealing common artifacts due to ferromagnetic inclusions in highly-oriented pyrolytic graphite

We report on an extensive investigation to figure out the origin of room-temperature ferromagnetism that is commonly observed by SQUID magnetometry in highly-oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG). Electron backscattering and X-ray microanalysis revealed the presence of micron-size magnetic clusters (predominantly Fe) that are rare and would be difficult to detect without careful search in a scanning electron microscope in the backscattering mode. The clusters pin to crystal boundaries and their quantities match the amplitude of typical ferromagnetic signals. No ferromagnetic response is detected in samples where we could not find such magnetic inclusions. Our experiments show that the frequently reported ferromagnetism in pristine HOPG is most likely to originate from contamination with Fe-rich inclusions introduced presumably during crystal growth.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figure

Metamaterial with polarization and direction insensitive resonant transmission response mimicking electromagnetically induced transparency

We report on a planar metamaterial, the resonant transmission frequency of which does not depend on the polarization and angle of incidence of electromagnetic waves. The resonance results from the excitation of high-Q antisymmetric trapped current mode and shows sharp phase dispersion characteristic to Fano-type resonances of the electromagnetically induced transparency phenomenon

Tunneling of correlated electrons in ultra high magnetic field

Effects of the electron-electron interaction on tunneling into a metal in ultra-high magnetic field (ultra-quantum limit) are studied. The range of the interaction is found to have a decisive effect both on the nature of the field-induced instability of the ground state and on the properties of the system at energies above the corresponding gap. For a short-range repulsive interaction, tunneling is dominated by the renormalization of the coupling constant, which leads eventually to the charge-density wave instability. For a long-range interaction, there exists an intermediate energy range in which the conductance obeys a power-law scaling form, similar to that of a 1D Luttinger liquid. The exponent is magnetic-field dependent, and more surprisingly, may be positive or negative, i. e., interactions may either suppress or enhance the tunneling conductance compared to its non-interacting value. At energies near the gap, scaling breaks down and tunneling is again dominated by the instability, which in this case is an (anisotropic) Wigner crystal instability.Comment: 4 pages, 2 .eps figure

A microscopic investigation of the transition form factor in the region of collective multipole excitations of stable and unstable nuclei

We have used a self-consistent Skyrme-Hartree-Fock plus Continuum-RPA model to study the low-multipole response of stable and neutron/proton-rich Ni and Sn isotopes. We focus on the momentum-transfer dependence of the strength distribution, as it provides information on the structure of excited nuclear states and in particular on the variations of the transition form factor (TFF) with the energy. Our results show, among other things, that the TFF may show significant energy dependence in the region of the isoscalar giant monopole resonance and that the TFF corresponding to the threshold strength in the case of neutron-rich nuclei is different compared to the one corresponding to the respective giant resonance. Perspectives are given for more detailed future investigations.Comment: 13 pages, incl. 9 figures; to appear in J.Phys.G, http://www.iop.org/EJ/jphys

Spontaneous Crystallization of Skyrmions and Fractional Vortices in the Fast-rotating and Rapidly-quenched Spin-1 Bose-Einstein Condensates

We investigate the spontaneous generation of crystallized topological defects via the combining effects of fast rotation and rapid thermal quench on the spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensates. By solving the stochastic projected Gross-Pitaevskii equation, we show that, when the system reaches equilibrium, a hexagonal lattice of skyrmions, and a square lattice of half-quantized vortices can be formed in a ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic spinor BEC, respetively, which can be imaged by using the polarization-dependent phase-contrast method

Selection of the ground state for nonlinear Schroedinger equations

We prove for a class of nonlinear Schr\"odinger systems (NLS) having two nonlinear bound states that the (generic) large time behavior is characterized by decay of the excited state, asymptotic approach to the nonlinear ground state and dispersive radiation. Our analysis elucidates the mechanism through which initial conditions which are very near the excited state branch evolve into a (nonlinear) ground state, a phenomenon known as {\it ground state selection}. Key steps in the analysis are the introduction of a particular linearization and the derivation of a normal form which reflects the dynamics on all time scales and yields, in particular, nonlinear Master equations. Then, a novel multiple time scale dynamic stability theory is developed. Consequently, we give a detailed description of the asymptotic behavior of the two bound state NLS for all small initial data. The methods are general and can be extended to treat NLS with more than two bound states and more general nonlinearities including those of Hartree-Fock type.Comment: Revision of 2001 preprint; 108 pages Te

Electron waves in chemically substituted graphene

We present exact analytical and numerical results for the electronic spectra and the Friedel oscillations around a substitutional impurity atom in a graphene lattice. A chemical dopant in graphene introduces changes in the on-site potential as well as in the hopping amplitude. We employ a T-matrix formalism and find that disorder in the hopping introduces additional interference terms around the impurity that can be understood in terms of bound, semi-bound, and unbound processes for the Dirac electrons. These interference effects can be detected by scanning tunneling microscopy.Comment: 4 pages, 7 figure