74,202 research outputs found
Formation of the Leonid meteor stream and storm
It is well known that some meteor showers display a very high level of activity at certain times, the most famous being the Leonid shower with very spectacular displays at roughly 33 year intervals. This period being also the period of the parent comet of the stream, Comet Tempel-Tuttle. An investigation of the geometry of the comet and the Earth at the time of each high activity occurrence by Yeomans suggests that most of the meteoroids are found outside the cometary orbit and lagging the comet. The formation process of such a stream by numerically integrating the orbits of dust particles ejected from the comet and moving under the influence of gravity and radiation pressure are simulated. The intersection of these dust particles with the Earth is also considered and it is concluded that about 12 percent of the ejected particles may be observed and that of those observable, 63 percent will be outside the cometary orbit and behind the comet
Spin relaxation in -type (111) GaAs quantum wells
We investigate the spin relaxation limited by the D'yakonov-Perel' mechanism
in -type (111) GaAs quantum wells, by means of the kinetic spin Bloch
equation approach. In (111) GaAs quantum wells, the in-plane effective magnetic
field from the D'yakonov-Perel' term can be suppressed to zero on a special
momentum circle under the proper gate voltage, by the cancellation between the
Dresselhaus and Rashba spin-orbit coupling terms. When the spin-polarized
electrons mainly distribute around this special circle, the in-plane
inhomogeneous broadening is small and the spin relaxation can be suppressed,
especially for that along the growth direction of quantum well. This
cancellation effect may cause a peak (the cancellation peak) in the density or
temperature dependence of the spin relaxation time. In the density
(temperature) dependence, the interplay between the cancellation peak and the
ordinary density (Coulomb) peak leads to rich features of the density
(temperature) dependence of the spin relaxation time. The effect of impurities,
with its different weights on the cancellation peak and the Coulomb peak in the
temperature dependence of the spin relaxation, is revealed. We also show the
anisotropy of the spin relaxation with respect to the spin-polarization
direction.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure
Ferrimagnetism of the magnetoelectric compound CuOSeO probed by Se NMR
We present a thorough Se NMR study of a single crystal of the
magnetoelectric compound CuOSeO. The temperature dependence of the
local electronic moments extracted from the NMR data is fully consistent with a
magnetic phase transition from the high-T paramagnetic phase to a low-T
ferrimagnetic state with 3/4 of the Cu ions aligned parallel and 1/4
aligned antiparallel to the applied field of 14.09 T. The transition to this
3up-1down magnetic state is not accompanied by any splitting of the NMR lines
or any abrupt modification in their broadening, hence there is no observable
reduction of the crystalline symmetry from its high-T cubic \textit{P}23
space group. These results are in agreement with high resolution x-ray
diffraction and magnetization data on powder samples reported previously by Bos
{\it et al.} [Phys. Rev. B, {\bf 78}, 094416 (2008)]. We also develop a mean
field theory description of the problem based on a microscopic spin Hamiltonian
with one antiferromagnetic ( K) and one ferromagnetic
( K) nearest-neighbor exchange interaction
The relation between star formation rate and accretion rate in LINERs
It is argued that there is a linear correlation between star formation rate
(SFR) and accretion rate for normal bright active galactic nuclei (AGNs).
However, it is still unclear whether this correlation holds for LINERs, of
which the accretion rates are relatively lower than those of normal bright
AGNs. The radiatively inefficient accretion flows (RIAFs) are believed to be
present in these LINERs. In this work, we derive accretion rates for a sample
of LINERs from their hard X-ray luminosities based on spectral calculations for
RIAFs. We find that LINERs follow the same correlation between star formation
rate and accretion rate defined by normal bright AGNs, when reasonable
parameters are adopted for RIAFs. It means that the gases feed the black hole
and star formation in these low-luminosity LINERs may follow the same way as
that in normal bright AGNs, which is roughly consistent with recent numerical
simulations on quasar evolution.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in PASP, in pres
Tunneling into d-wave superconductors: Effects of interface spin-orbit coupling
Tunneling conductance of a clean normal metal/d-wave superconductor junction
is studied by using the extended Blonder-Tinkham-Klapwijk formalism. We show
that the conductance is significantly affected by the interface spin-orbit
coupling of the Rashba type, which is inevitably present due to the asymmetry
of the junction.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Critical frontier of the Potts and percolation models in triangular-type and kagome-type lattices I: Closed-form expressions
We consider the Potts model and the related bond, site, and mixed site-bond
percolation problems on triangular-type and kagome-type lattices, and derive
closed-form expressions for the critical frontier. For triangular-type lattices
the critical frontier is known, usually derived from a duality consideration in
conjunction with the assumption of a unique transition. Our analysis, however,
is rigorous and based on an established result without the need of a uniqueness
assumption, thus firmly establishing all derived results. For kagome-type
lattices the exact critical frontier is not known. We derive a closed-form
expression for the Potts critical frontier by making use of a homogeneity
assumption. The closed-form expression is new, and we apply it to a host of
problems including site, bond, and mixed site-bond percolation on various
lattices. It yields exact thresholds for site percolation on kagome, martini,
and other lattices, and is highly accurate numerically in other applications
when compared to numerical determination.Comment: 22 pages, 13 figure
Unimpeded permeation of water through helium-leak-tight graphene-based membranes
Permeation through nanometer pores is important in the design of materials
for filtration and separation techniques and because of unusual fundamental
behavior arising at the molecular scale. We found that submicron-thick
membranes made from graphene oxide can be completely impermeable to liquids,
vapors and gases, including helium, but allow unimpeded permeation of water
(H2O permeates through the membranes at least 10^10 times faster than He). We
attribute these seemingly incompatible observations to a low-friction flow of a
monolayer of water through two dimensional capillaries formed by closely spaced
graphene sheets. Diffusion of other molecules is blocked by reversible
narrowing of the capillaries in low humidity and/or by their clogging with
water
On the optimality of the window method in computational homogenization
Cataloged from PDF version of article.The window method, where the microstructural sample is embedded into a frame of a homogeneous material, offers an alternative to classical boundary conditions in computational homogenization. Experience with the window method, which is essentially the self-consistent scheme but with a finite surrounding medium instead of an infinite one, indicates that it delivers faster convergence of the macroscopic response with respect to boundary conditions of pure essential or natural type as the microstructural sample size is increased to ensure statistical representativeness. In this work, the variational background for this observed optimal convergence behavior of the homogenization results with the window method is provided and the method is compared with periodic boundary conditions that it closely resembles. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved
Triplet-singlet relaxation in semiconductor single and double quantum dots
We study the triplet-singlet relaxation in two-electron semiconductor quantum
dots. Both single dots and vertically coupled double dots are discussed. In our
work, the electron-electron Coulomb interaction, which plays an important role
in the electronic structure, is included. The spin mixing is caused by
spin-orbit coupling which is the key to the triplet-singlet relaxation. We show
that the selection rule widely used in the literature is incorrect unless near
the crossing/anticrossing point in single quantum dots. The triplet/singlet
relaxation in double quantum dots can be markedly changed by varying barrier
height, inter-dot distance, external magnetic field and dot size.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, PRB in pres
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