Generalised Shastry-Sutherland Models in three and higher dimensions

We construct Heisenberg anti-ferromagnetic models in arbitrary dimensions that have isotropic valence bond crystals (VBC) as their exact ground states. The d=2 model is the Shastry-Sutherland model. In the 3-d case we show that it is possible to have a lattice structure, analogous to that of SrCu_2(BO_3)_2, where the stronger bonds are associated with shorter bond lengths. A dimer mean field theory becomes exact at d -> infinity and a systematic 1/d expansion can be developed about it. We study the Neel-VBC transition at large d and find that the transition is first order in even but second order in odd dimensions.Comment: Published version; slightly expande

Status of the design of a Wide Band beam Current Monitor (WBCM) for EUROTeV

In the framework of EUROTeV, the conceptual design of a new wide band wall current monitor is being carried out. The design is based on the wall current monitors presently installed in CTF3. The new design aims to increase the bandwidth up to 20 GHz. The present device has been tested in a dedicated test bench to understand its limitations in terms of bandwidth. The tests with the present device and the results of the conceptual design for the new one are summarized and discussed in this report

Novel types of anti-ecloud surfaces

In high power RF devices for space, secondary electron emission appears as the main parameter governing the multipactor effect and as well as the e-cloud in large accelerators. Critical experimental activities included development of coatings with low secondary electron emission yield (SEY) for steel (large accelerators) and aluminium (space applications). Coatings with surface roughness of high aspect ratio producing the so-call secondary emission suppression effect appear as the selected strategy. In this work a detailed study of the SEY of these technological coatings and also the experimental deposition methods (PVD and electrochemical) are presented. The coating-design approach selected for new low SEY coatings include rough metals (Ag, Au, Al), rough alloys (NEG), particulated and magnetized surfaces, and also graphene like coatings. It was found that surface roughness also mitigate the SEY deterioration due to aging processes.Comment: 4 pages, contribution to the Joint INFN-CERN-EuCARD-AccNet Workshop on Electron-Cloud Effects: ECLOUD'12; 5-9 Jun 2012, La Biodola, Isola d'Elba, Italy; CERN Yellow Report CERN-2013-002, pp.153-15

Chemical fingerprints encode mother-offspring similarity, colony membership, relatedness and genetic quality in fur seals

Chemical communication underpins virtually all aspects of vertebrate social life, yet remains poorly understood because of its highly complex mechanistic basis. We therefore used chemical fingerprinting of skin swabs and genetic analysis to explore the chemical cues that may underlie mother–offspring recognition in colonially breeding Antarctic fur seals. By sampling mother–offspring pairs from two different colonies, using a variety of statistical approaches and genotyping a large panel of microsatellite loci, we show that colony membership, mother–offspring similarity, heterozygosity, and genetic relatedness are all chemically encoded. Moreover, chemical similarity between mothers and offspring reflects a combination of genetic and environmental influences, the former partly encoded by substances resembling known pheromones. Our findings reveal the diversity of information contained within chemical fingerprints and have implications for understanding mother–offspring communication, kin recognition, and mate choice

Impedance measurements and simulations on the TCT and TDI LHC collimators

The LHC collimation system is a critical element for the safe operation of the LHC machine and it is subject to continuous performance monitoring, hardware upgrade and optimization. In this work we will address the impact on impedance of the upgrades performed on the injection protection target dump (TDI), where the absorber material has been changed to mitigate the device heating observed in machine operation, and on selected secondary (TCS) and tertiary (TCT) collimators, where beam position monitors (BPM) have been embedded for faster jaw alignment. Con- cerning the TDI, we will present the RF measurements per- formed before and after the upgrade, comparing the result to heating and tune shift beam measurements. For the TCTs, we will study how the higher order modes (HOM) intro- duced by the BPM addition have been cured by means of ferrite placement in the device. The impedance mitigation campaign has been supported by RF measurements whose results are in good agreement with GdfidL and CST simula- tions. The presence of undamped low frequency modes is proved not to be detrimental to the safe LHC operation

The spectral gap for some spin chains with discrete symmetry breaking

We prove that for any finite set of generalized valence bond solid (GVBS) states of a quantum spin chain there exists a translation invariant finite-range Hamiltonian for which this set is the set of ground states. This result implies that there are GVBS models with arbitrary broken discrete symmetries that are described as combinations of lattice translations, lattice reflections, and local unitary or anti-unitary transformations. We also show that all GVBS models that satisfy some natural conditions have a spectral gap. The existence of a spectral gap is obtained by applying a simple and quite general strategy for proving lower bounds on the spectral gap of the generator of a classical or quantum spin dynamics. This general scheme is interesting in its own right and therefore, although the basic idea is not new, we present it in a system-independent setting. The results are illustrated with an number of examples.Comment: 48 pages, Plain TeX, BN26/Oct/9

A non-Hermitian critical point and the correlation length of strongly correlated quantum systems

We study a non-Hermitian generalization of quantum systems in which an imaginary vector potential is added to the momentum operator. In the tight-binding approximation, we make the hopping energy asymmetric in the Hermitian Hamiltonian. In a previous article, we conjectured that the non-Hermitian critical point where the energy gap vanishes is equal to the inverse correlation length of the Hermitian system and we confirmed the conjecture for two exactly solvable systems. In this article, we present more evidence for the conjecture. We also argue the basis of our conjecture by noting the dispersion relation of the elementary excitation.Comment: 25 pages, 18 figure

A Novel Technique for Mitigating Multipactor by Means of Magnetic Surface Roughness

Multipactor phenomena which are closely linked to the SEY (secondary electron yield)can be mitigated by many different methods including groves in the metal surface as well as using electric or magnetic bias fields. However frequently the application of global magnetic or electric bias field is not practicable considering the weight and power limitations on-board satellites. Additionally, surface grooves may degrade the RF performance. Here we present a novel technique which is based on a magnetostatic field pattern on the metallic surface with fast spatial modulation in the order of 30 micron. This field pattern is produced by proper magnetization of an underlying ferromagnetic layer such as nickel. Simulations and preliminary experimental results will be shown and a number of applications, both for particle accelerators and satellite microwave payloads are discussed

Chemical patterns of colony membership and mother- offspring similarity in Antarctic fur seals are reproducible

Tebbe J, Humble E, Stoffel MA, et al. Chemical patterns of colony membership and mother-offspring similarity in Antarctic fur seals are reproducible. PeerJ. 2020;8: e10131.Replication studies are essential for evaluating the validity of previous research findings. However, it has proven challenging to reproduce the results of ecological and evolutionary studies, partly because of the complexity and lability of many of the phenomena being investigated, but also due to small sample sizes, low statistical power and publication bias. Additionally, replication is often considered too difficult in field settings where many factors are beyond the investigator’s control and where spatial and temporal dependencies may be strong. We investigated the feasibility of reproducing original research findings in the field of chemical ecology by performing an exact replication of a previous study of Antarctic fur seals (Arctocephalus gazella). In the original study, skin swabs from 41 mother-offspring pairs from two adjacent breeding colonies on Bird Island, South Georgia, were analyzed using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Seals from the two colonies differed significantly in their chemical fingerprints, suggesting that colony membership may be chemically encoded, and mothers were also chemically similar to their pups, hinting at the possible involvement of phenotype matching in mother-offspring recognition. In the current study, we generated and analyzed chemical data from a non-overlapping sample of 50 mother-offspring pairs from the same two colonies 5 years later. The original results were corroborated in both hypothesis testing and estimation contexts, with p-values remaining highly significant and effect sizes, standardized between studies by bootstrapping the chemical data over individuals, being of comparable magnitude. However, exact replication studies are only capable of showing whether a given effect can be replicated in a specific setting. We therefore investigated whether chemical signatures are colony-specific in general by expanding the geographic coverage of our study to include pups from a total of six colonies around Bird Island. We detected significant chemical differences in all but a handful of pairwise comparisons between colonies. This finding adds weight to our original conclusion that colony membership is chemically encoded, and suggests that chemical patterns of colony membership not only persist over time but can also be generalized over space. Our study systematically confirms and extends our previous findings, while also implying more broadly that spatial and temporal heterogeneity need not necessarily negate the reproduction and generalization of ecological research findings