Risk-bounded formation of fuzzy coalitions among service agents.

Cooperative autonomous agents form coalitions in order ro share and combine resources and services to efficiently respond to market demands. With the variety of resources and services provided online today, there is a need for stable and flexible techniques to support the automation of agent coalition formation in this context. This paper describes an approach to the problem based on fuzzy coalitions. Compared with a classic cooperative game with crisp coalitions (where each agent is a full member of exactly one coalition), an agent can participate in multiple coalitions with varying degrees of involvement. This gives the agent more freedom and flexibility, allowing them to make full use of their resources, thus maximising utility, even if only comparatively small coalitions are formed. An important aspect of our approach is that the agents can control and bound the risk caused by the possible failure or default of some partner agents by spreading their involvement in diverse coalitions

The mean energy, strength and width of triple giant dipole resonances

We investigate the mean energy, strength and width of the triple giant dipole resonance using sum rules.Comment: 12 page

Ultrasonic attenuation in magnetic fields for superconducting states with line nodes in Sr2RuO4

We calculate the ultrasonic attenuation in magnetic fields for superconducting states with line nodes vertical or horizontal relative to the RuO_2 planes. This theory, which is valid for fields near Hc2 and not too low temperatures, takes into account the effects of supercurrent flow and Andreev scattering by the Abrikosov vortex lattice. For rotating in-plane field H(theta) the attenuation alpha(theta)exhibits variations of fourfold symmetry in the rotation angle theta. In the case of vertical nodes, the transverse T100 sound mode yields the weakest(linear)H and T dependence of alpha, while the longitudinal L100 mode yields a stronger (quadratic) H and T dependence. This is in strong contrast to the case of horizontal line nodes where alpha is the same for the T100 and L100 modes (apart from a shift of pi/4 in field direction) and is roughly a quadratic function of H and T. Thus we conclude that measurements of alpha in in-plane magnetic fields for different in-plane sound modes may be an important tool for probing the nodal structure of the gap in Sr_2RuO_4.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figures, replaced in non-preprint form, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Mechanism of spin-triplet superconductivity in Sr2RuO4

The unique Fermi surfaces and their nesting properties of Sr2RuO4 are considered. The existence of unconventional superconductivity is shown microscopically, for the first time, from the magnetic interactions (due to nesting) and the phonon-mediated interactions. The odd-parity superconductivity is favored in the $\alpha$ and $\beta$ sheets of the Fermi surface, and the various superconductivities are possible in the $\gamma$ sheet. There are a number of possible odd-parity gaps, which include the gaps with nodes, the breaking of time-reversal symmetry and $\vec{d}\parallel \hat{z}$.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Possible unconventional superconductivity in iron-based layered compound LaFePO: Study of heat capacity

Heat capacity measurements were performed on recently discovered iron based layered superconductors, non doped LaFePO and fluorine doped LaFePO. A relatively large electronic heat capacity coefficient and a small normalized heat capacity jump at Tc = 3.3 K were observed in LaFePO. LaFePO0.94F0.06 had a smaller electronic heat capacity coefficient and a larger normalized heat capacity jump at Tc = 5.8 K. These values indicate that these compounds have strong electron electron correlation and magnetic spin fluctuation, which are the signatures of unconventional superconductivity mediated by spin fluctuation.Comment: 15 Pages, 3 Figure

Gap Structure of the Spin-Triplet Superconductor Sr2RuO4 Determined from the Field-Orientation Dependence of Specific Heat

We report the field-orientation dependent specific heat of the spin-triplet superconductor Sr2RuO4 under the magnetic field aligned parallel to the RuO2 planes with high accuracy. Below about 0.3 K, striking 4-fold oscillations of the density of states reflecting the superconducting gap structure have been resolved for the first time. We also obtained strong evidence of multi-band superconductivity and concluded that the superconducting gap in the active band, responsible for the superconducting instability, is modulated with a minimum along the [100] direction.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Interlayer Coupling and p-wave Pairing in Strontium Ruthenate

On the basis of a three orbital model and an effective attractive interaction between electrons we investigate the possible superconducting states, with $p$ and $f$-wave internal symmetry, of Sr$_2$RuO$_4$. For an orbital dependent interaction which acts between in plane and out of plane nearest neighbour Ruthenium atoms we find a state for which the gap in the quasi-particle spectra has a line node on the $\alpha$ and $\beta$ sheets of the Fermi Surface, but it is complex with no nodes on the $\gamma$-sheet. We show that this state is consistent with all the available experimental data. In particular, we present the results of our calculations of the specific heat and penetration depth as functions of the temperature.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Evidence for incommensurate spin fluctuations in Sr_2RuO_4

We report first inelastic neutron scattering measurements in the normal state of Sr_2RuO_4 that reveal the existence of incommensurate magnetic spin fluctuations located at ${\bf q}_0=(\pm 0.6\pi/a, \pm 0.6\pi/a, 0)$. This finding confirms recent band structure calculations that have predicted incommensurate magnetic responses related to dynamical nesting properties of its Fermi surface