146,977 research outputs found
Verbal paired associates and the hippocampus: The role of scenes
It is widely agreed that patients with bilateral hippocampal damage are impaired at binding pairs of words together. Consequently, the verbal paired associates (VPA) task has become emblematic of hippocampal function. This VPA deficit is not well understood and is particularly difficult for hippocampal theories with a visuospatial bias to explain (e.g., cognitive map and scene construction theories). Resolving the tension among hippocampal theories concerning the VPA could be important for leveraging a fuller understanding of hippocampal function. Notably, VPA tasks typically use high imagery concrete words and so conflate imagery and binding. To determine why VPA engages the hippocampus, we devised an fMRI encoding task involving closely matched pairs of scene words, pairs of object words, and pairs of very low imagery abstract words. We found that the anterior hippocampus was engaged during processing of both scene and object word pairs in comparison to abstract word pairs, despite binding occurring in all conditions. This was also the case when just subsequently remembered stimuli were considered. Moreover, for object word pairs, fMRI activity patterns in anterior hippocampus were more similar to those for scene imagery than object imagery. This was especially evident in participants who were high imagery users and not in mid and low imagery users. Overall, our results show that hippocampal engagement during VPA, even when object word pairs are involved, seems to be evoked by scene imagery rather than binding. This may help to resolve the issue that visuospatial hippocampal theories have in accounting for verbal memory
Generalized BFT Formalism of Electroweak Theory in the Unitary Gauge
We systematically embed the SU(2)U(1) Higgs model in the unitary
gauge into a fully gauge-invariant theory by following the generalized BFT
formalism. We also suggest a novel path to get a first-class Lagrangian
directly from the original second-class one using the BFT fields.Comment: 14 pages, Latex, no figure
Correlation Assisted Phonon Softenings and the Mott-Peierls Transition in VO
To explore the driving mechanisms of the metal-insulator transition (MIT) and
the structural transition in VO2, we have investigated phonon dispersions of
rutile VO2 (R-VO2) in the DFT and the DFT+U (U : Coulomb correlation) band
calculations. We have found that the phonon softening instabilities occur in
both cases, but the softened phonon mode only in the DFT+U describes properly
both the MIT and the structural transition from R-VO2 to monoclinic VO2
(M1-VO2). This feature demonstrates that the Coulomb correlation effect plays
an essential role of assisting the Peierls transition in R-VO2. We have also
found from the phonon dispersion of M1-VO2 that M1 structure becomes unstable
under high pressure. We have predicted a new phase of VO2 at high pressure that
has a monoclinic CaCl2-type structure with metallic nature
Electron Spin Relaxation under Drift in GaAs
Based on a Monte Carlo method, we investigate the influence of transport
conditions on the electron spin relaxation in GaAs. The decay of initial
electron spin polarization is calculated as a function of distance under the
presence of moderate drift fields and/or non-zero injection energies. For
relatively low fields (a couple of kV/cm), a substantial amount of spin
polarization is preserved for several microns at 300 K. However, it is also
found that the spin relaxation rate increases rapidly with the drift field,
scaling as the square of the electron wavevector in the direction of the field.
When the electrons are injected with a high energy, a pronounced decrease is
observed in the spin relaxation length due to an initial increase in the spin
precession frequency. Hence, high-field or high-energy transport conditions may
not be desirable for spin-based devices.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, one table. Scheduled for publication in the May
26, 2003 issue of Applied Physics Letters (039321APL
Spin relaxation of two-dimensional holes in strained asymmetric SiGe quantum wells
We analyze spin splitting of the two-dimensional hole spectrum in strained
asymmetric SiGe quantum wells (QWs). Based on the Luttinger Hamiltonian, we
obtain expressions for the spin-splitting parameters up to the third order in
the in-plane hole wavevector. The biaxial strain of SiGe QWs is found to be a
key parameter that controls spin splitting. Application to SiGe field-effect
transistor structures indicates that typical spin splitting at room temperature
varies from a few tenth of meV in the case of Si QW channels to several meV for
the Ge counterparts, and can be modified efficiently by gate-controlled
variation of the perpendicular confining electric field. The analysis also
shows that for sufficiently asymmetric QWs, spin relaxation is due mainly to
the spin-splitting related D'yakonov-Perel' mechanism. In strained Si QWs, our
estimation shows that the hole spin relaxation time can be on the order of a
hundred picoseconds at room temperature, suggesting that such structures are
suitable for p-type spin transistor applications as well
On Models of New Physics for the Tevatron Top A_FB
CDF has observed a top forward-backward asymmetry discrepant with the
Standard Model prediction at 3.4 \sigma. We analyze models that could generate
the asymmetry, including flavor-violating W's, horizontal Z'_Hs, triplet and
sextet diquarks, and axigluons. We consider the detailed predictions of these
models for the invariant mass and rapidity distributions of the asymmetry at
the parton level, comparing against the unfolded parton-level CDF results.
While all models can reproduce the asymmetry with the appropriate choice of
mass and couplings, it appears at first examination that the extracted
parton-level invariant mass distribution for all models are in conflict with
Tevatron observations. We show on closer examination, however, that t tbar
events in Z'_H and W' models have considerably lower selection efficiencies in
high invariant mass bins as compared to the Standard Model, so that W', Z'_H,
and axigluon models can generate the observed asymmetry while being consistent
with the total cross-section and invariant mass spectrum. Triplet and sextet
models have greater difficulty producing the observed asymmetry while remaining
consistent with the total cross-section and invariant mass distribution. To
more directly match the models and the CDF results, we proceed to decay and
reconstruct the tops, comparing our results against the "raw" CDF asymmetry and
invariant mass distributions. We find that the models that successfully
generate the corrected CDF asymmetry at the parton level reproduce very well
the more finely binned uncorrected asymmetry. Finally, we discuss the early LHC
reach for discovery of these models, based on our previous analysis
[arXiv:1102.0018].Comment: 29 pages, 14 figures, 2 table
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