856 research outputs found
Eccentricities of Double Neutron Star Binaries
Recent pulsar surveys have increased the number of observed double neutron
stars (DNS) in our galaxy enough so that observable trends in their properties
are starting to emerge. In particular, it has been noted that the majority of
DNS have eccentricities less than 0.3, which are surprisingly low for binaries
that survive a supernova explosion that we believe imparts a significant kick
to the neutron star. To investigate this trend, we generate many different
theoretical distributions of DNS eccentricities using Monte Carlo population
synthesis methods. We determine which eccentricity distributions are most
consistent with the observed sample of DNS binaries. In agreement with
Chaurasia & Bailes (2005), assuming all double neutron stars are equally as
probable to be discovered as binary pulsars, we find that highly eccentric,
coalescing DNS are less likely to be observed because of their accelerated
orbital evolution due to gravitational wave emission and possible early
mergers. Based on our results for coalescing DNS, we also find that models with
vanishingly or moderately small kicks (sigma < about 50 km/s) are inconsistent
with the current observed sample of such DNS. We discuss the implications of
our conclusions for DNS merger rate estimates of interest to ground-based
gravitational-wave interferometers. We find that, although orbital evolution
due to gravitational radiation affects the eccentricity distribution of the
observed sample, the associated upwards correction factor to merger rate
estimates is rather small (typically 10-40%).Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures, accepted by ApJ. Figures reduced and some content
changed, references adde
Energetics of large carbon clusters: Crossover from fullerenes to nanotubes
The energetics of large-sized fullerenes and carbon nanotubes is investigated through first-principles pseudopotential calculations for the carbon cluster of CN (60???N???540). The strain energy due to the presence of pentagons, in addition to the curvature effect, makes an important contribution to the energetics of the fullerenes and nanotubes and accurately describes the N dependence of the energy of the spherical fullerenes. Our model predicts that a nanotube of ??? 13 A in diameter [for example, a (9,9) or (10,10) tube] is energetically most stable among various single-walled nanotubes and fullerenes, consistent with many experimental observations.open252
Formation, Manipulation, and Elasticity Measurement of a Nanometric Column of Water Molecules
Nanometer-sized columns of condensed water molecules are created by an
atomic-resolution force microscope operated in ambient conditions. Unusual
stepwise decrease of the force gradient associated with the thin water bridge
in the tip-substrate gap is observed during its stretch, exhibiting regularity
in step heights (~0.5 N/m) and plateau lengths (~1 nm). Such "quantized"
elasticity is indicative of the atomic-scale stick-slip at the tip-water
interface. A thermodynamic-instability-induced rupture of the water meniscus
(5-nm long and 2.6-nm wide) is also found. This work opens a high-resolution
study of the structure and the interface dynamics of a nanometric aqueous
column.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Electrical Switching in Metallic Carbon Nanotubes
We present first-principles calculations of quantum transport which show that
the resistance of metallic carbon nanotubes can be changed dramatically with
homogeneous transverse electric fields if the nanotubes have impurities or
defects. The change of the resistance is predicted to range over more than two
orders of magnitude with experimentally attainable electric fields. This novel
property has its origin that backscattering of conduction electrons by
impurities or defects in the nanotubes is strongly dependent on the strength
and/or direction of the applied electric fields. We expect this property to
open a path to new device applications of metallic carbon nanotubes.Comment: 4 pages and 4 figure
Ab initio Pseudopotential Plane-wave Calculations of the Electronic Structure of YBa_2Cu_3O_7
We present an ab initio pseudopotential local density functional calculation
for stoichiometric high-Tc cuprate YBa_2Cu_3O_7 using the plane-wave basis set.
We have overcome well-known difficulties in applying pseudopotential methods to
first-row elements, transition metals, and rare-earth materials by carefully
generating norm-conserving pseudopotentials with excellent transferability and
employing an extremely efficient iterative diagonalization scheme optimized for
our purpose. The self-consistent band structures, the total and site-projected
densities of states, the partial charges and their symmetry-decompositions, and
some characteristic charge densities near E_f are presented. We compare our
results with various existing (F)LAPW and (F)LMTO calculations and establish
that the ab initio pseudopotential method is competitive with other methods in
studying the electronic structure of such complicated materials as high-Tc
cuprates. [8 postscript files in uuencoded compressed form]Comment: 14 pages, RevTeX v3.0, 8 figures (appended in postscript file), SNUTP
94-8
Microscopic mechanism of fullerene fusion
Combining total energy calculations with a search of phase space, we investigate the microscopic fusion mechanism of C60 fullerenes. We find that the (2 + 2) cycloaddition reaction, a necessary precursor for fullerene fusion, may be accelerated inside a nanotube. Fusion occurs along the minimum energy path as a finite sequence of Stone-Wales transformations, determined by a graphical search program. Search of the phase space using the "string method" indicates that Stone-Wales transformations are multistep processes, and provides detailed information about the transition states and activation barriers associated with fusion.open413
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Cytogenetic and Array-CGH Characterization of a Complex de novo Rearrangement Involving Duplication and Deletion of 9p and Clinical Findings in a 4-Month-Old Female
Approximately 15 patients with partial trisomy 9p involving de novo duplications have been previously described. Here, we present clinical, cytogenetic, FISH and aCGH findings in a patient with a de novo complex rearrangement in the short arm of chromosome 9 involving an inverted duplication at 9p24→p21.3 and a deletion at 9pter→p24.2. FISH probes generated from BACs selected from the UCSC genome browser were utilized to verify this rearrangement. It is likely that some previously described duplications of 9p may also be products of complex chromosomal aberrations. This report in which FISH and aCGH were used to more comprehensively characterize the genomic rearrangement in a patient with clinical manifestations of 9p duplication syndrome underscores the importance of further characterizing cytogenetically detected rearrangements
Investigation of A1g phonons in YBa2Cu3O7 by means of LAPW atomic-force calculations
We report first-principles frozen-phonon calculations for the determination
of the force-free geometry and the dynamical matrix of the five Raman-active
A1g modes in YBa2Cu3O7. To establish the shape of the phonon potentials atomic
forces are calculated within the LAPW method. Two different schemes - the local
density approximation (LDA) and a generalized gradient approximation (GGA) -
are employed for the treatment of electronic exchange and correlation effects.
We find that in the case of LDA the resulting phonon frequencies show a
deviation from experimental values of approximately -10%. Invoking GGA the
frequency values are significantly improved and also the eigenvectors are in
very good agreement with experimental findings.Comment: 15 page
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