17,883 research outputs found
Correlated versus Ferromagnetic State in Repulsively Interacting Two-Component Fermi Gases
Whether a spin-1/2 Fermi gas will become ferromagnetic as the strength of
repulsive interaction increases is a long-standing controversial issue.
Recently this problem is studied experimentally by Jo et al, Science, 325, 1521
(2009) in which the authors claim a ferromagnetic transition is observed. This
work is to point out the results of this experiment can not distinguish whether
the system is in a ferromagnetic state or in a non-magnetic but strongly
short-range correlated state. A conclusive experimental demonstration of
ferromagnetism relies on the observation of ferromagnetic domains.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, published versio
Solving the mystery of human sleep schedules one mutation at a time.
Sleep behavior remains one of the most enigmatic areas of life. The unanswered questions range from "why do we sleep?" to "how we can improve sleep in today's society?" Identification of mutations responsible for altered circadian regulation of human sleep lead to unique opportunities for probing these territories. In this review, we summarize causative circadian mutations found from familial genetic studies to date. We also describe how these mutations mechanistically affect circadian function and lead to altered sleep behaviors, including shifted or shortening of sleep patterns. In addition, we discuss how the investigation of mutations can not only expand our understanding of the molecular mechanisms regulating the circadian clock and sleep duration, but also bridge the pathways between clock/sleep and other human physiological conditions and ailments such as metabolic regulation and migraine headaches
The Evolution of Bias - Generalized
Fry (1996) showed that galaxy bias has the tendency to evolve towards unity,
i.e. in the long run, the galaxy distribution tends to trace that of matter.
Generalizing slightly Fry's reasoning, we show that his conclusion remains
valid in theories of modified gravity (or equivalently, complex clustered dark
energy). This is not surprising: as long as both galaxies and matter are
subject to the same force, dynamics would drive them towards tracing each
other. This holds, for instance, in theories where both galaxies and matter
move on geodesics. This relaxation of bias towards unity is tempered by cosmic
acceleration, however: the bias tends towards unity but does not quite make it,
unless the formation bias were close to unity. Our argument is extended in a
straightforward manner to the case of a stochastic or nonlinear bias. An
important corollary is that dynamical evolution could imprint a scale
dependence on the large scale galaxy bias. This is especially pronounced if
non-standard gravity introduces new scales to the problem: the bias at
different scales relaxes at different rates, the larger scales generally more
slowly and retaining a longer memory of the initial bias. A consistency test of
the current (general relativity + uniform dark energy) paradigm is therefore to
look for departure from a scale independent bias on large scales. A simple way
is to measure the relative bias of different populations of galaxies which are
at different stages of bias relaxation. Lastly, we comment on the possibility
of directly testing the Poisson equation on cosmological scales, as opposed to
indirectly through the growth factor.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures. References added. Accepted for publication in
Physical Review
Antiferromagnetically Driven Electronic Correlation in Iron Pnictides and Cuprates
The iron pnictides and the cuprates represent two families of materials,
where strong antiferromagnetic correlation drives three other distinct ordering
tendencies: (1) superconducting pairing, (2) Fermi surface distortion, and (3)
orbital current order. We propose that (1)-(3) and the antiferromagnetic
correlation are the hallmarks of a class of strongly correlated materials to
which the cuprates and pnictides belong. In this paper we present the results
of the functional renormalization group studies to support the above claim. In
addition, we show that as a function of the interlayer hopping parameter, the
double layer Hubbard model nicely interpolates between the cuprate and the iron
pnictide physics. Finally, as a check, we will present the renormalization
group study of a ladder version of the iron pnictide, and compare the results
to those of the two-dimensional model.Comment: 18 pages, 20 figures, revised version, one more figure added and
references update
KN and KbarN Elastic Scattering in the Quark Potential Model
The KN and KbarN low-energy elastic scattering is consistently studied in the
framework of the QCD-inspired quark potential model. The model is composed of
the t-channel one-gluon exchange potential, the s-channel one-gluon exchange
potential and the harmonic oscillator confinement potential. By means of the
resonating group method, nonlocal effective interaction potentials for the KN
and KbarN systems are derived and used to calculate the KN and KbarN elastic
scattering phase shifts. By considering the effect of QCD renormalization, the
contribution of the color octet of the clusters (qqbar) and (qqq) and the
suppression of the spin-orbital coupling, the numerical results are in fairly
good agreement with the experimental data.Comment: 20 pages, 8 figure
Compton Heating of the Intergalactic Medium by the Hard X-ray Background
High-resolution hydrodynamics simulations of the Ly-alpha forest in cold dark
matter dominated cosmologies appear to predict line widths that are
substantially narrower than those observed. Here we point out that Compton
heating of the intergalactic gas by the hard X-ray background (XRB), an effect
neglected in all previous investigations, may help to resolve this discrepancy.
The rate of gain in thermal energy by Compton scattering will dominate over the
energy input from hydrogen photoionization if the XRB energy density is
0.2x/ times higher than the energy density of the UV background at a
given epoch, where x is the hydrogen neutral fraction in units of 1e-6 and
is the mean X-ray photon energy in units of m_ec^2. The numerical
integration of the time-dependent rate equations shows that the intergalactic
medium approaches a temperature of about 1.5e4 K at z>3 in popular models for
the redshift evolution of the extragalactic background radiation. The
importance of Compton heating can be tested experimentally by measuring the
Ly-alpha line-width distribution as a function of redshift, thus the
Lyman-alpha forest may provide a useful probe of the evolution of the XRB at
high redshifts.Comment: LaTeX, 10 pages, 2 figures, final version to be published in the Ap
Novel Precursors for Boron Nanotubes: The Competition of Two-Center and Three-Center Bonding in Boron Sheets
We present a new class of boron sheets, composed of triangular and hexagonal
motifs, that are more stable than structures considered to date and thus are
likely to be the precursors of boron nanotubes. We describe a simple and clear
picture of electronic bonding in boron sheets and highlight the importance of
three-center bonding and its competition with two-center bonding, which can
also explain the stability of recently discovered boron fullerenes. Our
findings call for reconsideration of the literature on boron sheets, nanotubes,
and clusters.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, 1 tabl
Field and intensity correlations in amplifying random media
We study local and nonlocal correlations of light transmitted through active
random media. The conventional approach results in divergence of ensemble
averaged correlation functions due to existence of lasing realizations. We
introduce conditional average for correlation functions by omitting the
divergent realizations. Our numerical simulation reveals that amplification
does not affect local spatial correlation. The nonlocal intensity correlations
are strongly magnified due to selective enhancement of the contributions from
long propagation paths. We also show that by increasing gain, the average mode
linewidth can be made smaller than the average mode spacing. This implies that
light transport through a diffusive random system with gain could exhibit some
similarities to that through a localized passive system, owing to dominant
influence of the resonant modes with narrow width.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
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