3,031 research outputs found
Inelastic fingerprints of hydrogen contamination in atomic gold wire systems
We present series of first-principles calculations for both pure and hydrogen
contaminated gold wire systems in order to investigate how such impurities can
be detected. We show how a single H atom or a single H2 molecule in an atomic
gold wire will affect forces and Au-Au atom distances under elongation. We
further determine the corresponding evolution of the low-bias conductance as
well as the inelastic contributions from vibrations. Our results indicate that
the conductance of gold wires is only slightly reduced from the conductance
quantum G0=2e^2/h by the presence of a single hydrogen impurity, hence making
it difficult to use the conductance itself to distinguish between various
configurations. On the other hand, our calculations of the inelastic signals
predict significant differences between pure and hydrogen contaminated wires,
and, importantly, between atomic and molecular forms of the impurity. A
detailed characterization of gold wires with a hydrogen impurity should
therefore be possible from the strain dependence of the inelastic signals in
the conductance.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, Contribution to ICN+T2006, Basel, Switzerland,
July-August 200
The retina visual cycle is driven by cis retinol oxidation in the outer segments of cones
Vertebrate rod and cone photoreceptors require continuous supply of chromophore for regenerating their visual pigments after photoactivation. Cones, which mediate our daytime vision, demand a particularly rapid supply of 11-cis retinal chromophore in order to maintain their function in bright light. An important contribution to this process is thought to be the chromophore precursor 11-cis retinol, which is supplied to cones from Müller cells in the retina and subsequently oxidized to 11-cis retinal as part of the retina visual cycle. However, the molecular identity of the cis retinol oxidase in cones remains unclear. Here, as a first step in characterizing this enzymatic reaction, we sought to determine the subcellular localization of this activity in salamander red cones. We found that the onset of dark adaptation of isolated salamander red cones was substantially faster when exposing directly their outer vs. their inner segment to 9-cis retinol, an analogue of 11-cis retinol. In contrast, this difference was not observed when treating the outer vs. inner segment with 9-cis retinal, a chromophore analogue which can directly support pigment regeneration. These results suggest, surprisingly, that the cis-retinol oxidation occurs in the outer segments of cone photoreceptors. Confirming this notion, pigment regeneration with exogenously added 9-cis retinol was directly observed in the truncated outer segments of cones, but not in rods. We conclude that the enzymatic machinery required for the oxidation of recycled cis retinol as part of the retina visual cycle is present in the outer segments of cones
In-situ Particle Acceleration in Collisionless Shocks
The outflows from gamma ray bursts, active galactic nuclei and relativistic
jets in general interact with the surrounding media through collisionless
shocks. With three dimensional relativistic particle-in-cell simulations we
investigate such shocks. The results from these experiments show that
small--scale magnetic filaments with strengths of up to percents of
equipartition are generated and that electrons are accelerated to power law
distributions N(E)~E^{-p} in the vicinity of the filaments through a new
acceleration mechanism. The acceleration is locally confined, instantaneous and
differs from recursive acceleration processes such as Fermi acceleration. We
find that the proposed acceleration mechanism competes with thermalization and
becomes important at high Lorentz factors.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, submitted to Il nuovo cimento (4th Workshop
Gamma-Ray Bursts in the Afterglow Era, Rome, 18-22 October 2004
Non-Fermi Power law Acceleration in Astrophysical Plasma Shocks
Collisionless plasma shock theory, which applies for example to the afterglow
of gamma ray bursts, still contains key issues that are poorly understood. In
this paper we study charged particle dynamics in a highly relativistic
collisionless shock numerically using ~10^9 particles. We find a power law
distribution of accelerated electrons, which upon detailed investigation turns
out to originate from an acceleration mechanism that is decidedly different
from Fermi acceleration.
Electrons are accelerated by strong filamentation instabilities in the
shocked interpenetrating plasmas and coincide spatially with the power law
distributed current filamentary structures. These structures are an inevitable
consequence of the now well established Weibel-like two-stream instability that
operates in relativistic collisionless shocks.
The electrons are accelerated and decelerated instantaneously and locally; a
scenery that differs qualitatively from recursive acceleration mechanisms such
as Fermi acceleration.
The slopes of the electron distribution power laws are in concordance with
the particle power law spectra inferred from observed afterglow synchrotron
radiation in gamma ray bursts, and the mechanism can possibly explain more
generally the origin of non-thermal radiation from shocked inter- and
circum-stellar regions and from relativistic jets.Comment: 4 pages accepted for publication in ApJ Letters. High resolution
figures are available online at http://www.astro.ku.dk/users/hededal/040855
Phonon-induced linewidths of graphene electronic states
The linewidths of the electronic bands originating from the electron-phonon
coupling in graphene are analyzed based on model tight-binding calculations and
experimental angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) data. Our
calculations confirm the prediction that the high-energy optical phonons
provide the most essential contribution to the phonon-induced linewidth of the
two upper occupied bands near the -point. For larger
binding energies of these bands, as well as for the band, we find
evidence for a substantial lifetime broadening from interband scattering and , respectively, driven by the
out-of-plane ZA acoustic phonons. The essential features of the calculated
band linewidths are in agreement with recent published ARPES data [F.
Mazzola et al., Phys.~Rev.~B. 95, 075430 (2017)] and of the band
linewidth with ARPES data presented here.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure
Controlled Contact to a C60 Molecule
The conductance of C60 on Cu(100) is investigated with a low-temperature
scanning tunneling microscope. At the transition from tunneling to the contact
regime the conductance of C60 adsorbed with a pentagon-hexagon bond rises
rapidly to 0.25 conductance quanta G0. An abrupt conductance jump to G0 is
observed upon further decreasing the distance between the instrument's tip and
the surface. Ab-initio calculations within density functional theory and
non-equilibrium Green's function techniques explain the experimental data in
terms of the conductance of an essentially undeformed C60. From a detailed
analysis of the crossover from tunneling to contact we conclude that the
conductance in this region is strongly affected by structural fluctuations
which modulate the tip-molecule distance.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
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