994 research outputs found
Theory and Observation of Displacement Phenomena in Coadsorbed Films
Displacement refers to a surprising phenomenon observed in a number of adsorption systems. At low temperatures, some relatively inert gases, such as krypton (Kr) or methane ( CH4), are found to displace molecules from preadsorbed monolayer films of a more condensable species, such as carbon tetrachloride ( CCl4), from a graphite substrate. We present a simple thermodynamic model to explain displacement and make a prediction applicable to both first-order and continuous displacement processes. We also present measurements on CH4/CCl4 and Kr/CCl4 coadsorbed films from 77–112 K that verify our prediction and yield the CCl4 film spreading pressure
Coadsorption phase diagram for Kr/CCl4 on graphite
We present the results of an extensive calorimetric study of krypton coadsorbed on graphite precoated with a saturated monolayer of carbon tetrachloride. Combining the heat capacity data with film equation of state measurements from a previous study [W. J. Weber and D. L. Goodstein, Phys. Rev. Lett. 83, 3888 (1999)] permits construction of the Kr/CCl4 coadsorption phase diagram between 77 and 130 K. Kr succeeds in displacing the CCl4 from the surface, by a continuous process which results, at lower temperatures, in a film indistinguishable from that of pure Kr adsorbed on graphite. At higher temperatures, a new first-order phase transition, unique to the coadsorption system, is observed and likely indicates a transition to a mixed Kr/CCl4 film. Finally, measurements at higher Kr coverages reveal evidence for a high temperature extension of the reentrant layering phenomena previously observed for Kr on graphite
Melting in multilayer adsorbed films
We present both an improved model and new experimental data concerning the problem of melting in multilayer adsorbed films. The model treats in a mutually consistent manner all interfaces in a stratified film. This results in the prediction of substrate freezing, a phenomenon thermodynamically analogous to surface melting. We also compare the free energies of stratified films to those of homogeneous films. This leads to an orderly classification of multilayer phase diagrams in the vicinity of the bulk triple point. The results of the model are compared with the experimentally known systems. Of these, only methane/graphite exhibits melting from homogeneous solid to homogeneous liquid in multilayer films. The systems Ne/graphite and Ar/graphite, studied by Zhu and Dash, exhibit surface melting and substrate freezing instead. We observe experimentally, by means of pulsed nuclear magnetic resonance, that melting in methane adsorbed on graphite extends below the film thickness at which the latent heat of melting is known to vanish. The multilayer melting curve in this system is a first-order prewetting transition, extending from triple-point dewetting at bulk coexistence down to a critical point where the latent heat vanishes at about four layers, and apparently extending to thinner films as a higher-order, two-dimensional phase transition. It would therefore seem that methane/graphite is an ideal system in which to study the evolution of melting from two dimensions to three dimensions
Adsorption and Specific-Heat Studies of Monolayer and Submonolayer Films of He3 and He4
A study has been made of the adsorption of He3 and He4 at 4°K on a substrate consisting of a monolayer of argon adsorbed on a sintered copper sponge. The isotherms display distinct steps indicating the completion of first and second adsorbed layers. Comparisons among the adsorption isotherms of helium and of Ar and N2 at 77.4°K yield a self-consistent set of molecular areas. Measurements have been made of the specific heat of five submonolayer coverages of He3 and He4 on Ar-plated Cu sponge. The heat capacities of nearly complete monolayers vary as T2 from 0.3 to 4°K, yielding two-dimensional Debye temperatures Theta (He4)=28±1°K, and Theta (He3)=31±1°K. At lower coverages the molar heat capacities increase and develop contributions linear in T below 1°K. At an intermediate coverage, the heat capacity of He4 exhibits a broad and pronounced maximum near 3°K. Possible mechanisms for the linear terms and the maximum are discussed briefly. Evidence for considerable mobility of He atoms along the surface is adduced from the temperature and coverage dependence of the heat capacity. The T2 behavior for the complete monolayers yields an upper limit of ~10^-11 sec for the lifetime of a He atom in any individual adsorption site, consistent with a theoretical estimate
Effective Free Energy for Individual Dynamics
Physics and economics are two disciplines that share the common challenge of
linking microscopic and macroscopic behaviors. However, while physics is based
on collective dynamics, economics is based on individual choices. This
conceptual difference is one of the main obstacles one has to overcome in order
to characterize analytically economic models. In this paper, we build both on
statistical mechanics and the game theory notion of Potential Function to
introduce a rigorous generalization of the physicist's free energy, which
includes individual dynamics. Our approach paves the way to analytical
treatments of a wide range of socio-economic models and might bring new
insights into them. As first examples, we derive solutions for a congestion
model and a residential segregation model.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, presented at the ECCS'10 conferenc
Spin Waves in Striped Phases
In many antiferromagnetic, quasi-two-dimensional materials, doping with holes
leads to "stripe" phases, in which the holes congregate along antiphase domain
walls in the otherwise antiferromagnetic texture. Using a suitably parametrized
two-dimensional Heisenberg model on a square lattice, we study the spin wave
spectra of well-ordered spin stripes, comparing bond-centered antiphase domain
walls to site-centered antiphase domain walls for a range of spacings between
the stripes and for stripes both aligned with the lattice ("vertical") and
oriented along the diagonals of the lattice ("diagonal"). Our results establish
that there are qualitative differences between the expected neutron scattering
responses for the bond-centered and site-centered cases. In particular,
bond-centered stripes of odd spacing generically exhibit more elastic peaks
than their site-centered counterparts. For inelastic scattering, we find that
bond-centered stripes produce more spin wave bands than site-centered stripes
of the same spacing and that bond-centered stripes produce rather isotropic low
energy spin wave cones for a large range of parameters, despite local
microscopic anisotropy. We find that extra scattering intensity due to the
crossing of spin wave modes (which may be linked to the "resonance peak" in the
cuprates) is more likely for diagonal stripes, whether site- or bond-centered,
whereas spin wave bands generically repel, rather than cross, when stripes are
vertical.Comment: 12 pages, 12 figures, for some high-res.pics, see
http://physics.bu.edu/~yaodx/spinwave/spinw.htm
Heat capacity of multilayer methane on graphite: Phase transitions in the first four layers
We present high-resolution heat-capacity data for methane adsorbed on graphite for nominal coverages of 0.87 to 7 layers, from T = 70 to 120 K. For films thicker than 1.1 layers, we find capillary condensate coexisting with the film. We have performed heat-capacity scans on films formed by both adsorption and desorption. By comparing the locations of the phase transitions in the chemical potential mu vs T plane, we find that there is no significant interaction between the film and the capillary condensate. The heat-capacity signals from the films map out an unexpectedly rich set of phenomena for the second, third, and fourth layers, including a two-dimensional triple point and a liquid-gas coexistence region for each layer. The fourth-layer critical temperature we find is lower than previous values found by vapor-pressure isotherms
Constrained Monte Carlo Method and Calculation of the Temperature Dependence of Magnetic Anisotropy
We introduce a constrained Monte Carlo method which allows us to traverse the
phase space of a classical spin system while fixing the magnetization
direction. Subsequently we show the method's capability to model the
temperature dependence of magnetic anisotropy, and for bulk uniaxial and cubic
anisotropies we recover the low-temperature Callen-Callen power laws in M. We
also calculate the temperature scaling of the 2-ion anisotropy in L10 FePt, and
recover the experimentally observed M^2.1 scaling. The method is newly applied
to evaluate the temperature dependent effective anisotropy in the presence of
the N'eel surface anisotropy in thin films with different easy axis
configurations. In systems having different surface and bulk easy axes, we show
the capability to model the temperature-induced reorientation transition. The
intrinsic surface anisotropy is found to follow a linear temperature behavior
in a large range of temperatures
The Chlamydomonas genome project: A decade on
The green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii is a popular unicellular organism for studying photosynthesis, cilia biogenesis, and micronutrient homeostasis. Ten years since its genome project was initiated an iterative process of improvements to the genome and gene predictions has propelled this organism to the forefront of the omics era. Housed at Phytozome, the plant genomics portal of the Joint Genome Institute (JGI), the most up-to-date genomic data include a genome arranged on chromosomes and high-quality gene models with alternative splice forms supported by an abundance of whole transcriptome sequencing (RNA-Seq) data. We present here the past, present, and future of Chlamydomonas genomics. Specifically, we detail progress on genome assembly and gene model refinement, discuss resources for gene annotations, functional predictions, and locus ID mapping between versions and, importantly, outline a standardized framework for naming genes
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