Effective Operator Treatment of the Lipkin Model

We analyze the Lipkin Model using effective operator techniques. We present both analytical and numerical results for effective Hamiltonians. The accuracy of the cluster approximation is investigated.Comment: To appear in Phys.Rev.

Aging dynamics of ferromagnetic and reentrant spin glass phases in stage-2 Cu0.80_{0.80}C0.20_{0.20}Cl2_{2} graphite intercalation compound

Aging dynamics of a reentrant ferromagnet stage-2 Cu$_{0.8}$Co$_{0.2}$Cl$_{2}$ graphite intercalation compound has been studied using DC magnetic susceptibility. This compound undergoes successive transitions at the transition temperatures $T_{c}$ ($\approx 8.7$ K) and $T_{RSG}$ ($\approx 3.3$ K). The relaxation rate $S_{ZFC}(t)$ exhibits a characteristic peak at $t_{cr}$ below $T_{c}$. The peak time $t_{cr}$ as a function of temperature $T$ shows a local maximum around 5.5 K, reflecting a frustrated nature of the ferromagnetic phase. It drastically increases with decreasing temperature below $T_{RSG}$. The spin configuration imprinted at the stop and wait process at a stop temperature $T_{s}$ ($<T_{c}$) during the field-cooled aging protocol, becomes frozen on further cooling. On reheating, the memory of the aging at $T_{s}$ is retrieved as an anomaly of the thermoremnant magnetization at $T_{s}$. These results indicate the occurrence of the aging phenomena in the ferromagnetic phase ($T_{RSG}<T<T_{c}$) as well as in the reentrant spin glass phase ($T<T_{RSG}$).Comment: 9 pages, 9 figures; submitted to Physical Review

Study of timing performance of Silicon Photomultiplier and application for a Cherenkov detector

Silicon photomultipliers are very versatile photo detectors due to their high photon detection efficiency, fast response, single photon counting capability, high amplification, and their insensitivity to magnetic fields. At our institute we are studying the performance of these photo detectors at various operating conditions. On the basis of the experience in the laboratory we built a prototype of a timing Cherenkov detector consisting of a quartz radiator with two $3\times 3$ mm$^2$ MPPCs S10362-33-100C from Hamamatsu Photonics as photodetectors. The MPPC sensors were operated with Peltier cooling to minimize thermal noise and to avoid gain drifts. The test measurements at the DA$\Phi$NE Beam-Test Facility (BTF) at the Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati (LNF) with pulsed 490 MeV electrons and the results on timing performance with Cherenkov photons are presented.Comment: Conference proceedings of 12th Vienna Conference on Instrumentation 201

Hiroshi Machida −respected tephrochronologist, teacher, leader

Professor Emeritus Hiroshi Machida (Hiroshi hereafter) is the leading tephrochronologist of his generation in Japan. Perhaps more than any other geoscientist from Japan, Hiroshi carried the insights and advances of tephra studies and their application in palaeoenvironmental and archaeological applications, landscape processes, and volcanology and hazard analysis, to the outside world through a succession of papers and books written in English and through conference presentations. He has been the ‘international face’ of tephra studies in Japa

Quantum gauge boson propagators in the light front

Gauge fields in the light front are traditionally addressed via the employment of an algebraic condition $n\cdot A=0$ in the Lagrangian density, where $A_{\mu}$ is the gauge field (Abelian or non-Abelian) and $n^\mu$ is the external, light-like, constant vector which defines the gauge proper. However, this condition though necessary is not sufficient to fix the gauge completely; there still remains a residual gauge freedom that must be addressed appropriately. To do this, we need to define the condition $(n\cdot A)(\partial \cdot A)=0$ with $n\cdot A=0=\partial \cdot A$. The implementation of this condition in the theory gives rise to a gauge boson propagator (in momentum space) leading to conspicuous non-local singularities of the type $(k\cdot n)^{-\alpha}$ where $\alpha=1,2$. These singularities must be conveniently treated, and by convenient we mean not only matemathically well-defined but physically sound and meaningfull as well. In calculating such a propagator for one and two noncovariant gauge bosons those singularities demand from the outset the use of a prescription such as the Mandelstam-Leibbrandt (ML) one. We show that the implementation of the ML prescription does not remove certain pathologies associated with zero modes. However we present a causal, singularity-softening prescription and show how to keep causality from being broken without the zero mode nuisance and letting only the propagation of physical degrees of freedom.Comment: 10 page