Assessment of density-functional approximations: Long-range correlations and self-interaction effects

The complex nature of electron-electron correlations is made manifest in the very simple but nontrivial problem of two electrons confined within a sphere. The description of highly nonlocal correlation and self-interaction effects by widely used local and semilocal exchange-correlation energy density functionals is shown to be unsatisfactory in most cases. Even the best such functionals exhibit significant errors in the Kohn-Sham potentials and density profiles

Gas Dynamics of the Nickel-56 Decay Heating in Pair-Instability Supernovae

Very massive 140-260 Msun stars can die as highly-energetic pair-instability supernovae (PI SNe) with energies of up to 100 times those of core-collapse SNe that can completely destroy the star, leaving no compact remnant behind. These explosions can synthesize $0.1-30$ Msun of radioactive Ni56, which can cause them to rebrighten at later times when photons due to Ni56 decay diffuse out of the ejecta. However, heat from the decay of such large masses of Ni56 could also drive important dynamical effects deep in the ejecta that are capable of mixing elements and affecting the observational signatures of these events. We have now investigated the dynamical effect of Ni56 heating on PI SN ejecta with high-resolution two-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations performed with the CASTRO code. We find that expansion of the hot Ni56 bubble forms a shell at the base of the silicon layer of the ejecta about 200 days after the explosion but that no hydrodynamical instabilities develop that would mix Ni56 with the Si/O-rich ejecta. However, while the dynamical effects of Ni56 heating may be weak they could affect the observational signatures of some PI SNe by diverting decay energy into internal expansion of the ejecta at the expense of rebrightening at later times.Comment: Accepted to ApJ, 14 page

Infrared optical absorption spectra of CuO single crystals: Fermion-spinon band and dimensional crossover of the antiferromagnetic order

We have obtained mid-infrared optical absorption spectra of the S=1/2 quasi one-dimensional CuO using polarized transmission measurement and interpreted the spectra in terms of phonon assisted magnetic excitations. When the electric field is parallel to the main antiferromagnetic direction a Delta shaped peak is observed with the maximum at 0.23eV which is attributed to spinons along Cu-O chains. At low temperatures in the antiferromagnetic phase another peak appears at 0.16eV which is attributed to two-magnon absorption but the spinon peak remains. This behavior is interpreted as due to a dimensional crossover where the low temperature three-dimensional magnetic phase keeps short range characteristics of a one-dimensional magnet.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

Radiation Transport Simulations of Pulsational Pair-Instability Supernovae

Massive stars of helium cores of 35-65 Msun eventually encounter the electron/positron creation instability, and it triggers explosive carbon or oxygen burning that produces several thermonuclear eruptions. The resulting catastrophe collisions of eruptive shells sometimes produce luminous transients with peak luminosity of $10^{43} - 10^{44}$ erg/sec, known as pulsational pair-instability supernovae (PPISNe). Previous 2D simulations of colliding shells show the development of Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) instabilities and mixing. Here we present radiation hydrodynamic PPISNe simulations of a 110 Msun solar-metallicity star that was promising to produce a superluminous transit in the early work. Our comprehensive study contains a suite of one-, two-, and three-dimensional models. We discuss the impact of dimensionality and fluid instabilities on the resulting light curves. The results show the RT mixing found in previous multidimensional hydro studies transforms into a thin and distorted shell due to radiative cooling. Radiation from the wiggly shell peaks at its bolometric light curve of $\sim 2\times10^{43}$ erg/sec, lasting about 150 days and following with a plateau of $\sim 3\times10^{42}$ erg/sec for another two hundred days before it fades away. The total radiation energy emitted from colliding shells is $\sim 1.8 \times 10^{50}$ erg, which is $\sim 27\%$ of the kinetic energy of the major eruption. The dimensional effects also manifest on the physical properties, such as irregularity and thickness of the shell. Our study suggests PPISNe is a promising candidate of luminous SNe, the radiation of which originates from colliding shells with a homogeneous mixing of ejecta.Comment: Submitted to ApJ, 16 pages, comments are welcom

Transport in Graphene Tunnel Junctions

We present a technique to fabricate tunnel junctions between graphene and Al and Cu, with a Si back gate, as well as a simple theory of tunneling between a metal and graphene. We map the differential conductance of our junctions versus probe and back gate voltage, and observe fluctuations in the conductance that are directly related to the graphene density of states. The conventional strong-suppression of the conductance at the graphene Dirac point can not be clearly demonstrated, but a more robust signature of the Dirac point is found: the inflection in the conductance map caused by the electrostatic gating of graphene by the tunnel probe. We present numerical simulations of our conductance maps, confirming the measurement results. In addition, Al causes strong n-doping of graphene, Cu causes a moderate p-doping, and in high resistance junctions, phonon resonances are observed, as in STM studies.Comment: 22 pages, 5 figure

Reduced Fine-Tuning in Supersymmetry with R-parity violation

Both electroweak precision measurements and simple supersymmetric extensions of the standard model prefer a mass of the Higgs boson less than the experimental lower limit of 114 GeV. We show that supersymmetric models with R parity violation and baryon number violation have a significant range of parameter space in which the Higgs dominantly decays to six jets. These decays are much more weakly constrained by current LEP analyses and would allow for a Higgs mass near that of the $Z$. In general, lighter scalar quark and other superpartner masses are allowed and the fine-tuning typically required to generate the measured scale of electroweak symmetry breaking is ameliorated. The Higgs would potentially be discovered at hadron colliders via the appearance of new displaced vertices. The lightest neutralino could be discovered by a scan of vertex-less events LEP I data.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures. Significant detail added to the arguments regarding LEP limits - made more quantitative. Better figures used, plotting more physical quantities. Typos corrected and references updated. Conclusions unchange

Dynamical Exchanges in Facilitated Models of Supercooled liquids

We investigate statistics of dynamical exchange events in coarse--grained models of supercooled liquids in spatial dimensions $d=1$, 2, and 3. The models, based upon the concept of dynamical facilitation, capture generic features of statistics of exchange times and persistence times. Here, distributions for both times are related, and calculated for cases of strong and fragile glass formers over a range of temperatures. Exchange time distributions are shown to be particularly sensitive to the model parameters and dimensions, and exhibit more structured and richer behavior than persistence time distributions. Mean exchange times are shown to be Arrhenius, regardless of models and spatial dimensions. Specifically, $\sim c^{-2}$, with $c$ being the excitation concentration. Different dynamical exchange processes are identified and characterized from the underlying trajectories. We discuss experimental possibilities to test some of our theoretical findings.Comment: 11 pages, 14 figures, minor corrections made, paper published in Journal of Chemical Physic

Concurrent Magnetic and Metal-Insulator Transitions in (Eu,Sm)B_6 Single Crystals

The effects of magnetic doping on a EuB_6 single crystal were investigated based on magnetic and transport measurements. A modest 5% Sm substitution for Eu changes the magnetic and transport properties dramatically and gives rise to concurrent antiferromagnetic and metal-insulator transitions (MIT) from ferromagnetic MIT for EuB6. Magnetic doping simultaneously changes the itinerant carrier density and the magnetic interactions. We discuss the origin of the concurrent magnetic MIT in (Eu,Sm)B_6.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures, final version to appear in Appl. Phys. Lett