Supersymmetric sigma models and the 't Hooft instantons

Witten's linear sigma model for ADHM instantons possesses a natural $(0,4)$ supersymmetry. We study generalizations of the infrared limit of the model that are invariant under $(4,4)$ supersymmetry. In the case of four space-time dimensions a background with a conformally flat metric and torsion is required. The geometry is specified by a single real scalar function satisfying Laplace's equation. It gives rise to 't Hooft instantons for the gauge group $SU(2)$, instead of the general ADHM instantons for an $SO(n)$ gauge group in the case $(0,4)$.Comment: 11 pages, Latex fil

Nonlinear acoustic and microwave absorption in disordered semiconductors

Nonlinear hopping absorption of ultrasound and electromagnetic waves in amorphous and doped semiconductors is considered. It is shown that even at low amplitudes of the electric (or acoustic) field the nonlinear corrections to the relaxational absorption appear anomalously large. The physical reason for such behavior is that the nonlinear contribution is dominated by a small group of close impurity pairs having one electron per pair. Since the group is small, it is strongly influenced by the field. An external magnetic field strongly influences the absorption by changing the overlap between the pair components' wave functions. It is important that the influence is substantially different for the linear and nonlinear contributions. This property provides an additional tool to extract nonlinear effects.Comment: correction : misspelled name in references correcte

Oscillatory regimes of the thermomagnetic instability in superconducting films

The stability of superconducting films with respect to oscillatory precursor modes for thermomag- netic avalanches is investigated theoretically. The results for the onset threshold show that previous treatments of non-oscillatory modes have predicted much higher thresholds. Thus, in film supercon- ductors, oscillatory modes are far more likely to cause thermomagnetic breakdown. This explains the experimental fact that flux avalanches in film superconductors can occur even at very small ramping rates of the applied magnetic field. Closed expressions for the threshold magnetic field and temperature, as well oscillation frequency, are derived for different regimes of the oscillatory thermomagnetic instability.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

On massive tensor multiplets

Massive tensor multiplets have recently been scrutinized in hep-th/0410051 and hep-th/0410149, as they appear in orientifold compactifications of type IIB string theory. Here we formulate several dually equivalent models for massive N = 1, N=2 tensor multiplets in four space-time dimensions. In the N = 2 case, we employ harmonic and projective superspace techniques.Comment: 17 pages, LaTeX, no figures; V2: reference adde

Nonlinear absorption of surface acoustic waves by composite fermions

Absorption of surface acoustic waves by a two-dimensional electron gas in a perpendicular magnetic field is considered. The structure of such system at the filling factor $\nu$ close to 1/2 can be understood as a gas of {\em composite fermions}. It is shown that the absorption at $\nu =1/2$ can be strongly nonlinear, while small deviation form 1/2 will restore the linear absorption. Study of nonlinear absorption allows one to determine the force acting upon the composite fermions from the acoustic wave at turning points of their trajectories.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure, submitted to Europhysics letter

Dendritic flux avalanches in rectangular superconducting films -- numerical simulations

Dendritic flux avalanches is a frequently encountered instability in the vortex matter of type II superconducting films at low temperatures. Previously, linear stability analysis has shown that such avalanches should be nucleated where the flux penetration is deepest. To check this prediction we do numerical simulations on a superconducting rectangle. We find that at low substrate temperature the first avalanches appear exactly in the middle of the long edges, in agreement with the predictions. At higher substrate temperature, where there are no clear predictions from the theory, we find that the location of the first avalanche is decided by fluctuations due to the randomly distributed disorder.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figure