1,844 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
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
Normal-Superconducting Phase Transition Mimicked by Current Noise
As a superconductor goes from the normal state into the superconducting
state, the voltage vs. current characteristics at low currents change from
linear to non-linear. We show theoretically and experimentally that the
addition of current noise to non-linear voltage vs. current curves will create
ohmic behavior. Ohmic response at low currents for temperatures below the
critical temperature mimics the phase transition and leads to incorrect
values for and the critical exponents and . The ohmic response
occurs at low currents, when the applied current is smaller than the
width of the probability distribution , and will occur in both the
zero-field transition and the vortex-glass transition. Our results indicate
that the transition temperature and critical exponents extracted from the
conventional scaling analysis are inaccurate if current noise is not filtered
out. This is a possible explanation for the wide range of critical exponents
found in the literature.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
Engineering Negative Differential Conductance with the Cu(111) Surface State
Low-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy are employed
to investigate electron tunneling from a C60-terminated tip into a Cu(111)
surface. Tunneling between a C60 orbital and the Shockley surface states of
copper is shown to produce negative differential conductance (NDC) contrary to
conventional expectations. NDC can be tuned through barrier thickness or C60
orientation up to complete extinction. The orientation dependence of NDC is a
result of a symmetry matching between the molecular tip and the surface states.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, 1 tabl
Efficient UC Commitment Extension with Homomorphism for Free (and Applications)
Homomorphic universally composable (UC) commitments allow for the sender to reveal the result of additions and multiplications of values contained in commitments without revealing the values themselves while assuring the receiver of the correctness of such computation on committed values.
In this work, we construct essentially optimal additively homomorphic UC commitments from any (not necessarily UC or homomorphic) extractable commitment. We obtain amortized linear computational complexity in the length of the input messages and rate 1.
Next, we show how to extend our scheme to also obtain multiplicative homomorphism at the cost of asymptotic optimality but retaining low concrete complexity for practical parameters.
While the previously best constructions use UC oblivious transfer as the main building block, our constructions only require extractable commitments and PRGs, achieving better concrete efficiency and offering new insights into the sufficient conditions for obtaining homomorphic UC commitments.
Moreover, our techniques yield public coin protocols, which are compatible with the Fiat-Shamir heuristic.
These results come at the cost of realizing a restricted version of the homomorphic commitment functionality where the sender is allowed to perform any number of commitments and operations on committed messages but is only allowed to perform a single batch opening of a number of commitments.
Although this functionality seems restrictive, we show that it can be used as a building block for more efficient instantiations of recent protocols for secure multiparty computation and zero knowledge non-interactive arguments of knowledge
Effects of Self-field and Low Magnetic Fields on the Normal-Superconducting Phase Transition
Researchers have studied the normal-superconducting phase transition in the
high- cuprates in a magnetic field (the vortex-glass or Bose-glass
transition) and in zero field. Often, transport measurements in "zero field"
are taken in the Earth's ambient field or in the remnant field of a magnet. We
show that fields as small as the Earth's field will alter the shape of the
current vs. voltage curves and will result in inaccurate values for the
critical temperature and the critical exponents and , and can
even destroy the phase transition. This indicates that without proper screening
of the magnetic field it is impossible to determine the true zero-field
critical parameters, making correct scaling and other data analysis impossible.
We also show, theoretically and experimentally, that the self-field generated
by the current flowing in the sample has no effect on the current vs. voltage
isotherms.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Bayesian Error Estimation in Density Functional Theory
We present a practical scheme for performing error estimates for Density
Functional Theory calculations. The approach which is based on ideas from
Bayesian statistics involves creating an ensemble of exchange-correlation
functionals by comparing with an experimental database of binding energies for
molecules and solids. Fluctuations within the ensemble can then be used to
estimate errors relative to experiment on calculated quantities like binding
energies, bond lengths, and vibrational frequencies. It is demonstrated that
the error bars on energy differences may vary by orders of magnitude for
different systems in good agreement with existing experience.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
Radiation from relativistic jets
Nonthermal radiation observed from astrophysical systems containing
relativistic jets and shocks, e.g., gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), active galactic
nuclei (AGNs), and Galactic microquasar systems usually have power-law emission
spectra. Recent PIC simulations of relativistic electron-ion
(electron-positron) jets injected into a stationary medium show that particle
acceleration occurs within the downstream jet. In the presence of relativistic
jets, instabilities such as the Buneman instability, other two-streaming
instability, and the Weibel (filamentation) instability create collisionless
shocks, which are responsible for particle (electron, positron, and ion)
acceleration. The simulation results show that the Weibel instability is
responsible for generating and amplifying highly nonuniform, small-scale
magnetic fields. These magnetic fields contribute to the electron's transverse
deflection behind the jet head. The ``jitter'' radiation from deflected
electrons in small-scale magnetic fields has different properties than
synchrotron radiation which is calculated in a uniform magnetic field. This
jitter radiation, a case of diffusive synchrotron radiation, may be important
to understand the complex time evolution and/or spectral structure in gamma-ray
bursts, relativistic jets, and supernova remnants.Comment: 8 pages,3 figures, accepted for the Proceedings of Science of the
Workshop on Blazar Variability across the Electromagnetic Spectrum, April 22
to 25, 200
A spectral coupled ocean-atmosphere model
A spectral coupled ocean-atmosphere model, suitable for studying the El-Nino Southern Oscillation, has been formulated. The atmospheric component is global in its extent, while the oceanic part is a hemispheric basin representing the Pacific Ocean. Multi-decadal integrations of the model have been performed with realistic topography and seasonal variations in the atmospheric radiative forcing, and for resolutions ranging from low (rhomboidal wavenumber 15 (R15)) to intermediate (R31) to high (R60). El-Nino Southern Oscillations are produced with realistic frequency spectra, even at low resolution. The reason for this is the conserving properties of the spectral technique (in the inviscid case) and hence the model is stable with realistic and small dissipation while commonly used grid-point models require too large dissipation for stability
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