35,193 research outputs found
Electrophoresis of a rod macroion under polyelectrolyte salt: Is mobility reversed for DNA?
By molecular dynamics simulation, we study the charge inversion phenomenon of
a rod macroion in the presence of polyelectrolyte counterions. We simulate
electrophoresis of the macroion under an applied electric field. When both
counterions and coions are polyelectrolytes, charge inversion occurs if the
line charge density of the counterions is larger than that of the coions. For
the macroion of surface charge density equal to that of the DNA, the reversed
mobility is realized either with adsorption of the multivalent counterion
polyelectrolyte or the combination of electrostatics and other mechanisms
including the short-range attraction potential or the mechanical twining of
polyelectrolyte around the rod axis.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, Applied Statistical Physics of Molecular
Engineering (Mexico, 2003). Journal of Physics: Condensed Matters, in press
(2004). Journal of Physics: Condensed Matters, in press (2004
Learning to become an expert : reinforcement learning and the acquisition of perceptual expertise
To elucidate the neural mechanisms underlying the development of perceptual expertise, we recorded ERPs while participants performed a categorization task. We found that as participants learned to discriminate computer-generated "blob'' stimuli, feedback modulated the amplitude of the errorrelated negativity (ERN)-an ERP component thought to reflect error evaluation within medial-frontal cortex. As participants improved at the categorization task, we also observed an increase in amplitude of an ERP component associated with object recognition (the N250). The increase in N250 amplitude preceded an increase in amplitude of an ERN component associated with internal error evaluation (the response ERN). Importantly, these electroencephalographic changes were not observed for participants who failed to improve on the categorization task. Our results suggest that the acquisition of perceptual expertise relies on interactions between the posterior perceptual system and the reinforcement learning system involving medial-frontal cortex
Non-Universal Critical Behaviour of Two-Dimensional Ising Systems
Two conditions are derived for Ising models to show non-universal critical
behaviour, namely conditions concerning 1) logarithmic singularity of the
specific heat and 2) degeneracy of the ground state. These conditions are
satisfied with the eight-vertex model, the Ashkin-Teller model, some Ising
models with short- or long-range interactions and even Ising systems without
the translational or the rotational invariance.Comment: 17 page
Suppression of the superconducting energy gap in intrinsic Josephson junctions of single crystals
We have observed back-bending structures at high bias current in the
current-voltage curves of intrinsic Josephson junctions. These structures may
be caused by nonequilibrium quasiparticle injection and/or Joule heating. The
energy gap suppression varies considerably with temperature. Different levels
of the suppression are observed when the same level of current passes through
top electrodes of different sizes. Another effect which is seen and discussed,
is a super-current ``reentrance'' of a single intrinsic Josephson junction with
high bias current.Comment: accepted by Supercond. Sci. and Tech., 200
A Viscoelastic model of phase separation
We show here a general model of phase separation in isotropic condensed
matter, namely, a viscoelastic model. We propose that the bulk mechanical
relaxation modulus that has so far been ignored in previous theories plays an
important role in viscoelastic phase separation in addition to the shear
relaxation modulus. In polymer solutions, for example, attractive interactions
between polymers under a poor-solvent condition likely cause the transient
gellike behavior, which makes both bulk and shear modes active. Although such
attractive interactions between molecules of the same component exist
universally in the two-phase region of a mixture, the stress arising from
attractive interactions is asymmetrically divided between the components only
in dynamically asymmetric mixtures such as polymer solutions and colloidal
suspensions. Thus, the interaction network between the slower components, which
can store the elastic energy against its deformation through bulk and shear
moduli, is formed. It is the bulk relaxation modulus associated with this
interaction network that is primarily responsible for the appearance of the
sponge structure peculiar to viscoelastic phase separation and the phase
inversion. We demonstrate that a viscoelastic model of phase separation
including this new effect is a general model that can describe all types of
isotropic phase separation including solid and fluid models as its special
cases without any exception, if there is no coupling with additional order
parameter. The physical origin of volume shrinking behavior during viscoelastic
phase separation and the universality of the resulting spongelike structure are
also discussed.Comment: 14 pages, RevTex, To appear in Phys. Rev
Superconductivity in Mg10Ir19B16
Mg10Ir19B16, a previously unreported compound in the Mg-Ir-B chemical system,
is found to be superconducting at temperatures near 5 K. The fact that the
compound exhibits a range of superconducting temperatures between 4 and 5 K
suggests that a range of stoichiometries is allowed, though no structural
evidence for this is observed. The compound has a large, noncentrosymmetric,
body centered cubic unit cell with a = 10.568 Angstrom, displaying a structure
type for which no previous superconductors have been reported.Comment: submitted to PR
Influence of oxygen vacancy on the electronic structure of HfO film
We investigated the unoccupied part of the electronic structure of the
oxygen-deficient hafnium oxide (HfO) using soft x-ray absorption
spectroscopy at O and Hf edges. Band-tail states beneath the
unoccupied Hf 5 band are observed in the O -edge spectra; combined with
ultraviolet photoemission spectrum, this indicates the non-negligible
occupation of Hf 5 state. However, Hf -edge magnetic circular dichroism
spectrum reveals the absence of a long-range ferromagnetic spin order in the
oxide. Thus the small amount of electron gained by the vacancy formation
does not show inter-site correlation, contrary to a recent report [M.
Venkatesan {\it et al.}, Nature {\bf 430}, 630 (2004)].Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.
Probing the size of extra dimension with gravitational wave astronomy
In Randall-Sundrum II (RS-II) braneworld model, it has been conjectured
according to the AdS/CFT correspondence that brane-localized black hole (BH)
larger than the bulk AdS curvature scale cannot be static, and it is
dual to a four dimensional BH emitting the Hawking radiation through some
quantum fields. In this scenario, the number of the quantum field species is so
large that this radiation changes the orbital evolution of a BH binary. We
derived the correction to the gravitational waveform phase due to this effect
and estimated the upper bounds on by performing Fisher analyses. We
found that DECIGO/BBO can put a stronger constraint than the current table-top
result by detecting gravitational waves from small mass BH/BH and BH/neutron
star (NS) binaries. Furthermore, DECIGO/BBO is expected to detect 10 BH/NS
binaries per year. Taking this advantage, we found that DECIGO/BBO can actually
measure down to m for 5 year observation if we know that
binaries are circular a priori. This is about 40 times smaller than the upper
bound obtained from the table-top experiment. On the other hand, when we take
eccentricities into binary parameters, the detection limit weakens to m due to strong degeneracies between and eccentricities. We also
derived the upper bound on from the expected detection number of extreme
mass ratio inspirals (EMRIs) with LISA and BH/NS binaries with DECIGO/BBO,
extending the discussion made recently by McWilliams. We found that these less
robust constraints are weaker than the ones from phase differences.Comment: 19 pages, 10 figures. Published in PRD, typos corrected, references
and footnotes adde
No supercritical supercurvature mode conjecture in one-bubble open inflation
In the path integral approach to false vacuum decay with the effect of
gravity, there is an unsolved problem, called the negative mode problem. We
show that the appearance of a supercritical supercurvature mode in the
one-bubble open inflation scenario is equivalent to the existence of a negative
mode around the Euclidean bounce solution. Supercritical supercurvature modes
are those whose mode functions diverge exponentially for large spatial radius
on the time constant hypersurface of the open universe. Then we propose a
conjecture that there should be ``no supercritical supercurvature mode''. For a
class of models that contains a wide variety of tunneling potentials, this
conjecture is shown to be correct.Comment: 11 pages, 3 postscript figures, tarred, gzipped. submitted to Phys.
Rev. D1
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