205 research outputs found
NMR and NQR Fluctuation Effects in Layered Superconductors
We study the effect of thermal fluctuations of the s-wave order parameter of
a quasi two dimensional superconductor on the nuclear spin relaxation rate near
the transition temperature Tc. We consider both the effects of the amplitude
fluctuations and the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) phase fluctuations
in weakly coupled layered superconductors. In the treatment of the amplitude
fluctuations we employ the Gaussian approximation and evaluate the longitudinal
relaxation rate 1/T1 for a clean s-wave superconductor, with and without pair
breaking effects, using the static pair fluctuation propagator D. The increase
in 1/T1 due to pair breaking in D is overcompensated by the decrease arising
from the single particle Green's functions. The result is a strong effect on
1/T1 for even a small amount of pair breaking. The phase fluctuations are
described in terms of dynamical BKT excitations in the form of pancake
vortex-antivortex (VA) pairs. We calculate the effect of the magnetic field
fluctuations caused by the translational motion of VA excitations on 1/T1 and
on the transverse relaxation rate 1/T2 on both sides of the BKT transitation
temperature T(BKT)<Tc. The results for the NQR relaxation rates depend strongly
on the diffusion constant that governs the motion of free and bound vortices as
well as the annihilation of VA pairs. We discuss the relaxation rates for real
multilayer systems where the diffusion constant can be small and thus increase
the lifetime of a VA pair, leading to an enhancement of the rates. We also
discuss in some detail the experimental feasibility of observing the effects of
amplitude fluctuations in layered s-wave superconductors such as the
dichalcogenides and the effects of phase fluctuations in s- or d-wave
superconductors such as the layered cuprates.Comment: 38 pages, 12 figure
DDW Order and its Role in the Phase Diagram of Extended Hubbard Models
We show in a mean-field calculation that phase diagrams remarkably similar to
those recently proposed for the cuprates arise in simple microscopic models of
interacting electrons near half-filling. The models are extended Hubbard models
with nearest neighbor interaction and correlated hopping. The underdoped region
of the phase diagram features density-wave (DDW) order. In a
certain regime of temperature and doping, DDW order coexists with
antiferromagnetic (AF) order. For larger doping, it coexists with
superconductivity (DSC). While phase diagrams of this form
are robust, they are not inevitable. For other reasonable values of the
coupling constants, drastically different phase diagrams are obtained. We
comment on implications for the cuprates.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure
Polymeric carriers for amphotericin B: in vitro activity, toxicity and therapeutic efficacy against systemic candidiasis in neutropenic mice
Objective: To study the toxicity and activity of two new amphotericin B formulations: poly(ε-caprolactone)
nanospheres coated with poloxamer 188 (AmB-NP) and mixed micelles with the same surfactant (AmB-MM).
Materials and methods: The toxicity of these formulations was evaluated in erythrocytes, J774.2 macrophages
and LLCPK1 renal cells, as well as in mice. Activity was determined in clinical isolates and in neutropenic
mice. Mice were made neutropenic with 5-fluorouracil, infected with Candida albicans and treated
with the antifungal formulations for three consecutive days. AmB association in cells and accumulation in
kidneys and liver of animals was quantified by HPLC.
Results: Both formulations decreased between 8- and 10-fold the MIC of the polyene against clinical isolates
of C. albicans. However, their activity was lower than or equal to that of AmB-deoxycholate when it was
assessed against C. albicans-infected macrophages. When given as a single intravenous dose in mice,
AmB-MM and AmB-NP had an LD50 of 9.8 and 18.6 mg/kg, respectively, compared with 4 mg/kg for AmBdeoxycholate.
Comparison of residual infection burdens in the liver and kidneys showed that AmB-deoxycholate
(0.5 mg/kg) was more effective and faster in eradicating yeast cells than polymeric formulations.
This fact can be related to a lower AmB accumulation inside macrophages and in liver and kidneys (about 1.5
mg drug/g tissue) of mice, compared with those detected for AmB-deoxycholate (4 mg drug/g). Overall, the
efficacy of these formulations at 2 mg/kg was equal to that of AmB-deoxycholate at 0.5 mg/kg.
Conclusions: AmB-MM and AmB-NP decreased the in vivo antifungal activity of AmB, and higher concentrations
were therefore necessary to obtain a similar therapeutic effect. However, these higher concentrations
were achievable owing to the reduced toxicity of these formulations
Flux noise in high-temperature superconductors
Spontaneously created vortex-antivortex pairs are the predominant source of
flux noise in high-temperature superconductors. In principle, flux noise
measurements allow to check theoretical predictions for both the distribution
of vortex-pair sizes and for the vortex diffusivity. In this paper the
flux-noise power spectrum is calculated for the highly anisotropic
high-temperature superconductor Bi-2212, both for bulk crystals and for
ultra-thin films. The spectrum is basically given by the Fourier transform of
the temporal magnetic-field correlation function. We start from a
Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless type theory and incorporate vortex diffusion,
intra-pair vortex interaction, and annihilation of pairs by means of a
Fokker-Planck equation to determine the noise spectrum below and above the
superconducting transition temperature. We find white noise at low frequencies
omega and a spectrum proportional to 1/omega^(3/2) at high frequencies. The
cross-over frequency between these regimes strongly depends on temperature. The
results are compared with earlier results of computer simulations.Comment: 9 pages, 4 PostScript figures, to be published in Phys. Rev.
b-physics signals of the lightest CP-odd Higgs in the NMSSM at large tan beta
We investigate the low energy phenomenology of the lighter pseudoscalar
in the NMSSM. The mass can naturally be small due to a global
symmetry of the Higgs potential, which is only broken by trilinear
soft terms. The mass is further protected from renormalization group
effects in the large limit. We calculate the
amplitude at leading order in and work out the contributions to
rare , and radiative -decays and mixing. We obtain
constraints on the mass and couplings and show that masses down to
MeV are allowed. The -physics phenomenology of the NMSSM
differs from the MSSM in the appearance of sizeable renormalization effects
from neutral Higgses to the photon and gluon dipole operators and the breakdown
of the MSSM correlation between the branching ratio and
mixing. For masses above the tau threshold the
can be searched for in processes with branching ratios
\lsim 10^{-3}.Comment: 18 pages, 3 figures; references adde
Search for CP Violation in Charged D Meson Decays
We report results of a search for CP violation in the singly
Cabibbo-suppressed decays D+ -> K- K+ pi+, phi pi+, K*(892)0 K+, and pi- pi+
pi+ based on data from the charm hadroproduction experiment E791 at Fermilab.
We search for a difference in the D+ and D- decay rates for each of the final
states. No evidence for a difference is seen. The decay rate asymmetry
parameters A(CP), defined as the difference in the D+ and D- decay rates
divided by the sum of the decay rates, are measured to be: A(CP)(K K pi) =
-0.014 +/- 0.029, A(CP)(phi pi) = -0.028 +/- 0.036, A(CP)(K*(892) K) = -0.010
+/- 0.050, and A(CP)(pi pi pi) = -0.017 +/- 0.042.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, 1 table; Elsevier LaTe
Differential cross sections, charge production asymmetry, and spin-density matrix elements for D*(2010) produced in 500 GeV/c pi^- nucleon interactions
We report differential cross sections for the production of D*(2010) produced
in 500 GeV/c pi^- nucleon interactions from experiment E791 at Fermilab, as
functions of Feynman-x (x_F) and transverse momentum squared (p_T^2). We also
report the D* +/- charge asymmetry and spin-density matrix elements as
functions of these variables. Investigation of the spin-density matrix elements
shows no evidence of polarization. The average values of the spin alignment are
\eta= 0.01 +- 0.02 and -0.01 +- 0.02 for leading and non-leading particles,
respectively.Comment: LaTeX2e (elsart.cls). 13 pages, 6 figures (eps files). Submitted to
Physics Letters
Coupled structural and magnetic properties of ferric fluoride nanostructures part I: a Metropolis atomistic study
A modified Metropolis atomistic simulation is proposed to model the structure
of grain boundaries (GBs) and interfaces in ionic nanostructured systems and is
applied to the magnetically interesting case of iron trifluoride (FeF3). We
chose long-range interatomic potentials adjusted on experimental results, and
adapted a previously established Monte Carlo scheme consisting of various
modifications of the simulated annealing/ Metropolis algorithm. Atomic
structures of twisted and tilted GBs as a function of the relative
disorientation of the grains have been achieved yielding close to
experimentally measured properties. This approach takes into account the
structure of the grains far from the interface in order to constrain the
relative orientation of the grains, without any periodic boundary conditions.
One concludes that a long-range coulombic falloff of the interatomic potentials
is necessary to obtain GB structures presenting a correct local topology but
with a smooth transition from crystalline to amorphous states. The structural
features are finally discussed in terms of topological aspects and local
magnetic structure.Comment: submitted to JMM
Asymmetries between the production of D+ and D- mesons from 500 GeV/c pi- nucleon interactions as a function of xF and pt**2
We present asymmetries between the production of D+ and D- mesons in Fermilab
experiment E791 as a function of xF and pt**2. The data used here consist of
74,000 fully-reconstructed charmed mesons produced by a 500 GeV/c pi- beam on C
and Pt foils. The measurements are compared to results of models which predict
differences between the production of heavy-quark mesons that have a light
quark in common with the beam (leading particles) and those that do not
(non-leading particles). While the default models do not agree with our data,
we can reach agreement with one of them, PYTHIA, by making a limited number of
changes to parameters used
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