Associated production of light gravitinos in e^+e^- and e^-\gamma collisions

Light gravitino productions in association with a neutralino (selectron) in e^+e^- (e^-\gamma) collisions are restudied in a scenario that the lightest supersymmetric particle is a gravitino and the produced neutralino (selectron) promptly decays into a photon (electron) and a gravitino. We explicitly give the helicity amplitudes for the production processes by using the effective goldstino interaction Lagrangian, and present the cross sections with different collision energies and mass spectra. We also examine selection efficiencies by kinematical cuts and beam polarizations for the signal and background processes, and show that the energy and angular distributions of the photon (electron) can explore the mass of the t-channel exchange particle as well as the mass of the decaying particle at a future e^+e^- (e^-\gamma) collider.Comment: 12 pages, 12 figures, 4 tables; references added, version to appear in EPJ

Long term evaluation of high tibial valgus osteotomy

We present a long term evaluation of 100 high valgus tibial osteotomies with a mean follow up of 11 years. Knees with slight or moderate osteoarthritis had the best results. Slight overcorrection was beneficial, but gross overcorrection was not. There were few complications and the overall long term results were go

Electromagnetic targeting of guns

This is the final report of a one-year, Laboratory-Directed Research and Development (LDRD) project at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). Electromagnetic pulse (EMP) signals produced from explosives being fired have been reported in the literature for fifty years. When a gun is fired it produces an EMP muzzle blast signal. The strength and nature of these signals was first analyzed in the early 1970s, while the results were interesting, no follow-up studies were conducted. With modern detection and signal processing technology, we believe that these signals could be used to instantaneously locate guns of virtually all calibers as they fire. The objective of our one-year project was to establish the basic nature of these signals and their utility in the concept of electromagnetic targeting of guns

Nonideal parasitic resistance effects in bulk heterojunction organic solar cells

A common assumption in both experimental measurements and device modeling of bulk heterojunction (BHJ) organic solar cells is that parasitic resistances are ideal. In other words, series resistance (Rsr) is near zero while shunt resistance (Rsh) approaches infinity. Relaxation of this assumption affects device performance differently depending on the chosen BHJ material system. Specifically, the impact of nonideal Rsr is controlled by the electric field dependence of the probability of charge transfer (CT) state dissociation (PCT). This is demonstrated by evaluating the experimental current density versus voltage response within the framework of a drift/diffusion model for two BHJ systems that strongly differ in PCT. Second, light intensity measurements of devices with nonideal Rsr and Rsh are shown to convolute the scaling of short-circuit current and open-circuit voltage with light intensity, which is a common technique to study BHJ device physics. Finally, we show the connection between the drift/diffusion and equivalent circuit model with regard to each model's treatment of CT state dissociation. In particular, the equivalent circuit model utilizes a light intensity dependent Rsh to describe this dissociation process and predicts a photocurrent under reverse bias that exceeds the photocurrent permitted by light absorption

Electrophotonic enhancement of bulk heterojunction organic solar cells through photonic crystal photoactive layer

We present one- (1D) and two-dimensional (2D) periodic nanostructured designs for organic photovoltaics where a photonic crystal is formed between blended poly-3-hexylthiophene/[6,6]-phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (P3HT:PCBM) and nanocrystalline zinc oxide. Absorption enhancements over the full absorption range of P3HT:PCBM of 20% (one polarization) and 14% are shown for the 1D and 2D structures, respectively. These improvements result in part from band edge excitation of quasiguided modes. The geometries are also shown to create excitons 26% (1D) and 11% (2D) closer to P3HT:PCBM exit interfaces indicating further photovoltaic improvement

Absorption and quasiguided mode analysis of organic solar cells with photonic crystal photoactive layers

We analyze optical absorption enhancements and quasiguided mode properties of organic solar cells with highly ordered nanostructured photoactive layers comprised of the bulk heterojunction blend, poly-3- hexylthiophene/[6,6]-phenyl- C61-butyric acid methyl ester (P3HT:PCBM) and a low index of refraction conducting material (LICM). This photonic crystal geometry is capable of enhancing spectral absorption by ∼17% in part due to the excitation of quasiguided modes near the band edge of P3HT:PCBM. A nanostructure thickness between 200 nm and 300 nm is determined to be optimal, while the LICM must have an index of refraction ∼0.3 lower than P3HT:PCBM to produce absorption enhancements. Quasiguided modes that differ in lifetime by an order of magnitude are also identified and yield absorption that is concentrated in the P3HT:PCBM flash layer

Analyzing local exciton generation profiles as a means to extract transport lengths in organic solar cells

In this work, we determine the carrier-transport lengths of electrons and holes (Le,h) for bulk heterojunction (BHJ) organic solar cells using a method applicable to functional devices. By linking the local exciton generation profile [G (x)] in the photoactive layer to photocurrent losses, we are able to determine the onset of bimolecular recombination, which is the dominate loss process of free carrier transport. Even though many factors affect photocurrent generation, we single out bimolecular recombination by measuring the scaling of photocurrent with light intensity as a function of applied voltage. For the common BHJ system, annealed poly-3-hexylthiophene:[6,6]-phenyl- C61-butyric acid methyl ester (P3HT:PCBM), a minimum for Le in PCBM is found to be 340 nm while Lh is estimated to be 90 nm for P3HT. The relationship between G (x) and carrier transport is further exemplified by demonstrating a scaling exponent below that for traditional space-charge-limited photocurrent. Likewise, by incorporating a drift/diffusion model, an intuitive link between G (x) and charge transport is established where recombination is shown to occur in regions of the photoactive layer far from the electrode of the slowest carrier species. Finally, the consequences of Le,h on device design for operation under 1 Sun conditions are described

Minority carrier transport length of electrodeposited Cu2O in ZnO/Cu2O heterojunction solar cells

The minority carrier transport length is a critical parameter limiting the performance of inexpensive Cu2 O-ZnO photovoltaic devices. In this letter, this length is estimated to be ∼430 nm for electrochemically deposited Cu2 O by linking the cell's carrier generation profile with back and front incident photon-to-electron conversion efficiency measurements to a one-dimensional transport model. This critical length explains the losses typically presented by these devices and appears to correlate well with the microcrystalline film structure. The consequences of the magnitude of the length on device design with the aim of improving solar cell performance are described

Constrained Supersymmetric Flipped SU(5) GUT Phenomenology

We explore the phenomenology of the minimal supersymmetric flipped SU(5) GUT model (CFSU(5)), whose soft supersymmetry-breaking (SSB) mass parameters are constrained to be universal at some input scale, $M_{in}$, above the GUT scale, $M_{GUT}$. We analyze the parameter space of CFSU(5) assuming that the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP) provides the cosmological cold dark matter, paying careful attention to the matching of parameters at the GUT scale. We first display some specific examples of the evolutions of the SSB parameters that exhibit some generic features. Specifically, we note that the relationship between the masses of the lightest neutralino and the lighter stau is sensitive to $M_{in}$, as is the relationship between the neutralino mass and the masses of the heavier Higgs bosons. For these reasons, prominent features in generic $(m_{1/2}, m_0)$ planes such as coannihilation strips and rapid-annihilation funnels are also sensitive to $M_{in}$, as we illustrate for several cases with tan(beta)=10 and 55. However, these features do not necessarily disappear at large $M_{in}$, unlike the case in the minimal conventional SU(5) GUT. Our results are relatively insensitive to neutrino masses.Comment: 23 pages, 8 figures; (v2) added explanations and corrected typos, version to appear in EPJ