7,550 research outputs found
Monte Carlo Study of Short-Range Order and Displacement Effects in Disordered CuAu
The correlation between local chemical environment and atomic displacements
in disordered CuAu alloy has been studied using Monte Carlo simulations based
on the effective medium theory (EMT) of metallic cohesion. These simulations
correctly reproduce the chemically-specific nearest-neighbor distances in the
random alloy across the entire Cu\$_x\$Au\$_{1-x}\$ concentration range. In the
random equiatomic CuAu alloy, the chemically specific pair distances depend
strongly on the local atomic environment (i.e. fraction of like/unlike nearest
neighbors). In CuAu alloy with short-range order, the relationship between
local environment and displacements remains qualitatively similar. However the
increase in short-range order causes the average Cu-Au distance to decrease
below the average Cu-Cu distance, as it does in the ordered CuAuI phase. Many
of these trends can be understood qualitatively from the different neutral
sphere radii and compressibilities of the Cu and Au atoms.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, 2 table
Simulations of energetic beam deposition: from picoseconds to seconds
We present a new method for simulating crystal growth by energetic beam
deposition. The method combines a Kinetic Monte-Carlo simulation for the
thermal surface diffusion with a small scale molecular dynamics simulation of
every single deposition event. We have implemented the method using the
effective medium theory as a model potential for the atomic interactions, and
present simulations for Ag/Ag(111) and Pt/Pt(111) for incoming energies up to
35 eV. The method is capable of following the growth of several monolayers at
realistic growth rates of 1 monolayer per second, correctly accounting for both
energy-induced atomic mobility and thermal surface diffusion. We find that the
energy influences island and step densities and can induce layer-by-layer
growth. We find an optimal energy for layer-by-layer growth (25 eV for Ag),
which correlates with where the net impact-induced downward interlayer
transport is at a maximum. A high step density is needed for energy induced
layer-by-layer growth, hence the effect dies away at increased temperatures,
where thermal surface diffusion reduces the step density. As part of the
development of the method, we present molecular dynamics simulations of single
atom-surface collisions on flat parts of the surface and near straight steps,
we identify microscopic mechanisms by which the energy influences the growth,
and we discuss the nature of the energy-induced atomic mobility
Critical behavior of loops and biconnected clusters on fractals of dimension d < 2
We solve the O(n) model, defined in terms of self- and mutually avoiding
loops coexisting with voids, on a 3-simplex fractal lattice, using an exact
real space renormalization group technique. As the density of voids is
decreased, the model shows a critical point, and for even lower densities of
voids, there is a dense phase showing power-law correlations, with critical
exponents that depend on n, but are independent of density. At n=-2 on the
dilute branch, a trivalent vertex defect acts as a marginal perturbation. We
define a model of biconnected clusters which allows for a finite density of
such vertices. As n is varied, we get a line of critical points of this
generalized model, emanating from the point of marginality in the original loop
model. We also study another perturbation of adding local bending rigidity to
the loop model, and find that it does not affect the universality class.Comment: 14 pages,10 figure
Oxygen Isotope Measurements of a Rare Murchison Type A CAI and Its Rim
Ca-, Al-rich inclusions (CAIs) from CV chondrites commonly show oxygen isotope heterogeneity among different mineral phases within individual inclusions reflecting the complex history of CAIs in both the solar nebula and/or parent bodies. The degree of isotopic exchange is typically mineral-specific, yielding O-16-rich spinel, hibonite and pyroxene and O-16-depleted melilite and anorthite. Recent work demonstrated large and systematic variations in oxygen isotope composition within the margin and Wark-Lovering rim of an Allende Type A CAI. These variations suggest that some CV CAIs formed from several oxygen reservoirs and may reflect transport between distinct regions of the solar nebula or varying gas composition near the proto-Sun. Oxygen isotope compositions of CAIs from other, less-altered chondrites show less intra-CAI variability and 16O-rich compositions. The record of intra-CAI oxygen isotope variability in CM chondrites, which commonly show evidence for low-temperature aqueous alteration, is less clear, in part because the most common CAIs found in CM chondrites are mineralogically simple (hibonite +/- spinel or spinel +/- pyroxene) and are composed of minerals less susceptible to O-isotopic exchange. No measurements of the oxygen isotope compositions of rims on CAIs in CM chondrites have been reported. Here, we present oxygen isotope data from a rare, Type A CAI from the Murchison meteorite, MUM-1. The data were collected from melilite, hibonite, perovskite and spinel in a traverse into the interior of the CAI and from pyroxene, melilite, anorthite, and spinel in the Wark-Lovering rim. Our objectives were to (1) document any evidence for intra-CAI oxygen isotope variability; (2) determine the isotopic composition of the rim minerals and compare their composition(s) to the CAI interior; and (3) compare the MUM-1 data to oxygen isotope zoning profiles measured from CAIs in other chondrites
Phase diagram and critical exponents of a Potts gauge glass
The two-dimensional q-state Potts model is subjected to a Z_q symmetric
disorder that allows for the existence of a Nishimori line. At q=2, this model
coincides with the +/- J random-bond Ising model. For q>2, apart from the usual
pure and zero-temperature fixed points, the ferro/paramagnetic phase boundary
is controlled by two critical fixed points: a weak disorder point, whose
universality class is that of the ferromagnetic bond-disordered Potts model,
and a strong disorder point which generalizes the usual Nishimori point. We
numerically study the case q=3, tracing out the phase diagram and precisely
determining the critical exponents. The universality class of the Nishimori
point is inconsistent with percolation on Potts clusters.Comment: Latex, 7 pages, 3 figures, v2: 1 reference adde
Nishimori point in the 2D +/- J random-bond Ising model
We study the universality class of the Nishimori point in the 2D +/- J
random-bond Ising model by means of the numerical transfer-matrix method. Using
the domain-wall free-energy, we locate the position of the fixed point along
the Nishimori line at the critical concentration value p_c = 0.1094 +/- 0.0002
and estimate nu = 1.33 +/- 0.03. Then, we obtain the exponents for the moments
of the spin-spin correlation functions as well as the value for the central
charge c = 0.464 +/- 0.004. The main qualitative result is the fact that
percolation is now excluded as a candidate for describing the universality
class of this fixed point.Comment: 4 pages REVTeX, 3 PostScript figures; final version to appear in
Phys. Rev. Lett.; several small changes and extended explanation
A Transfer Matrix for the Backbone Exponent of Two-Dimensional Percolation
Rephrasing the backbone of two-dimensional percolation as a monochromatic
path crossing problem, we investigate the latter by a transfer matrix approach.
Conformal invariance links the backbone dimension D_b to the highest eigenvalue
of the transfer matrix T, and we obtain the result D_b=1.6431 \pm 0.0006. For a
strip of width L, T is roughly of size 2^{3^L}, but we manage to reduce it to
\sim L!. We find that the value of D_b is stable with respect to inclusion of
additional ``blobs'' tangent to the backbone in a finite number of points.Comment: 19 page
On inversions and Doob -transforms of linear diffusions
Let be a regular linear diffusion whose state space is an open interval
. We consider a diffusion which probability law is
obtained as a Doob -transform of the law of , where is a positive
harmonic function for the infinitesimal generator of on . This is the
dual of with respect to where is the speed measure of
. Examples include the case where is conditioned to stay above
some fixed level. We provide a construction of as a deterministic
inversion of , time changed with some random clock. The study involves the
construction of some inversions which generalize the Euclidean inversions.
Brownian motion with drift and Bessel processes are considered in details.Comment: 19 page
Mechanical properties and formation mechanisms of a wire of single gold atoms
A scanning tunneling microscope (STM) supplemented with a force sensor is
used to study the mechanical properties of a novel metallic nanostructure: a
freely suspended chain of single gold atoms. We find that the bond strength of
the nanowire is about twice that of a bulk metallic bond. We perform ab initio
calculations of the force at chain fracture and compare quantitatively with
experimental measurements. The observed mechanical failure and nanoelastic
processes involved during atomic wire fabrication are investigated using
molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, and we find that the total effective
stiffness of the nanostructure is strongly affected by the detailed local
atomic arrangement at the chain bases.Comment: To be published in Phys. Rev. Lett. 4 pages with 3 figure
Boundary conformal field theories and loop models
We propose a systematic method to extract conformal loop models for rational
conformal field theories (CFT). Method is based on defining an ADE model for
boundary primary operators by using the fusion matrices of these operators as
adjacency matrices. These loop models respect the conformal boundary
conditions. We discuss the loop models that can be extracted by this method for
minimal CFTs and then we will give dilute O(n) loop models on the square
lattice as examples for these loop models. We give also some proposals for WZW
SU(2) models.Comment: 23 Pages, major changes! title change
- …