13,365 research outputs found
Differential thermal analysis and solution growth of intermetallic compounds
To obtain single crystals by solution growth, an exposed primary
solidification surface in the appropriate, but often unknown, equilibrium alloy
phase diagram is required. Furthermore, an appropriate crucible material is
needed, necessary to hold the molten alloy during growth, without being
attacked by it. Recently, we have used the comparison of realistic simulations
with experimental differential thermal analysis (DTA) curves to address both
these problems. We have found: 1) complex DTA curves can be interpreted to
determine an appropriate heat treatment and starting composition for solution
growth, without having to determine the underlying phase diagrams in detail. 2)
DTA can facilitate identification of appropriate crucible materials. DTA can
thus be used to make the procedure to obtain single crystals of a desired phase
by solution growth more efficient. We will use some of the systems for which we
have recently obtained single-crystalline samples using the combination of DTA
and solution growth as examples. These systems are TbAl, PrNiSi,
and YMnAl.Comment: 17 pages, 8 figure
Very Long Baseline Interferometry Measured Proper Motion and Parallax of the -ray Millisecond Pulsar PSR J0218+4232
PSR J02184232 is a millisecond pulsar (MSP) with a flux density 0.9
mJy at 1.4 GHz. It is very bright in the high-energy X-ray and -ray
domains. We conducted an astrometric program using the European VLBI Network
(EVN) at 1.6 GHz to measure its proper motion and parallax. A model-independent
distance would also help constrain its -ray luminosity. We achieved a
detection of signal-to-noise ratio S/N > 37 for the weak pulsar in all five
epochs. Using an extragalactic radio source lying 20 arcmin away from the
pulsar, we estimate the pulsar's proper motion to be
mas yr and mas yr, and a parallax of mas. The very long
baseline interferometry (VLBI) proper motion has significantly improved upon
the estimates from long-term pulsar timing observations. The VLBI parallax
provides the first model-independent distance constraints:
kpc, with a corresponding lower-limit of
kpc. This is the first pulsar trigonometric parallax measurement based
solely on EVN observations. Using the derived distance, we believe that PSR
J02184232 is the most energetic -ray MSP known to date. The
luminosity based on even our 3 lower-limit distance is high enough to
pose challenges to the conventional outer gap and slot gap models.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, 2 tables; published in the Astrophysical Journal
Letters on 2014 Feb. 1
Charge Transport Properties of a Metal-free Phthalocyanine Discotic Liquid Crystal
Discotic liquid crystals can self-align to form one-dimensional
semiconducting wires, many tens of microns long. In this letter, we describe
the preparation of semiconducting films where the stacking direction of the
disc-like molecules is perpendicular to the substrate surface. We present
measurements of the charge carrier mobility, applying temperature-dependent
time-of-flight transient photoconductivity, space-charge limited current
measurements, and field-effect mobility measurements. We provide experimental
verification of the highly anisotropic nature of semiconducting films of
discotic liquid crystals, with charge carrier mobilities of up to
2.8x10cm/Vs. These properties make discotics an interesting choice
for applications such as organic photovoltaics.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure
Microarcsecond VLBI pulsar astrometry with PSR II. parallax distances for 57 pulsars
We present the results of PSR, a large astrometric project targeting
radio pulsars using the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA). From our astrometric
database of 60 pulsars, we have obtained parallax-based distance measurements
for all but 3, with a parallax precision of typically 40 as and
approaching 10 as in the best cases. Our full sample doubles the number of
radio pulsars with a reliable (5) model-independent distance
constraint. Importantly, many of the newly measured pulsars are well outside
the solar neighbourhood, and so PSR brings a near-tenfold increase in the
number of pulsars with a reliable model-independent distance at kpc.
Using our sample along with previously published results, we show that even the
most recent models of the Galactic electron density distribution model contain
significant shortcomings, particularly at high Galactic latitudes. When
comparing our results to pulsar timing, two of the four millisecond pulsars in
our sample exhibit significant discrepancies in the estimates of proper motion
obtained by at least one pulsar timing array. With additional VLBI observations
to improve the absolute positional accuracy of our reference sources and an
expansion of the number of millisecond pulsars, we will be able to extend the
comparison of proper motion discrepancies to a larger sample of pulsar
reference positions, which will provide a much more sensitive test of the
applicability of the solar system ephemerides used for pulsar timing. Finally,
we use our large sample to estimate the typical accuracy attainable for
differential astrometry with the VLBA when observing pulsars, showing that for
sufficiently bright targets observed 8 times over 18 months, a parallax
uncertainty of 4 as per arcminute of separation between the pulsar and
calibrator can be expected.Comment: updated to version accepted by ApJ: 30 pages, 20 figures, 9 table
Determination of the magnetic structure of Yb3Pt4: a k=0 local-moment antiferromagnet
We have used neutron diffraction measurements to study the zero-field
magnetic structure of the intermetallic compound Yb3Pt4, which was earlier
found to order antiferromagnetically at the Neel temperature TN=2.4 K, and
displays a field-driven quantum critical point at 1.6 T. In Yb3Pt4, the Yb
moments sit on a single low-symmetry site in the rhombohedral lattice with
space group R-3. The Yb ions form octahedra with edges that are twisted with
respect to the hexagonal unit cell, a twisting that results in every Yb ion
having exactly one Yb nearest neighbor. Below TN, we found new diffracted
intensity due to a k=0 magnetic structure. This magnetic structure was compared
to all symmetry-allowed magnetic structures, and was subsequently refined. The
best fitting magnetic structure model is antiferromagnetic, and involves pairs
of Yb nearest neighbors on which the moments point almost exactly towards each
other. This structure has moment components within the ab-plane as well as
parallel to the c-axis, although the easy magnetization direction lies in the
ab-plane. Our magnetization results suggest that besides the crystal-electric
field anisotropy, anisotropic exchange favoring alignment along the c-axis is
responsible for the overall direction of the ordered moments. The magnitude of
the ordered Yb moments in Yb3Pt4 is 0.81 uB/Yb at 1.4 K. The analysis of the
bulk properties, the size of the ordered moment, and the observation of
well-defined crystal-field levels argue that the Yb moments are spatially
localized in zero field.Comment: 11 pages, 12 figure, submitted to Phys. Rev.
Toward an ecological aesthetics: music as emergence
In this article we intend to suggest some ecological based principles
to support the possibility of develop an ecological aesthetics. We consider that
an ecological aesthetics is founded in concepts as “direct perception”,
“acquisition of affordances and invariants”, “embodied embedded
perception” and so on. Here we will purpose that can be possible explain
especially soundscape music perception in terms of direct perception, working
with perception of first hand (in a Gibsonian sense). We will present notions
as embedded sound, detection of sonic affordances and invariants, and at the
end we purpose an experience with perception/action paradigm to make
soundscape music as emergence of a self-organized system
Multifractal current distribution in random diode networks
Recently it has been shown analytically that electric currents in a random
diode network are distributed in a multifractal manner [O. Stenull and H. K.
Janssen, Europhys. Lett. 55, 691 (2001)]. In the present work we investigate
the multifractal properties of a random diode network at the critical point by
numerical simulations. We analyze the currents running on a directed
percolation cluster and confirm the field-theoretic predictions for the scaling
behavior of moments of the current distribution. It is pointed out that a
random diode network is a particularly good candidate for a possible
experimental realization of directed percolation.Comment: RevTeX, 4 pages, 5 eps figure
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