11,301 research outputs found
Multi-phonon scattering and Ti-induced hydrogen dynamics in sodium alanate
We use ab initio methods and neutron inelastic scattering (NIS) to study the
structure, energetics, and dynamics of pure and Ti-doped sodium alanate
(NaAlH_4), focusing on the possibility of substitutional Ti doping. The NIS
spectrum is found to exhibit surprisingly strong and sharp two-phonon features.
The calculations reveal that substitutional Ti doping is energetically
possible. Ti prefers to substitute for Na and is a powerful hydrogen attractor
that facilitates multiple Al--H bond breaking. Our results hint at new ways of
improving the hydrogen dynamics and storage capacity of the alanates.Comment: 5 pages, with 4 postscript figures embedded. Uses REVTEX4 and
graphicx macro
Bias and temperature dependence of the 0.7 conductance anomaly in Quantum Point Contacts
The 0.7 (2e^2/h) conductance anomaly is studied in strongly confined, etched
GaAs/GaAlAs quantum point contacts, by measuring the differential conductance
as a function of source-drain and gate bias as well as a function of
temperature. We investigate in detail how, for a given gate voltage, the
differential conductance depends on the finite bias voltage and find a
so-called self-gating effect, which we correct for. The 0.7 anomaly at zero
bias is found to evolve smoothly into a conductance plateau at 0.85 (2e^2/h) at
finite bias. Varying the gate voltage the transition between the 1.0 and the
0.85 (2e^2/h) plateaus occurs for definite bias voltages, which defines a gate
voltage dependent energy difference . This energy difference is
compared with the activation temperature T_a extracted from the experimentally
observed activated behavior of the 0.7 anomaly at low bias. We find \Delta =
k_B T_a which lends support to the idea that the conductance anomaly is due to
transmission through two conduction channels, of which the one with its subband
edge \Delta below the chemical potential becomes thermally depopulated as the
temperature is increased.Comment: 9 pages (RevTex) with 9 figures (some in low resolution
Dynamical versus statistical mesoscopic models for DNA denaturation
We recently proposed a dynamical mesoscopic model for DNA, which is based,
like statistical ones, on site-dependent finite stacking and pairing
enthalpies. In the present article, we first describe how the parameters of
this model are varied to get predictions in better agreement with experimental
results that were not addressed up to now, like mechanical unzipping, the
evolution of the critical temperature with sequence length, and temperature
resolution. We show that the model with the new parameters provides results
that are in quantitative agreement with those obtained from statistical models.
Investigation of the critical properties of the dynamical model suggests that
DNA denaturation looks like a first-order phase transition in a broad
temperature interval, but that there necessarily exists, very close to the
critical temperature, a crossover to another regime. The exact nature of the
melting dynamics in this second regime still has to be elucidated. We finally
point out that the descriptions of the physics of the melting transition
inferred from statistical and dynamical models are not completely identical and
discuss the relevance of our model from the biological point of view
Evidence for Efimov quantum states in an ultracold gas of cesium atoms
Systems of three interacting particles are notorious for their complex
physical behavior. A landmark theoretical result in few-body quantum physics is
Efimov's prediction of a universal set of bound trimer states appearing for
three identical bosons with a resonant two-body interaction.
Counterintuitively, these states even exist in the absence of a corresponding
two-body bound state. Since the formulation of Efimov's problem in the context
of nuclear physics 35 years ago, it has attracted great interest in many areas
of physics. However, the observation of Efimov quantum states has remained an
elusive goal. Here we report the observation of an Efimov resonance in an
ultracold gas of cesium atoms. The resonance occurs in the range of large
negative two-body scattering lengths, arising from the coupling of three free
atoms to an Efimov trimer. Experimentally, we observe its signature as a giant
three-body recombination loss when the strength of the two-body interaction is
varied. We also detect a minimum in the recombination loss for positive
scattering lengths, indicating destructive interference of decay pathways. Our
results confirm central theoretical predictions of Efimov physics and represent
a starting point with which to explore the universal properties of resonantly
interacting few-body systems. While Feshbach resonances have provided the key
to control quantum-mechanical interactions on the two-body level, Efimov
resonances connect ultracold matter to the world of few-body quantum phenomena.Comment: 18 pages, 3 figure
Positivity of Entropy in the Semi-Classical Theory of Black Holes and Radiation
Quantum stress-energy tensors of fields renormalized on a Schwarzschild
background violate the classical energy conditions near the black hole.
Nevertheless, the associated equilibrium thermodynamical entropy by
which such fields augment the usual black hole entropy is found to be positive.
More precisely, the derivative of with respect to radius, at fixed
black hole mass, is found to vanish at the horizon for {\it all} regular
renormalized stress-energy quantum tensors. For the cases of conformal scalar
fields and U(1) gauge fields, the corresponding second derivative is positive,
indicating that has a local minimum there. Explicit calculation
shows that indeed increases monotonically for increasing radius and
is positive. (The same conclusions hold for a massless spin 1/2 field, but the
accuracy of the stress-energy tensor we employ has not been confirmed, in
contrast to the scalar and vector cases). None of these results would hold if
the back-reaction of the radiation on the spacetime geometry were ignored;
consequently, one must regard as arising from both the radiation
fields and their effects on the gravitational field. The back-reaction, no
matter how "small",Comment: 19 pages, RevTe
Orbital dependent nucleonic pairing in the lightest known isotopes of tin
By studying the 109Xe-->105Te-->101Sn superallowed alpha-decay chain, we
observe low-lying states in 101Sn, the one-neutron system outside doubly magic
100Sn. We find that the spins of the ground state (J = 7=2) and first excited
state (J = 5=2) in 101Sn are reversed with respect to the traditional level
ordering postulated for 103Sn and the heavier tin isotopes. Through simple
arguments and state-of-the-art shell model calculations we explain this
unexpected switch in terms of a transition from the single-particle regime to
the collective mode in which orbital-dependent pairing correlations, dominate.Comment: 5 pages 3 figure
A generalized spherical version of the Blume-Emery-Griffits model with ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic interactions
We have investigated analitycally the phase diagram of a generalized
spherical version of the Blume-Emery-Griffiths model that includes
ferromagnetic or antiferromagnetic spin interactions as well as quadrupole
interactions in zero and nonzero magnetic field. We show that in three
dimensions and zero magnetic field a regular paramagnetic-ferromagnetic (PM-FM)
or a paramagnetic-antiferromagnetic (PM-AFM) phase transition occurs whenever
the magnetic spin interactions dominate over the quadrupole interactions.
However, when spin and quadrupole interactions are important, there appears a
reentrant FM-PM or AFM-PM phase transition at low temperatures, in addition to
the regular PM-FM or PM-AFM phase transitions. On the other hand, in a nonzero
homogeneous external magnetic field , we find no evidence of a transition to
the state with spontaneous magnetization for FM interactions in three
dimensions. Nonethelesss, for AFM interactions we do get a scenario similar to
that described above for zero external magnetic field, except that the critical
temperatures are now functions of . We also find two critical field values,
, at which the reentrance phenomenon dissapears and
(), above which the PM-AFM transition temperature
vanishes.Comment: 21 pages, 6 figs. Title changed, abstract and introduction as well as
section IV were rewritten relaxing the emphasis on spin S=1 and Figs. 5 an 6
were improved in presentation. However, all the results remain valid.
Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.
Hydrogen storage systems from waste Mg alloys
The production cost of materials for hydrogen storage is one of the major issues to be addressed in order to consider them suitable for large scale applications. In the last decades several authors reported on the hydrogen sorption properties of Mg and Mg-based systems. In this work magnesium industrial wastes of AZ91 alloy and Mg-10 wt.% Gd alloy are used for the production of hydrogen storage materials. The hydrogen sorption properties of the alloys were investigated by means of volumetric technique, in situ synchrotron radiation powder X-ray diffraction (SR-PXD) and calorimetric methods. The measured reversible hydrogen storage capacity for the alloys AZ91 and Mg-10 wt.% Gd are 4.2 and 5.8 wt.%, respectively. For the Mg-10 wt.% Gd alloy, the hydrogenated product was also successfully used as starting reactant for the synthesis of Mg(NH2)2 and as MgH2 substitute in the Reactive Hydride Composite (RHC) 2LiBH4 + MgH 2. The results of this work demonstrate the concrete possibility to use Mg alloy wastes for hydrogen storage purposes
Effective Potential of a Black Hole in Thermal Equilibrium with Quantum Fields
Expectation values of one-loop renormalized thermal equilibrium stress-energy
tensors of free conformal scalars, spin- fermions and U(1) gauge
fields on a Schwarzschild black hole background are used as sources in the
semi-classical Einstein equation. The back-reaction and new equilibrium metric
are solved for at for each spin field. The nature of the modified
black hole spacetime is revealed through calculations of the effective
potential for null and timelike orbits. Significant novel features affecting
the motions of both massive and massless test particles show up at lowest order
in , where is the renormalized black hole mass,
and is the Planck mass. Specifically, we find the tendency for
\underline{stable} circular photon orbits, an increase in the black hole
capture cross sections, and the existence of a gravitationally repulsive region
associated with the black hole which is generated from the U(1) back-reaction.
We also consider the back-reaction arising from multiple fields, which will be
useful for treating a black hole in thermal equilibrium with field ensembles
belonging to gauge theories.Comment: 25 pages (not including seven figures), VAND-TH-93-6. Typed in Latex,
uses RevTex macro
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