1,107 research outputs found
Quantum Spin Fluctuations as a Source of Long-Range Proximity Effects in Diffusive Ferromagnet-Superconductor Structures
We show that quantum spin fluctuations in inhomogeneous ferromagnets
drastically affect the Andreev reflection of electrons and holes at a
ferromagnet-superconductor interface. As a result a strong long-range proximity
effect appears, associated with electron-hole spin triplet correlations and
persisting on a lenght scale typical for non-magnetic materials, but
anomalously large for ferromagnets.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
Entanglement of distant optomechanical systems
We theoretically investigate the possibility to generate non-classical states
of optical and mechanical modes of optical cavities, distant from each other. A
setup comprised of two identical cavities, each with one fixed and one movable
mirror and coupled by an optical fiber, is studied in detail. We show that with
such a setup there is potential to generate entanglement between the distant
cavities, involving both optical and mechanical modes. The scheme is robust
with respect to dissipation, and nonlocal correlations are found to exist in
the steady state at finite temperatures.Comment: 12 pages (published with minor modifications
Impact of excess NOx emissions from diesel cars on air quality, public health and eutrophication in Europe
Diesel cars have been emitting four to seven times more NOx in on-road driving than in type approval tests. These ‘excess emissions’ are a consequence of deliberate design of the vehicle’s after-treatment system, as investigations during the ‘Dieselgate’ scandal have revealed. Here we calculate health and environmental impacts of these excess NOx emissions in all European countries for the year 2013. We use national emissions reported officially under the UNECE Convention for Long-range Transport of
Atmospheric Pollutants and employ the EMEP MSC-W Chemistry Transport Model and the GAINS
Integrated Assessment Model to determine atmospheric concentrations and resulting impacts. We compare with impacts from hypothetical emissions where light duty diesel vehicles are assumed to emit only as much as their respective type approval limit value or as little as petrol cars of the same age.
Excess NO2 concentrations can also have direct health impacts, but these overlap with the impacts from particulate matter (PM) and are not included here. We estimate that almost 10 000 premature deaths from PM2.5 and ozone in the adult population (age >30 years) can be attributed to the NOx emissions from diesel cars and light commercial vehicles in EU28 plus Norway and Switzerland in 2013. About 50% of these could have been avoided if diesel limits had been achieved also in on-road driving; and had diesel cars emitted as little NOx as petrol cars, 80% of these premature deaths could have been avoided. Ecosystem eutrophication impacts (critical load exceedances) from the same diesel vehicles would also have been reduced at similar rates as for the health effects
Interplay of Coulomb blockade and Aharonov-Bohm resonances in a Luttinger liquid
We consider a ring of strongly interacting electrons connected to two
external leads by tunnel junctions. By studying the positions of conductance
resonances as a function of gate voltage and magnetic flux the interaction
parameter can be determined experimentally. For a finite ring the minimum
conductance is strongly influenced by device geometry and electron-electron
interactions. In particular, if the tunnel junctions are close to one another
the interaction-related orthogonality catastrophe is suppressed and the valley
current is unexpectedly large.Comment: 10 page
Influence of Long-Range Coulomb Interactions on the Metal-Insulator Transition in One-Dimensional Strongly Correlated Electron Systems
The influence of long-range Coulomb interactions on the properties of
one-dimensional (1D) strongly correlated electron systems in vicinity of the
metal-insulator phase transition is considered. It is shown that unscreened
repulsive Coulomb forces lead to the formation of a 1D Wigner crystal in the
metallic phase and to the transformation of the square-root singularity of the
compressibility (characterizing the commensurate-incommensurate transition) to
a logarithmic singularity. The properties of the insulating (Mott) phase depend
on the character of the short-wavelength screening of the Coulomb forces. For a
sufficiently short screening length the characteristics of the charge
excitations in the insulating phase are totally determined by the Coulomb
interaction and these quasipartic les can be described as quasiclassical
Coulomb solitons.Comment: 14 pages, LaTeX, G{\"o}teborg preprint APR 94-3
Plasmons in coupled bilayer structures
We calculate the collective charge density excitation dispersion and spectral
weight in bilayer semiconductor structures {\it including effects of interlayer
tunneling}. The out-of-phase plasmon mode (the ``acoustic'' plasmon) develops a
long wavelength gap in the presence of tunneling with the gap being
proportional to the square root (linear power) of the tunneling amplitude in
the weak (strong) tunneling limit. The in-phase plasmon mode is qualitatively
unaffected by tunneling. The predicted plasmon gap should be a useful tool for
studying many-body effects.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures. to appear in Phys. Rev. Let
Shuttle Mechanism for Charge Transfer in Coulomb Blockade Nanostructures
Room-temperature Coulomb blockade of charge transport through composite
nanostructures containing organic inter-links has recently been observed. A
pronounced charging effect in combination with the softness of the molecular
links implies that charge transfer gives rise to a significant deformation of
these structures. For a simple model system containing one nanoscale metallic
cluster connected by molecular links to two bulk metallic electrodes we show
that self-excitation of periodic cluster oscillations in conjunction with
sequential processes of cluster charging and decharging appears for a
sufficiently large bias voltage. This new `electron shuttle' mechanism of
discrete charge transfer gives rise to a current through the nanostructure,
which is proportional to the cluster vibration frequency.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Spin-dependent thermoelectric transport coefficients in near-perfect quantum wires
Thermoelectric transport coefficients are determined for semiconductor
quantum wires with weak thickness fluctuations. Such systems exhibit anomalies
in conductance near 1/4 and 3/4 of 2e^2/h on the rising edge to the first
conductance plateau, explained by singlet and triplet resonances of conducting
electrons with a single weakly bound electron in the wire [T. Rejec, A. Ramsak,
and J.H. Jefferson, Phys. Rev. B 62, 12985 (2000)]. We extend this work to
study the Seebeck thermopower coefficient and linear thermal conductance within
the framework of the Landauer-Buettiker formalism, which also exhibit anomalous
structures. These features are generic and robust, surviving to temperatures of
a few degrees. It is shown quantitatively how at elevated temperatures thermal
conductance progressively deviates from the Wiedemann-Franz law.Comment: To appear in Phys. Rev. B 2002; 3 figure
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