Gas Transport in Porous Media: Simulations and Experiments on Partially Densified Aerogels

The experimental density dependence of gas (argon and nitrogen) permeability of partially densified silica aerogels in the Knudsen regime is quantitatively accounted for by a computer model. The model simulates both the structure of the sintered material and the random ballistic motion of a point particle inside its voids. The same model is also able to account for the densit y dependence of the specific pore surface as measured from nitrogen adsorption experiments.Comment: RevTex, 11 pages + 5 postscript figures appended using "uufiles". Published in Europhys. Lett. 29, p. 567 (1995

Constraining short-range spin-dependent forces with polarized helium 3 at the Laue-Langevin Institute

We have searched for a short-range spin-dependent interaction mediated by a hypothetical light scalar boson with CP-violating couplings to the neutron using the spin relaxation of hyperpolarized $^3$He. The walls of the $^3$He cell would generate a depolarizing pseudomagnetic field.Comment: Twelfth Conference on the Intersections of Particle and Nuclear Physics (CIPANP2015), Vail Marriott Mountain Resort, Vail, Colorado, US

Fractionalization of minimal excitations in integer quantum Hall edge channels

A theoretical study of the single electron coherence properties of Lorentzian and rectangular pulses is presented. By combining bosonization and the Floquet scattering approach, the effect of interactions on a periodic source of voltage pulses is computed exactly. When such excitations are injected into one of the channels of a system of two copropagating quantum Hall edge channels, they fractionalize into pulses whose charge and shape reflects the properties of interactions. We show that the dependence of fractionalization induced electron/hole pair production in the pulses amplitude contains clear signatures of the fractionalization of the individual excitations. We propose an experimental setup combining a source of Lorentzian pulses and an Hanbury Brown and Twiss interferometer to measure interaction induced electron/hole pair production and more generally to reconstruct single electron coherence of these excitations before and after their fractionalization.Comment: 18 pages, 10 figures, 1 tabl

Integer and fractional charge Lorentzian voltage pulses analyzed in the frame of Photon-assisted Shot Noise

The periodic injection $n$ of electrons in a quantum conductor using periodic voltage pulses applied on a contact is studied in the energy and time-domain using shot noise computation in order to make comparison with experiments. We particularly consider the case of periodic Lorentzian voltage pulses. When carrying integer charge, they are known to provide electronic states with a minimal number of excitations, while other type of pulses are all accompanied by an extra neutral cloud of electron and hole excitations. This paper focuses on the low frequency shot noise which arises when the pulse excitations are partitioned by a single scatterer in the framework of the Photo Assisted Shot Noise (PASN) theory. As a unique tool to count the number of excitations carried per pulse, shot noise reveals that pulses of arbitrary shape and arbitrary charge show a marked minimum when the charge is integer. Shot noise spectroscopy is also considered to perform energy-domain characterization of the charge pulses. In particular it reveals the striking asymmetrical spectrum of Lorentzian pulses. Finally, time-domain information is obtained from Hong Ou Mandel like noise correlations when two trains of pulses generated on opposite contacts collide on the scatterer. As a function of the time delay between pulse trains, the noise is shown to measure the electron wavepacket autocorrelation function for integer Lorentzian thanks to electron antibunching. In order to make contact with recent experiments all the calculations are made at zero and finite temperature

Discontinuous percolation transitions in real physical systems

We study discontinuous percolation transitions (PT) in the diffusion-limited cluster aggregation model of the sol-gel transition as an example of real physical systems, in which the number of aggregation events is regarded as the number of bonds occupied in the system. When particles are Brownian, in which cluster velocity depends on cluster size as $v_s \sim s^{\eta}$ with $\eta=-0.5$, a larger cluster has less probability to collide with other clusters because of its smaller mobility. Thus, the cluster is effectively more suppressed in growth of its size. Then the giant cluster size increases drastically by merging those suppressed clusters near the percolation threshold, exhibiting a discontinuous PT. We also study the tricritical behavior by controlling the parameter $\eta$, and the tricritical point is determined by introducing an asymmetric Smoluchowski equation.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

Small Angle Scattering by Fractal Aggregates: A Numerical Investigation of the Crossover Between the Fractal Regime and the Porod Regime

Fractal aggregates are built on a computer using off-lattice cluster-cluster aggregation models. The aggregates are made of spherical particles of different sizes distributed according to a Gaussian-like distribution characterised by a mean $a_0$ and a standard deviation $\sigma$. The wave vector dependent scattered intensity $I(q)$ is computed in order to study the influence of the particle polydispersity on the crossover between the fractal regime and the Porod regime. It is shown that, given $a_0$, the location $q_c$ of the crossover decreases as $\sigma$ increases. The dependence of $q_c$ on $\sigma$ can be understood from the evolution of the shape of the center-to-center interparticle-distance distribution function.Comment: RevTex, 4 pages + 6 postscript figures, compressed using "uufiles", published in Phys. Rev. B 50, 1305 (1994

T-cell modulation for the treatment of chronic plaque psoriasis with efalizumab (Raptiva (TM)): Mechanisms of action

Psoriasis is a chronic, incurable, auto-immune disorder with cutaneous manifestations. New evidence on the central role of the immune system in the pathogenesis of psoriasis increasingly provides insight into pathogenic steps that can be modulated to provide disease control. Numerous biological therapies are in various stages of clinical development, with expectation of providing enhanced safety and efficacy over currently available psoriasis therapies. Efalizumab, a recombinant humanized monoclonal IgG1 antibody, is a novel targeted T-cell modulator that inhibits multiple steps in the immune cascade that result in the production and maintenance of psoriatic plaques, including initial T-cell activation and T-cell trafficking into sites of inflammation, including psoriatic skin, with subsequent reactivation in these sites. This article reviews the pharmacodynamic, pharmacokinetic and clinical effects observed during phase I, II and III efalizumab trials in patients with moderate to severe chronic plaque psoriasis. Copyright (C) 2004 S. Karger AG, Basel

Magnetic phase diagram of the spin-1/2 antiferromagnetic zigzag ladder

We study the one-dimensional spin-1/2 Heisenberg model with antiferromagnetic nearest-neighbor J_1 and next-nearest-neighbor J_2 exchange couplings in magnetic field h. With varying dimensionless parameters J_2/J_1 and h/J_1, the ground state of the model exhibits several phases including three gapped phases (dimer, 1/3-magnetization plateau, and fully polarized phases) and four types of gapless Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid (TLL) phases which we dub TLL1, TLL2, spin-density-wave (SDW_2), and vector chiral phases. From extensive numerical calculations using the density-matrix renormalization-group method, we investigate various (multiple-)spin correlation functions in detail, and determine dominant and subleading correlations in each phase. For the one-component TLLs, i.e., the TLL1, SDW_2, and vector chiral phases, we fit the numerically obtained correlation functions to those calculated from effective low-energy theories of TLLs, and find good agreement between them. The low-energy theory for each critical TLL phase is thus identified, together with TLL parameters which control the exponents of power-law decaying correlation functions. For the TLL2 phase, we develop an effective low-energy theory of two-component TLL consisting of two free bosons (central charge c=1+1), which explains numerical results of entanglement entropy and Friedel oscillations of local magnetization. Implications of our results to possible magnetic phase transitions in real quasi-one-dimensional compounds are also discussed.Comment: 22 pages, 17 figures. v2: published versio

Vector chiral and multipolar orders in the spin-1/2 frustrated ferromagnetic chain in magnetic field

We study the one-dimensional spin-1/2 Heisenberg chain with competing ferromagnetic nearest-neighbor J_1 and antiferromagnetic next-nearest-neighbor J_2 exchange couplings in the presence of magnetic field. We use both numerical approaches (the density matrix renormalization group method and exact diagonalization) and effective field-theory approach, and obtain the ground-state phase diagram for wide parameter range of the coupling ratio J_1/J_2. The phase diagram is rich and has a variety of phases, including the vector chiral phase, the nematic phase, and other multipolar phases. In the vector chiral phase, which appears in relatively weak magnetic field, the ground state exhibits long-range order (LRO) of vector chirality which spontaneously breaks a parity symmetry. The nematic phase shows a quasi-LRO of antiferro-nematic spin correlation, and arises as a result of formation of two-magnon bound states in high magnetic fields. Similarly, the higher multipolar phases, such as triatic (p=3) and quartic (p=4) phases, are formed through binding of p magnons near the saturation fields, showing quasi-LRO of antiferro-multipolar spin correlations. The multipolar phases cross over to spin density wave phases as the magnetic field is decreased, before encountering a phase transition to the vector chiral phase at a lower field. The implications of our results to quasi-one-dimensional frustrated magnets (e.g., LiCuVO_4) are discussed.Comment: v1. 20 pages, 18 figures: v2: 21 pages, 19 figures, Title modified slightly. Some references, Fig.16, and a note are added. To appear in Phys. Rev.

Fluctuating Bond Aggregation: a Model for Chemical Gel Formation

The Diffusion-Limited Cluster-Cluster Aggregation (DLCA) model is modified by including cluster deformations using the {\it bond fluctuation} algorithm. From 3$d$ computer simulations, it is shown that, below a given threshold value $c_g$ of the volumic fraction $c$, the realization of all intra-aggregate bonding possibilities prevents the formation of a gelling network. For $c>c_g$, the sol-gel transition occurs at a time $t_g$ which, in contrast to DLCA, doesnot diverge with the box size. Several results are reported including small angle scattering curves and possible applications are discussed.Comment: RevTex, 9 pages + 3 postscript figures appended using "uufiles". To appear in Phys. Rev. Let