Dilution Effects in Two-dimensional Quantum Orbital System

We study dilution effects in a Mott insulating state with quantum orbital degree of freedom, termed the two-dimensional orbital compass model. This is a quantum and two-dimensional version of the orbital model where the interactions along different bond directions cause frustration between different orbital configurations. A long-range correlation of a kind of orbital at each row or column, termed the directional order, is studied by means of the quantum Monte-Carlo method. It is shown that decrease of the ordering temperature due to dilution is much stronger than that in spin models. Quantum effect enhances the effective dimensionality in the system and makes the directional order robust against dilution. We discuss an essential mechanism of the dilute orbital systems.Comment: 5pages, 4 figure

Photoinduced magnetic bound state in itinerant correlated electron system with spin-state degree of freedom

Photo-excited state in correlated electron system with spin-state degree of freedom is studied. We start from the two-orbital extended Hubbard model where energy difference between the two orbitals is introduced. Photo-excited metastable state is examined based on the effective model Hamiltonian derived by the two-orbital Hubbard model. Spin-state change is induced by photo-irradiation in the low-spin band insulator near the phase boundary. High-spin state is stabilized by creating a ferromagnetic bound state with photo-doped hole carriers. An optical absorption occurs between the bonding and antibonding orbitals inside of the bound state. Time-evolution for photo-excited states is simulated in the time-dependent mean-field scheme. Pair-annihilations of the photo-doped electron and hole generate the high-spin state in a low-spin band insulator. We propose that this process is directly observed by the time-resolved photoemission experiments.Comment: 15 pages, 16 figure

CO mapping of the nuclear region of NGC 6946 and IC 342 with Nobeyama millimeter array

CO observations of nearby galaxies with nuclear active star forming regions (and starburst galaxies) with angular resolutions around 7 seconds revealed that molecular bars with a length of a few kiloparsecs have been formed in the central regions of the galaxies. The molecular bar is interpreted as part of shock waves induced by an oval or barred potential field. By shock dissipation or dissipative cloud-cloud collisions, the molecular gas gains an infall motion and the nuclear star formation activity is fueled. But the distribution and kinematics of the molecular gas in the nuclear regions, which are sites of active star formation, remain unknown. Higher angular resolutions are needed to investigate the gas in the nuclear regions. Researchers made aperture synthesis observations of the nuclear region of the late-type spiral galaxies NGC 6946 and IC 342 with resolutions of 7.6 seconds x 4.2 seconds (P.A. = 147 deg) and 2.4 seconds x 2.3 seconds (P.A. = 149 deg), respectively. The distances to NGC 6496 and IC 342 are assumed to be 5.5 Mpc and 3.9 Mpc, respectively. Researchers have found 100-300 pc nuclear gas disk and ring inside a few kpc molecular gas bars. Researchers present the results of the observations and propose a possible mechanism of active star formation in the nuclear region

Temperature dependence of the resistivity in the double-exchange model

The resistivity around the ferromagnetic transition temperature in the double exchange model is studied by the Schwinger boson approach. The spatial spin correlation responsible for scattering of conduction electrons are taken into account by adopting the memory function formalism. Although the correlation shows a peak lower than the transition temperature, the resistivity in the ferromagnetic state monotonically increases with increasing temperature due to a variation of the electronic state of the conduction electron. In the paramagnetic state, the resistivity is dominated by the short range correlation of scattering and is almost independent of the temperature. It is attributed to a cancellation between the nearest-neighbor spin correlation, the fermion bandwidth, and the fermion kinetic energy. This result implies the importance of the temperature dependence of the electronic states of the conduction electron as well as the localized spin states in both ferromagnetic and paramagnetic phases.Comment: RevTex, 4 pages, 4 PostScript figures, To appear in Phys. Rev.

Theory of Orbital Ordering, Fluctuation and Resonant X-ray Scattering in Manganites

A theory of resonant x-ray scattering in perovskite manganites is developed by applying the group theory to the correlation functions of the pseudospin operators for the orbital degree of freedom. It is shown that static and dynamical informations of the orbital state are directly obtained from the elastic, diffuse and inelastic scatterings due to the tensor character of the scattering factor. We propose that the interaction and its anisotropy between orbitals are directly identified by the intensity contour of the diffuse scattering in the momentum space.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur

Polarization Dependence of Anomalous X-ray Scattering in Orbital Ordered Manganites

In order to determine types of the orbital ordering in manganites, we study theoretically the polarization dependence of the anomalous X-ray scattering which is caused by the anisotropy of the scattering factor. The general formulae of the scattering intensity in the experimental optical system is derived and the atomic scattering factor is calculated in the microscopic electronic model. By using the results, the X-ray scattering intensity in several types of the orbital ordering is numerically calculated as a function of azimuthal and analyzer angles.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure

Orbital Wave and its Observation in Orbital Ordered Titanates and Vanadates

We present a theory of the collective orbital excitation termed orbital wave in perovskite titanates and vanadates with the triply degenerate $t_{2g}$ orbitals. The dispersion relations of the orbital waves for the orbital ordered LaVO$_3$, YVO$_3$ and YTiO$_3$ are examined in the effective spin-orbital coupled Hamiltonians associated with the Jahn-Teller type couplings. We propose possible scattering processes for the Raman and inelastic neutron scatterings from the orbital wave and calculate the scattering spectra for titanates and vanadates. It is found that both the excitation spectra and the observation methods of the orbital wave are distinct qualitatively from those for the $e_g$ orbital ordered systems.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure

Rate of Evolution in Brain-Expressed Genes in Humans and Other Primates

Brain-expressed genes are known to evolve slowly in mammals. Nevertheless, since brains of higher primates have evolved rapidly, one might expect acceleration in DNA sequence evolution in their brain-expressed genes. In this study, we carried out full-length cDNA sequencing on the brain transcriptome of an Old World monkey (OWM) and then conducted three-way comparisons among (i) mouse, OWM, and human, and (ii) OWM, chimpanzee, and human. Although brain-expressed genes indeed appear to evolve more rapidly in species with more advanced brains (apes > OWM > mouse), a similar lineage effect is observable for most other genes. The broad inclusion of genes in the reference set to represent the genomic average is therefore critical to this type of analysis. Calibrated against the genomic average, the rate of evolution among brain-expressed genes is probably lower (or at most equal) in humans than in chimpanzee and OWM. Interestingly, the trend of slow evolution in coding sequence is no less pronounced among brain-specific genes, vis-à-vis brain-expressed genes in general. The human brain may thus differ from those of our close relatives in two opposite directions: (i) faster evolution in gene expression, and (ii) a likely slowdown in the evolution of protein sequences. Possible explanations and hypotheses are discussed

Resonant X-ray Scattering in Manganites - Study of Orbital Degree of Freedom -

Orbital degree of freedom of electrons and its interplay with spin, charge and lattice degrees of freedom are one of the central issues in colossal magnetoresistive manganites. The orbital degree of freedom has until recently remained hidden, since it does not couple directly to most of experimental probes. Development of synchrotron light sources has changed the situation; by the resonant x-ray scattering (RXS) technique the orbital ordering has successfully been observed . In this article, we review progress in the recent studies of RXS in manganites. We start with a detailed review of the RXS experiments applied to the orbital ordered manganites and other correlated electron systems. We derive the scattering cross section of RXS where the tensor character of the atomic scattering factor (ASF) with respect to the x-ray polarization is stressed. Microscopic mechanisms of the anisotropic tensor character of ASF is introduced and numerical results of ASF and the scattering intensity are presented. The azimuthal angle scan is a unique experimental method to identify RXS from the orbital degree of freedom. A theory of the azimuthal angle and polarization dependence of the RXS intensity is presented. The theoretical results show good agreement with the experiments in manganites. Apart from the microscopic description of ASF, a theoretical framework of RXS to relate directly to the 3d orbital is presented. The scattering cross section is represented by the correlation function of the pseudo-spin operator for the orbital degree of freedom. A theory is extended to the resonant inelastic x-ray scattering and methods to observe excitations of the orbital degree of freedom are proposed.Comment: 47 pages, 24 figures, submitted to Rep. Prog. Phy