Microstructure and superconducting properties of hot isostatically pressed MgB2

Bulk samples of MgB2 have been formed by hot isostatic pressing (HIPping) of commercial powder at 100MPa and 950=B0C. The resulting material is 100% dense with a sharp superconducting transition at 37.5K. Microstructural studies have indicated the presence of small amounts of second phases within the material, namely MgO and B rich compositions, probably MgB4. Magnetisation measurements performed at 20K have revealed values of Jc=1.3 x 106A/cm2 at zero field, and 9.3 x 105A/cm2 at 1T. Magneto optical (MO) studies have shown direct evidence for the superconducting homogeneity and strong intergranular current flow in the material.Comment: 3 pages, 6 figures, text updated, new references included and discussed. Submitted to Superconductor Science and Technolog

Cosmological constant and time delay

The effect of the cosmological constant on the time delay caused by an isolated spherical mass is calculated without using the lens equation and compared to a recent observational bound on the time delay of the lensed quasar SDSS J1004+4112.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figur

Structures and Electromagnetic Properties of New Metal-Ordered Manganites; RBaMn_{2}O_{6} (R = Y and Rare Earth Elements)

New metal-ordered manganites RBaMn_{2}O_{6} have been synthesized and investigated in the structures and electromagnetic properties. RBaMn_{2}O_{6} can be classified into three groups from the structural and electromagnetic properties. The first group (R = La, Pr and Nd) has a metallic ferromagnetic transition, followed by an A-type antiferromagnetic transition in PrBaMn_{2}O_{6}. The second group (R = Sm, Eu and Gd) exhibits a charge-order transition, followed by an antiferromagnetic long range ordering. The third group (R = Tb, Dy and Ho) shows successive three phase transitions, the structural, charge/orbital-order and magnetic transitions, as observed in YBaMn_{2}O_{6}. Comparing to the metal-disordered manganites (R^{3+}_{0.5}A^{2+}_{0.5})MnO_{3}, two remarkable features can be recognized in RBaMn_{2}O_{6}; (1) relatively high charge-order transition temperature and (2) the presence of structural transition above the charge-order temperature in the third group. We propose a possible orbital ordering at the structural transition, that is a possible freezing of the orbital, charge and spin degrees of freedom at the independent temperatures in the third group. These features are closely related to the peculiar structure that the MnO_{2} square-lattice is sandwiched by the rock-salt layers of two kinds, RO and BaO with extremely different lattice-sizes.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, submitted to J. Phys. Soc. Jp

Terminal velocity and drag reduction measurements on superhydrophobic spheres

Super water-repellent surfaces occur naturally on plants and aquatic insects and are created in the laboratory by combining micro- or nanoscale surface topographic features with hydrophobic surface chemistry. When such types of water-repellent surfaces are submerged they can retain a film of air (a plastron). In this work, we report measurements of the terminal velocity of solid acrylic spheres with various surface treatments settling under the action of gravity in water. We observed increases in terminal velocity corresponding to drag reduction of between 5% and 15% for superhydrophobic surfaces that carry plastrons

The Rewards of Patience: An 822 Day Time Delay in the Gravitational Lens SDSS J1004+4112

We present 107 new epochs of optical monitoring data for the four brightest images of the gravitational lens SDSS J1004+4112 observed between October 2006 and June 2007. Combining this data with the previously obtained light curves, we determine the time delays between images A, B and C. We confirm our previous measurement finding that A leads B by dt_BA=40.6+-1.8 days, and find that image C leads image A by dt_CA=821.6+-2.1 days. The lower limit on the remaining delay is that image D lags image A by dt_AD>1250 days. Based on the microlensing of images A and B we estimate that the accretion disk size at a rest wavelength of 2300 angstrom is 10^{14.8+-0.3} cm for a disk inclination of cos{i}=1/2, which is consistent with the microlensing disk size-black hole mass correlation function given our estimate of the black hole mass from the MgII line width of logM_BH/M_sun=8.44+-0.14. The long delays allow us to fill in the seasonal gaps and assemble a continuous, densely sampled light curve spanning 5.7 years whose variability implies a structure function with a logarithmic slope of gamma = 0.35+-0.02. As C is the leading image, sharp features in the C light curve can be intensively studied 2.3 years later in the A/B pair, potentially allowing detailed reverberation mapping studies of a quasar at minimal cost.Comment: Submitted to ApJ, 12 pages, 3 figure

Symplectic SUSY Gauge Theories with Antisymmetric Matter

We investigate the confining phase vacua of supersymmetric Sp(2\NC) gauge theories that contain matter in both fundamental and antisymmetric representations. The moduli spaces of such models with \NF=3 quark flavors and \NA=1 antisymmetric field are analogous to that of SUSY QCD with \NF=\NC+1 flavors. In particular, the forms of their quantum superpotentials are fixed by classical constraints. When mass terms are coupled to W_{(\NF=3,\NA=1)} and heavy fields are integrated out, complete towers of dynamically generated superpotentials for low energy theories with fewer numbers of matter fields can be derived. Following this approach, we deduce exact superpotentials in $Sp(4)$ and $Sp(6)$ theories which cannot be determined by symmetry considerations or integrating in techniques. Building upon these simple symplectic group results, we also examine the ground state structures of several $Sp(4) \times Sp(4)$ and $Sp(6) \times Sp(2)$ models. We emphasize that the top-down approach may be used to methodically find dynamical superpotentials in many other confining supersymmetric gauge theories.Comment: 21 pages, Revte

Quasi-Lie schemes and Emden--Fowler equations

The recently developed theory of quasi-Lie schemes is studied and applied to investigate several equations of Emden type and a scheme to deal with them and some of their generalisations is given. As a first result we obtain t-dependent constants of the motion for particular instances of Emden equations by means of some of their particular solutions. Previously known results are recovered from this new perspective. Finally some t-dependent constants of the motion for equations of Emden type satisfying certain conditions are recovered