17,884 research outputs found
The Aesthetic Uncanny: Staging Dorian Gray
This article discusses my theatrical adaptation of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891) for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe (2008). Freud's concept of the uncanny (1919) was treated as a purely aesthetic phenomenon and related to late nineteenth century social and literary preoccupations such as Christianity, the supernatural and glamorous, criminal homosexuality. These considerations led to a conceptual ground plan that allowed for experiments during rehearsal in a form of theatrical shorthand
A DMRG Study of Low-Energy Excitations and Low-Temperature Properties of Alternating Spin Systems
We use the density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) method to study the
ground and low-lying excited states of three kinds of uniform and dimerized
alternating spin chains. The DMRG procedure is also employed to obtain
low-temperature thermodynamic properties of these systems. We consider a 2N
site system with spins and alternating from site to site and
interacting via a Heisenberg antiferromagnetic exchange. The three systems
studied correspond to being equal to and
; all of them have very similar properties. The ground state is found
to be ferrimagnetic with total spin . We find that there is
a gapless excitation to a state with spin , and a gapped excitation to
a state with spin . Surprisingly, the correlation length in the ground
state is found to be very small for this gapless system. The DMRG analysis
shows that the chain is susceptible to a conditional spin-Peierls instability.
Furthermore, our studies of the magnetization, magnetic susceptibility
and specific heat show strong magnetic-field dependences. The product
shows a minimum as a function of temperature T at low magnetic fields; the
minimum vanishes at high magnetic fields. This low-field behavior is in
agreement with earlier experimental observations. The specific heat shows a
maximum as a function of temperature, and the height of the maximum increases
sharply at high magnetic fields. Although all the three systems show
qualitatively similar behavior, there are some notable quantitative differences
between the systems in which the site spin difference, , is large
and small respectively.Comment: 16 LaTeX pages, 13 postscript figure
Precise tracking of the Magellan and Pioneer Venusorbiters by same-beam interferometry. Part 1: Dataaccuracy analysis
Simultaneous tracking of two spacecraft in orbit about a distant planet by two widely separated Earth-based radio antennas provides more-accurate positioning information than can be obtained by tracking each spacecraft separately. A demonstration of this tracking technique, referred to as same-beam interferometry (SBI), is currently being done using the Magellan and Pioneer 12 orbiters at Venus. Signals from both spacecraft fall within the same beamwidth of the Deep Space Station antennas. The plane-of-sky position difference between spacecraft is precisely determined by doubly differenced phase measurements. This radio metric measurement naturally complements line-of-sight Doppler. Data was first collected from Magellan and Pioneer 12 on August 11-12, 1990, shortly after Magellan was inserted into Venus orbit. Data were subsequently acquired in February and April 1991, providing a total of 34 hours of same-beam radio metric observables. Same-beam radio metric residuals have been analyzed and compared with model measurement error predictions. The predicted error is dominated by solar plasma fluctuations. The rms of the residuals is less than predicted by about 25 percent for 5-min averages. The shape of the spectrum computed from residuals is consistent with that derived from a model of solar plasma fluctuations. This data type can greatly aid navigation of a second spacecraft when the first is well-known in its orbit
Magnetic Properties of J-J-J' Quantum Heisenberg Chains with Spin S=1/2, 1, 3/2 and 2 in a Magnetic Field
By means of the density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) method, the
magnetic properties of the J-J-J quantum Heisenberg chains with spin
, 1, 3/2 and 2 in the ground states are investigated in the presence of
a magnetic field. Two different cases are considered: (a) when is
antiferromagnetic and is ferromagnetic (i.e. the AF-AF-F chain),
the system is a ferrimagnet. The plateaus of the magnetization are observed. It
is found that the width of the plateaus decreases with increasing the
ferromagnetic coupling, and disappears when passes over a
critical value. The saturated field is observed to be independent of the
ferromagnetic coupling; (b) when is ferromagnetic and is
antiferromagnetic (i.e. the F-F-AF chain), the system becomes an
antiferromagnet. The plateaus of the magnetization are also seen. The width of
the plateaus decreases with decreasing the antiferromagnetic coupling, and
disappears when passes over a critical value. Though the ground
state properties are quite different, the magnetization plateaus in both cases
tend to disappear when the ferromagnetic coupling becomes more dominant.
Besides, no fundamental difference between the systems with spin half-integer
and integer has been found.Comment: 8 pages, 9 figures, to be published in J. Phys.: Condens. Matte
Chaotic motion of space charge wavefronts in semiconductors under time-independent voltage bias
A standard drift-diffusion model of space charge wave propagation in
semiconductors has been studied numerically and analytically under dc voltage
bias. For sufficiently long samples, appropriate contact resistivity and
applied voltage - such that the sample is biased in a regime of negative
differential resistance - we find chaos in the propagation of nonlinear fronts
(charge monopoles of alternating sign) of electric field. The chaos is always
low-dimensional, but has a complex spatial structure; this behavior can be
interpreted using a finite dimensional asymptotic model in which the front
(charge monopole) positions and the electrical current are the only dynamical
variables.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figure
- …