1,862 research outputs found
Atomic step motion during the dewetting of ultra-thin films
We report on three key processes involving atomic step motion during the
dewetting of thin solid films: (i) the growth of an isolated island nucleated
far from a hole, (ii) the spreading of a monolayer rim, and (iii) the zipping
of a monolayer island along a straight dewetting front. Kinetic Monte Carlo
results are in good agreement with simple analytical models assuming
diffusion-limited dynamics.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure
Ramond-Ramond Cohomology and O(D,D) T-duality
In the name of supersymmetric double field theory, superstring effective
actions can be reformulated into simple forms. They feature a pair of vielbeins
corresponding to the same spacetime metric, and hence enjoy double local
Lorentz symmetries. In a manifestly covariant manner --with regard to O(D,D)
T-duality, diffeomorphism, B-field gauge symmetry and the pair of local Lorentz
symmetries-- we incorporate R-R potentials into double field theory. We take
them as a single object which is in a bi-fundamental spinorial representation
of the double Lorentz groups. We identify cohomological structure relevant to
the field strength. A priori, the R-R sector as well as all the fermions are
O(D,D) singlet. Yet, gauge fixing the two vielbeins equal to each other
modifies the O(D,D) transformation rule to call for a compensating local
Lorentz rotation, such that the R-R potential may turn into an O(D,D) spinor
and T-duality can flip the chirality exchanging type IIA and IIB
supergravities.Comment: 1+37 pages, no figure; Structure reorganized, References added, To
appear in JHEP. cf. Gong Show of Strings 2012
(http://wwwth.mpp.mpg.de/members/strings/strings2012/strings_files/program/Talks/Thursday/Gongshow/Lee.pdf
Photo- and Electro-Disintegration of 3He at Threshold and pd Radiative Capture
The present work reports results for: pd radiative capture observables
measured at center-of-mass (c.m.) energies in the range 0--100 keV and at 2 MeV
by the TUNL and Wisconsin groups, respectively; contributions to the
Gerasimov-Drell-Hearn (GDH) integral in 3He from the two- up to the three-body
breakup thresholds, compared to experimental determinations by the TUNL group
in this threshold region; longitudinal, transverse, and interference response
functions measured in inclusive polarized electron scattering off polarized 3He
at excitation energies below the threshold for breakup into ppn, compared to
unpolarized longitudinal and transverse data from the Saskatoon group. The
calculations are based on a realistic Hamiltonian with two- and three-nucleon
interactions and a realistic current operator, including one- and two-body
components. The theoretical predictions obtained by including only one-body
currents are in violent disagreement with data. These differences between
theory and experiment are, to a large extent, removed when two-body currents
are taken into account, although some rather large discrepancies remain in the
c.m. energy range 0--100 keV, particularly for the pd differential cross
section and tensor analyzing power at small angles, and contributions to the
GDH integral. A rather detailed analysis indicates that these discrepancies
have, in large part, a common origin, and can be traced back to an excess
strength obtained in the theoretical calculation of the E1 reduced matrix
element associated with the pd channel having L,S,J=1,1/2,3/2. It is suggested
that this lack of E1 strength observed experimentally might have implications
for the nuclear interaction at very low energies. Finally, the validity of the
long-wavelength approximation for electric dipole transitions is discussed.Comment: 47 pages RevTex file, 10 PostScript figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.
Microlensing optical depth towards the Galactic bulge from MOA observations during 2000 with Difference Image Analysis
We analyze the data of the gravitational microlensing survey carried out by
by the MOA group during 2000 towards the Galactic Bulge (GB). Our observations
are designed to detect efficiently high magnification events with faint source
stars and short timescale events, by increasing the the sampling rate up to 6
times per night and using Difference Image Analysis (DIA). We detect 28
microlensing candidates in 12 GB fields corresponding to 16 deg^2. We use Monte
Carlo simulations to estimate our microlensing event detection efficiency,
where we construct the I-band extinction map of our GB fields in order to find
dereddened magnitudes. We find a systematic bias and large uncertainty in the
measured value of the timescale in our simulations. They are
associated with blending and unresolved sources, and are allowed for in our
measurements. We compute an optical depth tau = 2.59_{-0.64}^{+0.84} \times
10^{-6} towards the GB for events with timescales 0.3<t_E<200 days. We consider
disk-disk lensing, and obtain an optical depth tau_{bulge} =
3.36_{-0.81}^{+1.11} \times 10^{-6}[0.77/(1-f_{disk})] for the bulge component
assuming a 23% stellar contribution from disk stars. These observed optical
depths are consistent with previous measurements by the MACHO and OGLE groups,
and still higher than those predicted by existing Galactic models. We present
the timescale distribution of the observed events, and find there are no
significant short events of a few days, in spite of our high detection
efficiency for short timescale events down to t_E = 0.3 days. We find that half
of all our detected events have high magnification (>10). These events are
useful for studies of extra-solar planets.Comment: 65 pages and 30 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ. A
systematic bias and uncertainty in the optical depth measurement has been
quantified by simulation
Electronic and Magnetic Properties of Partially-Open Carbon Nanotubes
On the basis of the spin-polarized density functional theory calculations, we
demonstrate that partially-open carbon nanotubes (CNTs) observed in recent
experiments have rich electronic and magnetic properties which depend on the
degree of the opening. A partially-open armchair CNT is converted from a metal
to a semiconductor, and then to a spin-polarized semiconductor by increasing
the length of the opening on the wall. Spin-polarized states become
increasingly more stable than nonmagnetic states as the length of the opening
is further increased. In addition, external electric fields or chemical
modifications are usable to control the electronic and magnetic properties of
the system. We show that half-metallicity may be achieved and the spin current
may be controlled by external electric fields or by asymmetric
functionalization of the edges of the opening. Our findings suggest that
partially-open CNTs may offer unique opportunities for the future development
of nanoscale electronics and spintronics.Comment: 6 figures, to appear in J. Am. Chem. So
"Narrow" Graphene Nanoribbons Made Easier by Partial Hydrogenation
It is a challenge to synthesize graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) with narrow
widths and smooth edges in large scale. Our first principles study on the
hydrogenation of GNRs shows that the hydrogenation starts from the edges of
GNRs and proceeds gradually toward the middle of the GNRs so as to maximize the
number of carbon-carbon - bonds. Furthermore, the partially
hydrogenated wide GNRs have similar electronic and magnetic properties as those
of narrow GNRs. Therefore, it is not necessary to directly produce narrow GNRs
for realistic applications because partial hydrogenation could make wide GNRs
"narrower"
Interior tomographic imaging of mouse heart in a carbon nanotube micro-CT
BACKGROUND: The relatively high radiation dose from micro-CT is a cause for concern in preclinical research involving animal subjects. Interior region-of-interest (ROI) imaging was proposed for dose reduction, but has not been experimentally applied in micro-CT. OBJECTIVE: Our aim is to implement interior ROI imaging in a carbon nanotube (CNT) x-ray source based micro-CT, and present the ROI image quality and radiation dose reduction for interior cardiac micro-CT imaging of a mouse heart in situ. METHODS: An aperture collimator was mounted at the source-side to induce a small-sized cone beam (10 mm width) at the isocenter. Interior in situ micro-CT scans were conducted on a mouse carcass and several micro-CT phantoms. A GPU-accelerated hybrid iterative reconstruction algorithm was employed for volumetric image reconstruction. Radiation dose was measured for the same system operated at the interior and global micro-CT modes. RESULTS: Visual inspection demonstrated comparable image quality between two scan modes. Quantitative evaluation demonstrated high structural similarity index (up to 0.9614) with improved contrast-noise-ratio (CNR) on interior micro-CT mode. Interior micro-CT mode yielded significant reduction (up to 83.9) for dose length product (DLP). CONCLUSIONS: This work demonstrates the applicability of using CNT x-ray source based interior micro-CT for preclinical imaging with significantly reduced radiation dose
Snowballs in Euclid and WFIRST Detectors
Snowballs are transient events observed in HgCdTe detectors with a sudden increase of charge in a few pixels. They appear between consecutive reads of the detector, after which the affected pixels return to their normal behavior. The origin of the snowballs is unknown, but it was speculated that they could be the result of alpha decay of naturally radioactive contaminants in the detectors, but a cosmic ray origin cannot be ruled out. Even though previous studies predicted a low rate of occurrence of these events, and consequently, a minimal impact on science, it is interesting to investigate the cause or causes that may generate snowballs and their impact in detectors designed for future missions. We searched for the presence of snowballs in the dark current data in Euclid and Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) detectors tested in the Detector Characterization Laboratory at Goddard Space Flight Center. Our investigation shows that for Euclid and WFIRST detectors, there are snowballs that appear only one time, and others that repeat in the same spatial localization. For Euclid detectors, there is a correlation between the snowballs that repeat and bad pixels in the operational masks (pixels that do not fulfill the requirements to pass spectroscopy noise, photometry noise, quantum efficiency, and/or linearity). The rate of occurrence for a snowball event is about 0.9 snowballs/hr. in Euclid detectors (for the ones that do not have associated bad pixels in the mask), and about 0.7 snowballs/hr. in PV3 Full Array Lot WFIRST detectors
Optical properties and charge-transfer excitations in edge-functionalized all-graphene nanojunctions
We investigate the optical properties of edge-functionalized graphene
nanosystems, focusing on the formation of junctions and charge transfer
excitons. We consider a class of graphene structures which combine the main
electronic features of graphene with the wide tunability of large polycyclic
aromatic hydrocarbons. By investigating prototypical ribbon-like systems, we
show that, upon convenient choice of functional groups, low energy excitations
with remarkable charge transfer character and large oscillator strength are
obtained. These properties can be further modulated through an appropriate
width variation, thus spanning a wide range in the low-energy region of the
UV-Vis spectra. Our results are relevant in view of designing all-graphene
optoelectronic nanodevices, which take advantage of the versatility of
molecular functionalization, together with the stability and the electronic
properties of graphene nanostructures.Comment: J. Phys. Chem. Lett. (2011), in pres
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