Efficiency and spectrum of internal gamma-ray burst shocks

We present an analysis of the Internal Shock Model of GRBs, where gamma-rays are produced by internal shocks within a relativistic wind. We show that observed GRB characteristics impose stringent constraints on wind and source parameters. We find that a significant fraction, of order 20 %, of the wind kinetic energy can be converted to radiation, provided the distribution of Lorentz factors within the wind has a large variance and provided the minimum Lorentz factor is higher than 10^(2.5)L_(52)^(2/9), where L=10^(52)L_(52)erg/s is the wind luminosity. For a high, >10 %, efficiency wind, spectral energy breaks in the 0.1 to 1 MeV range are obtained for sources with dynamical time R/c < 1 ms, suggesting a possible explanation for the observed clustering of spectral break energies in this range. The lower limit to wind Lorenz factor and the upper limit, around (R/10^7 cm)^(-5/6) MeV to observed break energies are set by Thomson optical depth due to electron positron pairs produced by synchrotron photons. Natural consequences of the model are absence of bursts with peak emission energy significantly exceeding 1 MeV, and existence of low luminosity bursts with low, 1 keV to 10 keV, break energies.Comment: 10 pages, 5 ps-figures. Expanded discussion of magnetic field and electron energy fraction. Accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journa

Comment on "Effects of spatial dispersion on electromagnetic surface modes and on modes associated with a gap between two half spaces"

Recently Bo E. Sernelius [Phys. Rev. B {\bf 71}, 235114 (2005)] investigated the effects of spatial dispersion on the thermal Casimir force between two metal half spaces. He claims that incorporating spatial dispersion results in a negligible contribution from the transverse electric mode at zero frequency as compared to the transverse magnetic mode. We demonstrate that this conclusion is not reliable because, when applied to the Casimir effect, the approximate description of spatial dispersion used is unjustified.Comment: 9 pages, minor corrections in accordance with the journal publication have been mad

Paramagnetic anisotropic magnetoresistance in thin films of SrRuO3

SrRuO3 is an itinerant ferromagnet and in its thin film form when grown on miscut SrTiO3 it has Tc of ~ 150 K and strong uniaxial anisotropy. We measured both the Hall effect and the magnetoresistance (MR) of the films as a function of the angle between the applied field and the normal to the films at temperatures above Tc. We extracted the extraordinary Hall effect that is proportional to the perpendicular component of the magnetization and thus the MR for each angle of the applied field could be correlated with the magnitude and orientation of the induced magnetization. We successfully fit the MR data with a second order magnetization expansion, which indicates large anisotropic MR in the paramagnetic state. The extremum values of resistivity are not obtained for currents parallel or perpendicular to the magnetization, probably due to the crystal symmetry.Comment: 3 pages, 3 figure

Deviations from Matthiessen's Rule for SrRuO3{\rm SrRuO_3} and CaRuO3{\rm CaRuO_3}

We have measured the change in the resistivity of thin films of ${\rm SrRuO_3}$ and ${\rm CaRuO_3}$ upon introducing point defects by electron irradiation at low temperatures, and we find significant deviations from Matthiessen's rule. For a fixed irradiation dose, the induced change in resistivity {\it decreases} with increasing temperature. Moreover, for a fixed temperature, the increase in resistivity with irradiation is found to be {\it sublinear}. We suggest that the observed behavior is due to the marked anisotropic scattering of the electrons together with their relatively short mean free path (both characteristic of many metallic oxides including cuprates) which amplify effects related to the Pippard ineffectiveness condition

Vibrational Enhancement of the Effective Donor - Acceptor Coupling

The paper deals with a simple three sites model for charge transfer phenomena in an one-dimensional donor (D) - bridge (B) - acceptor (A) system coupled with vibrational dynamics of the B site. It is found that in a certain range of parameters the vibrational coupling leads to an enhancement of the effective donor - acceptor electronic coupling as a result of the formation of the polaron on the B site. This enhancement of the charge transfer efficiency is maximum at the resonance, where the effective energy of the fluctuating B site coincides with the donor (acceptor) energy.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Surface Screening in the Casimir Force

We calculate the corrections to the Casimir force between two metals due to the spatial dispersion of their response functions. We employ model-independent expressions for the force in terms of the optical coefficients. We express the non-local corrections to the Fresnel coefficients employing the surface $d_\perp$ parameter, which accounts for the distribution of the surface screening charge. Within a self-consistent jellium calculation, spatial dispersion increases the Casimir force significatively for small separations. The nonlocal correction has the opposite sign than previously predicted employing hydrodynamic models and assuming abruptly terminated surfaces.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure

Polyakov Loops in Strongly-Coupled Plasmas with Gravity Duals

We study the properties of the Polyakov loop in strongly-coupled gauge plasmas that are conjectured to be dual to five dimensional theories of gravity coupled to a nontrivial single scalar field. We find a gravity dual that can describe the thermodynamic properties and also the expectation value of the Polyakov loop in the deconfined phase of quenched SU(3) QCD up to $3T_c$.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, talk presented at the International Conference on Strangeness in Quark Matter, Buzios, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sept. 27 - oct. 2, 200

Dynamic Fluctuation Phenomena in Double Membrane Films

Dynamics of double membrane films is investigated in the long-wavelength limit including the overdamped squeezing mode. We demonstrate that thermal fluctuations essentially modify the character of the mode due to its nonlinear coupling to the transversal shear hydrodynamic mode. The corresponding Green function acquires as a function of the frequency a cut along the imaginary semi-axis. Fluctuations lead to increasing the attenuation of the squeezing mode it becomes larger than the `bare' value.Comment: 7 pages, Revte

Sound modes broadening for Fibonacci one dimensional quasicrystals

We investigate vibrational excitation broadening in one dimensional Fibonacci model of quasicrystals (QCs). The chain is constructed from particles with two masses following the Fibonacci inflation rule. The eigenmode spectrum depends crucially on the mass ratio. We calculate the eigenstates and eigenfunctions. All calculations performed self-consistently within the regular expansion over the three wave coupling constant. The approach can be extended to three dimensional systems. We find that in the intermediate range of mode coupling constants, three-wave broadening for the both types of systems (1D Fibonacci and 3D QCs) depends universally on frequency. Our general qualitative conclusion is that for a system with a non-simple elementary cell phonon spectrum broadening is always larger than for a system with a primitive cell (provided all other characteristics are the same).Comment: 2o pages, 15 figure