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

Spinor Parallel Propagator and Green's Function in Maximally Symmetric Spaces

We introduce the spinor parallel propagator for maximally symmetric spaces in any dimension. Then, the Dirac spinor Green's functions in the maximally symmetric spaces R^n, S^n and H^n are calculated in terms of intrinsic geometric objects. The results are covariant and coordinate-independent.Comment: 7 page

Dispersive Gap Mode of Phonons in Anisotropic Superconductors

We estimate the effect of the superconducting gap anisotropy in the dispersive gap mode of phonons, which is observed by the neutron scattering on borocarbide superconductors. We numerically analyze the phonon spectrum considering the electron-phonon coupling, and examine contributions coming from the gap suppression and the sign change of the pairing function on the Fermi surface. When the sign of the pairing function is changed by the nesting translation, the gap mode does not appear. We also discuss the suppression of the phonon softening of the Kohn anomaly due to the onset of superconductivity. We demonstrate that observation of the gap dispersive mode is useful for sorting out the underlying superconducting pairing function.Comment: 7 pages, 12 figures, to be published in J. Phys. Soc. Jp

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

A natural renormalizable model of metastable SUSY breaking

We propose a model of metastable dynamical supersymmetry breaking in which all scales are generated dynamically. Our construction is a simple variant of the Intriligator-Seiberg-Shih model, with quark masses induced by renormalizable couplings to an auxiliary supersymmetric QCD sector. Since all scales arise from dimensional transmutation, the model has no fundamental dimensionful parameters. It also does not rely on higher-dimensional operators.Comment: 9 pages; v2: typos correcte

Charge and orbital ordering in underdoped La1-xSrxMnO3

We have explored spin, charge and orbitally ordered states in La1-xSrxMnO3 (0 < x < 1/2) using model Hartree-Fock calculations on d-p-type lattice models. At x=1/8, several charge and orbitally modulated states are found to be stable and almost degenerate in energy with a homogeneous ferromagnetic state. The present calculation indicates that a ferromagnetic state with a charge modulation along the c-axis which is consistent with the experiment by Yamada et al. might be responsible for the anomalous behavior around x = 1/8.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

First-Principles Computation of YVO3; Combining Path-Integral Renormalization Group with Density-Functional Approach

We investigate the electronic structure of the transition-metal oxide YVO3 by a hybrid first-principles scheme. The density-functional theory with the local-density-approximation by using the local muffin-tin orbital basis is applied to derive the whole band structure. The electron degrees of freedom far from the Fermi level are eliminated by a downfolding procedure leaving only the V 3d t2g Wannier band as the low-energy degrees of freedom, for which a low-energy effective model is constructed. This low-energy effective Hamiltonian is solved exactly by the path-integral renormalization group method. It is shown that the ground state has the G-type spin and the C-type orbital ordering in agreement with experimental indications. The indirect charge gap is estimated to be around 0.7 eV, which prominently improves the previous estimates by other conventional methods

Hydrodynamic Equations in Quantum Hall Systems at Large Currents

Hydrodynamic equations (HDEQs) are derived which describe spatio-temporal evolutions of the electron temperature and the chemical potential of two-dimensional systems in strong magnetic fields in states with large diagonal resistivity appearing at the breakdown of the quantum Hall effect. The derivation is based on microscopic electronic processes consisting of drift motions in a slowly-fluctuating potential and scattering processes due to electron-electron and electron-phonon interactions. In contrast with the usual HDEQs, one of the derived HDEQs has a term with an energy flux perpendicular to the electric field due to the drift motions in the magnetic field. As an illustration, the current distribution is calculated using the derived HDEQs.Comment: 10 pages, 2 Postscript figures, to be published in J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. 71 (2002) No.

Thermohydrodynamics in Quantum Hall Systems

A theory of thermohydrodynamics in two-dimensional electron systems in quantizing magnetic fields is developed including a nonlinear transport regime. Spatio-temporal variations of the electron temperature and the chemical potential in the local equilibrium are described by the equations of conservation with the number and thermal-energy flux densities. A model of these flux densities due to hopping and drift processes is introduced for a random potential varying slowly compared to both the magnetic length and the phase coherence length. The flux measured in the standard transport experiment is derived and is used to define a transport component of the flux density. The equations of conservation can be written in terms of the transport component only. As an illustration, the theory is applied to the Ettingshausen effect, in which a one-dimensional spatial variation of the electron temperature is produced perpendicular to the current.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figur