567 research outputs found
Pollen dimorphism and dioecy in Vitis aestivalis
Problems of low production and sterile pollen in varieties of Vitis vinifera may be tracable to their ancestral relations with dioecious wild grapes.Like V. riparia, the wild summer grape V. aestivalis has dimorphic male and female flowers; but unlike V. riparia it also has dimorphic pollen grains with the pollen from the female flower being significantly smaller.It seems fairly certain that V. aestivalis is truly dioecious
Response of the Shockley surface state to an external electrical field: A density-functional theory study of Cu(111)
The response of the Cu(111) Shockley surface state to an external electrical
field is characterized by combining a density-functional theory calculation for
a slab geometry with an analysis of the Kohn-Sham wavefunctions. Our analysis
is facilitated by a decoupling of the Kohn-Sham states via a rotation in
Hilbert space. We find that the surface state displays isotropic dispersion,
quadratic until the Fermi wave vector but with a significant quartic
contribution beyond. We calculate the shift in energetic position and effective
mass of the surface state for an electrical field perpendicular to the Cu(111)
surface; the response is linear over a broad range of field strengths. We find
that charge transfer occurs beyond the outermost copper atoms and that
accumulation of electrons is responsible for a quarter of the screening of the
electrical field. This allows us to provide well-converged determinations of
the field-induced changes in the surface state for a moderate number of layers
in the slab geometry.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures, 4 tables; accepted for publication by Phys. Rev.
B; changes from v1 in response to referee comments, esp. to Sections I and
V.B (inc. Table 4), with many added references, but no change in results or
conclusion
Disorder-induced magnetic memory: Experiments and theories
Beautiful theories of magnetic hysteresis based on random microscopic
disorder have been developed over the past ten years. Our goal was to directly
compare these theories with precise experiments. We first developed and then
applied coherent x-ray speckle metrology to a series of thin multilayer
perpendicular magnetic materials. To directly observe the effects of disorder,
we deliberately introduced increasing degrees of disorder into our films. We
used coherent x-rays to generate highly speckled magnetic scattering patterns.
The apparently random arrangement of the speckles is due to the exact
configuration of the magnetic domains in the sample. In effect, each speckle
pattern acts as a unique fingerprint for the magnetic domain configuration.
Small changes in the domain structure change the speckles, and comparison of
the different speckle patterns provides a quantitative determination of how
much the domain structure has changed. How is the magnetic domain configuration
at one point on the major hysteresis loop related to the configurations at the
same point on the loop during subsequent cycles? The microscopic return-point
memory(RPM) is partial and imperfect in the disordered samples, and completely
absent when the disorder was not present. We found the complementary-point
memory(CPM) is also partial and imperfect in the disordered samples and
completely absent when the disorder was not present. We found that the RPM is
always a little larger than the CPM. We also studied the correlations between
the domains within a single ascending or descending loop. We developed new
theoretical models that do fit our experiments.Comment: 26 pages, 25 figures, Accepted by Physical Review B 01/25/0
Skyrmion fluctuations at a first-order phase transition boundary
Magnetic skyrmions are topologically protected spin textures with promising prospects for applications in data storage. They can form a lattice state due to competing magnetic interactions and are commonly found in a small region of the temperature - magnetic field phase diagram. Recent work has demonstrated that these magnetic quasi-particles fluctuate at the μeV energy scale. Here, we use a coherent x-ray correlation method at an x-ray free-electron laser to investigate these fluctuations in a magnetic phase coexistence region near a first-order transition boundary where fluctuations are not expected to play a major role. Surprisingly, we find that the relaxation of the intermediate scattering function at this transition differs significantly compared to that deep in the skyrmion lattice phase. The observation of a compressed exponential behavior suggests solid-like dynamics, often associated with jamming. We assign this behavior to disorder and the phase coexistence observed in a narrow field-window near the transition, which can cause fluctuations that lead to glassy behavior
Electronic properties and Fermi surface of Ag(111) films deposited onto H-passivated Si(111)-(1x1) surfaces
Silver films were deposited at room temperature onto H-passivated Si(111)
surfaces. Their electronic properties have been analyzed by angle-resolved
photoelectron spectroscopy. Submonolayer films were semiconducting and the
onset of metallization was found at a Ag coverage of 0.6 monolayers. Two
surface states were observed at -point in the metallic films,
with binding energies of 0.1 and 0.35 eV. By measurements of photoelectron
angular distribution at the Fermi level in these films, a cross-sectional cut
of the Fermi surface was obtained. The Fermi vector determined along different
symmetry directions and the photoelectron lifetime of states at the Fermi level
are quite close to those expected for Ag single crystal. In spite of this
concordance, the Fermi surface reflects a sixfold symmetry rather than the
threefold symmetry of Ag single crystal. This behavior was attributed to the
fact that these Ag films are composed by two domains rotated 60.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures, submitted to Physical Review
Floral temperature and optimal foraging: is heat a feasible floral reward for pollinators?
As well as nutritional rewards, some plants also reward ectothermic pollinators with warmth. Bumble bees have some control over their temperature, but have been shown to forage at warmer flowers when given a choice, suggesting that there is some advantage to them of foraging at warm flowers (such as reducing the energy required to raise their body to flight temperature before leaving the flower). We describe a model that considers how a heat reward affects the foraging behaviour in a thermogenic central-place forager (such as a bumble bee). We show that although the pollinator should spend a longer time on individual flowers if they are warm, the increase in total visit time is likely to be small. The pollinator's net rate of energy gain will be increased by landing on warmer flowers. Therefore, if a plant provides a heat reward, it could reduce the amount of nectar it produces, whilst still providing its pollinator with the same net rate of gain. We suggest how heat rewards may link with plant life history strategies
Self-energy of image states on copper surfaces
We report extensive calculations of the imaginary part of the electron
self-energy in the vicinity of the (100) and (111) surfaces of Cu. The
quasiparticle self-energy is computed by going beyond a free-electron
description of the metal surface, either within the GW approximation of
many-body theory or with inclusion, within the GW approximation, of
short-range exchange-correlation effects. Calculations of the decay rate of the
first three image states on Cu(100) and the first image state on Cu(111) are
also reported, and the impact of both band structure and many-body effects on
the electron relaxation process is discussed.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.
Differential Photoelectron Holography: A New Approach for Three-Dimensional Atomic Imaging
We propose differential holography as a method to overcome the long-standing
forward-scattering problem in photoelectron holography and related techniques
for the three-dimensional imaging of atoms. Atomic images reconstructed from
experimental and theoretical Cu 3p holograms from Cu(001) demonstrate that this
method suppresses strong forward-scattering effects so as to yield more
accurate three-dimensional images of side- and back-scattering atoms.Comment: revtex, 4 pages, 2 figure
Photoemission Beyond the Sudden Approximation
The many-body theory of photoemission in solids is reviewed with emphasis on
methods based on response theory. The classification of diagrams into loss and
no-loss diagrams is discussed and related to Keldysh path-ordering
book-keeping. Some new results on energy losses in valence-electron
photoemission from free-electron-like metal surfaces are presented. A way to
group diagrams is presented in which spectral intensities acquire a
Golden-Rule-like form which guarantees positiveness. This way of regrouping
should be useful also in other problems involving spectral intensities, such as
the problem of improving the one-electron spectral function away from the
quasiparticle peak.Comment: 18 pages, 11 figure
- …