Hopping and clustering of oxygen vacancies in SrTiO3 by anelastic relaxation

The complex elastic compliance s11(w,T) of SrTiO3-d has been measured as a function of the O deficiency d < 0.01. The two main relaxation peaks in the absorption are identified with hopping of isolated O vacancies over a barrier of 0.60 eV and reorientation of pairs of vacancies involving a barrier of 1 eV. The pair binding energy is ~0.2 eV and indications for additional clustering, possibly into chains, is found already at d ~0.004. The anistropic component of the elastic dipole of an O vacancy is Deltalambda = 0.026.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. Let

Supersolid phases of dipolar bosons in optical lattices with a staggered flux

We present the theoretical mean-field zero-temperature phase diagram of a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) with dipolar interactions loaded into an optical lattice with a staggered flux. Apart from uniform superfluid, checkerboard supersolid and striped supersolid phases, we identify several supersolid phases with staggered vortices, which can be seen as combinations of supersolid phases found in earlier work on dipolar BECs and a staggered-vortex phase found for bosons in optical lattices with staggered flux. By allowing for different phases and densities on each of the four sites of the elementary plaquette, more complex phase patterns are found.Comment: 11 pages; added references, minor changes in tex

Heavy Fermion Quantum Criticality

During the last few years, investigations of Rare-Earth materials have made clear that not only the heavy fermion phase in these systems provides interesting physics, but the quantum criticality where such a phase dies exhibits novel phase transition physics not fully understood. Moreover, attempts to study the critical point numerically face the infamous fermion sign problem, which limits their accuracy. Effective action techniques and Callan-Symanzik equations have been very popular in high energy physics, where they enjoy a good record of success. Yet, they have been little exploited for fermionic systems in condensed matter physics. In this work, we apply the RG effective action and Callan-Symanzik techiques to the heavy fermion problem. We write for the first time the effective action describing the low energy physics of the system. The f-fermions are replaced by a dynamical scalar field whose nonzero expected value corresponds to the heavy fermion phase. This removes the fermion sign problem, making the effective action amenable to numerical studies as the effective theory is bosonic. Renormalization group studies of the effective action can be performed to extract approximations to nonperturbative effects at the transition. By performing one-loop renormalizations, resummed via Callan-Symanzik methods, we describe the heavy fermion criticality and predict the heavy fermion critical dynamical susceptibility and critical specific heat. The specific heat coefficient exponent we obtain (0.39) is in excellent agreement with the experimental result at low temperatures (0.4).Comment: 5 pages. In the replacement, the numerical value for the specific heat coefficient exponent has been included explicitly in decimal form, and has been compared with the experimental result

Unidimensional model of the ad-atom diffusion on a substrate submitted to a standing acoustic wave I. Derivation of the ad-atom motion equation

The effect of a standing acoustic wave on the diffusion of an ad-atom on a crystalline surface is theoretically studied. We used an unidimensional space model to study the ad-atom+substrate system. The dynamic equation of the ad-atom, a Generalized Langevin equation, is analytically derived from the full Hamiltonian of the ad-atom+substrate system submitted to the acoustic wave. A detailed analysis of each term of this equation, as well as of their properties, is presented. Special attention is devoted to the expression of the effective force induced by the wave on the ad-atom. It has essentially the same spatial and time dependences as its parent standing acoustic wave

Hexagonal spiral growth in the absence of a substrate

Experiments on the formation of spiraling hexagons (350 - 1000 nm in width) from a solution of nanoparticles are presented. Transmission electron microscopy images of the reaction products of chemically synthesized cadmium nanocrystals indicate that the birth of the hexagons proceeds without assistance from static screw or edge dislocatons, that is, they spiral without constraints provided by an underlying substrate. Instead, the apparent growth mechanism relies on what we believe is a dynamical dislocation identified as a dense aggregate of small nanocrystals that straddles the spiraling hexagon at the crystal surface. This nanocrystal bundle, which we term the "feeder", also appears to release nanocrystals into the spiral during the growth process.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Formation and Stability of Cellular Carbon Foam Structures:An {\em Ab Initio} Study

We use ab initio density functional calculations to study the formation and structural as well as thermal stability of cellular foam-like carbon nanostructures. These systems with a mixed $sp^2/sp^3$ bonding character may be viewed as bundles of carbon nanotubes fused to a rigid contiguous 3D honeycomb structure that can be compressed more easily by reducing the symmetry of the honeycombs. The foam may accommodate the same type of defects as graphene, and its surface may be be stabilized by terminating caps. We postulate that the foam may form under non-equilibrium conditions near grain boundaries of a carbon-saturated metal surface

Kondo Quantum Dots and the Novel Kondo-doublet interaction

We analyze the interactions between two Kondo Quantum Dots connected to a Rashba-active Quantum Wire. We find that the Kondo-doublet interaction, at an inter-dot distance of the order of the wire Fermi length, is over an order of magnitude greater than the RKKY interaction. The effects induced on the Kondo-doublet interaction by the wire spin-orbit coupling can be used to control the Quantum Dots spin-spin correlation. These results imply that the widely used assumption that the RKKY is the dominant interaction between Anderson impurities must be revised.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figs, accepted for publication in PRL. title changed and text polishe

Current-spin coupling for ferromagnetic domain walls in fine wires

The coupling between a current and a domain wall is examined. In the presence of a finite current and the absence of a potential which breaks the translational symmetry, there is a perfect transfer of angular momentum from the conduction electrons to the wall. As a result, the ground state is in uniform motion. This remains the case when relaxation is accounted for. This is described by, appropriately modified, Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equations.Comment: 4 pqges, no figure

Mirages and enhanced magnetic interactions in quantum corrals

We develop a theory for the interactions between magnetic impurities in nanoscopic systems. The case of impurities in quantum corrals built on the (111) Cu surface is analyzed in detail. For elliptical corrals with one impurity, clear magnetic mirages are obtained. This leads to an enhancement of the inter-impurity interactions when two impurities are placed at special points in the corral. We discuss the enhancement of the conduction electron response to the local perturbation in other nanoscopic systems.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure

Renormalization of the spin-wave spectrum in three-dimentional ferromagnets with dipolar interaction

Renormalization of the spin-wave spectrum is discussed in a cubic ferromagnet with dipolar forces at $T_C\gg T\ge0$. First 1/S-corrections are considered in detail to the bare spectrum $\epsilon_{\bf k} = \sqrt{Dk^2 (Dk^2 + S\omega_0\sin^2\theta_{\bf k})}$, where $D$ is the spin-wave stiffness, $\theta_{\bf k}$ is the angle between $\bf k$ and the magnetization and $\omega_0$ is the characteristic dipolar energy. In accordance with previous results we obtain the thermal renormalization of constants $D$ and $\omega_0$ in the expression for the bare spectrum. Besides, a number of previously unknown features are revealed. We observe terms which depend on azimuthal angle of the momentum $\bf k$. It is obtained an isotropic term proportional to $k$ which makes the spectrum linear rather than quadratic when $\sin\theta_{\bf k}=0$ and $k \ll \omega_0/D$. In particular a spin-wave gap proportional to $\sin\theta_{\bf k}$ is observed. Essentially, thermal contribution from the Hartree-Fock diagram to the isotropic correction as well as to the spin-wave gap are proportional to the demagnetizing factor in the direction of domain magnetization. This nontrivial behavior is attributed to the long-range nature of the dipolar interaction. It is shown that the gap screens infrared singularities of the first 1/S-corrections to the spin-wave stiffness and longitudinal dynamical spin susceptibility (LDSS) obtained before. We demonstrate that higher order 1/S-corrections to these quantities are small at $T\ll\omega_0$. However the analysis of the entire perturbation series is still required to derive the spectrum and LDSS when $T\gg\omega_0$.Comment: 11 pages, 1 figur