Thermal Conductivity and Specific Heat of the Spin-Ice Compound Dy2_2Ti2_2O7_7: Experimental Evidence for Monopole Heat Transport

Elementary excitations in the spin-ice compound Dy$_2$Ti$_2$O$_7$ can be described as magnetic monopoles propagating independently within the pyrochlore lattice formed by magnetic Dy ions. We studied the magnetic-field dependence of the thermal conductivity {\kappa}(B) for B || [001] and observe clear evidence for magnetic heat transport originating from the monopole excitations. The magnetic contribution {\kappa}_{mag} is strongly field-dependent and correlates with the magnetization M(B). The diffusion coefficient obtained from the ratio of {\kappa}_{mag} and the magnetic specific heat is strongly enhanced below 1 K indicating a high mobility of the monopole excitations in the spin-ice state.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Gibbs' paradox and black-hole entropy

In statistical mechanics Gibbs' paradox is avoided if the particles of a gas are assumed to be indistinguishable. The resulting entropy then agrees with the empirically tested thermodynamic entropy up to a term proportional to the logarithm of the particle number. We discuss here how analogous situations arise in the statistical foundation of black-hole entropy. Depending on the underlying approach to quantum gravity, the fundamental objects to be counted have to be assumed indistinguishable or not in order to arrive at the Bekenstein--Hawking entropy. We also show that the logarithmic corrections to this entropy, including their signs, can be understood along the lines of standard statistical mechanics. We illustrate the general concepts within the area quantization model of Bekenstein and Mukhanov.Comment: Contribution to Mashhoon festschrift, 13 pages, 4 figure

Structural and dynamical properties of liquid Al-Au alloys

We investigate temperature- and composition dependent structural and dynamical p roperties of Al-Au melts. Experiments are performed to obtain accurate density and viscosity data. The system shows a strong negative excess volume, similar to other Al-based binary alloys. We develop a molecular-dynamics (MD) model of the melt based on the embedded-atom method (EAM), gauged against the available experimental liquid-state data. A rescaling of previous EAM potentials for solid-state Au and Al improves the quantitative agreement with experimental data in the melt. In the MD simulation, the admixture of Au to Al can be interpreted as causing a local compression of the less dense Al system, driven by less soft Au--Au interactions. This local compression provides a microscopic mechanism explaining the strong negative excess volume of the melt. We further discuss the conentration dependence of self- and interdiffusion and viscosity in the MD model. Al atoms are more mobile than Au, and their increased mobility is linked to a lower viscosity of the melt