From bell shapes to pyramids . continuum model for self-assembled quantum dot growth

A continuum model for the growth of self-assembled quantum dots that incorporates surface diffusion, an elastically deformable substrate, wetting interactions and anisotropic surface energy is presented. Using a small slope approximation a thin film equation for the surface profile that describes facetted growth is derived. A linear stability analysis shows that anisotropy acts to destabilize the surface. It lowers the critical height of flat films and there exists an anisotropy strength above which all thicknesses are unstable. A numerical algorithm based on spectral differentiation is presented and simulation are carried out. These clearly show faceting of the growing islands and a logarithmically slow coarsening behavior

On a higher order convective Cahn--Hilliard type equation

A convective Cahn-Hilliard type equation of sixth order that describes the faceting of a growing surface is considered with periodic boundary conditions. By using a Galerkin approach the existence of weak solutions to this sixth order partial differential equation is established in $L^2(0,T; \dot H^3_{per})$. Furthermore stronger regularity results have been derived and these are used to prove uniqueness of the solutions. Additionally a numerical study shows that solutions behave similarly as for the better known convective Cahn-Hilliard equation. The transition from coarsening to roughening is analyzed, indicating that the characteristic length scale decreases logarithmically with increasing deposition rate

From bell shapes to pyramids: A continuum model for self-assembled quantum dot growth

A continuum model for the growth of self-assembled quantum dots that incorporates surface diffusion, an elastically deformable substrate, wetting interactions and anisotropic surface energy is presented. Using a small slope approximation a thin film equation for the surface profile that describes facetted growth is derived. A linear stability analysis shows that anisotropy acts to destabilize the surface. It lowers the critical height of flat films and there exists an anisotropy strength above which all thicknesses are unstable. A numerical algorithm based on spectral differentiation is presented and simulation are carried out. These clearly show faceting of the growing islands and a logarithmically slow coarsening behavior

Global weak solutions to a sixth order Cahn--Hilliard type equation

In this paper we study a sixth order Cahn-Hilliard type equation that arises as a model for the faceting of a growing surface. We show global in time existence of weak solutions and uniform in time a priori estimates in the H^3 norm. These bounds enable us to show the uniqueness of weak solutions

Stability analysis of non-constant base states in thin film equations

We address the linear stability of non-constant base states within the class of mass conserving free boundary problems for degenerate and non-degenerate thin film equations. Well-known examples are the finger-instabilities of growing rims that appear in retracting thin solid and liquid films. Since the base states are time dependent and do not have a simple travelling wave or self-similar form, a classical eigenvalue analysis fails to provide the dominant wavelength of the instability. However, the initial fronts evolve on a slower time-scale than the typical perturbations. We exploit this time-scale separation and develop a multiple-scale approach for this class of stability problems. We show that the value of the dominant wavelength is rapidly attained once the base state has entered an approximately self-similar scaling. We note that this value is different from the one obtained by the linear stability analysis with "frozen modes", frequently found in the literature. Furthermore we show that for the present class of stability problems the dispersion relation behaves linear for large wavelengths, which is in contrast to many other instability problems in thin film flows

Stability analysis of non-constant base states in thin film equations

We address the linear stability of non-constant base states within the class of mass conserving free boundary problems for degenerate and non-degenerate thin film equations. Well-known examples are the finger-instabilities of growing rims that appear in retracting thin solid and liquid films. Since the base states are time dependent and do not have a simple travelling wave or self-similar form, a classical eigenvalue analysis fails to provide the dominant wavelength of the instability. However, the initial fronts evolve on a slower time-scale than the typical perturbations. We exploit this time-scale separation and develop a multiple-scale approach for this class of stability problems. We show that the value of the dominant wavelength is rapidly attained once the base state has entered an approximately self-similar scaling. We note that this value is different from the one obtained by the linear stability analysis with "frozen modes", frequently found in the literature. Furthermore we show that for the present class of stability problems the dispersion relation behaves linear for large wavelengths, which is in contrast to many other instability problems in thin film flows

Anisotropy in wavelet based phase field models

Anisotropy is an essential feature of phase-field models, in particular when describing the evolution of microstructures in solids. The symmetries of the crystalline phases are reflected in the interfacial energy by introducing corresponding directional dependencies in the gradient energy coefficients, which multiply the highest order derivative in the phase-field model. This paper instead considers an alternative approach, where the anisotropic gradient energy terms are replaced by a wavelet analogue that is intrinsically anisotropic and linear. In our studies we focus on the classical coupled temperature - Ginzburg-Landau type phase-field model for dendritic growth. For the resulting derivative-free wavelet analogue existence, uniqueness and continuous dependence on initial data for weak solutions is proved. The ability to capture dendritic growth similar to the results obtained from classical models is investigated numerically

Renormalization constants of local operators for Wilson type improved fermions

Perturbative and non-perturbative results are presented on the renormalization constants of the quark field and the vector, axial-vector, pseudoscalar, scalar and tensor currents. The perturbative computation, carried out at one-loop level and up to second order in the lattice spacing, is performed for a fermion action, which includes the clover term and the twisted mass parameter yielding results that are applicable for unimproved Wilson fermions, as well as for improved clover and twisted mass fermions. We consider ten variants of the Symanzik improved gauge action corresponding to ten different values of the plaquette coefficients. Non-perturbative results are obtained using the twisted mass Wilson fermion formulation employing two degenerate dynamical quarks and the tree-level Symanzik improved gluon action. The simulations are performed for pion masses in the range of 480 MeV to 260 MeV and at three values of the lattice spacing, a, corresponding to beta=3.9, 4.05, 4.20. For each renormalization factor computed non-perturbatively we subtract its perturbative O(a^2) terms so that we eliminate part of the cut-off artifacts. The renormalization constants are converted to MS-bar at a scale of mu=2 GeV. The perturbative results depend on a large number of parameters and are made easily accessible to the reader by including them in the distribution package of this paper, as a Mathematica input file.Comment: 36 pages, 11 figures and 6 tables. The results are included in electronic form (Mathematica files

Stationary solutions of driven fourth- and sixth-order Cahn-Hilliard type equations

New types of stationary solutions of a one-dimensional driven sixth-order Cahn-Hilliard type equation that arises as a model for epitaxially growing nano-structures such as quantum dots, are derived by an extension of the method of matched asymptotic expansions that retains exponentially small terms. This method yields analytical expressions for far-field behavior as well as the widths of the humps of these spatially non-monotone solutions in the limit of small driving force strength which is the deposition rate in case of epitaxial growth. These solutions extend the family of the monotone kink and antikink solutions. The hump spacing is related to solutions of the Lambert $W$ function. Using phase space analysis for the corresponding fifth-order dynamical system, we use a numerical technique that enables the efficient and accurate tracking of the solution branches, where the asymptotic solutions are used as initial input. Additionally, our approach is first demonstrated for the related but simpler driven fourth-order Cahn-Hilliard equation, also known as the convective Cahn-Hilliard equation

The low-lying baryon spectrum with two dynamical twisted mass fermions

The masses of the low lying baryons are evaluated using two degenerate flavors of twisted mass sea quarks corresponding to pseudo scalar masses in the range of about 270-500 MeV. The strange valence quark mass is tuned to reproduce the mass of the kaon in the physical limit. The tree-level Symanzik improved gauge action is employed. We use lattices of spatial size 2.1 fm and 2.7 fm at two values of the lattice spacing with $r_0/a=5.22(2)$ and $r_0/a=6.61(3)$. We check for both finite volume and cut-off effects on the baryon masses. We performed a detailed study of the chiral extrapolation of the octet and decuplet masses using SU(2) $\chi$PT. The lattice spacings determined using the nucleon mass at the physical point are consistent with the values extracted using the pion decay constant. We examine the issue of isospin symmetry breaking for the octet and decuplet baryons and its dependence on the lattice spacing. We show that in the continuum limit isospin breaking is consistent with zero, as expected. The baryon masses that we find after taking the continuum limit and extrapolating to the physical limit are in good agreement with experiment.Comment: By the ETM Collaboration, 24 pages, 24 figure