2,718 research outputs found
Topological analysis of polymeric melts: Chain length effects and fast-converging estimators for entanglement length
Primitive path analyses of entanglements are performed over a wide range of
chain lengths for both bead spring and atomistic polyethylene polymer melts.
Estimators for the entanglement length N_e which operate on results for a
single chain length N are shown to produce systematic O(1/N) errors. The
mathematical roots of these errors are identified as (a) treating chain ends as
entanglements and (b) neglecting non-Gaussian corrections to chain and
primitive path dimensions. The prefactors for the O(1/N) errors may be large;
in general their magnitude depends both on the polymer model and the method
used to obtain primitive paths. We propose, derive and test new estimators
which eliminate these systematic errors using information obtainable from the
variation of entanglement characteristics with chain length. The new estimators
produce accurate results for N_e from marginally entangled systems. Formulas
based on direct enumeration of entanglements appear to converge faster and are
simpler to apply.Comment: Major revisions. Developed near-ideal estimators which operate on
multiple chain lengths. Now test these on two very different model polymers
Understanding and engineering phonon-mediated tunneling into graphene on metal surfaces
Metal-intercalated graphene on Ir(111) exhibits phonon signatures in
inelastic elec- tron tunneling spectroscopy with strengths that depend on the
intercalant. Extraor- dinarily strong graphene phonon signals are observed for
Cs intercalation. Li interca- lation likewise induces clearly discriminable
phonon signatures, albeit less pronounced than observed for Cs. The signal can
be finely tuned by the alkali metal coverage and gradually disappears upon
increasing the junction conductance from tunneling to con- tact ranges. In
contrast to Cs and Li, for Ni-intercalated graphene the phonon signals stay
below the detection limit in all transport ranges. Going beyond the
conventional two-terminal approach, transport calculations provide a
comprehensive understanding of the subtle interplay between the
graphene{electrode coupling and the observation of graphene phonon
spectroscopic signatures
Two and three-dimensional visual articulatory models for pronunciation training and for treatment of speech disorders
Visual articulatory models can be used for visualizing vocal tract articulatory speech movements. This information may be helpful in pronunciation training or in therapy of speech disorders. For testing this hypothesis, speech recognition rates were quantified for mute animations of vocalic and consonantal speech movements generated by a 2D and a 3D visual articulatory model. The visually based speech sound recognition test (mimicry test) was performed by two groups of eight children (five to eight years old) matched in age and sex. The children were asked to mimic the visually produced mute speech movement animations for different speech sounds. Recognition rates stay significantly above chance but indicate no significant difference for each of the two models. Children older than 5 years are capable of interpreting vocal tract articulatory speech sound movements without any preparatory training in a speech adequate way. The complex 3D-display of vocal tract articulatory movements provides no significant advantage in comparison to the visually simpler 2D-midsagittal displays of vocal tract articulatory movements
Kondo effect of a Co atom on Cu(111) in contact with an Fe tip
Single Co atoms, which exhibit a Kondo effect on Cu(111), are contacted with
Cu and Fe tips in a low-temperature scanning tunneling microscope. With Fe
tips, the Kondo effect persists with the Abrikosov-Suhl resonance significantly
broadened. In contrast, for Cu-covered W tips, the resonance width remains
almost constant throughout the tunneling and contact ranges. The distinct
changes of the line width are interpreted in terms of modifications of the Co d
state occupation owing to hybridization with the tip apex atoms.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Quantized Conductance of a Single Magnetic Atom
A single Co atom adsorbed on Cu(111) or on ferromagnetic Co islands is
contacted with non-magnetic W or ferromagnetic Ni tips in a scanning tunneling
microscope. When the Co atom bridges two non-magnetic electrodes conductances
of 2e^2/h are found. With two ferromagnetic electrodes a conductance of e^2/h
is observed which may indicate fully spin-polarized transport.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figure
Theoretical analysis of STM-derived lifetimes of excitations in the Shockley surface state band of Ag(111)
We present a quantitative many-body analysis using the GW approximation of
the decay rate due to electron-electron scattering of excitations in
the Shockley surface state band of Ag(111), as measured using the scanning
tunnelling microscope (STM). The calculations include the perturbing influence
of the STM, which causes a Stark-shift of the surface state energy and
concomitant increase in . We find varies more rapidly with
than recently found for image potential states, where the STM has been shown to
significantly affect measured lifetimes. For the Shockley states, the
Stark-shifts that occur under normal tunnelling conditions are relatively small
and previous STM-derived lifetimes need not be corrected.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Sensitivity of ENSO characteristics to a new interactive flux correction scheme in a coupled GCM
A fast coupled global climate model (CGCM) is used to study the sensitivity of El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) characteristics to a new interactive flux correction scheme. With no flux correction applied our CGCM reveals typical bias in the background state: for instance, the cold tongue in the tropical east Pacific becomes too cold, thus degrading atmospheric sensitivity to variations of sea surface temperature (SST). Sufficient atmospheric sensitivity is essential to ENSO. Our adjustment scheme aims to sustain atmospheric sensitivity by counteracting the SST drift in the model. With reduced bias in the forcing of the atmosphere, the CGCM displays ENSO-type variability that otherwise is absent. The adjustment approach employs a one-way anomaly coupling from the ocean to the atmosphere: heat fluxes seen by the ocean are based on full SST, while heat fluxes seen by the atmosphere are based on anomalies of SST. The latter requires knowledge of the model's climatological SST field, which is accumulated interactively in the spin-up phase ("training"). Applying the flux correction already during the training period (by utilizing the evolving SST climatology) is necessary for efficiently reducing the bias. The combination of corrected fluxes seen by the atmosphere and uncorrected fluxes seen by the ocean implies a restoring mechanism that counteracts the bias and allows for long stable integrations in our CGCM. A suite of sensitivity runs with varying training periods is utilized to study the effect of different levels of bias in the background state on important ENSO properties. Increased duration of training amplifies the coupled sensitivity in our model and leads to stronger amplitudes and longer periods of the Nino3. 4 index, increased emphasis of warm events that is reflected in enhanced skewness, and more pronounced teleconnections in the Pacific. Furthermore, with longer training durations we observe a mode switch of ENSO in our model that closely resembles the observed mode switch related to the mid-1970s "climate shift". © 2010 The Author(s)
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