Field dependent effective masses in YbAl3_{3}

We show for the intermediate valence compound YbAl$_{3}$ that the high field (40 $\lesssim B \lesssim$ 60T) effective masses measured by the de Haas-van Alphen experiment for field along the $$ direction are smaller by approximately a factor of two than the low field masses. The field $B^{*} \sim$ 40T for this reduction is much smaller than the Kondo field $B_{K} \sim k_{B}T_{K}/\mu_{B}$ ($T_{K}\sim$ 670K) but is comparable to the field $k_{B}T_{coh}/\mu_{B}$ where $T_{coh}\sim$ 40K is the temperature for the onset of Fermi liquid coherence. This suggests that the field scale $B^{*}$ does not arise from 4$f$ polarization but is connected with the removal of the anomalies that are known to occur in the Fermi liquid state of this compound.Comment: 7 pages plus 3 figures Submitted to PRL 9/12/0

Measurements of complex permittivity of microwave substrates in the 20 to 300 K temperature range from 26.5 to 40.0 GHz

A knowledge of the dielectric properties of microwave substrates at low temperatures is useful in the design of superconducting microwave circuits. Results are reported for a study of the complex permittivity of sapphire (Al2O3), magnesium oxide (MgO), silicon oxide (SiO2), lanthanum aluminate (LaAlO3), and zirconium oxide (ZrO2), in the 20 to 300 Kelvin temperature range, at frequencies from 26.5 to 40.0 GHz. The values of the real and imaginary parts of the complex permittivity were obtained from the scattering parameters, which were measured using a HP-8510 automatic network analyzer. For these measurements, the samples were mounted on the cold head of a helium gas closed cycle refrigerator, in a specially designed vacuum chamber. An arrangement of wave guides, with mica windows, was used to connect the cooling system to the network analyzer. A decrease in the value of the real part of the complex permittivity of these substrates, with decreasing temperature, was observed. For MgO and Al2O3, the decrease from room temperature to 20 K was of 7 and 15 percent, respectively. For LaAlO3, it decreased by 14 percent, for ZrO2 by 15 percent, and for SiO2 by 2 percent, in the above mentioned temperature range

Pseudogap Formation and Heavy Carrier Dynamics in Intermediate Valence YbAl3

Infrared optical conductivity [$\sigma(\omega)$] of the intermediate valence compound YbAl$_3$ has been measured at temperatures 8 K $\leq T \leq$ 690 K to study its microscopic electronic structures. Despite the highly metallic characters of YbAl$_3$, $\sigma(\omega)$ exhibits a clear pseudogap (strong depletion of spectral weight) of about 60 meV below 40 K. It also shows a strong mid-infrared peak centered at $\sim$ 0.25 eV. Energy-dependent effective mass and scattering rate of the carriers obtained from the data indicate the formation of a heavy-mass Fermi liquid state. These characteristic results are discussed in terms of the hybridization states between the Yb 4$f$ and the conduction electrons. It is argued, in particular, that the pseudogap and the mid-infrared peak result from the indirect and the direct gaps, respectively, within the hybridization state. band.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, submitted to J. Phys. Soc. Jp

Basaltic Clasts in Y-86032 Feldspathic Lunar Meteorite: Ancient Volcanism far from the Procellarum Kreep Terrane

Lunar meteorite, Y-86032 is a fragmental or regolith breccia enriched in Al2O3 (28-31 wt%) and having very low concentrations of REEs and Th, U [e.g., 1]. Nyquist et al. [2] suggested that Y- 86032 contains a variety of lithologies not represented by the Apollo samples. They found clasts with old Ar-Ar ages and an ancient Sm-Nd age, and negative Nd indicating a direct link to the primordial magma ocean. Importantly, the final lithification of the Y-86032 breccia was likely >3.8-4.1 Ga ago. Therefore, any lithic components in the breccia formed prior to 3.8 Ga, and lithic components in breccia clasts in the parent breccia formed even earlier. Here we report textures and mineralogy of basaltic and gabbroic clasts in Y- 86032 to better understand the nature of ancient lunar volcanism far from the Procellarum KREEP Terrain (PKT) [3] and the central nearside

Absence of Hybridization Gap in Heavy Electron Systems and Analysis of YbAl3 in terms of Nearly Free Electron Conduction Band

In the analysis of the heavy electron systems, theoretical models with c-f hybridization gap are often used. We point out that such a gap does not exist and the simple picture with the hybridization gap is misleading in the metallic systems, and present a correct picture by explicitly constructing an effective band model of YbAl_3. Hamiltonian consists of a nearly free electron model for conduction bands which hybridize with localized f-electrons, and includes only a few parameters. Density of states, Sommerfeld coefficient, f-electron number and optical conductivity are calculated and compared with the band calculations and the experiments.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figures, submitted to J. Phys. Soc. Jp

Microwave conductivity of laser ablated YBa2Cu3O(7-delta) superconducting films and its relation to microstrip transmission line performance

The discovery of high temperature superconductor oxides has raised the possibility of a new class of millimeter and microwave devices operating at temperatures considerably higher than liquid helium temperatures. Therefore, materials properties such as conductivity, current density, and sheet resistance as a function of temperature and frequency, possible anisotropies, moisture absorption, thermal expansion, and others, have to be well characterized and understood. The millimeter wave response of laser ablated YBa2Cu3O(7-delta)/LaAlO3 thin films was studied as a function of temperature and frequency. In particular, the evaluation of their microwave conductivity was emphasized, since knowledge of this parameter provides a basis for the derivation of other relevant properties of these superconducting oxides, and for using them in the fabrication of actual passive circuits. The microwave conductivity for these films was measured at frequencies from 26.5 to 40.0 GHz, in the temperature range from 20 to 300 K. The values of the conductivity are obtained from the millimeter wave power transmitted through the films, using a two fluid model

Phase structure of the Higgs-Yukawa systems with chirally invariant lattice fermion actions

We develop analytical technique for examining phase structure of $Z_2$, $U(1)$, and $SU(2)$ lattice Higgs-Yukawa systems with radially frozen Higgs fields and chirally invariant lattice fermion actions. The method is based on variational mean field approximation. We analyse phase diagrams of such systems with different forms of lattice fermion actions and demonstrate that it crucially depends both on the symmetry group and on the form of the action. We discuss location in the diagrams of possible non-trivial fixed points relevant to continuum physics, and argue that the candidates can exist only in $Z_2$ system with SLAC action and $U(1)$ systems with naive and SLAC actions. [Note: By a product, missing term in Eq. (3.5) of hep-lat/9309010 is reconstructed, that, however, affects only the result of Sect. 4.3 (Fig. 3) of that reference (cf. Fig. 2(c) of this paper).]Comment: KEK-TH-390, KYUSHU-HET-17, 34 pages (harvmac) including 17 figures (appended in postscript format with uuencoded tar file).(PostScript Files are fixed.

Two energy scales and slow crossover in YbAl3

Experimental results for the susceptibility, specific heat, 4f occupation number, Hall effect and magnetoresistance for single crystals of YbAl$_{3}$ show that, in addition to the Kondo energy scale $k_{B}T_{K}$ $$ 670K, there is a low temperature scale $T_{coh}<50$K for the onset of coherence. Furthermore the crossover from the low temperature Fermi liquid regime to the high temperature local moment regime is slower than predicted by the Anderson impurity model. These effects may reflect the behavior of the Anderson Lattice in the limit of low conduction electron density.Comment: Ten pages, including three figure

Void structure of O⁺ ions in the inner magnetosphere observed by the Van Allen Probes

The Van Allen Probes Helium Oxygen Proton Electron instrument observed a new type of enhancement of O⁺ ions in the inner magnetosphere during substorms. As the satellite moved outward in the premidnight sector, the flux of the O⁺ ions with energy ~10 keV appeared first in the energy-time spectrograms. Then, the enhancement of the flux spread toward high and low energies. The enhanced flux of the O⁺ ions with the highest energy remained, whereas the flux of the ions with lower energy vanished near apogee, forming what we call the void structure. The structure cannot be found in the H⁺ spectrogram. We studied the generation mechanism of this structure by using numerical simulation. We traced the trajectories of O⁺ ions in the electric and magnetic fields from the global magnetohydrodynamics simulation and calculated the flux of O⁺ ions in the inner magnetosphere in accordance with the Liouville theorem. The simulated spectrograms are well consistent with the ones observed by Van Allen Probes. We suggest the following processes. (1) When magnetic reconnection starts, an intensive equatorward and tailward plasma flow appears in the plasma lobe. (2) The flow transports plasma from the lobe to the plasma sheet where the radius of curvature of the magnetic field line is small. (3) The intensive dawn-dusk electric field transports the O⁺ ions earthward and accelerates them nonadiabatically to an energy threshold; (4) the void structure appears at energies below the threshold