Nonlinear compensation techniques for magnetic suspension systems

In aerospace applications, magnetic suspension systems may be required to operate over large variations in air-gap. Thus the nonlinearities inherent in most types of suspensions have a significant effect. Specifically, large variations in operating point may make it difficult to design a linear controller which gives satisfactory stability and performance over a large range of operating points. One way to address this problem is through the use of nonlinear compensation techniques such as feedback linearization. Nonlinear compensators have received limited attention in the magnetic suspension literature. In recent years, progress has been made in the theory of nonlinear control systems, and in the sub-area of feedback linearization. The idea is demonstrated of feedback linearization using a second order suspension system. In the context of the second order suspension, sampling rate issues in the implementation of feedback linearization are examined through simulation

Five degree-of-freedom control of an ultra-precision magnetically-suspended linear bearing

The authors constructed a high precision linear bearing. A 10.7 kg platen measuring 125 mm by 125 mm by 350 mm is suspended and controlled in five degrees of freedom by seven electromagnets. The position of the platen is measured by five capacitive probes which have nanometer resolution. The suspension acts as a linear bearing, allowing linear travel of 50 mm in the sixth degree of freedom. In the laboratory, this bearing system has demonstrated position stability of 5 nm peak-to-peak. This is believed to be the highest position stability yet demonstrated in a magnetic suspension system. Performance at this level confirms that magnetic suspensions can address motion control requirements at the nanometer level. The experimental effort associated with this linear bearing system is described. Major topics are the development of models for the suspension, implementation of control algorithms, and measurement of the actual bearing performance. Suggestions for the future improvement of the bearing system are given

Effects of semiclassical spiral fluctuations on hole dynamics

We investigate the dynamics of a single hole coupled to the spiral fluctuations related to the magnetic ground states of the antiferromagnetic J_1-J_2-J_3 Heisenberg model on a square lattice. Using exact diagonalization on finite size clusters and the self consistent Born approximation in the thermodynamic limit we find, as a general feature, a strong reduction of the quasiparticle weight along the spiral phases of the magnetic phase diagram. For an important region of the Brillouin Zone the hole spectral functions are completely incoherent, whereas at low energies the spectral weight is redistributed on several irregular peaks. We find a characteristic value of the spiral pitch, Q=(0.7,0.7)\pi, for which the available phase space for hole scattering is maximum. We argue that this behavior is due to the non trivial interference of the magnon assisted and the free hopping mechanism for hole motion, characteristic of a hole coupled to semiclassical spiral fluctuations.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure

Broken discrete and continuous symmetries in two dimensional spiral antiferromagnets

We study the occurrence of symmetry breakings, at zero and finite temperatures, in the J_1-J_3 antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model on the square lattice using Schwinger boson mean field theory. For spin-1/2 the ground state breaks always the SU(2) symmetry with a continuous quasi-critical transition at J_3/J_1=0.38, from N\'eel to spiral long range order, although local spin fluctuations considerations suggest an intermediate disordered regime around 0.35 < J_3/J_1 < 0.5, in qualitative agreement with recent numerical results. At low temperatures we find a Z_2 broken symmetry region with short range spiral order characterized by an Ising-like nematic order parameter that compares qualitatively well with classical Monte Carlo results. At intermediate temperatures the phase diagram shows regions with collinear short range orders: for J_3/J_11 a novel phase consisting of four decoupled third neighbour sublattices with N\'eel (\pi,\pi) correlations in each one. We conclude that the effect of quantum and thermal fluctuations is to favour collinear correlations even in the strongly frustrated regime.Comment: 17 pages, accepted for publication in Journal of Physics: condensed Matte

Low temperature properties of the triangular-lattice antiferromagnet: a bosonic spinon theory

We study the low temperature properties of the triangular-lattice Heisenberg antiferromagnet with a mean field Schwinger spin-1/2 boson scheme that reproduces quantitatively the zero temperature energy spectrum derived previously using series expansions. By analyzing the spin-spin and the boson density-density dynamical structure factors, we identify the unphysical spin excitations that come from the relaxation of the local constraint on bosons. This allows us to reconstruct a free energy based on the physical excitations only, whose predictions for entropy and uniform susceptibility seem to be reliable within the temperature range $0< T <0.3J, which is difficult to access by other methods. The high values of entropy, also found in high temperature expansions studies, can be attributed to the roton-like narrowed dispersion at finite temperatures.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figure

RVB signatures in the spin dynamics of the square-lattice Heisenberg antiferromagnet

We investigate the spin dynamics of the square-lattice spin-1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet by means of an improved mean field Schwinger boson calculation. By identifying both, the long range N\'eel and the RVB-like components of the ground state, we propose an educated guess for the mean field triplet excitation consisting on a linear combination of local and bond spin flips to compute the dynamical structure factor. Our main result is that when this triplet excitation is optimized in such a way that the corresponding sum rule is fulfilled, we recover the low and high energy spectral weight features of the experimental spectrum. In particular, the anomalous spectral weight depletion at $(\pi,0)$ found in recent inelastic neutron scattering experiments can be attributed to the interference of the triplet bond excitations of the RVB component of the ground state. We conclude that the Schwinger boson theory seems to be a good candidate to adequately interpret the dynamic properties of the square-lattice Heisenberg antiferromagnet.Comment: 6 pages with 3 figure

Classical Antiferromagnetism in Kinetically Frustrated Electronic Models

We study the infinite U Hubbard model with one hole doped away half-filling, in triangular and square lattices with frustrated hoppings that invalidate Nagaoka's theorem, by means of the density matrix renormalization group. We find that these kinetically frustrated models have antiferromagnetic ground states with classical local magnetization in the thermodynamic limit. We identify the mechanism of this kinetic antiferromagnetism with the release of the kinetic energy frustration as the hole moves in the established antiferromagnetic background. This release can occurs in two different ways: by a non-trivial spin-Berry phase acquired by the hole or by the effective vanishing of the hopping amplitude along the frustrating loops.Comment: 12 pages and 4 figures, with Supplementary Material. To be published in Phys. Rev. Let

Hysteresis Bearingless Slice Motors with Homopolar Flux-biasing

We present a new concept of bearingless slice motor that levitates and rotates a ring-shaped solid rotor. The rotor is made of a semi-hard magnetic material exhibiting magnetic hysteresis, such as D2 steel. The rotor is radially biased with a homopolar permanent-magnetic flux, on which the stator can superimpose two-pole flux to generate suspension forces. By regulating the suspension forces based on position feedback, the two radial rotor degrees of freedom are actively stabilized. The two tilting degrees of freedom and the axial translation are passively stable due to the reluctance forces from the bias flux. In addition, the stator can generate a torque by superimposing six-pole rotating flux, which drags the rotor via hysteresis coupling. This six-pole flux does not generate radial forces in conjunction with the homopolar flux or two-pole flux, and therefore the suspension force generation is in principle decoupled from the driving torque generation. We have developed a prototype system as a proof of concept. The stator has 12 teeth, each of which has a single-phase winding that is individually driven by a linear transconductance power amplifier. The system has four reflectivetype optical sensors to differentially measure the two radial degrees of freedom of the rotor. The suspension control loop is implemented such that the phase margin is 25° at the cross-over frequency of 110 Hz. The prototype system can levitate the rotor and drive it up to about 1730 r/min. The maximum driving torque is about 2.7 mNm

A test of the bosonic spinon theory for the triangular antiferromagnet spectrum

We compute the dynamical structure factor of the spin-1/2 triangular Heisenberg model using the mean field Schwinger boson theory. We find that a reconstructed dispersion, resulting from a non trivial redistribution of the spectral weight, agrees quite well with the spin excitation spectrum recently found with series expansions. In particular, we recover the strong renormalization with respect to linear spin wave theory along with the appearance of roton-like minima. Furthermore, near the roton-like minima the contribution of the two spinon continuum to the static structure factor is about 40 % of the total weight. By computing the density-density dynamical structure factor, we identify an unphysical weak signal of the spin excitation spectrum with the relaxation of the local constraint of the Schwinger bosons at the mean field level. Based on the accurate description obtained for the static and dynamic ground state properties, we argue that the bosonic spinon theory should be considered seriously as a valid alternative to interpret the physics of the triangular Heisenberg model.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, extended version including: a table with ground state energy and magnetization; and the density-density dynamical structure factor. Accepted for publication in Europhysics Letter