Signatures of strong correlation effects in RIXS on Cuprates

Recently, spin excitations in doped cuprates are measured using the resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS). The paramagnon dispersions show the large hardening effect in the electron-doped systems and seemingly doping-independence in the hole-doped systems, with the energy scales comparable to that of the antiferromagnetic magnons. This anomalous hardening effect was partially explained by using the strong coupling t-J model but with a three-site term(Nature communications 5, 3314 (2014)). However we show that hardening effect is a signature of strong coupling physics even without including this extra term. By considering the t-t'-t"-J model and using the Slave-Boson (SB) mean field theory, we obtain, via the spin-spin susceptibility, the spin excitations in qualitative agreement with the experiments. These anomalies is mainly due to the doping-dependent bandwidth. We further discuss the interplay between particle-hole-like and paramagnon-like excitations in the RIXS measurements.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure

Semi-solid slurry of AZ91 magnesium alloy prepared by electromagnetic stirring near liquidus temperature

An electromagnetic stirring process near liquidus temperature was designed and demonstrated experimentally to produce semi-solid slurry of AZ91 magnesium alloy, in order to avoid not only contamination from mechanical stirring but also the inflammation of Mg alloy melt at elevated temperature. AZ91 alloy feedstock was isothermally heat treated at 600-610 for 20 min, and then stirred by electromagnetic field. Globular primary particle characteristic was observed optically in the castings. Mechanical properties were also studied

Tyrosine phosphorylation of HPK1 by activated Src promotes ischemic brain injury in rat hippocampal CA1 region

AbstractHematopoietic progenitor kinase 1 (HPK1) is a hematopoietic cell-restricted member of the Ste20 serine/threonine kinase super family. We recently reported that HPK1 is involved in c-Jun NH2-terminal kinase (JNK) signaling pathway by sequential activation of MLK3–MKK7–JNK3 after cerebral ischemia. Here, we used 4-amino-5-(4-chlorophenyl)-7-(t-butyl) pyrazolo [3,4-d] pyrimidine (PP2) and MK801 to investigate the events upstream of HPK1 in ischemic brain injury. Immunoprecipitation and immunoblot results showed that PP2 and MK801 significantly decreased the activation of Src, HPK1, MLK3, JNK3 and c-Jun, respectively, during ischemia/reperfusion. Histology and TUNEL staining showed PP2 or MK801 protects against neuron death after brain ischemia. We speculate that this unique signaling pathway through the tyrosine phosphorylation of HPK1 promotes ischemic brain injury by activated Src via N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor and, ultimately, the activation of the MLK3–MKK7–JNK3 pathway after cerebral ischemia

Temperature and Strain-Rate Dependence of Surface Dislocation Nucleation

Dislocation nucleation is essential to the plastic deformation of small-volume crystalline solids. The free surface may act as an effective source of dislocations to initiate and sustain plastic flow, in conjunction with bulk sources. Here, we develop an atomistic modeling framework to address the probabilistic nature of surface dislocation nucleation. We show the activation volume associated with surface dislocation nucleation is characteristically in the range of 1–10b3, where b is the Burgers vector. Such small activation volume leads to sensitive temperature and strain-rate dependence of the nucleation stress, providing an upper bound to the size-strength relation in nanopillar compression experiments

Signatures of strong correlation effects in resonant inelastic x-ray scattering studies on cuprates

Recently, spin excitations in doped cuprates have been measured using resonant inelastic x-ray scattering. The paramagnon dispersions show the large hardening effect in the electron-doped systems and seemingly doping independence in the hole-doped systems, with the energy scales comparable to that of the antiferromagnetic (AFM) magnons. This anomalous hardening effect and the lack of softening were partially explained by using the strong-coupling t−J model but with a three-site term [Nat. Commun. 5, 3314 (2014)], although the hardening effect is already present even without the latter. By considering the t−t′−t"−J model and using the slave-boson mean-field theory, we obtain, via the spin-spin susceptibility, the spin excitations in qualitative agreement with the experiments. The doping-dependent bandwidth due to the strong correlation physics is the origin of the hardening effect. We also show that dispersions in the AFM regime, different from those in the paramagnetic (PM) regime, hardly vary with dopant density. These excitations are mainly collective in nature instead of particle-hole-like. We further discuss the interplay and different contributions of these two kinds of excitations in the PM phase and show that the dominance of the collective excitation increases with decreasing dopant concentrations

Emergence of topological phases from the extension of two-dimensional lattice with nonsymmorphic symmetries

Young and Kane have given a great insight for 2D Dirac semimetals with nontrivial topology in the presence of nonsymmorphic crystalline symmetry. Based on one of 2D nonsymmorphic square lattice structures they proposed, we further construct a set of 3D minimal tight-binding models via vertically stacking the 2D nonsymmorphic lattice. Specifically, our model provides a platform to generate three topologically semimetallic phases such as Dirac nodal line semimetals, Weyl nodal line semimetals and Weyl semimetals. The off-centered mirror symmetry sufficiently protects nodal lines emerging within mirror-invariant plane with a nontrivial mirror invariant $n_{M\mathbb{Z}}$, whereas twofold screw rotational symmetry protects nontrivial Weyl nodal points with topological charge $C=2$. Interestingly, Weyl nodal loops are generated without mirror symmetry protection, where nontrivial "drumhead" surface states emerge within loops. In the presence of both time-reversal and inversion symmetries, the emergence of weak topological insulator phases is discussed as well.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures and 1 tabl