O(\alpha_s) Corrections to Longitudinal Spin-Spin Correlations in e+e- -> q qbar

We calculate the $O(\alpha_s)$ corrections to longitudinal spin-spin correlations in $e^+e^-\to q\bar q$. For top quark pair production the $O(\alpha_s)$ corrections to the longitudinal spin-spin asymmetry amount to less than 1% in the $q^2$-range from above $t\bar t$-treshold up to $\sqrt{q^2}= 1000 GeV$. In the $e^+e^-\to b\bar b$ case the $O(\alpha_s)$ corrections reduce the asymmetry value from its $m=0$ value of -1 to approximately -0.96 for $q^2$-values around the Z-peak. This reduction can be traced to finite anomalous contributions from residual mass effects which survive the $m\to 0$ limit. We discuss the role of the anomalous contributions and the pattern of how they contribute to spin-flip and no-flip terms.Comment: 10 pages, 2 postscript figure

The electrical current effect in phase separated La5/8-yPryCa3/8MnO3: Charge order melting vs. Joule heating

We have studied the effect of electric field on transport properties of the prototypical phase separated manganite La5/8-yPryCa3/8MnO3 with y=0.34. Our results show that the suggested image in which the charge ordered state is melted by the appliance of an electric current and/or voltage has to be revised. We were able to explain the observed resistivity drop in terms of an artifact related to Joule heating and the particular hysteresis that the system under study display, common to many other phase separated manganites.Comment: 2 figures. Accepted in J. Appl. Phy

Magnetocaloric effect in manganites: metamagnetic transitions for magnetic refrigeration

We present a study of the magnetocaloric effect in La5/8-yPryCa3/8MnO3 (y=0.3) and Pr0.5Ca0.09Sr0.41MnO3 manganites. The low temperature state of both ystems is the result of a competition between the antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic phases. The samples display magnetocaloric effect evidenced in an adiabatic temperature change during a metamagnetic transition from an antiferromagnetic to a ferromagnetic phase . As additional features, La5/8-yPryCa3/8MnO3 exhibits phase separation characterized by the coexistence of antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic phases and Pr0.5Ca0.09Sr0.41MnO3 displays inverse magnetocaloric effect in which temperature decreases while applying an external magnetic field. In both cases, a significant part of the magnetocaloric effect appears from non-reversible processes. As the traditional thermodynamic description of the effect usually deals with reversible transitions, we developed an alternative way to calculate the adiabatic temperature change in terms of the change of the relative ferromagnetic fraction induced by magnetic field. To evaluate our model, we performed direct measurement of the sample's adiabatic temperature change by means of a differential thermal analysis. An excellent agreement has been obtained between experimental and calculated data. These results show that metamagnetic transition in manganites play an important role in the study of magnetic refrigeration.Comment: Acepted to be published in Applied Physics Letter

Explosive synchronization in weighted complex networks

The emergence of dynamical abrupt transitions in the macroscopic state of a system is currently a subject of the utmost interest. Given a set of phase oscillators networking with a generic wiring of connections and displaying a generic frequency distribution, we show how combining dynamical local information on frequency mismatches and global information on the graph topology suggests a judicious and yet practical weighting procedure which is able to induce and enhance explosive, irreversible, transitions to synchronization. We report extensive numerical and analytical evidence of the validity and scalability of such a procedure for different initial frequency distributions, for both homogeneous and heterogeneous networks, as well as for both linear and non linear weighting functions. We furthermore report on the possibility of parametrically controlling the width and extent of the hysteretic region of coexistence of the unsynchronized and synchronized states