Thermopower of Two-Dimensional Electrons at ν\nu = 3/2 and 5/2

The longitudinal thermopower of ultra-high mobility two-dimensional electrons has been measured at both zero magnetic field and at high fields in the compressible metallic state at filling factor $\nu = 3/2$ and the incompressible fractional quantized Hall state at $\nu = 5/2$. At zero field our results demonstrate that the thermopower is dominated by electron diffusion for temperatures below about $T = 150$ mK. A diffusion dominated thermopower is also observed at $\nu = 3/2$ and allows us to extract an estimate of the composite fermion effective mass. At $\nu = 5/2$ both the temperature and magnetic field dependence of the observed thermopower clearly signal the presence of the energy gap of this fractional quantized Hall state. We find that the thermopower in the vicinity of $\nu = 5/2$ exceeds that recently predicted under the assumption that the entropy of the 2D system is dominated by non-abelian quasiparticle exchange statistics.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures

Nuclear Halos and Drip Lines in Symmetry-Conserving Continuum HFB Theory

We review the properties of nuclear halos and nuclear skins in drip line nuclei in the framework of the spherical Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov theory with continuum effects and projection on good particle number with the Gogny force. We first establish the position of the un-projected HFB drip lines for the two most employed parametrizations of the Gogny force and show that the use of finite-range interactions leads almost always to small-sized halos, even in the least bound nuclei, which is in agreement with most mean-field predictions. We also discuss the size of the neutron skin at the drip line and its relation to neutron asymmetry. The impact of particle-number projection and its conceptual consequences near the drip line are analyzed in detail. In particular, we discuss the role of the chemical potential in a projected theory and the criteria required to define the drip line. We show that including particle number projection can shift the latter, in particular near closed shells. We notice that, as a result, the size of the halo can be increased due to larger pairing correlations. However, combining the most realistic pairing interaction, a proper treatment of the continuum and particle number projection does not permit to reproduce the very large halos observed in very light nuclei.Comment: Re-submitted to Phys. Rev. C after Referee's review. Layout of figures changed to cope with editor's requirement

Continuum and Symmetry-Conserving Effects in Drip-line Nuclei Using Finite-range Forces

We report the first calculations of nuclear properties near the drip-lines using the spherical Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov mean-field theory with a finite-range force supplemented by continuum and particle number projection effects. Calculations were carried out in a basis made of the eigenstates of a Woods-Saxon potential computed in a box, thereby garanteeing that continuum effects were properly taken into account. Projection of the self-consistent solutions on good particle number was carried out after variation, and an approximation of the variation after projection result was used. We give the position of the drip-lines and examine neutron densities in neutron-rich nuclei. We discuss the sensitivity of nuclear observables upon continuum and particle-number restoration effects.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, Phys. Rev. C77, 011301(R) (2008

Twisted speckle entities inside wavefront reversal mirrors

The previously unknown property of the optical speckle pattern reported. The interference of a speckle with an oppositely moving phase-conjugated speckle wave produces a randomly distributed ensemble of a twisted entities (ropes) surrounding optical vortex lines. These entities appear in a wide range of randomly chosen speckle parameters inside the phase-conjugating mirrors regardless to an internal physical mechanism of the wavefront reversal. These numerically generated interference patterns are relevant to a Brillouin $\bf PC$-mirrors and to a four-wave mixing $\bf PC$-mirrors based upon laser trapped ultracold atomic cloud.Comment: 4 pages,3 figures, Accepted to Physical Review

Associated Production of a Top Quark and a Charged Higgs Boson

We compute the inclusive and differential cross sections for the associated production of a top quark along with a charged Higgs boson at hadron colliders to next-to-leading order (NLO) in perturbative quantum chromodynamics (QCD) and in supersymmetric QCD. For small Higgs boson masses we include top quark pair production diagrams with subsequent top quark decay into a bottom quark and a charged Higgs boson. We compare the NLO differential cross sections obtained in the bottom parton picture with those for the gluon-initiated production process and find good agreement. The effects of supersymmetric loop contributions are explored. Only the corrections to the Yukawa coupling are sizable in the potential discovery region at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC). All expressions and numerical results are fully differential, permitting selections on the momenta of both the top quark and the charged Higgs boson.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures; section, figures, equations and references added, version to appear in PRD, 33 pages, 11 figure

Zero bias anomaly in a two dimensional granular insulator

We compare tunneling density of states (TDOS) into two ultrathin Ag films, one uniform and one granular, for different degrees of disorder. The uniform film shows a crossover from Altshuler-Aronov (AA) zero bias anomaly to Efros Shklovskii (ES) like Coulomb gap as the disorder is increased. The granular film, on the other hand, exhibits AA behavior even deeply in the insulating regime. We analyze the data and find that granularity introduces a new regime for the TDOS. While the conductivity is dominated by hopping between clusters of grains and is thus insulating, the TDOS probes the properties of an individual cluster which is "metallic".Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Magnetoelectricity and Magnetostriction due to the Rare Earth Moment in TmAl3_3(BO3_3)4_4

The magnetic properties, the magnetostriction, and the magnetoelectric effect in the d-electron free rare-earth aluminum borate TmAl$_3$(BO$_3$)$_4$ are investigated between room temperature and 2 K. The magnetic susceptibility reveals a strong anisotropy with the hexagonal c-axis as the hard magnetic axis. Magnetostriction measurements show a large effect of an in-plane field reducing both, the a- and c-axis lattice parameters. The magnetoelectric polarization change in a- and c-directions reaches up to 300 $\mu$C/m$^2$ at 70 kOe with the field applied along the a-axis. The magnetoelectric polarization is proportional to the lattice contraction in magnetic field. The results of this investigation prove the existence of a significant coupling between the rare earth magnetic moment and the lattice in $R$Al$_3$(BO$_3$)$_4$ compounds ($R$ = rare earth). They further show that the rare earth moment itself will generate a large magnetoelectric effect which makes it easier to study and to understand the origin of the magnetoelectric interaction in this class of materials.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Optical Properties of atmospheric dust from twilight observations

Three methods of approximation are described and used to separate the primary twilight brightness from the observed brightness. Photoelectric observations obtained are combined with observations from a balloon and from the observatory to derive the atmospheric scattering phase functions of 0.37 micron and 0.58 micron as a function of height. Comparison of these data with data for a Rayleigh atmosphere provide information on the optical properties of dust in the upper atmosphere