602 research outputs found
Inequivalent representations of commutator or anticommutator rings of field operators and their applications
Hamiltonian of a system in quantum field theory can give rise to infinitely
many partition functions which correspond to infinitely many inequivalent
representations of the canonical commutator or anticommutator rings of field
operators. This implies that the system can theoretically exist in infinitely
many Gibbs states. The system resides in the Gibbs state which corresponds to
its minimal Helmholtz free energy at a given range of the thermodynamic
variables. Individual inequivalent representations are associated with
different thermodynamic phases of the system. The BCS Hamiltonian of
superconductivity is chosen to be an explicit example for the demonstration of
the important role of inequivalent representations in practical applications.
Its analysis from the inequivalent representations' point of view has led to a
recognition of a novel type of the superconducting phase transition.Comment: 25 pages, 6 figure
Observation of Magnetic Flux Generated Spontaneously During a Rapid Quench of Superconducting Films
We report observations of spontaneous formation of magnetic flux lines during
a rapid quench of YBaCuO films through T. This
effect is predicted according to the Kibble-Zurek mechanism of creation of
topological defects of the order parameter during a symmetry-breaking phase
transition. Our previous experiment, at a quench rate of 20K/sec, gave null
results. In the present experiment, the quench rate was increased to
\TEXTsymbol{>} 10 K/sec. Within experimental resolution, the dependence
of the measured flux on the cooling rate is consistent with the prediction
Specific heat of MgB_2 after irradiation
We studied the effect of disorder on the superconducting properties of
polycrystalline MgB_2 by specific-heat measurements. In the pristine state,
these measurements give a bulk confirmation of the presence of two
superconducting gaps with 2 Delta 0 / k_B T_c = 1.3 and 3.9 with nearly equal
weights. The scattering introduced by irradiation suppresses T_c and tends to
average the two gaps although less than predicted by theory. We also found that
by a suitable irradiation process by fast neutrons, a substantial bulk increase
of dH_{c2}/dT at T_c can be obtained without sacrificing more than a few
degrees in T_c. The upper critical field of the sample after irradiation
exceeds 28 T at T goes to 0 K.Comment: 11 pages text, 6 figures, accepted by Journal of Physics: Condensed
Matte
Specific heat of heavy fermion CePd2Si2 in high magnetic fields
We report specific heat measurements on the heavy fermion compound CePd2Si2
in magnetic fields up to 16 T and in the temperature range 1.4-16 K. A sharp
peak in the specific heat signals the antiferromagnetic transition at T_N ~ 9.3
K in zero field. The transition is found to shift to lower temperatures when a
magnetic field is applied along the crystallographic a-axis, while a field
applied parallel to the tetragonal c-axis does not affect the transition. The
magnetic contribution to the specific heat below T_N is well described by a sum
of a linear electronic term and an antiferromagnetic spin wave contribution.
Just below T_N, an additional positive curvature, especially at high fields,
arises most probably due to thermal fluctuations. The field dependence of the
coefficient of the low temperature linear term, gamma_0, extracted from the
fits shows a maximum at about 6 T, at the point where an anomaly was detected
in susceptibility measurements. The relative field dependence of both T_N and
the magnetic entropy at T_N scales as [1-(B/B_0)^2] for B // a, suggesting the
disappearance of antiferromagnetism at B_0 ~ 42 T. The expected suppression of
the antiferromagnetic transition temperature to zero makes the existence of a
magnetic quantum critical point possible.Comment: to be published in Journal of Physics: Condensed Matte
Abrikosov flux-lines in two-band superconductors with mixed dimensionality
We study vortex structure in a two-band superconductor, in which one band is
ballistic and quasi-two-dimensional (2D), and the other is diffusive and
three-dimensional (3D). A circular cell approximation of the vortex lattice
within the quasiclassical theory of superconductivity is applied to a recently
developed model appropriate for such a two-band system [Tanaka et al 2006 Phys.
Rev. B 73, 220501(R); Tanaka et al 2007 Phys. Rev. B 75, 214512]. We assume
that superconductivity in the 3D diffusive band is "weak", i.e., mostly
induced, as is the case in MgB. Hybridization with the "weak" 3D diffusive
band has significant and intriguing influence on the electronic structure of
the "strong" 2D ballistic band. In particular, the Coulomb repulsion and the
diffusivity in the "weak" band enhance suppression of the order parameter and
enlargement of the vortex core by magnetic field in the "strong" band,
resulting in reduced critical temperature and field. Moreover, increased
diffusivity in the "weak" band can result in an upward curvature of the upper
critical field near the transition temperature. A particularly interesting
feature found in our model is the appearance of additional bound states at the
gap edge in the "strong" ballistic band, which are absent in the single-band
case. Furthermore, coupling with the "weak" diffusive band leads to reduced
band gaps and van Hove singularities of energy bands of the vortex lattice in
the "strong" ballistic band. We find these intriguing features for parameter
values appropriate for MgB.Comment: 11 pages, 14 figure
Differential-thermal analysis around and below the critical temperature Tc of various low-Tc superconductors: A comparative study
We present specific-heat data on the type-II superconductors V3Si, LuNi2B2C
and NbSe2 which were acquired with a low-temperature thermal analysis (DTA)
technique. We compare our data with available literature data on these
superconductors. In the first part we show that the DTA technique allows for
fast measurements while providing a very high resolution on the temperature
scale. Sharp features in the specific heat such as at the one at the transition
to superconductivity are resolved virtually without instrumental broadening. In
the second part we investigate the magnetic-field dependence of the specific
heats of V3Si and LuNi2B2C at a fixed temperature T=7.5K to demonstrate that
DTA techniques also allow for sufficiently precise measurements of absolute
values of cp even in the absence of a sharp phase transition. The corresponding
data for V3Si and LuNi2B2C are briefly discussed
Unusual effects of anisotropy on the specific heat of ceramic and single crystal MgB2
The two-gap structure in the superconducting state of MgB_2 gives rise to
unusual thermodynamic properties which depart markedly from the isotropic
single-band BCS model, both in their temperature- and field dependence. We
report and discuss measurements of the specific heat up to 16 T on ceramic, and
up to 14 T on single crystal samples, which demonstrate these effects in the
bulk. The behavior in zero field is described in terms of two characteristic
temperatures, a crossover temperature Tc_pi ~ 13 K, and a critical temperature
Tc = Tc_sigma ~ 38 K, whereas the mixed-state specific heat requires three
characteristic fields, an isotropic crossover field Hc2_pi ~ 0.35 T, and an
anisotropic upper critical field with extreme values Hc2_sigma_c ~ 3.5 T and
Hc2_sigma_ab ~ 19 T, where the indexes \pi and \sigma refer to the 3D and 2D
sheets of the Fermi surface. Irradiation-induced interband scattering tends to
move the gaps toward a common value, and increases the upper critical field up
to ~ 28 T when Tc = 30 K.Comment: 31 pages, 9 figures. Accepted in the Physica C special issue on MgB
Peculiarities of electronic heat capacity of thulium cuprates in pseudogap state
Precise calorimetric measurements have been carried out in the 7 - 300 K
temperature range on two ceramic samples of thulium 123 cuprates TmBa2Cu3O6.92
and TmBa2Cu3O6.70. The temperature dependence of the heat capacity was analyzed
in the region where the pseudogap state (PGS) takes place. The lattice
contribution was subtracted from the experimental data. The PGS component has
been obtained by comparing electronic heat capacities of two investigated
samples because the PGS contribution for the 6.92 sample is negligible. The
anomalous behavior of the electronic heat capacity near the temperature
boundary of PGS was found. It is supposed that this anomaly is due to
peculiarities in N(E) function where N is the density of electronic states and
E is the energy of carriers of charge.Comment: 12 pages, 3 Postscript figure
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