Evaluating the Impact of Charter Schools on Student Achievement: A Longitudinal Look at the Great Lakes States

This study looks at student achievement in math and reading in charter and traditional public schools over a five-year period in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin. The primary finding is that student achievement in charter schools in these six states is lower than in traditional public schools. The study also finds, however, that student achievement in charter schools is improving over time

Reversal and Termination of Current-Induced Domain Wall Motion via Magnonic Spin-Transfer Torque

We investigate the domain wall dynamics of a ferromagnetic wire under the combined influence of a spin-polarized current and magnonic spin-transfer torque generated by an external field, taking also into account Rashba spin-orbit coupling interactions. It is demonstrated that current-induced motion of the domain wall may be completely reversed in an oscillatory fashion by applying a magnonic spin-transfer torque as long as the spin-wave velocity is sufficiently high. Moreover, we show that the motion of the domain wall may be fully terminated by means of the generation of spin-waves, suggesting the possibility to pin the domain-walls to predetermined locations. We also discuss how strong spin-orbit interactions modify these results.Comment: Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Lagrange-Fedosov Nonholonomic Manifolds

We outline an unified approach to geometrization of Lagrange mechanics, Finsler geometry and geometric methods of constructing exact solutions with generic off-diagonal terms and nonholonomic variables in gravity theories. Such geometries with induced almost symplectic structure are modelled on nonholonomic manifolds provided with nonintegrable distributions defining nonlinear connections. We introduce the concept of Lagrange-Fedosov spaces and Fedosov nonholonomic manifolds provided with almost symplectic connection adapted to the nonlinear connection structure. We investigate the main properties of generalized Fedosov nonholonomic manifolds and analyze exact solutions defining almost symplectic Einstein spaces.Comment: latex2e, v3, published variant, with new S.V. affiliatio

Phenomenology of chiral damping in noncentrosymmetric magnets

A phenomenology of magnetic chiral damping is proposed in the context of magnetic materials lacking inversion symmetry breaking. We show that the magnetic damping tensor adopts a general form that accounts for a component linear in magnetization gradient in the form of Lifshitz invariants. We propose different microscopic mechanisms that can produce such a damping in ferromagnetic metals, among which spin pumping in the presence of anomalous Hall effect and an effective "$s$-$d$" Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya antisymmetric exchange. The implication of this chiral damping in terms of domain wall motion is investigated in the flow and creep regimes. These predictions have major importance in the context of field- and current-driven texture motion in noncentrosymmetric (ferro-, ferri-, antiferro-)magnets, not limited to metals.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure

Random-Field Blume-Capel Model: Mean-Field Theory

The global phase diagram of the Blume-Capel model in a random field obeying the bimodal symmetric distribution is determined by using the mean-field method. The phase diagram includes an isolated ordered critical end point and two lines of tricritical points. A new phase emerges for strong enough random fields: the ferromagnetic-nonmagnetic phase. It is argued that such a phase occurs in three dimensions

Extended Defects in the Potts-Percolation Model of a Solid: Renormalization Group and Monte Carlo Analysis

We extend the model of a 2$d$ solid to include a line of defects. Neighboring atoms on the defect line are connected by ?springs? of different strength and different cohesive energy with respect to the rest of the system. Using the Migdal-Kadanoff renormalization group we show that the elastic energy is an irrelevant field at the bulk critical point. For zero elastic energy this model reduces to the Potts model. By using Monte Carlo simulations of the 3- and 4-state Potts model on a square lattice with a line of defects, we confirm the renormalization-group prediction that for a defect interaction larger than the bulk interaction the order parameter of the defect line changes discontinuously while the defect energy varies continuously as a function of temperature at the bulk critical temperature.Comment: 13 figures, 17 page

Cayley-Tree Ising Model with Antiferromagnetic Nearest-Neighbor and Ferromagnetic Equivalent-Neighbor Interactions

The phase diagram of the Ising model with antiferromagnetic nearest-neighbor interactions and ferromagnetic equivalent-neighbor interactions on the Cayley tree is determined exactly. A nonuniversal critical line separates the disordered and the ordered phases. A line of first-order transitions separating ferromagnetic order from antiferromagnetic order ends in the midst of the ordered phase at a classical ordered critical point. For a small range of values of the ratio of the two couplings, two transitions occur as the temperature is varied. In this case the uniform magnetization is not a monotonic function of the temperature