Magnetic excitation in a new spin gap compound Cu2_2Sc2_2Ge4_4O13_{13}: Comparison to Cu2_2Fe2_2Ge4_4O13_{13}

The compound \CuScGeO is presented as a new member of the family of weakly coupled spin chain and dimer compounds \CuMGeO. Magnetic susceptibility, heat capacity, and neutron inelastic scattering measurements reveal that the compound has the same spin dimer component as \CuFeGeO. The observed narrow band excitation in bulk measurements is consistent with spin gap behavior. The energy scale of the weakly coupled dimers in the Sc compound is perfectly coincident with that in the Fe compound.Comment: 5 page

Cohomological non-rigidity of generalized real Bott manifolds of height 2

We investigate when two generalized real Bott manifolds of height 2 have isomorphic cohomology rings with Z/2 coefficients and also when they are diffeomorphic. It turns out that cohomology rings with Z/2 coefficients do not distinguish those manifolds up to diffeomorphism in general. This gives a counterexample to the cohomological rigidity problem for real toric manifolds posed in \cite{ka-ma08}. We also prove that generalized real Bott manifolds of height 2 are diffeomorphic if they are homotopy equivalent

Bayesian decision making in human collectives with binary choices

Here we focus on the description of the mechanisms behind the process of information aggregation and decision making, a basic step to understand emergent phenomena in society, such as trends, information spreading or the wisdom of crowds. In many situations, agents choose between discrete options. We analyze experimental data on binary opinion choices in humans. The data consists of two separate experiments in which humans answer questions with a binary response, where one is correct and the other is incorrect. The questions are answered without and with information on the answers of some previous participants. We find that a Bayesian approach captures the probability of choosing one of the answers. The influence of peers is uncorrelated with the difficulty of the question. The data is inconsistent with Weber's law, which states that the probability of choosing an option depends on the proportion of previous answers choosing that option and not on the total number of those answers. Last, the present Bayesian model fits reasonably well to the data as compared to some other previously proposed functions although the latter sometime perform slightly better than the Bayesian model. The asset of the present model is the simplicity and mechanistic explanation of the behavior.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, 1 tabl

IPA-CuCl3_3: a S=1/2 Ladder with Ferromagnetic Rungs

The spin gap material IPA-CuCl3 has been extensively studied as a ferromagnetic-antiferromagnetic bondalternating S = 1/2 chain. This description of the system was derived from structural considerations and bulk measurements. New inelastic neutron scattering experiments reveal a totally different picture: IPA-CuCl3 consists of weakly coupled spin ladders with antiferromagnetic legs and ferromagnetic rungs. The ladders run perpendicular to the originally supposed bondalternating chain direction. The ferromagnetic rungs make this system equivalent to a Haldane S = 1 antiferromagnet. With a gap energy of 1.17(1) meV, a zone-boundary energy of 4.1(1) meV, and almost no magnetic anisotropy, IPA-CuCl3 may the best Haldane-gap material yet, in terms of suitability for neutron scattering studies in high magnetic fields.Comment: 2 pages, 2 figures, submitted to proceedings of LT24, Orlando, FL, August 200

Erratum: Dynamics and scaling in a quantum spin chain material with bond randomness

Follow-up neutron measurements, performed on a sample much larger than the one used in the original study, show that in the energy range 0.5-45 meV the magnetic excitations in BaCu2SiGeO7 are indistinguishable from those in conventional (disorder-free) quantum S=1/2 chains. Scrutinizing the previous data, we found that the analysis was affected by a poorly identified structured background and an additional technical mistake in the data reduction.Comment: This is a complete withdrawal of the original paper, also published as in Phys. Rev. Lett 93, 077206 (2004). One page, one figur

Reentrant Spin-Peierls Transition in Mg-Doped CuGeO_3

We report a synchrotron x-ray scattering study of the diluted spin-Peierls (SP) material Cu_{1-x}Mg_xGeO_3. In a recent paper we have shown that the SP dimerization attains long-range order only for x < x_c = 0.022(0.001). Here we report that the SP transition is reentrant in the vicinity of the critical concentration x_c. This is manifested by broadening of the SP dimerization superlattice peaks below the reentrance temperature, T_r, which may mean either the complete loss of the long-range SP order or the development of a short-range ordered component within the long-range ordered SP state. Marked hysteresis and very large relaxation times are found in the samples with Mg concentrations in the vicinity of x_c. The reentrant transition is likely related to the competing Neel transition which occurs at a temperature similar to T_r. We argue that impurity-induced competing interchain interactions play an essential role in these phenomena.Comment: 5 pages, 4 embedded eps figure

Multi-Thread Hydrodynamic Modeling of a Solar Flare

Past hydrodynamic simulations have been able to reproduce the high temperatures and densities characteristic of solar flares. These simulations, however, have not been able to account for the slow decay of the observed flare emission or the absence of blueshifts in high spectral resolution line profiles. Recent work has suggested that modeling a flare as an sequence of independently heated threads instead of as a single loop may resolve the discrepancies between the simulations and observations. In this paper we present a method for computing multi-thread, time-dependent hydrodynamic simulations of solar flares and apply it to observations of the Masuda flare of 1992 January 13. We show that it is possible to reproduce the temporal evolution of high temperature thermal flare plasma observed with the instruments on the \textit{GOES} and \textit{Yohkoh} satellites. The results from these simulations suggest that the heating time-scale for a individual thread is on the order of 200 s. Significantly shorter heating time scales (20 s) lead to very high temperatures and are inconsistent with the emission observed by \textit{Yohkoh}.Comment: Submitted to Ap

Dynamics of thick discs around Schwarzschild-de Sitter black holes

We consider the effects of a cosmological constant on the dynamics of constant angular momentum discs orbiting Schwarzschild-de Sitter black holes. The motivation behind this study is to investigate whether the presence of a radial force contrasting the black hole's gravitational attraction can influence the occurrence of the runaway instability, a robust feature of the dynamics of constant angular momentum tori in Schwarzschild and Kerr spacetimes. In addition to the inner cusp near the black hole horizon through which matter can accrete onto the black hole, in fact, a positive cosmological constant introduces also an outer cusp through which matter can leave the torus without accreting onto the black hole. To assess the impact of this outflow on the development of the instability we have performed time-dependent and axisymmetric hydrodynamical simulations of equilibrium initial configurations in a sequence of background spacetimes of Schwarzschild-de Sitter black holes with increasing masses. The simulations have been performed with an unrealistic value for the cosmological constant which, however, yields sufficiently small discs to be resolved accurately on numerical grids and thus provides a first qualitative picture of the dynamics. The calculations, carried out for a wide range of initial conditions, show that the mass-loss from the outer cusp can have a considerable impact on the instability, with the latter being rapidly suppressed if the outflow is large enough.Comment: 12 pages; A&A, in pres

Reentrant Spin-Peierls Transition in Mg-Doped CuGeO_3

We report a synchrotron x-ray scattering study of the diluted spin-Peierls (SP) material Cu_{1-x}Mg_xGeO_3. In a recent paper we have shown that the SP dimerization attains long-range order only for x < x_c = 0.022(0.001). Here we report that the SP transition is reentrant in the vicinity of the critical concentration x_c. This is manifested by broadening of the SP dimerization superlattice peaks below the reentrance temperature, T_r, which may mean either the complete loss of the long-range SP order or the development of a short-range ordered component within the long-range ordered SP state. Marked hysteresis and very large relaxation times are found in the samples with Mg concentrations in the vicinity of x_c. The reentrant transition is likely related to the competing Neel transition which occurs at a temperature similar to T_r. We argue that impurity-induced competing interchain interactions play an essential role in these phenomena.Comment: 5 pages, 4 embedded eps figure

Dynamics of composite Haldane spin chains in IPA-CuCl3

Magnetic excitations in the quasi-one-dimensional antiferromagnet IPA-CuCl3 are studied by cold neutron inelastic scattering. Strongly dispersive gap excitations are observed. Contrary to previously proposed models, the system is best described as an asymmetric quantum spin ladder. The observed spectrum is interpreted in terms of ``composite'' Haldane spin chains. The key difference from actual S=1 chains is a sharp cutoff of the single-magnon spectrum at a certain critical wave vector.Comment: 4 pages 4 figure