Specific heat behavior of high temperature superconductors in the pseudogap regime

Experimental data obtained from thermodynamic measurements in underdoped high temperature superconductors show unusual anomalies in the temperature dependence of the electronic specific heat both in the normal state and at the critical point associated to the superconducting phase transition. The observed deviations from the standard behavior are probably linked with the opening of a pseudogap in the energy spectrum of the single-particle excitations associated with the normal state. Based on a phenomenological description of the pseudogap phase we perform analytical and numerical calculations for the temperature dependence of the specific heat for both the superconducting and normal state. The reduced specific heat jump at the transition point can be explained by a modified electronic single particle contribution to the specific heat in the presence of the normal state pseudogap. The hump observed in the normal state specific heat can be explained by the electronic pair contribution associated with strong fluctuations of the order parameter in the critical region. The obtained theoretical results are discussed in connection with experimental data for cuprates.Comment: 7 pages, 3 EPS figures. to appear in EPJ

Quantum turnstile operation of single-molecule magnets

The time-dependent transport through single-molecule magnets coupled to magnetic or non-magnetic electrodes is studied in the framework of the generalized master equation method. We investigate the transient regime induced by the periodic switching of the source and drain contacts. If the electrodes have opposite magnetizations the quantum turnstile operation allows the stepwise writing of intermediate excited states. In turn, the transient currents provide a way to read these states. Within our approach we take into account both the uniaxial and transverse anisotropy. The latter may induce additional quantum tunneling processes which affect the efficiency of the proposed read-and-write scheme. An equally weighted mixture of molecular spin states can be prepared if one of the electrodes is ferromagnetic.Comment: 19 pages, 6 figure

Spin-Hall Conductivity of a Spin-Polarized Two-Dimensional Electron Gas with Rashba Spin-Orbit Interaction and Magnetic Impurities

The Kubo formula is used to calculate the spin-Hall conductivity σsH in a spin-polarized two-dimensional electron system with Rashba-type spin– orbit interaction. As in the case of the unpolarized electron system, σsH is entirely determined by states at the Fermi level, a property that persists in the presence of magnetic impurities. In the clean limit, the spin-Hall conductivity decreases monotonically with the Zeeman splitting, a result of the ordering effect on the electron spins produced by the magnetic field. In the presence of magnetic impurities, the spin-dependent scattering determines a finite renormalization of the static part of the fully dressed vertex correction of the velocity operator that leads to an enhancement of σsH, an opposite behaviour to that registered in the presence of spin-independent disorder. The variation of σsH with the strength of the Rashba coupling and the Zeeman splitting is studied

Finite-size Effects in a Two-Dimensional Electron Gas with Rashba Spin-Orbit Interaction

Within the Kubo formalism, we estimate the spin-Hall conductivity in a two-dimensional electron gas with Rashba spin-orbit interaction and study its variation as a function of disorder strength and system size. The numerical algorithm employed in the calculation is based on the direct numerical integration of the time-dependent Schrodinger equation in a spin-dependent variant of the particle source method. We find that the spin-precession length, L_s controlled by the strength of the Rashba coupling, establishes the critical lengthscale that marks the significant reduction of the spin-Hall conductivity in bulk systems. In contrast, the electron mean free path, inversely proportional to the strength of disorder, appears to have only a minor effect.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure