Hyperthermal neutral beam etching

A pulsed beam of hyperthermal fluorine atoms with an average translational energy of 4.8 eV has been used to demonstrate anisotropic etching of Si. For 1.4 Hz operation, a room-temperature etch rate of 300 Å/min for Si(100) has been measured at a distance of 30 cm from the source. A 14% undercutting for room-temperature etching of Novolac-masked Si features was achieved under single-collision conditions, with no detectable mask erosion. Translational energy and angular distributions of scattered fluorine atoms during steady-state etching of Si by a normal-incidence, collimated beam demonstrate that unreacted F atoms can scatter inelastically, retaining a significant fraction of their initial kinetic energies. The observed undercutting can be explained by secondary impingement of these high-energy F atoms, which are more reactive upon interaction with the sidewalls than would be expected if they desorbed from the surface at thermal energies after full accommodation. Time-of-flight distributions of volatile reaction products were also collected, and they show evidence for a dominant nonthermal reaction mechanism of the incident atoms with the surface in addition to a thermal reaction channel

Pressure of Hot QCD at Large N_f

We compute the pressure and entropy of hot QCD in the limit of large number of fermions, N_f >> N_c ~ 1, to next to leading order in N_f. At this order the calculation can be done exactly, up to ambiguities due to the presence of a Landau pole in the theory; the ambiguities are O(T^8/\Lambda^4_{Landau}) and remain negligible long after the perturbative series (in g^2 N_f) has broken down. Our results can be used to test several proposed resummation schemes for the pressure of full QCD.Comment: 16 pages including 4 figures. Short enough for you to read. Numerical results corrected after an error was found by Andreas Ipp and Anton Rebha

Classical Sphaleron Rate on Fine Lattices

We measure the sphaleron rate for hot, classical Yang-Mills theory on the lattice, in order to study its dependence on lattice spacing. By using a topological definition of Chern-Simons number and going to extremely fine lattices (up to beta=32, or lattice spacing a = 1 / (8 g^2 T)) we demonstrate nontrivial scaling. The topological susceptibility, converted to physical units, falls with lattice spacing on fine lattices in a way which is consistent with linear dependence on $a$ (the Arnold-Son-Yaffe scaling relation) and strongly disfavors a nonzero continuum limit. We also explain some unusual behavior of the rate in small volumes, reported by Ambjorn and Krasnitz.Comment: 14 pages, includes 5 figure

Fixed versus Flexible: Lessons from EMS Order Flow

This paper addresses the puzzle of regime-dependent volatility in foreign exchange. We extend the literature in two ways. First, our microstructural model provides a qualitatively new explanation for the puzzle. Second, we test implications of our model using Europe's recent shift to rigidly fixed rates (EMS to EMU). In the model, shocks to order flow induce volatility under flexible rates because they have portfolio-balance effects on price, whereas under fixed rates the same shocks do not have portfolio-balance effects. These effects arise in one regime and not the other because the elasticity of speculative demand for foreign exchange is (endogenously) regime-dependent: low elasticity under flexible rates magnifies portfolio-balance effects; under credibly fixed rates, elasticity of speculative demand is infinite, eliminating portfolio-balance effects. New data on FF/DM transactions show that order flow had persistent effects on the exchange rate before EMU parities were announced. After announcement, determination of the FF/DM rate was decoupled from order flow, as predicted by the model.

Investigation of radar backscattering from second-year sea ice

The scattering properties of second-year ice were studied in an experiment at Mould Bay in April 1983. Radar backscattering measurements were made at frequencies of 5.2, 9.6, 13.6, and 16.6 GHz for vertical polarization, horizontal polarization and cross polarizations, with incidence angles ranging from 15 to 70 deg. The results indicate that the second-year ice scattering characteristics were different from first-year ice and also different from multiyear ice. The fading properties of radar signals were studied and compared with experimental data. The influence of snow cover on sea ice can be evaluated by accounting for the increase in the number of independent samples from snow volume with respect to that for bare ice surface. A technique for calculating the snow depth was established by this principle and a reasonable agreement has been observed. It appears that this is a usable way to measure depth in snow or other snow-like media using radar

Chern-Simons Number Diffusion and Hard Thermal Loops on the Lattice

We develop a discrete lattice implementation of the hard thermal loop effective action by the method of added auxiliary fields. We use the resulting model to measure the sphaleron rate (topological susceptibility) of Yang-Mills theory at weak coupling. Our results give parametric behavior in accord with the arguments of Arnold, Son, and Yaffe, and are in quantitative agreement with the results of Moore, Hu, and Muller.Comment: 43 pages, 6 figure

Dispersion management using betatron resonances in an ultracold-atom storage ring

Specific velocities of particles circulating in a storage ring can lead to betatron resonances at which static perturbations of the particles' orbit yield large transverse (betatron) oscillations. We have observed betatron resonances in an ultracold-atom storage ring by direct observation of betatron motion. These resonances caused a near-elimination of the longitudinal dispersion of atomic beams propagating at resonant velocities, an effect which can improve the performance of atom interferometric devices. Both the resonant velocities and the strength of the resonances were varied by deliberate modifications to the storage ring.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures. Also available at http://physics.berkeley.edu/research/ultracol

Facing up to the challenge of behavioural observation in infant hearing assessment

The ability to assess detection and discrimination of speech by infants has proved elusive. Dr Iain Jackson and colleagues discuss how new technologies and fresh approaches might offer valuable insight into young infants’ behavioural responses to sound