49,712 research outputs found
Progress in Electroweak Baryogenesis
Recent work on generating the excess of matter over antimatter in the early
universe during the electroweak phase transition is reviewed.Comment: 50 pages (figures on request), uses harvmac (table of contents
correct for "l" format), UCSD-93-2,BU-HEP-93-
Dust obscuration studies along quasar sight lines using simulated galaxies
We use the results of a set of three-dimensional SPH-Treecode simulations
which model the formation and early evolution of disk galaxies, including the
generation of heavy elements by star formation, to investigate the effects of
dust absorption in quasar absorption line systems.
Using a simple prescription for the production of dust, we have compared the
column density, zinc abundance and optical depth properties of our models to
the known properties of Damped Lyman alpha systems.
We find that a significant fraction of our model galaxy disks have a higher
column density than any observed DLA system. We are also able to show that such
parts of the disk tend to be optically thick, implying that any background
quasar would be obscured through much of the disk. This would produce the
selection effect against the denser absorption systems thought to be present in
observations.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figures, to be published in MNRA
Backscattered Electron Imaging of Partially-Demineralized Enamel
Backscattered electron (BE) microscopy is being used increasingly as a technique to study the dissolution of dental enamel because of its high resolution and relatively easy sample preparation. Subsurface details such as striae of Retzius, cross-striations and prism microstructure have been observed with a resolution better than 0.1 micrometers using this technique. Since BE images of demineralized enamel appear very similar to microradiography images, it is tempting to interpret them in a similar fashion. We attempt to show that the interpretation of BE images is not straightforward because enamel is not a homogeneous one-phase material, but a two-component composite material consisting of variable amounts of apatite mineral and organic matter. During re- and demineralization, other calcium phosphate phases may precipitate to further complicate the interpretation of the images. BE images of partially demineralized enamel are affected by local variations in the protein / mineral ratio and also by the reprecipitation of other calcium phosphate phases. BE images are not mineral density maps, but are mean atomic number maps
Patterned Geometries and Hydrodynamics at the Vortex Bose Glass Transition
Patterned irradiation of cuprate superconductors with columnar defects allows
a new generation of experiments which can probe the properties of vortex
liquids by confining them to controlled geometries. Here we show that an
analysis of such experiments that combines an inhomogeneous Bose glass scaling
theory with the hydrodynamic description of viscous flow of vortex liquids can
be used to infer the critical behavior near the Bose glass transition. The
shear viscosity is predicted to diverge as at the Bose glass
transition, with the dynamical critical exponent.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
Grain Boundary Scars and Spherical Crystallography
We describe experimental investigations of the structure of two-dimensional
spherical crystals. The crystals, formed by beads self-assembled on water
droplets in oil, serve as model systems for exploring very general theories
about the minimum energy configurations of particles with arbitrary repulsive
interactions on curved surfaces. Above a critical system size we find that
crystals develop distinctive high-angle grain boundaries, or scars, not found
in planar crystals. The number of excess defects in a scar is shown to grow
linearly with the dimensionless system size. The observed slope is expected to
be universal, independent of the microscopic potential.Comment: 4 pages, 3 eps figs (high quality images available from Mark Bowick
Vortices and 2D bosons: A Path-Integral Monte Carlo Study
The vortex system in a high-T_c superconductor has been studied numerically
using the mapping to 2D bosons and the path-integral Monte Carlo method. We
find a single first-order transition from an Abrikosov lattice to an entangled
vortex liquid. The transition is characterized by an entropy jump dS = 0.4 k_B
per vortex and layer (parameters for YBCO) and a Lindemann number c_L = 0.25.
The increase in density at melting is given by d\rho = 6.0*10^{-4} /
\lambda(T)^2. The vortex liquid corresponds to a bosonic superfluid, with
\rho_s = \rho even in the limit \lambda -> \infty.Comment: 9 pages, RevTeX, 4 PostScript figures. The entropy jump at the
transition has been recomputed and is now in agreement with experiments on
YBCO. Some minor modifications were made in the tex
Conformal smectics and their many metrics
We establish that equally spaced smectic configurations enjoy an infinite-dimensional conformal symmetry and show that there is a natural map between them and null hypersurfaces in maximally symmetric spacetimes. By choosing the appropriate conformal factor it is possible to restore additional symmetries of focal structures only found before for smectics on flat substrates
Plasticity in current-driven vortex lattices
We present a theoretical analysis of recent experiments on current-driven
vortex dynamics in the Corbino disk geometry. This geometry introduces
controlled spatial gradients in the driving force and allows the study of the
onset of plasticity and tearing in clean vortex lattices. We describe plastic
slip in terms of the stress-driven unbinding of dislocation pairs, which in
turn contribute to the relaxation of the shear, yielding a nonlinear response.
The steady state density of free dislocations induced by the applied stress is
calculated as a function of the applied current and temperature. A criterion
for the onset of plasticity at a radial location in the disk yields a
temperature-dependent critical current that is in qualitative agreement with
experiments.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figure
Magnetic field dependence of charge stripe order in La2-xBaxCuO4 (x~1/8)
We have carried out a detailed investigation of the magnetic field dependence
of charge ordering in La2-xBaxCuO4 (x~1/8) utilizing high-resolution x-ray
scattering. We find that the charge order correlation length increases as the
magnetic field greater than ~5T is applied in the superconducting phase (T=2K).
The observed unusual field dependence of the charge order correlation length
suggests that the static charge stripe order competes with the superconducting
ground state in this sample.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
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