871 research outputs found
Exact renormalization group flow equations for non-relativistic fermions: scaling towards the Fermi surface
We construct exact functional renormalization group (RG) flow equations for
non-relativistic fermions in arbitrary dimensions, taking into account not only
mode elimination but also the rescaling of the momenta, frequencies and the
fermionic fields. The complete RG flow of all relevant, marginal and irrelevant
couplings can be described by a system of coupled flow equations for the
irreducible n-point vertices. Introducing suitable dimensionless variables, we
obtain flow equations for generalized scaling functions which are continuous
functions of the flow parameter, even if we consider quantities which are
dominated by momenta close to the Fermi surface, such as the density-density
correlation function at long wavelengths. We also show how the problem of
constructing the renormalized Fermi surface can be reduced to the problem of
finding the RG fixed point of the irreducible two-point vertex at vanishing
momentum and frequency. We argue that only if the degrees of freedom are
properly rescaled it is possible to reach scale-invariant non-Fermi liquid
fixed points within a truncation of the exact RG flow equations.Comment: 20 Revtex pages, with 4 figures; final version to appear in Phys.
Rev. B; references and some explanations adde
Long-Term Potentiation: One Kind or Many?
Do neurobiologists aim to discover natural kinds? I address this question in this chapter via a critical analysis of classification practices operative across the 43-year history of research on long-term potentiation (LTP). I argue that this 43-year history supports the idea that the structure of scientific practice surrounding LTP research has remained an obstacle to the discovery of natural kinds
Soil respiration in a northeastern US temperate forest: a 22‐year synthesis
To better understand how forest management, phenology, vegetation type, and actual and simulated climatic change affect seasonal and inter‐annual variations in soil respiration (Rs), we analyzed more than 100,000 individual measurements of soil respiration from 23 studies conducted over 22 years at the Harvard Forest in Petersham, Massachusetts, USA. We also used 24 site‐years of eddy‐covariance measurements from two Harvard Forest sites to examine the relationship between soil and ecosystem respiration (Re).
Rs was highly variable at all spatial (respiration collar to forest stand) and temporal (minutes to years) scales of measurement. The response of Rs to experimental manipulations mimicking aspects of global change or aimed at partitioning Rs into component fluxes ranged from −70% to +52%. The response appears to arise from variations in substrate availability induced by changes in the size of soil C pools and of belowground C fluxes or in environmental conditions. In some cases (e.g., logging, warming), the effect of experimental manipulations on Rs was transient, but in other cases the time series were not long enough to rule out long‐term changes in respiration rates. Inter‐annual variations in weather and phenology induced variation among annual Rs estimates of a magnitude similar to that of other drivers of global change (i.e., invasive insects, forest management practices, N deposition). At both eddy‐covariance sites, aboveground respiration dominated Re early in the growing season, whereas belowground respiration dominated later. Unusual aboveground respiration patterns—high apparent rates of respiration during winter and very low rates in mid‐to‐late summer—at the Environmental Measurement Site suggest either bias in Rs and Re estimates caused by differences in the spatial scale of processes influencing fluxes, or that additional research on the hard‐to‐measure fluxes (e.g., wintertime Rs, unaccounted losses of CO2 from eddy covariance sites), daytime and nighttime canopy respiration and its impacts on estimates of Re, and independent measurements of flux partitioning (e.g., aboveground plant respiration, isotopic partitioning) may yield insight into the unusually high and low fluxes. Overall, however, this data‐rich analysis identifies important seasonal and experimental variations in Rs and Re and in the partitioning of Re above‐ vs. belowground
Soil respiration in a northeastern US temperate forest: a 22‐year synthesis
To better understand how forest management, phenology, vegetation type, and actual and simulated climatic change affect seasonal and inter‐annual variations in soil respiration (Rs), we analyzed more than 100,000 individual measurements of soil respiration from 23 studies conducted over 22 years at the Harvard Forest in Petersham, Massachusetts, USA. We also used 24 site‐years of eddy‐covariance measurements from two Harvard Forest sites to examine the relationship between soil and ecosystem respiration (Re).
Rs was highly variable at all spatial (respiration collar to forest stand) and temporal (minutes to years) scales of measurement. The response of Rs to experimental manipulations mimicking aspects of global change or aimed at partitioning Rs into component fluxes ranged from −70% to +52%. The response appears to arise from variations in substrate availability induced by changes in the size of soil C pools and of belowground C fluxes or in environmental conditions. In some cases (e.g., logging, warming), the effect of experimental manipulations on Rs was transient, but in other cases the time series were not long enough to rule out long‐term changes in respiration rates. Inter‐annual variations in weather and phenology induced variation among annual Rs estimates of a magnitude similar to that of other drivers of global change (i.e., invasive insects, forest management practices, N deposition). At both eddy‐covariance sites, aboveground respiration dominated Re early in the growing season, whereas belowground respiration dominated later. Unusual aboveground respiration patterns—high apparent rates of respiration during winter and very low rates in mid‐to‐late summer—at the Environmental Measurement Site suggest either bias in Rs and Re estimates caused by differences in the spatial scale of processes influencing fluxes, or that additional research on the hard‐to‐measure fluxes (e.g., wintertime Rs, unaccounted losses of CO2 from eddy covariance sites), daytime and nighttime canopy respiration and its impacts on estimates of Re, and independent measurements of flux partitioning (e.g., aboveground plant respiration, isotopic partitioning) may yield insight into the unusually high and low fluxes. Overall, however, this data‐rich analysis identifies important seasonal and experimental variations in Rs and Re and in the partitioning of Re above‐ vs. belowground
Linear non-hysteretic gating of a very high density 2DEG in an undoped metal-semiconductor-metal sandwich structure
Modulation doped GaAs-AlGaAs quantum well based structures are usually used
to achieve very high mobility 2-dimensional electron (or hole) gases. Usually
high mobilities () are achieved at
high densities. A loss of linear gateability is often associated with the
highest mobilites, on account of a some residual hopping or parallel conduction
in the doped regions. We have developed a method of using fully undoped
GaAs-AlGaAs quantum wells, where densities
can be achieved while maintaining fully
linear and non-hysteretic gateability. We use these devices to understand the
possible mobility limiting mechanisms at very high densities.Comment: 4 pages, 3 eps figure
Proteomic Detection of Non-Annotated Protein-Coding Genes in Pseudomonas fluorescens Pf0-1
Genome sequences are annotated by computational prediction of coding sequences, followed by similarity searches such as BLAST, which provide a layer of possible functional information. While the existence of processes such as alternative splicing complicates matters for eukaryote genomes, the view of bacterial genomes as a linear series of closely spaced genes leads to the assumption that computational annotations that predict such arrangements completely describe the coding capacity of bacterial genomes. We undertook a proteomic study to identify proteins expressed by Pseudomonas fluorescens Pf0-1 from genes that were not predicted during the genome annotation. Mapping peptides to the Pf0-1 genome sequence identified sixteen non-annotated protein-coding regions, of which nine were antisense to predicted genes, six were intergenic, and one read in the same direction as an annotated gene but in a different frame. The expression of all but one of the newly discovered genes was verified by RT-PCR. Few clues as to the function of the new genes were gleaned from informatic analyses, but potential orthologs in other Pseudomonas genomes were identified for eight of the new genes. The 16 newly identified genes improve the quality of the Pf0-1 genome annotation, and the detection of antisense protein-coding genes indicates the under-appreciated complexity of bacterial genome organization
Distribution of HPV types associated with cervical cancers in Scotland and implications for the impact of HPV vaccines
Critical behavior of generic competing systems
Generic higher character Lifshitz critical behaviors are described using
field theory and -expansion renormalization group methods. These
critical behaviors describe systems with arbitrary competing interactions. We
derive the scaling relations and the critical exponents at the two-loop level
for anisotropic and isotropic points of arbitrary higher character. The
framework is illustrated for the -vector model describing a
-dimensional system. The anisotropic behaviors are derived in terms of many
independent renormalization group transformations, each one characterized by
independent correlation lengths. The isotropic behaviors can be understood
using only one renormalization group transformation. Feynman diagrams are
solved for the anisotropic behaviors using a new dimensional regularization
associated to a generalized orthogonal approximation. The isotropic diagrams
are treated using this approximation as well as with a new exact technique to
compute the integrals. The entire procedure leads to the analytical solution of
generic loop order integrals with arbitrary external momenta. The property of
universality class reduction is also satisfied when the competing interactions
are turned off. We show how the results presented here reduce to the usual
-fold Lifshitz critical behaviors for both isotropic and anisotropic
criticalities.Comment: RevTex, 54 pages, 3 figures; version accepted for publication in
Physical Review
An accurate high-speed single-electron quantum dot pump
Using standard microfabrication techniques, it is now possible to construct devices that appear to reliably manipulate electrons one at a time. These devices have potential use as building blocks in quantum computing devices, or as a standard of electrical current derived only from a frequency and the fundamental charge. To date, the error rate in semiconductor 'tuneable-barrier' pump devices, those which show most promise for high-frequency operation, have not been tested in detail. We present high-accuracy measurements of the current from an etched GaAs quantum dot pump, operated at zero source-drain bias voltage with a single ac-modulated gate at 340 MHz driving the pump cycle. By comparison with a reference current derived from primary standards, we show that the electron transfer accuracy is better than 15 parts per million. High-resolution studies of the dependence of the pump current on the quantum dot tuning parameters also reveal possible deviations from a model used to describe the pumping cycle
Nonperturbative renormalization group approach to frustrated magnets
This article is devoted to the study of the critical properties of classical
XY and Heisenberg frustrated magnets in three dimensions. We first analyze the
experimental and numerical situations. We show that the unusual behaviors
encountered in these systems, typically nonuniversal scaling, are hardly
compatible with the hypothesis of a second order phase transition. We then
review the various perturbative and early nonperturbative approaches used to
investigate these systems. We argue that none of them provides a completely
satisfactory description of the three-dimensional critical behavior. We then
recall the principles of the nonperturbative approach - the effective average
action method - that we have used to investigate the physics of frustrated
magnets. First, we recall the treatment of the unfrustrated - O(N) - case with
this method. This allows to introduce its technical aspects. Then, we show how
this method unables to clarify most of the problems encountered in the previous
theoretical descriptions of frustrated magnets. Firstly, we get an explanation
of the long-standing mismatch between different perturbative approaches which
consists in a nonperturbative mechanism of annihilation of fixed points between
two and three dimensions. Secondly, we get a coherent picture of the physics of
frustrated magnets in qualitative and (semi-) quantitative agreement with the
numerical and experimental results. The central feature that emerges from our
approach is the existence of scaling behaviors without fixed or pseudo-fixed
point and that relies on a slowing-down of the renormalization group flow in a
whole region in the coupling constants space. This phenomenon allows to explain
the occurence of generic weak first order behaviors and to understand the
absence of universality in the critical behavior of frustrated magnets.Comment: 58 pages, 15 PS figure
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