The Suppression of Diversity

Is it a systematic strategy or a mutation of millennial ferver that drives the escalating challenges to the civil rights of this nation\u27s racial, linguistic, and national origin minorities? Increasing juridical, legislative, and popular assaults on affirmative action policies coupled with the sometimes less heralded emergence of a de facto U.S. language policy are sweeping through the states. These activities draw on a consistent repertoire of approaches from the invocation of the very language and concepts of the civil rights movement to the isolationist buzz-words of early twentieth century advocates of Americanization. In an effort to legitimize their efforts this new breed of assailants has lifted the terms equality of opportunity, color blind, and merit directly from the lips of civil rights heroes of the past, retrofitting concepts that resonate from the very core of the civil rights movement into an arsenal of weapons that threaten the extinction of that movement. In that same vein opponents of bilingual education have reached further back into our history dredging up de-contextualized quotations from icons of American history to evoke nostalgia and patriotism and to resuscitate the fear of the dissolution of national unity in the wake of the infusion of diverse languages and cultures. The introductory portion of this article treats the failure of anti-civil rights movements to acknowledge either the rich cultural legacy of people of color or the deeply engrained cultural and political limitations that this nation has imposed on their civil rights. We discuss the re-packaged language of equality and equity used by these movements and their success and attempts at success in reversing the progress of civil rights at the polls and in legislatures across the nation. We next examine the anti-affirmative action and anti-bilingual movements sweeping the U.S. today, analyzing qualitative and quantitative data from multiple sources including data from the the 2000 U.S. Census to track current anti-affirmative action and anti-bilingual/English only developments among the states to demonstrate the coexistence of these developments in those areas where people of color are concentrated

Incommensurable Uses: RLUIPA\u27s Equal Terms Provision and Exclusionary Zoning in \u3cem\u3eRiver of Life Kingdom Ministries v. Village of Hazel Crest\u3c/em\u3e

On July 2, 2010, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in River of Life Kingdom Ministries v. Village of Hazel Crest held that the “equal terms” provision of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) requires a comparison of religious and secular land uses with respect to any accepted zoning criteria. In so doing, the Seventh Circuit confronted a circuit split in the application of the equal terms provision and carved out a compromise between competing concerns about control over land-use regulations. This Comment discusses the difficulty of equal treatment within the context of exclusionary zoning and argues that River of Life puts control over zoning regulations into the courts and out of the hands of religious institutions

Temporal relation between quiet-Sun transverse fields and the strong flows detected by IMaX/SUNRISE

Localized strongly Doppler-shifted Stokes V signals were detected by IMaX/SUNRISE. These signals are related to newly emerged magnetic loops that are observed as linear polarization features. We aim to set constraints on the physical nature and causes of these highly Doppler-shifted signals. In particular, the temporal relation between the appearance of transverse fields and the strong Doppler shifts is analyzed in some detail. We calculated the time difference between the appearance of the strong flows and the linear polarization. We also obtained the distances from the center of various features to the nearest neutral lines and whether they overlap or not. These distances were compared with those obtained from randomly distributed points on observed magnetograms. Various cases of strong flows are described in some detail. The linear polarization signals precede the appearance of the strong flows by on average 84+-11 seconds. The strongly Doppler-shifted signals are closer (0.19") to magnetic neutral lines than randomly distributed points (0.5"). Eighty percent of the strongly Doppler-shifted signals are close to a neutral line that is located between the emerging field and pre-existing fields. That the remaining 20% do not show a close-by pre-existing field could be explained by a lack of sensitivity or an unfavorable geometry of the pre-existing field, for instance, a canopy-like structure. Transverse fields occurred before the observation of the strong Doppler shifts. The process is most naturally explained as the emergence of a granular-scale loop that first gives rise to the linear polarization signals, interacts with pre-existing fields (generating new neutral line configurations), and produces the observed strong flows. This explanation is indicative of frequent small-scale reconnection events in the quiet Sun.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figure

Ferromagnetism of cold fermions loaded into a decorated square lattice

We investigate two-component ultracold fermions loaded into a decorated square lattice, which are described by the Hubbard model with repulsive interactions and nearest neighbor hoppings. By combining the real-space dynamical mean-field theory with the numerical renormalization group method, we discuss how a ferromagnetically ordered ground state in the weak coupling regime, which originates from the existence of a dispersionless band, is adiabatically connected to a Heisenberg ferrimagnetic state in the strong coupling limit. The effects of level splitting and hopping imbalance are also addressed.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figure

Direct evaporative cooling of 41K into a Bose-Einstein condensate

We have investigated the collisional properties of 41K atoms at ultracold temperature. To show the possibility to use 41K as a coolant, a Bose-Einstein condensate of 41K atoms in the stretched state (F=2, m_F=2) was created for the first time by direct evaporation in a magnetic trap. An upper bound of three body loss coefficient for atoms in the condensate was determined to be 4(2) 10^{-29} cm -6 s-1. A Feshbach resonance in the F=1, m_F=-1 state was observed at 51.42(5) G, which is in good agreement with theoretical prediction.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Symmetry breaking and unconventional charge ordering in single crystal Na2.7_{2.7}Ru4_4O9_9

The interplay of charge, spin, and lattice degrees of freedom in matter leads to various forms of ordered states through phase transitions. An important subclass of these phenomena of complex materials is charge ordering (CO), mainly driven by mixed-valence states. We discovered by combining the results of electrical resistivity ($\rho$), specific heat, susceptibility $\chi$ (\textit{T}), and single crystal x-ray diffraction (SC-XRD) that Na$_{2.7}$Ru$_4$O$_9$ with the monoclinic tunnel type lattice (space group $C$2/$m$) exhibits an unconventional CO at room temperature while retaining metallicity. The temperature-dependent SC-XRD results show successive phase transitions with super-lattice reflections at \textbf{q}$_1$=(0, $\frac{1}{2}$, 0) and \textbf{q}$_2$=(0, $\frac{1}{3}$, $\frac{1}{3}$) below $T_{\textrm{C2}}$ (365 K) and only at \textbf{q}$_1$=(0, $\frac{1}{2}$, 0) between $T_{\textrm{C2}}$ and $T_{\textrm{C1}}$ (630 K). We interpreted these as an evidence for the formation of an unconventional CO. It reveals a strong first-order phase transition in the electrical resistivity at $T_{\textrm{C2}}$ (cooling) = 345 K and $T_{\textrm{C2}}$ (heating) = 365 K. We argue that the origin of the phase transition is due to the localized 4$d$ Ru-electrons. The results of our finding reveal an unique example of Ru$^{3+}$/Ru$^{4+}$ mixed valance heavy \textit{d}$^4$ ions.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figure

Metallic mean-field stripes, incommensurability and chemical potential in cuprates

We perform a systematic slave-boson mean-field analysis of the three-band model for cuprates with first-principle parameters. Contrary to widespread believe based on earlier mean-field computations low doping stripes have a linear density close to 1/2 added hole per lattice constant. We find a dimensional crossover from 1D to 2D at doping $\sim 0.1$ followed by a breaking of particle-hole symmetry around doping 1/8 as doping increases. Our results explain in a simple way the behavior of the chemical potential, the magnetic incommensurability, and transport experiments as a function of doping. Bond centered and site-centered stripes become degenerate for small overdoping.Comment: submitted to PR

Quantum correlation of an optically controlled quantum system

A precise time-dependent control of a quantum system relies on an accurate account of the quantum interference among the system, the control and the environment. A diagrammatic technique has been recently developed to precisely calculate this quantum correlation for a fast multimode coherent photon control against slow relaxation, valid for both Markovian and non-Markovian systems. We review this formalism in comparison with the existing approximate theories and extend it to cases with controls by photon state other than the coherent state.Comment: 23 pages, 8 figure

Role of the conduction electrons in mediating exchange interactions in Heusler alloys

Because of large spatial separation of the Mn atoms in Heusler alloys the Mn 3d states belonging to different atoms do not overlap considerably. Therefore an indirect exchange interaction between Mn atoms should play a crucial role in the ferromagnetism of the systems. To study the nature of the ferromagnetism of various Mn-based semi- and full-Heusler alloys we perform a systematic first-principles calculation of the exchange interactions in these materials. The calculation of the exchange parameters is based on the frozen-magnon approach. The calculations show that the magnetism of the Mn-based Heusler alloys depends strongly on the number of conduction electrons, their spin polarization and the position of the unoccupied Mn 3d states with respect to the Fermi level. Various magnetic phases are obtained depending on the combination of these characteristics. The Anderson's s-d model is used to perform a qualitative analysis of the obtained results. The conditions leading to diverse magnetic behavior are identified. If the spin polarization of the conduction electrons at the Fermi energy is large and the unoccupied Mn 3d states lie well above the Fermi level, an RKKY-type ferromagnetic interaction is dominating. On the other hand, the contribution of the antiferromagnetic superexchange becomes important if unoccupied Mn 3d states lie close to the Fermi energy. The resulting magnetic behavior depends on the competition of these two exchange mechanisms. The calculational results are in good correlation with the conclusions made on the basis of the Anderson s-d model which provides useful framework for the analysis of the results of first-principles calculations and helps to formulate the conditions for high Curie temperature.Comment: 16 pages, 9 figures, 2 table