965 research outputs found
Microscopic Theory for Coupled Atomistic Magnetization and Lattice Dynamics
A coupled atomistic spin and lattice dynamics approach is developed which
merges the dynamics of these two degrees of freedom into a single set of
coupled equations of motion. The underlying microscopic model comprises local
exchange interactions between the electron spin and magnetic moment and the
local couplings between the electronic charge and lattice displacements. An
effective action for the spin and lattice variables is constructed in which the
interactions among the spin and lattice components are determined by the
underlying electronic structure. In this way, expressions are obtained for the
electronically mediated couplings between the spin and lattice degrees of
freedom, besides the well known inter-atomic force constants and spin-spin
interactions. These former susceptibilities provide an atomistic ab initio
description for the coupled spin and lattice dynamics. It is important to
notice that this theory is strictly bilinear in the spin and lattice variables
and provides a minimal model for the coupled dynamics of these subsystems and
that the two subsystems are treated on the same footing. Questions concerning
time-reversal and inversion symmetry are rigorously addressed and it is shown
how these aspects are absorbed in the tensor structure of the interaction
fields. By means of these results regarding the spin-lattice coupling, simple
explanations of ionic dimerization in double anti-ferromagnetic materials, as
well as, charge density waves induced by a non-uniform spin structure are
given. In the final parts, a set of coupled equations of motion for the
combined spin and lattice dynamics are constructed, which subsequently can be
reduced to a form which is analogous to the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equations
for spin dynamics and damped driven mechanical oscillator for the ...Comment: 22 pages, including 7 pages of Appendix and references, 6 figure
Limits of space-times in five dimensions and their relation to the Segre Types
A limiting diagram for the Segre classification in 5-dimensional space-times
is obtained, extending a recent work on limits of the energy-momentum tensor in
general relativity. Some of Geroch's results on limits of space-times in
general relativity are also extended to the context of five-dimensional
Kaluza-Klein space-times.Comment: Late
Kinematical & Chemical Characteristics of the Thin and Thick Disks
I discuss how the chemical abundance distributions, kinematics and age
distributions of stars in the thin and thick disks of the Galaxy can be used to
decipher the merger history of the Milky Way, a typical large galaxy. The
observational evidence points to a rather quiescent past merging history,
unusual in the context of the `consensus' cold-dark-matter cosmology favoured
from observations of structure on scales larger than individual galaxies.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures; review at IAU Symposium 254, `The Galaxy Disk in
Cosmological Context', Copenhagen, June 2008, eds J. Andersen, J.
Bland-Hawthorn & B. Nordstro
The star-formation history of the Milky Way Galaxy
The star-formation histories of the main stellar components of the Milky Way
constrain critical aspects of galaxy formation and evolution. I discuss recent
determinations of such histories, together with their interpretation in terms
of theories of disk galaxy evolution.Comment: Invited review, IAU Symposium 258; 12 pages, 1 figur
Open Cluster Characterization via Cross-Correlation with Spectral Library
We present a characterization method based on spectral cross-correlation to
obtain the physical parameters of the controversial stellar aggregate
ESO442-SC04. The data used was obtained with GMOS at Gemini-South telescope
including 17 stars in the central region of the ob ject and 6 standard-stars.
FXCOR was used in an iterative process to obtain self-consistent radial
velocities for the standard-stars and averaged radial velocities for the
science spectra. Spectral types, effective temperature, suface gravity and
metallicities parameters were determined using FXCOR to correlate cluster
spectra with ELODIE spectral library and selecting the best correlation matches
using the Tonry and Davis Ratio (TDR). Analysis of the results suggests that
the stars in ESO442-SC04 are not bound and therefore they do not constitute a
physical system.Comment: 4-page paper from IAU symposium 266. Contains 3 eps figures and IAU
document class file 'iau.cls
Lead abundance in the uranium star CS 31082-001
In a previous paper we were able to measure the abundance of uranium and
thorium in the very-metal poor halo giant BPS CS 31082-001, but only obtained
an upper limit for the abundance of lead (Pb). We have got from ESO 17 hours of
additional exposure on this star in order to secure a detection of the minimum
amount of lead expected to be present in CS 31082-001, the amount arising from
the decay of the original content of Th and U in the star. We report here this
successful detection. We find an LTE abundance log(Pb/H)+12=-0.55 \pm 0.15 dex,
one dex below the upper limits given by other authors for the similar stars CS
22892-052 and BD +17d3248, also enhanced in r-process elements. From the
observed present abundances of Th and U in the star, the expected amount of Pb
produced by the decay of 232Th, and 238U alone, over 12-15 Gyr is -0.73\pm 0.17
dex. The decay of 235U is more difficult to estimate, but is probably slightly
below the contribution of 238U, making the contribution of the 3 actinides only
slightly below, or even equal to, the measured abundance. The contribution from
the decay of 234U has was not included, for lack of published data. In this
sense our determination is a lower limit to the contribution of actinides to
lead production. We comment this result, and we note that if a NLTE analysis,
not yet possible, doubles our observed abundance, the decay of the 3 actinides
will still represent 50 per cent of the total lead, a proportion higher than
the values considered so far in the literature.Comment: 4 pages, LateX, A&A Letters Accepte
Oscillatory Thickness Dependence of Magnetic Moments and interface-induced Changes of the Exchange Coupling in Co/Cu and Co-Ni/Cu Multilayers
We perform first-principles calculations for the three multilayer systems
(100)-Co_1/Cu_n, -NiCo_2Ni/Cu_n and -Co_4/Cu_n, and find from a comparison x of
the results for system 2 and 3 that amplitude and phase of the exchange
coupling are sensitive to the magnetic-slab/nonmagnetic-spacer interface.
Moreover, we observe that for the system 1 and 2 the averaged magnetic moment
of the magnetic slab oscillates with the spacer thickness similarly as the
exchange coupling.Comment: 5 pages (Latex, to be applied 2 times) + 2 figures (.ps-files
A General Concept for Consistent Documentation of Computational Analyses
The ever-growing amount of data in the field of life sciences demands standardized ways of high-throughput computational analysis. This standardization requires a thorough documentation of each step in the computational analysis to enable researchers to understand and reproduce the results. However, due to the heterogeneity in software setups and the high rate of change during tool development, reproducibility is hard to achieve. One reason is that there is no common agreement in the research community on how to document computational studies. In many cases, simple flat files or other unstructured text documents are provided by researchers as documentation, which are often missing software dependencies, versions and sufficient documentation to understand the workflow and parameter settings. As a solution we suggest a simple and modest approach for documenting and verifying computational analysis pipelines. We propose a two-part scheme that defines a computational analysis using a Process and an Analysis metadata document, which jointly describe all necessary details to reproduce the results. In this design we separate the metadata specifying the process from the metadata describing an actual analysis run, thereby reducing the effort of manual documentation to an absolute minimum. Our approach is independent of a specific software environment, results in human readable XML documents that can easily be shared with other researchers and allows an automated validation to ensure consistency of the metadata. Because our approach has been designed with little to no assumptions concerning the workflow of an analysis, we expect it to be applicable in a wide range of computational research fields. Database URL: http://deep.mpi-inf.mpg.de/DAC/cmds/pub/pyvalid.zi
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