Fabrication and characterization of hot- pressed tantalum carbide

Microstructure and chemistry of hot pressed powder compacts of tantalum carbid

The flavour projection of staggered fermions and the quarter-root trick

It is shown that the flavour projection of staggered fermions can be written as a projection between the fields on four separate, but parallel, lattices, where the fields on each are modified forms of the standard staggered fermion field. Because the staggered Dirac operator acts equally on each lattice, it respects this flavour projection. We show that the system can be gauged in the usual fashion and that this does not interfere with flavour projection. We also consider the path integral, showing that, prior to flavour projection, it evaluates to the same form on each lattice and that this form is equal to that used in the quarter-root trick. The flavour projection leaves a path integral for a single flavour of field on each lattice.Comment: 8 pages, including title pag

Systematic Low-Energy Effective Field Theory for Magnons and Holes in an Antiferromagnet on the Honeycomb Lattice

Based on a symmetry analysis of the microscopic Hubbard and t-J models, a systematic low-energy effective field theory is constructed for hole-doped antiferromagnets on the honeycomb lattice. In the antiferromagnetic phase, doped holes are massive due to the spontaneous breakdown of the $SU(2)_s$ symmetry, just as nucleons in QCD pick up their mass from spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking. In the broken phase the effective action contains a single-derivative term, similar to the Shraiman-Siggia term in the square lattice case. Interestingly, an accidental continuous spatial rotation symmetry arises at leading order. As an application of the effective field theory we consider one-magnon exchange between two holes and the formation of two-hole bound states. As an unambiguous prediction of the effective theory, the wave function for the ground state of two holes bound by magnon exchange exhibits $f$-wave symmetry.Comment: 33 pages, 6 figure

Microscopic Model versus Systematic Low-Energy Effective Field Theory for a Doped Quantum Ferromagnet

We consider a microscopic model for a doped quantum ferromagnet as a test case for the systematic low-energy effective field theory for magnons and holes, which is constructed in complete analogy to the case of quantum antiferromagnets. In contrast to antiferromagnets, for which the effective field theory approach can be tested only numerically, in the ferromagnetic case both the microscopic and the effective theory can be solved analytically. In this way the low-energy parameters of the effective theory are determined exactly by matching to the underlying microscopic model. The low-energy behavior at half-filling as well as in the single- and two-hole sectors is described exactly by the systematic low-energy effective field theory. In particular, for weakly bound two-hole states the effective field theory even works beyond perturbation theory. This lends strong support to the quantitative success of the systematic low-energy effective field theory method not only in the ferromagnetic but also in the physically most interesting antiferromagnetic case.Comment: 34 pages, 1 figur

R-Curve Response Of Silicon Carbide Whisker-Reinforced Alumina: Microstructural Influence

Rising fracture resistance with crack extension (R-curve response) can lead to improvements in the mechanical reliability of ceramics. To understand how microstructures influence the R-curve behavior, direct observations of crack interactions with microstructural features were conducted on SiC whisker-reinforced alumina. The contribution of the dominant toughening mechanisms to the R-curve behavior of these composites is discussed using experimental and theoretical studies

Systematic Low-Energy Effective Field Theory for Electron-Doped Antiferromagnets

In contrast to hole-doped systems which have hole pockets centered at $(\pm \frac{\pi}{2a},\pm \frac{\pi}{2a})$, in lightly electron-doped antiferromagnets the charged quasiparticles reside in momentum space pockets centered at $(\frac{\pi}{a},0)$ or $(0,\frac{\pi}{a})$. This has important consequences for the corresponding low-energy effective field theory of magnons and electrons which is constructed in this paper. In particular, in contrast to the hole-doped case, the magnon-mediated forces between two electrons depend on the total momentum $\vec P$ of the pair. For $\vec P = 0$ the one-magnon exchange potential between two electrons at distance $r$ is proportional to $1/r^4$, while in the hole case it has a $1/r^2$ dependence. The effective theory predicts that spiral phases are absent in electron-doped antiferromagnets.Comment: 25 pages, 7 figure

Homogeneous versus Spiral Phases of Hole-doped Antiferromagnets: A Systematic Effective Field Theory Investigation

Using the low-energy effective field theory for magnons and holes -- the condensed matter analog of baryon chiral perturbation theory for pions and nucleons in QCD -- we study different phases of doped antiferromagnets. We systematically investigate configurations of the staggered magnetization that provide a constant background field for doped holes. The most general configuration of this type is either constant itself or it represents a spiral in the staggered magnetization. Depending on the values of the low-energy parameters, a homogeneous phase, a spiral phase, or an inhomogeneous phase is energetically favored. The reduction of the staggered magnetization upon doping is also investigated.Comment: 35 pages, 5 figure

Direct photon production with effective field theory

The production of hard photons in hadronic collisions is studied using Soft-Collinear Effective Theory (SCET). This is the first application of SCET to a physical, observable cross section involving energetic partons in more than two directions. A factorization formula is derived which involves a non-trivial interplay of the angular dependence in the hard and soft functions, both quark and gluon jet functions, and multiple partonic channels. The relevant hard, jet and soft functions are computed to one loop and their anomalous dimensions are determined to three loops. The final resummed inclusive direct photon distribution is valid to next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic order (NNLL), one order beyond previous work. The result is improved by including non-logarithmic terms and photon isolation cuts through matching, and compared to Tevatron data and to fixed order results at the Tevatron and the LHC. The resummed cross section has a significantly smaller theoretical uncertainty than the next-to-leading fixed-order result, particularly at high transverse momentum.Comment: 42 pages, 9 figures; v2: references added, minor changes; v3: typos; v4: typos, corrections in (16), (47), (72

SCET sum rules for B->P and B->V transition form factors

We investigate sum rules for heavy-to-light transition form factors at large recoil derived from correlation functions with interpolating currents for light pseudoscalar or vector fields in soft-collinear effective theory (SCET). We consider both, factorizable and non-factorizable contributions at leading power in the Lambda/m_b expansion and to first order in the strong coupling constant alpha_s, neglecting contributions from 3-particle distribution amplitudes in the B-meson. We pay particular attention to various sources of parametric and systematic uncertainties. We also discuss certain form factor ratios where part of the hadronic uncertainties related to the B-meson distribution amplitude and to logarithmically enhanced alpha_s corrections cancel.Comment: 27 pages, 19 figures, minor corrections, matches journal versio