Zero-Bias Anomalies in Narrow Tunnel Junctions in the Quantum Hall Regime

We report on the study of cleaved-edge-overgrown line junctions with a serendipitously created narrow opening in an otherwise thin, precise line barrier. Two sets of zero-bias anomalies are observed with an enhanced conductance for filling factors $\nu > 1$ and a strongly suppressed conductance for $\nu < 1$. A transition between the two behaviors is found near $\nu \approx 1$. The zero-bias anomaly (ZBA) line shapes find explanation in Luttinger liquid models of tunneling between quantum Hall edge states. The ZBA for $\nu < 1$ occurs from strong backscattering induced by suppression of quasiparticle tunneling between the edge channels for the $n = 0$ Landau levels. The ZBA for $\nu > 1$ arises from weak tunneling of quasiparticles between the $n = 1$ edge channels.Comment: version with edits for clarit

Energy Level Statistics of Quantum Dots

We investigate the charging energy level statistics of disordered interacting electrons in quantum dots by numerical calculations using the Hartree approximation. The aim is to obtain a global picture of the statistics as a function of disorder and interaction strengths. We find Poisson statistics at very strong disorder, Wigner- Dyson statistics for weak disorder and interactions, and a Gaussian intermediate regime. These regimes are as expected from previous studies and fundamental considerations, but we also find interesting and rather broad crossover regimes. In particular, intermediate between the Gaussian and Poisson regimes we find a two-sided exponential distribution for the energy level spacings. In comparing with experiment, we find that this distribution may be realized in some quantum dots.Comment: 21 pages 10 figure

Proximity effects and triplet correlations in Ferromagnet/Ferromagnet/Superconductor nanostructures

We report the results of a study of superconducting proximity effects in clean Ferromagnet/Ferromagnet/Superconductor (${\rm F_1F_2S}$) heterostructures, where the pairing state in S is a conventional singlet s-wave. We numerically find the self-consistent solutions of the Bogoliubov-de Gennes (BdG) equations and use these solutions to calculate the relevant physical quantities. By linearizing the BdG equations, we obtain the superconducting transition temperatures $T_c$ as a function of the angle $\alpha$ between the exchange fields in $\rm F_1$ and $\rm F_2$. We find that the results for $T_c(\alpha)$ in ${\rm F_1F_2S}$ systems are clearly different from those in ${\rm F_1 S F_2}$ systems, where $T_c$ monotonically increases with $\alpha$ and is highest for antiparallel magnetizations. Here, $T_c(\alpha)$ is in general a non-monotonic function, and often has a minimum near $\alpha \approx 80^{\circ}$. For certain values of the exchange field and layer thicknesses, the system exhibits reentrant superconductivity with $\alpha$: it transitions from superconducting to normal, and then returns to a superconducting state again with increasing $\alpha$. This phenomenon is substantiated by a calculation of the condensation energy. We compute, in addition to the ordinary singlet pair amplitude, the induced odd triplet pairing amplitudes. The results indicate a connection between equal-spin triplet pairing and the singlet pairing state that characterizes $T_c$. We find also that the induced triplet amplitudes can be very long-ranged in both the S and F sides and characterize their range. We discuss the average density of states for both the magnetic and the S regions, and its relation to the pairing amplitudes and $T_c$. The local magnetization vector, which exhibits reverse proximity effects, is also investigated.Comment: 14 pages including 11 figure

Multi-Lepton Collider Signatures of Heavy Dirac and Majorana Neutrinos

We discuss the possibility of observing multi-lepton signals at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) from the production and decay of heavy Standard Model (SM) singlet neutrinos added in extensions of SM to explain the observed light neutrino masses by seesaw mechanism. In particular, we analyze two `smoking gun' signals depending on the Dirac or Majorana nature of the heavy neutrino: (i) for Majorana case, the same-sign di-lepton signal which can be used as a probe of lepton-number violation, and (ii) for Dirac case, the tri-lepton signal which conserves lepton number but may violate lepton flavor. Within a minimal Left-Right symmetric framework in which these additional neutrino states arise naturally, we find that in both cases, the signals can be identified with virtually no background beyond a TeV, and the heavy gauge boson W_R can be discovered in this process. This analysis also provides a direct way to probe the nature of seesaw physics involving the SM singlets at TeV scale, and in particular, to distinguish type-I seesaw with purely Majorana heavy neutrinos from inverse seesaw with pseudo-Dirac counterparts.Comment: 19 pages, 7 figures; typo in eq. 5 fixed; matches published versio

Divergence and Shannon information in genomes

Shannon information (SI) and its special case, divergence, are defined for a DNA sequence in terms of probabilities of chemical words in the sequence and are computed for a set of complete genomes highly diverse in length and composition. We find the following: SI (but not divergence) is inversely proportional to sequence length for a random sequence but is length-independent for genomes; the genomic SI is always greater and, for shorter words and longer sequences, hundreds to thousands times greater than the SI in a random sequence whose length and composition match those of the genome; genomic SIs appear to have word-length dependent universal values. The universality is inferred to be an evolution footprint of a universal mode for genome growth.Comment: 4 pages, 3 tables, 2 figure

Relationship between Respiratory Load Perception and Perception of Nonrespiratory Sensory Modalities in Subjects with Life-Threatening Asthma

Subjects with life-threatening asthma (LTA) have reported decreased sensitivity to inspiratory resistive (R) loads. It is unknown if decreased sensitivity is specific for inspiratory R loads, other types of respiratory loads, or a general deficit affecting sensory modalities. This study hypothesized that impairment is specific to respiratory stimuli. This study tested perceptual sensitivity of LTA, asthmatic (A), and nonasthmatic (NA) subjects to 4 sensory modalities: respiratory, somatosensory, auditory, visual. Perceptual sensitivity was measured with magnitude estimation (ME): respiratory loads ME, determined using inspiratory R and pressure threshold (PT) loads; somatosensory ME, determined using weight ranges of 2–20 kg; auditory ME, determined using graded magnitudes of 1 kHz tones delivered for 3 seconds bilaterally; visual ME, determined using gray-to-white disk intensity gradations on black background. ME for inspiratory R loads lessened for LTA over A and NA subjects. There was no significant difference between the 3 groups in ME for PT inspiratory loads, weight, sound, and visual trials. These results demonstrate that LTA subjects are poor perceivers of inspiratory R loads. This deficit in respiratory perception is specific to inspiratory R loads and is not due to perceptual deficits in other types of inspiratory loads, somatosensory, auditory, or visual sensory modalities

Sum rule for the optical Hall angle

We consider the optical Hall conductivity of a general electronic medium and prove that the optical Hall angle obeys a new sum rule. This sum rule governs the response of an electronic fluid to a Lorentz electric field and can thought of as the transverse counterpart to the f-sum rule in optical conductivity. The physical meaning of this sum rule is discussed, giving a number of examples of its application to a variety of of electronic media.Comment: Four pages. Latex file with two postscript figure

Dynamical mean-field equations for strongly interacting fermionic atoms in a potential trap

We derive a set of dynamical mean-field equations for strongly interacting fermionic atoms in a potential trap across a Feshbach resonance. Our derivation is based on a variational ansatz, which generalizes the crossover wavefunction to the inhomogeneous case, and the assumption that the order parameter is slowly varying over the size of the Cooper pairs. The equations reduce to a generalized time-dependent Gross-Pitaevskii equation on the BEC side of the resonance. We discuss an iterative method to solve these mean-field equations, and present the solution for a harmonic trap as an illustrating example to self-consistently verify the approximations made in our derivation.Comment: replaced with the published versio

The BCS-like gap in superconductor SmFeAsO_0.85F_0.15

Since the discovery of superconductivity in the cuprates two decades ago, it has been firmly established that the CuO_2 plane is consequential for high T_C superconductivity and a host of other very unusual properties. A new family of superconductors with the general composition of LaFeAsO_(1-x)F_x has recently been discovered but with the conspicuous lacking of the CuO_2 planes, thus raising the tantalizing questions of the different pairing mechanisms in these oxypnictide superconductors. Intimately related to pairing in a superconductor are the superconducting gap, its value, structure, and temperature dependence. Here we report the observation of a single gap in the superconductor SmFeAsO_0.85F_0.15 with T_C = 42 K as measured by Andreev spectroscopy. The gap value of 2Delta = 13.34+/-0.3 meV gives 2Delta/k_BT_C = 3.68, close to the BCS prediction of 3.53. The gap decreases with temperature and vanishes at T_C in a manner consistent with the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) prediction but dramatically different from that of the pseudogap behavior in the cuprate superconductors. Our results clearly indicate a nodeless gap order parameter, which is nearly isotropic in size across different sections of the Fermi surface, and are not compatible with models involving antiferromagnetic fluctuations, strong correlations, t-J model, and the like, originally designed for cuprates.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figure