130 research outputs found
Strain dependence of the acoustic properties of amorphous metals below 1K: Evidence for the interaction between tunneling states
We have conducted a thorough study of the acoustic properties between 10^-4
and 1 Kelvin for the amorphous metal Zr_x Cu_1-x (x=0.3 and x=0.4), by
measuring the relative change of sound velocity dv/v and internal friction Q^-1
as a function of temperature and also of the applied strain, in both
superconducting and normal state. We have found that when plotted versus the
ratio of strain energy to thermal energy, all measurements display the same
behavior: a crossover from a linear regime of ``independent'' tunneling systems
at very low strains and/or high enough temperatures to a nonlinear regime where
dv/v and Q^-1 depend on applied strain and the tunneling systems cannot be
considered as independent.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures (submitted to PRL
Exact c-number Representation of Non-Markovian Quantum Dissipation
The reduced dynamics of a quantum system interacting with a linear heat bath
finds an exact representation in terms of a stochastic Schr{\"o}dinger
equation. All memory effects of the reservoir are transformed into noise
correlations and mean-field friction. The classical limit of the resulting
stochastic dynamics is shown to be a generalized Langevin equation, and
conventional quantum state diffusion is recovered in the Born--Markov
approximation. The non-Markovian exact dynamics, valid at arbitrary temperature
and damping strength, is exemplified by an application to the dissipative
two-state system.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures. To be published in Phys. Rev. Let
Magnetic Field Dependent Tunneling in Glasses
We report on experiments giving evidence for quantum effects of
electromagnetic flux in barium alumosilicate glass. In contrast to expectation,
below 100 mK the dielectric response becomes sensitive to magnetic fields. The
experimental findings include both, the complete lifting of the dielectric
saturation by weak magnetic fields and oscillations of the dielectric response
in the low temperature resonant regime. As origin of these effects we suggest
that the magnetic induction field violates the time reversal invariance leading
to a flux periodicity in the energy levels of tunneling systems. At low
temperatures, this effect is strongly enhanced by the interaction between
tunneling systems and thus becomes measurable.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Non-Markoffian effects of a simple nonlinear bath
We analyze a model of a nonlinear bath consisting of a single two-level
system coupled to a linear bath (a classical noise force in the limit
considered here). This allows us to study the effects of a nonlinear,
non-Markoffian bath in a particularly simple situation. We analyze the effects
of this bath onto the dynamics of a spin by calculating the decay of the
equilibrium correlator of the spin's z-component. The exact results are
compared with those obtained using three commonly used approximations: a
Markoffian master equation for the spin dynamics, a weak-coupling
approximation, and the substitution of a linear bath for the original nonlinear
bath.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure
Mobility enhancement among older adults 75 + in rural areas: Study protocol of the MOBILE randomized controlled trial
Background: Maintaining mobility in old age is crucial for healthy ageing including delaying the onset and progress of frailty. However, the extent of an individuals' mobility relies largely on their personal, social, and environmental resources as outlined in the Life-Space Constriction Model. Recent studies mainly focus on facilitating habitual out-of-home mobility by fostering one type of resources only. The MOBILE trial aims at testing whether tablet-assisted motivational counselling enhances the mobility of community-dwelling older adults by addressing personal, social, and environmental resources.
Methods: In the MOBILE randomized controlled trial, we plan to enrol 254 community-dwelling older adults aged 75 and older from Havelland, a rural area in Germany. The intervention group will receive a tablet-assisted motivational counselling at the participant's home and two follow-up telephone sessions. Main focus of the counselling sessions lays on setting and adapting individual mobility goals and applying action planning and habit formation strategies by incorporating the personal social network and regional opportunities for engaging in mobility related activities. The control group will receive postal general health information. The primary mobility outcome is time out-of-home assessed by GPS (GPS.Rec2.0-App) at three points in time (baseline, after one month, and after three months for seven consecutive days each). Secondary outcomes are the size of the GPS-derived life-space convex hull, self-reported life-space mobility (LSA-D), physical activity (IPAQ), depressive symptoms (GDS), frailty phenotype, and health status (SF-12).
Discussion: The MOBILE trial will test the effect of a motivational counselling intervention on out-of-home mobility in community-dwelling older adults. Novel aspects of the MOBILE trial include the preventive multi-level intervention approach in combination with easy-to-use technology. The ecological approach ensures low-threshold implementation, which increases the benefit for the people in the region
Scaling and universality in the anisotropic Kondo model and the dissipative two-state system
Scaling and universality in the Ohmic two-state system is investigated by
exploiting the equivalence of this model to the anisotropic Kondo model. For
the Ohmic two-state system, we find universal scaling functions for the
specific heat, , static susceptibility, , and
spin relaxation function depending on the reduced
temperature (frequency ), with
the renormalized tunneling frequency, and uniquely specified by the dissipation
strength (). The scaling functions can be used to extract
and in experimental realizations.Comment: 5 pages (LaTeX), 4 EPS figures. Minor changes, typos corrected,
journal reference adde
Long-term clinical effects of ventricular pacing reduction with a changeover mode to minimize ventricular pacing in a general pacemaker population
AIM: Right ventricular pacing (VP) has been hypothesized to increase the risk in heart failure (HF) and atrial fibrillation (AF). The ANSWER study evaluated, whether an AAI-DDD changeover mode to minimize VP (SafeR) improves outcome compared with DDD in a general dual-chamber pacemaker population. METHODS AND RESULTS: ANSWER was a randomized controlled multicentre trial assessing SafeR vs. standard DDD in sinus node disease (SND) or AV block (AVB) patients. After a 1-month run-in period, they were randomized (1 : 1) and followed for 3 years. Pre-specified co-primary end-points were VP and the composite of hospitalization for HF, AF, or cardioversion. Pre-specified secondary end-points were cardiac death or HF hospitalizations and cardiovascular hospitalizations. ANSWER enrolled 650 patients (52.0% SND, 48% AVB) at 43 European centres and randomized in SafeR (n = 314) or DDD (n = 318). The SafeR mode showed a significant decrease in VP compared with DDD (11.5 vs. 93.6%, P < 0.0001 at 3 years). Deaths and syncope did not differ between randomization arms. No significant difference between groups [HR = 0.78; 95% CI (0.48-1.25); P = 0.30] was found in the time to event of the co-primary composite of hospitalization for HF, AF, or cardioversion, nor in the individual components. SafeR showed a 51% risk reduction (RR) in experiencing cardiac death or HF hospitalization [HR = 0.49; 95% CI (0.27-0.90); P = 0.02] and 30% RR in experiencing cardiovascular hospitalizations [HR = 0.70; 95% CI (0.49-1.00); P = 0.05]. CONCLUSION: SafeR safely and significantly reduced VP in a general pacemaker population though had no effect on hospitalization for HF, AF, or cardioversion, when compared with DDD
Effect of Nuclear Quadrupole Interaction on the Relaxation in Amorphous Solids
Recently it has been experimentally demonstrated that certain glasses display
an unexpected magnetic field dependence of the dielectric constant. In
particular, the echo technique experiments have shown that the echo amplitude
depends on the magnetic field. The analysis of these experiments results in the
conclusion that the effect seems to be related to the nuclear degrees of
freedom of tunneling systems. The interactions of a nuclear quadrupole
electrical moment with the crystal field and of a nuclear magnetic moment with
magnetic field transform the two-level tunneling systems inherent in amorphous
dielectrics into many-level tunneling systems. The fact that these features
show up at temperatures , where the properties of amorphous materials
are governed by the long-range interaction between tunneling systems,
suggests that this interaction is responsible for the magnetic field dependent
relaxation. We have developed a theory of many-body relaxation in an ensemble
of interacting many-level tunneling systems and show that the relaxation rate
is controlled by the magnetic field. The results obtained correlate with the
available experimental data. Our approach strongly supports the idea that the
nuclear quadrupole interaction is just the key for understanding the unusual
behavior of glasses in a magnetic field.Comment: 18 pages, 9 figure
Driven Tunneling Dynamics: Bloch-Redfield Theory versus Path Integral Approach
In the regime of weak bath coupling and low temperature we demonstrate
numerically for the spin-boson dynamics the equivalence between two widely used
but seemingly different roads of approximation, namely the path integral
approach and the Bloch-Redfield theory. The excellent agreement between these
two methods is corroborated by a novel efficient analytical high-frequency
approach: it well approximates the decay of quantum coherence via a series of
damped coherent oscillations. Moreover, a suitably tuned control field can
selectively enhance or suppress quantum coherence.Comment: 4 pages including 3 figures, submitted for publicatio
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