Higher angular momentum Kondo liquids

Conventional heavy Fermi liquid phases of Kondo lattices involve the formation of a "Kondo singlet" between the local moments and the conduction electrons. This Kondo singlet is usually taken to be in an internal s-wave angular momentum state. Here we explore the possibility of phases where the Kondo singlet has internal angular momentum that is d-wave. Such states are readily accessed in a slave boson mean field formulation, and are energetically favorable when the Kondo interaction is between a local moment and an electron at a nearest neighbor site. The properties of the d-wave Kondo liquid are studied. Effective mass and quasiparticle residue show large angle dependence on the Fermi surface. Remarkably in certain cases, the quasiparticle residue goes to zero at isolated points (in two dimensions) on the Fermi surface. The excitations at these points then include a free fractionalized spinon. We also point out the possibility of quantum Hall phenomena in two dimensional Kondo {\em insulators}, if the Kondo singlet has complex internal angular momentum. We suggest that such d-wave Kondo pairing may provide a useful route to thinking about correlated Fermi liquids with strong anisotropy along the Fermi surface.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figure

A Novel Study of the Relation Between Students Navigational Behavior on Blackboard and their Learning Performance in an Undergraduate Networking Course

This paper provides an overview of students behavior analysis on a learning management system (LMS), Blackboard (Bb) Learn for a core data communications course of the Undergraduate IT program in the Information Sciences and Technology (IST) Department at George Mason University (GMU). This study is an attempt to understand the navigational behavior of students on Blackboard Learn which can be further attributed to the overall performance of the students. In total, 160 undergraduate students participated in the study. Vast amount of students activities data across all four sections of the course were collected. All sections have similar content, assessment design and instruction methods. A correlation analysis between the different assessment methods and various key variables such as total student time, total number of logins and various other factors were performed, to evaluate students engagement on Blackboard Learn. Our findings can help instructors to efficiently identify students strengths or weaknesses and fine-tune their courses for better student engagement and performance