Current induced local spin polarization due to the spin-orbit coupling in a two dimensional narrow strip

The current induced local spin polarization due to weak Rashba spin-orbit coupling in narrow strip is studied. In the presence of longitudinal charge current, local spin polarizations appear in the sample. The spin polarization perpendicular to the plane has opposite sign near the two edges. The in-plane spin polarization in the direction perpendicular to the sample edges also appears, but does not change sign across the sample. From our scaling analysis based on increasing the strip width, the out-of-plane spin polarization is important mainly in a system of mesoscopic size, and thus appears not to be associated with the spin-Hall effect in bulk samples.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Relative Entropy: Free Energy Associated with Equilibrium Fluctuations and Nonequilibrium Deviations

Using a one-dimensional macromolecule in aqueous solution as an illustration, we demonstrate that the relative entropy from information theory, $\sum_k p_k\ln(p_k/p_k^*)$, has a natural role in the energetics of equilibrium and nonequilibrium conformational fluctuations of the single molecule. It is identified as the free energy difference associated with a fluctuating density in equilibrium, and is associated with the distribution deviate from the equilibrium in nonequilibrium relaxation. This result can be generalized to any other isothermal macromolecular systems using the mathematical theories of large deviations and Markov processes, and at the same time provides the well-known mathematical results with an interesting physical interpretations.Comment: 5 page

Compression of Atomic Phase Space Using an Asymmetric One-Way Barrier

We show how to construct asymmetric optical barriers for atoms. These barriers can be used to compress phase space of a sample by creating a confined region in space where atoms can accumulate with heating at the single photon recoil level. We illustrate our method with a simple two-level model and then show how it can be applied to more realistic multi-level atoms

Microwave-induced resistance oscillations in a back-gated GaAs quantum well

We performed effective mass measurements employing microwave-induced resistance oscillation in a tunable-density GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well. Our main result is a clear observation of an effective mass increase with decreasing density, in general agreement with earlier studies which investigated the density dependence of the effective mass employing Shubnikov- de Haas oscillations. This finding provides further evidence that microwave-induced resistance oscillations are sensitive to electron-electron interactions and offer a convenient and accurate way to obtain the effective mass.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Optical Monitoring of BL Lacertae Object S5 0716+714 with a Novel Multi-Peak Interference Filter

We at first introduce a novel photometric system, which consists of a Schmidt telescope, an objective prism, a CCD camera, and, especially, a multi-peak interference filter. The multi-peak interference filter enables light in multi passbands to pass through it simultaneously. The light in different passbands is differentially refracted by the objective prism and is focused on the CCD separately, so we have multi "images" for each object on the CCD frames. This system enables us to monitor blazars exactly simultaneously in multi wavebands on a single telescope, and to accurately trace the color change during the variation. We used this novel system to monitor the BL Lacertae object S5 0716+714 during 2006 January and February and achieved a very high temporal resolution. The object was very bright and very active during this period. Two strong flares were observed, with variation amplitudes of about 0.8 and 0.6 mags in the $V'$ band, respectively. Strong bluer-when-brighter correlations were found for both internight and intranight variations. No apparent time lag was observed between the $V'$- and $R'$-band variations, and the observed bluer-when-brighter chromatism may be mainly attributed to the larger variation amplitude at shorter wavelength. In addition to the bluer-when-brighter trend, the object also showed a bluer color when it was more active. The observed variability and its color behaviors are consistent with the shock-in-jet model.Comment: 30 pages, 22 figures, accepted by A

Dark matter in elliptical galaxies

We present measurements of the shape of the stellar line-of-sight velocity distribution out to two effective radii along the major axes of the four elliptical galaxies NGC 2434, 2663, 3706, and 5018. The velocity dispersion profiles are flat or decline gently with radius. We compare the data to the predictions of f=f(E,L_z) axisymmetric models with and without dark matter. Strong tangential anisotropy is ruled out at large radii. We conclude from our measurements that massive dark halos must be present in three of the four galaxies, while for the fourth galaxy (NGC 2663) the case is inconclusive.Comment: 15 pages, uuencoded compressed PostScript, includes 3 figure

Possible Molecular Structure of the Newly Observed Y(4260)

We suggest that the newly observed resonance Y(4260) is a $\chi_{c}-\rho^0$ molecule, which is an isovector. In this picture, we can easily interpret why $Y(4260)\to \pi^+\pi^-J/\psi$ has a larger rate than $Y(4260)\to D\bar D$ which has not been observed, and we also predict existence of the other two components of the isotriplet and another two possible partner states which may be observed in the future experiments. A direct consequence of this structure is that for this molecular structure $Y(4260)\to \pi^+\pi^-J/\psi$ mode is more favorable than $Y(4260)\to K\bar KJ/\psi$ which may have a larger fraction if other proposed structures prevail.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures. Some descriptions changed, more references added and typos corrected. Published version in PR