Magnetization profile for impurities in graphene nanoribbons

The magnetic properties of graphene-related materials and in particular the spin-polarised edge states predicted for pristine graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) with certain edge geometries have received much attention recently due to a range of possible technological applications. However, the magnetic properties of pristine GNRs are not predicted to be particularly robust in the presence of edge disorder. In this work, we examine the magnetic properties of GNRs doped with transition-metal atoms using a combination of mean-field Hubbard and Density Functional Theory techniques. The effect of impurity location on the magnetic moment of such dopants in GNRs is investigated for the two principal GNR edge geometries - armchair and zigzag. Moment profiles are calculated across the width of the ribbon for both substitutional and adsorbed impurities and regular features are observed for zigzag-edged GNRs in particular. Unlike the case of edge-state induced magnetisation, the moments of magnetic impurities embedded in GNRs are found to be particularly stable in the presence of edge disorder. Our results suggest that the magnetic properties of transition-metal doped GNRs are far more robust than those with moments arising intrinsically due to edge geometry.Comment: submitte

Impurity segregation in graphene nanoribbons

The electronic properties of low-dimensional materials can be engineered by doping, but in the case of graphene nanoribbons (GNR) the proximity of two symmetry-breaking edges introduces an additional dependence on the location of an impurity across the width of the ribbon. This introduces energetically favorable locations for impurities, leading to a degree of spatial segregation in the impurity concentration. We develop a simple model to calculate the change in energy of a GNR system with an arbitrary impurity as that impurity is moved across the ribbon and validate its findings by comparison with ab initio calculations. Although our results agree with previous works predicting the dominance of edge disorder in GNR, we argue that the distribution of adsorbed impurities across a ribbon may be controllable by external factors, namely an applied electric field. We propose that this control over impurity segregation may allow manipulation and fine-tuning of the magnetic and transport properties of GNRs.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, submitte

Mass of Clusters in Simulations

We show that dark matter haloes, in n--body simulations, have a boundary layer (BL) with precise features. In particular, it encloses all dynamically stable mass while, outside it, dynamical stability is lost soon. Particles can pass through such BL, which however acts as a confinement barrier for dynamical properties. BL is set by evaluating kinetic and potential energies (T(r) and W(r)) and calculating R=-2T/W. Then, on BL, R has a minimum which closely approaches a maximum of w= -dlog W/dlog r. Such $Rw$ ``requirement'' is consistent with virial equilibrium, but implies further regularities. We test the presence of a BL around haloes in spatially flat CDM simulations, with or without cosmological constant. We find that the mass M_c, enclosed within the radius r_c, where the $Rw$ requirement is fulfilled, closely approaches the mass M_{dyn}, evaluated from the velocities of all particles within r_c, according to the virial theorem. Using r_c we can then determine an individual density contrast Delta_c for each virialized halo, which can be compared with the "virial" density contrast $\Delta_v ~178 \Omega_m^{0.45}$ (Omega_m: matter density parameter) obtained assuming a spherically symmetric and unperturbed fluctuation growth. The spread in Delta_c is wide, and cannot be neglected when global physical quantities related to the clusters are calculated, while the average Delta_c is ~25 % smaller than the corresponding Delta_v; moreover if $M_{dyn}$ is defined from the radius linked to Delta_v, we have a much worse fit with particle mass then starting from {\it Rw} requirement.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, contribution to the XXXVIIth Rencontres de Moriond, The Cosmological Model, Les Arc March 16-23 2002, to appear in the proceeding

Comparing modelled fire dynamics with charcoal records for the Holocene

An earth system model of intermediate complexity (CLIMate and BiosphERe – CLIMBER-2) and a land surface model (JSBACH), which dynamically represent vegetation, are used to simulate natural fire dynamics through the last 8000 yr. Output variables of the fire model (burned area and fire carbon emissions) are used to compare model results with sediment-based charcoal reconstructions. Several approaches for processing model output are also tested. Charcoal data are reported in Z-scores with a base period of 8000–200 BP in order to exclude the strong anthropogenic forcing of fire during the last two centuries. The model–data comparison reveals a robust correspondence in fire activity for most regions considered, while for a few regions, such as Europe, simulated and observed fire histories show different trends. The difference between modelled and observed fire activity may be due to the absence of anthropogenic forcing (e.g. human ignitions and suppression) in the model simulations, and also due to limitations inherent to modelling fire dynamics. The use of spatial averaging (or Z-score processing) of model output did not change the directions of the trends. However, Z-score-transformed model output resulted in higher rank correlations with the charcoal Z-scores in most regions. Therefore, while both metrics are useful, processing model output as Z-scores is preferable to areal averaging when comparing model results to transformed charcoal records

Temperature dependence of the magnetic Casimir-Polder interaction

We analyze the magnetic dipole contribution to atom-surface dispersion forces. Unlike its electrical counterpart, it involves small transition frequencies that are comparable to thermal energy scales. A significant temperature dependence is found near surfaces with a nonzero DC conductivity, leading to a strong suppression of the dispersion force at T > 0. We use thermal response theory for the surface material and discuss both normal metals and superconductors. The asymptotes of the free energy of interaction and of the entropy are calculated analytically over a large range of distances. Near a superconductor, the onset of dissipation at the phase transition strongly changes the interaction, including a discontinuous entropy. We discuss the similarities with the Casimir interaction beween two surfaces and suggest that precision measurements of the atom-surface interaction may shed new light upon open questions around the temperature dependence of dispersion forces between lossy media.Comment: 11 figure

Self-affine Asperity Model for earthquakes

A model for fault dynamics consisting of two rough and rigid brownian profiles that slide one over the other is introduced. An earthquake occurs when there is an intersection between the two profiles. The energy release is proportional to the overlap interval. Our model exhibits some specific features which follow from the fractal geometry of the fault: (1) non-universality of the exponent of the Gutenberg-Richter law for the magnitude distribution; (2) presence of local stress accumulation before a large seismic event; (3) non-trivial space-time clustering of the epicenters. These properties are in good agreement with various observations and lead to specific predictions that can be experimentally tested.Comment: TeX file, 14 pages, 3 figures available from [email protected]

The gravitational interaction of light: from weak to strong fields

An explanation is proposed for the fact that pp-waves superpose linearly when they propagate parallely, while they interact nonlinearly, scatter and form singularities or Cauchy horizons if they are antiparallel. Parallel pp-waves do interact, but a generalized gravitoelectric force is exactly cancelled by a gravitomagnetic force. In an analogy, the interaction of light beams in linearized general relativity is also revisited and clarified, a new result is obtained for photon to photon attraction, and a conjecture is proved. Given equal energy density in the beams, the light-to-light attraction is twice the matter-to-light attraction and four times the matter-to-matter attraction.Comment: 17 pages, LaTeX, no figures. To appear in General Relativity and Gravitatio

Comments on the Sign and Other Aspects of Semiclassical Casimir Energies

The Casimir energy of a massless scalar field is semiclassically given by contributions due to classical periodic rays. The required subtractions in the spectral density are determined explicitly. The so defined semiclassical Casimir energy coincides with that obtained using zeta function regularization in the cases studied. Poles in the analytic continuation of zeta function regularization are related to non-universal subtractions in the spectral density. The sign of the Casimir energy of a scalar field on a smooth manifold is estimated by the sign of the contribution due to the shortest periodic rays only. Demanding continuity of the Casimir energy under small deformations of the manifold, the method is extended to integrable systems. The Casimir energy of a massless scalar field on a manifold with boundaries includes contributions due to periodic rays that lie entirely within the boundaries. These contributions in general depend on the boundary conditions. Although the Casimir energy due to a massless scalar field may be sensitive to the physical dimensions of manifolds with boundary, its sign can in favorable cases be inferred without explicit calculation of the Casimir energy.Comment: 39 pages, no figures, references added, some correction

HTA: A Scalable High-Throughput Accelerator for Irregular HPC Workloads

We propose a new architecture called HTA for high throughput irregular HPC applications with little data reuse. HTA reduces the contention within the memory system with the help of a partitioned memory controller that is amenable for 2.5D implementation using Silicon Photonics. In terms of scalability, HTA supports 4 × higher number of compute units compared to the state-of-the-art GPU systems. Our simulation-based evaluation on a representative set of HPC benchmarks shows that the proposed design reduces the queuing latency by 10% to 30%, and improves the variability in memory access latency by 10% to 60%. Our results show that the HTA improves the L1 miss penalty by 2.3 × to 5 × over GPUs. When compared to a multi-GPU system with the same number of compute units, our simulation results show that the HTA can provide up to 2 × speedup

Earthquake statistics and fractal faults

We introduce a Self-affine Asperity Model (SAM) for the seismicity that mimics the fault friction by means of two fractional Brownian profiles (fBm) that slide one over the other. An earthquake occurs when there is an overlap of the two profiles representing the two fault faces and its energy is assumed proportional to the overlap surface. The SAM exhibits the Gutenberg-Richter law with an exponent $\beta$ related to the roughness index of the profiles. Apart from being analytically treatable, the model exhibits a non-trivial clustering in the spatio-temporal distribution of epicenters that strongly resembles the experimentally observed one. A generalized and more realistic version of the model exhibits the Omori scaling for the distribution of the aftershocks. The SAM lies in a different perspective with respect to usual models for seismicity. In this case, in fact, the critical behaviour is not Self-Organized but stems from the fractal geometry of the faults, which, on its turn, is supposed to arise as a consequence of geological processes on very long time scales with respect to the seismic dynamics. The explicit introduction of the fault geometry, as an active element of this complex phenomenology, represents the real novelty of our approach.Comment: 40 pages (Tex file plus 8 postscript figures), LaTeX, submitted to Phys. Rev.