Preliminary design study of astronomical detector cooling system

The preliminary design of an astronomical detector cooling system for possible use in the NASA C-141 Airborne Infrared Observatory is presented. The system consists of the following elements: supercritical helium tank, Joule-Thomson supply gas conditioner, Joule-Thomson expander (JTX), optical cavity dewar, optical cavity temperature controller, adjustable J-T discharge gas pressure controller, and vacuum pump

Cryogenic Hydrogen/helium Storage and Supply System, Phase 1

An existing cryogenic tank was refurbished, microspheres were installed in the tank annulus, and the thermal performance of the unit was tested. The performance data was compared with NRC-2 multilayer insulation and low emittance aluminized surfaces installed in tanks of the same basic design. The cryogenic tank modified during the program was originally designed for the Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) Program, and subsequently modified by vacuum-depositing aluminum on all annulus surfaces and leaving out the NRC-2 multilayer insulation. It is concluded that the application of aluminized-microsphere insulation is not yet very predictable for tank design purposes, especially at LH2 temperature and in the presence of a vapor-cooled shield

Spin Hamiltonian of Hyperkagome Na4Ir3O8

We derive the spin Hamiltonian for the quantum spin liquid Na4Ir3O8, and then estimate the direct and superexchange contributions between near neighbor iridium ions using a tight binding parametrization of the electronic structure. We find a magnitude of the exchange interaction comparable to experiment for a reasonable value of the on-site Coulomb repulsion. For one of the two tight binding parametrizations we have studied, the direct exchange term, which is isotropic, dominates the total exchange. This provides support for those theories proposed to describe this novel quantum spin liquid that assume an isotropic Heisenberg model.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure

Electronic Structure of Hyperkagome Na4Ir3O8

We investigate the electronic structure of the frustrated magnet Na4Ir3O8 using density functional theory. Due to strong spin-orbit coupling, the hyperkagome lattice is characterized by a half-filled complex of states, making it a cubic iridium analogue of the high temperature superconducting cuprates. The implications of our results for this unique material are discussed.Comment: expanded discussion with extra figures - 6 pages, 10 figure

Hot Spots on the Fermi Surface of Bi2212: Stripes versus Superstructure

In a recent paper Saini et al. have reported evidence for a pseudogap around (pi,0) at room temperature in the optimally doped superconductor Bi2212. This result is in contradiction with previous ARPES measurements. Furthermore they observed at certain points on the Fermi surface hot spots of high spectral intensity which they relate to the existence of stripes in the CuO planes. They also claim to have identified a new electronic band along Gamma-M1 whose one dimensional character provides further evidence for stripes. We demonstrate in this Comment that all the measured features can be simply understood by correctly considering the superstructure (umklapp) and shadow bands which occur in Bi2212.Comment: 1 page, revtex, 1 encapsulated postscript figure (color

Extraction of the Electron Self-Energy from Angle Resolved Photoemission Data: Application to Bi2212

The self-energy $\Sigma({\bf k},\omega)$, the fundamental function which describes the effects of many-body interactions on an electron in a solid, is usually difficult to obtain directly from experimental data. In this paper, we show that by making certain reasonable assumptions, the self-energy can be directly determined from angle resolved photoemission data. We demonstrate this method on data for the high temperature superconductor $Bi_2Sr_2CaCu_2O_{8+x}$ (Bi2212) in the normal, superconducting, and pseudogap phases.Comment: expanded version (6 pages), to be published, Phys Rev B (1 Sept 99

Predictions for Impurity-Induced Tc Suppression in the High-Temperature Superconductors

We address the question of whether anisotropic superconductivity is compatible with the evidently weak sensitivity of the critical temperature Tc to sample quality in the high-Tc copper oxides. We examine this issue quantitatively by solving the strong-coupling Eliashberg equations numerically as well as analytically for s-wave impurity scattering within the second Born approximation. For pairing interactions with a characteristically low energy scale, we find an approximately universal dependence of the d-wave superconducting transition temperature on the planar residual resistivity which is independent of the details of the microscopic pairing. These results, in conjunction with future systematic experiments, should help elucidate the symmetry of the order parameter in the cuprates.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures upon request, revtex version