6,279 research outputs found
On big rip singularities
In this comment we discuss big rip singularities occurring in typical phantom
models by violation of the weak energy condition. After that, we compare them
with future late-time singularities arising in models where the scale factor
ends in a constant value and there is no violation of the strong energy
condition. In phantom models the equation of state is well defined along the
whole evolution, even at the big rip. However, both the pressure and the energy
density of the phantom field diverge. In contrast, in the second kind of model
the equation of state is not defined at the big rip because the pressure bursts
at a finite value of the energy density.Comment: 8 page
Specific Heat of the Ca-Intercalated Graphite Superconductor CaC
The superconducting state of Ca-intercalated graphite CaC6 has been
investigated by specific heat measurements. The characteristic anomaly at the
superconducting transition (Tc = 11.4 K) indicates clearly the bulk nature of
the superconductivity. The temperature and magnetic field dependence of the
electronic specific heat are consistent with a fully-gapped superconducting
order parameter. The estimated electron-phonon coupling constant is lambda =
0.60 - 0.74 suggesting that the relatively high Tc of CaC6 can be explained
within the weak-coupling BCS approach.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figs, submitted to Phys. Rev. Let
Superconductivity in Heavy Alkaline-Earths Intercalated Graphites
We report the discovery of superconductivity below 1.65(6) K in
Sr-intercalated graphite SrC6, by susceptibility and specific heat (Cp)
measurements. In comparison with CaC6, we found that the anisotropy of the
upper critical fields for SrC6 is much reduced. The Cp anomaly at Tc is smaller
than the BCS prediction indicating an anisotropic superconducting gap for SrC6
similar to CaC6. The significantly lower Tc of SrC6 as compared to CaC6 can be
understood in terms of "negative" pressure effects, which decreases the
electron-phonon coupling for both in-plane intercalant and the out-of-plane C
phonon modes. We observed no superconductivity for BaC6 down to 0.3 K.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. Let
Irreversible Processes in a Universe modelled as a mixture of a Chaplygin gas and radiation
The evolution of a Universe modelled as a mixture of a Chaplygin gas and
radiation is determined by taking into account irreversible processes. This
mixture could interpolate periods of a radiation dominated, a matter dominated
and a cosmological constant dominated Universe. The results of a Universe
modelled by this mixture are compared with the results of a mixture whose
constituents are radiation and quintessence. Among other results it is shown
that: (a) for both models there exists a period of a past deceleration with a
present acceleration; (b) the slope of the acceleration of the Universe
modelled as a mixture of a Chaplygin gas with radiation is more pronounced than
that modelled as a mixture of quintessence and radiation; (c) the energy
density of the Chaplygin gas tends to a constant value at earlier times than
the energy density of quintessence does; (d) the energy density of radiation
for both mixtures coincide and decay more rapidly than the energy densities of
the Chaplygin gas and of quintessence.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure, to be published in GR
Ground state of two unlike charged colloids: An analogy with ionic bonding
In this letter, we study the ground state of two spherical macroions of
identical radius, but asymmetric bare charge ((Q_{A}>Q_{B})). Electroneutrality
of the system is insured by the presence of the surrounding divalent
counterions. Using Molecular Dynamics simulations within the framework of the
primitive model, we show that the ground state of such a system consists of an
overcharged and an undercharged colloid. For a given macroion separation the
stability of these ionized-like states is a function of the difference
((\sqrt{N_{A}}-\sqrt{N_{B}})) of neutralizing counterions (N_{A}) and (N_{B}).
Furthermore the degree of ionization, or equivalently, the degree of
overcharging, is also governed by the distance separation of the macroions. The
natural analogy with ionic bonding is briefly discussed.Comment: published versio
Effect of Pressure on Superconducting Ca-intercalated Graphite CaC
The pressure effect on the superconducting transition temperature () of
the newly-discovered Ca-intercalated graphite compound CaC has been
investigated up to 16 kbar. is found to increase under pressure
with a large relative ratio / of +0.4 %/kbar. Using
first-principles calculations, we show that the large and positive effect of
pressure on can be explained in the scope of electron-phonon theory due
to the presence of a soft phonon branch associated to in-plane vibrations of Ca
atoms. Implications of the present findings on the current debate about the
superconducting mechanism in graphite intercalation compounds are discussed.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figs, final PRB versio
Magnetic structure of the edge-sharing copper oxide chain compound NaCu2O2
Single-crystal neutron diffraction has been used to determine the
incommensurate magnetic structure of NaCu2O2, a compound built up of chains of
edge-sharing CuO4 plaquettes. Magnetic structures compatible with the lattice
symmetry were identified by a group-theoretical analysis, and their magnetic
structure factors were compared to the experimentally observed Bragg
intensities. In conjunction with other experimental data, this analysis yields
an elliptical helix structure in which both the helicity and the polarization
plane alternate among copper-oxide chains. This magnetic ground state is
discussed in the context of the recently reported multiferroic properties of
other copper-oxide chain compounds
Confinement effects on glass forming liquids probed by DMA
Many molecular glass forming liquids show a shift of the glass transition T-g
to lower temperatures when the liquid is confined into mesoporous host
matrices. Two contrary explanations for this effect are given in literature:
First, confinement induced acceleration of the dynamics of the molecules leads
to an effective downshift of T-g increasing with decreasing pore size. Second,
due to thermal mismatch between the liquid and the surrounding host matrix,
negative pressure develops inside the pores with decreasing temperature, which
also shifts T-g to lower temperatures. Here we present dynamic mechanical
analysis measurements of the glass forming liquid salol in Vycor and Gelsil
with pore sizes of d=2.6, 5.0 and 7.5 nm. The dynamic complex elastic
susceptibility data can be consistently described with the assumption of two
relaxation processes inside the pores: A surface induced slowed down relaxation
due to interaction with rough pore interfaces and a second relaxation within
the core of the pores. This core relaxation time is reduced with decreasing
pore size d, leading to a downshift of T-g proportional to 1/d in perfect
agreement with recent differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) measurements.
Thermal expansion measurements of empty and salol filled mesoporous samples
revealed that the contribution of negative pressure to the downshift of T-g is
small (<30%) and the main effect is due to the suppression of dynamically
correlated regions of size xi when the pore size xi approaches
Non-linear terms in 2D cosmology
In this work we investigate the behavior of two-dimensional (2D) cosmological
models, starting with the Jackiw-Teitelboim (JT) theory of gravitation. A
geometrical term, non-linear in the scalar curvature , is added to the JT
dynamics to test if it could play the role of dark energy in a 2D expanding
universe. This formulation makes possible, first, the description of an early
(inflationary) 2D universe, when the van der Waals (vdW) equation of state is
used to construct the energy-momentum tensor of the gravitational sources.
Second, it is found that for later times the non-linear term in can
generate an old 2D universe in accelerated expansion, where an ordinary matter
dominated era evolves into a decelerated/accelerated transition, giving to the
dark energy effects a geometrical origin. The results emerge through numerical
analysis, following the evolution in time of the scale factor, its
acceleration, and the energy densities of constituents.Comment: tex file plus figures in two zipped files. To appear in Europhys.
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