104 research outputs found
Conductivity of underdoped YBa2Cu3O7-d : evidence for incoherent pair correlations in the pseudogap regime
Conductivity due to superconducting fluctuations studied in optimally doped
YBa2Cu3O7-d films displays a stronger decay law in temperature than explainable
by theory. A formula is proposed, which fits the data very well with two
superconductive parameters, Tc and the coherence length ksi_c0, and an energy
scale Delta*. This is also valid in underdoped materials and enables to
describe the conductivity up to 300 K with a single-particle excitations
channel in parallel with a channel whose contribution is controlled by ksi_c0,
Tc and Delta*.
This allows to address the nature of the pseudogap in favour of incoherent
pairing.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures, 1 tabl
The impact of socioeconomic and phenotypic traits on self-perception of ethnicity in Latin America
Self-perception of ethnicity is a complex social trait shaped by both, biological and non-biological factors. We developed a comprehensive analysis of ethnic self-perception (ESP) on a large sample of Latin American mestizos from five countries, differing in age, socio-economic and education context, external phenotypic attributes and genetic background. We measured the correlation of ESP against genomic ancestry, and the influence of physical appearance, socio-economic context, and education on the distortion observed between both. Here we show that genomic ancestry is correlated to aspects of physical appearance, which in turn affect the individual ethnic self-perceived ancestry. Also, we observe that, besides the significant correlation among genomic ancestry and ESP, specific physical or socio-economic attributes have a strong impact on self-perception. In addition, the distortion among ESP and genomic ancestry differs across age ranks/countries, probably suggesting the underlying effect of past public policies regarding identity. Our results indicate that individualsâ own ideas about its origins should be taken with caution, especially in aspects of modern life, including access to work, social policies, and public health key decisions such as drug administration, therapy design, and clinical trials, among others
Temperature and magnetic-field dependence of the conductivity of YBaCuO films in the vicinity of superconducting transition: Effect of Tc-inhomogeneity
Temperature and magnetic field dependences of the conductivity of YBaCuO
films in the transition region are analyzed taking into account spatial
inhomogeneity in transition temperature, Tc.
(i) An expression for the superconducting contribution to conductivity,
\sigma_s(T,H,Tc), of a homogeneous superconductor for H<<Hc2(T=0) is obtained
using the solution of the Ginzburg-Landau equation in form of perturbation
expansions [S.Ullah, A.T.Dorsey, PRB 44, 262 (1991)].
(ii) The error in \sigma_s(T,H,Tc) occurring due to the presence of
Tc-inhomogeneity is calculated and plotted on an H-T plane diagram. These
calculations use an effective medium approximation and a Gaussian distribution
of Tc.
(iii) Measuring the temperature dependences of a voltage, induced by a
focused electron beam, we determine spatial distributions of the critical
temperature for YBaCuO microbridges with a 2 micron resolution. A typical
Tc-distribution dispersion is found to be approximately 1K. For such
dispersion, error in \sigma_s(T,H,Tc) due to Tc-inhomogeneity exceeds 30% for
magnetic fields H < 1 T and temperatures |T-Tc| < 0.5 K.
(iv) Experimental R(T,H) dependences of resistance are well described by a
numerical solution of a set of Kirchoff equations for the resistor network
based on the measured spatial distributions of Tc and the expression for
\sigma_s(T,H,Tc).Comment: REVTeX, 12 pages including 7 figures, resubmitted to Phys. Rev.
Wrapped branes with fluxes in 8d gauged supergravity
We study the gravity dual of several wrapped D-brane configurations in
presence of 4-form RR fluxes partially piercing the unwrapped directions. We
present a systematic approach to obtain these solutions from those without
fluxes. We use D=8 gauged supergravity as a starting point to build up these
solutions. The configurations include (smeared) M2-branes at the tip of a G_2
cone on S^3 x S^3, D2-D6 branes with the latter wrapping a special Lagrangian
3-cycle of the complex deformed conifold and an holomorphic sphere in its
cotangent bundle T^*S^2, D3-branes at the tip of the generalized resolved
conifold, and others obtained by means of T duality and KK reduction. We
elaborate on the corresponding N=1 and N=2 field theories in 2+1 dimensions.Comment: 32 pages, LateX, v2: minor changes, reference added, v3: section
3.5.2 improve
Supersymmetric Intersections of M-branes and pp-waves
We study supersymmetric intersections of M2 and M5 branes with different
pp-waves of M-theory. We consider first M-brane probes in the background of
pp-waves and determine under which conditions the embedding is supersymmetric.
We particularize our formalism to the case of pp-waves with 32, 24 and 20
supersymmetries. We also construct supergravity solutions for the brane-wave
system. Generically these solutions are delocalised along some directions
transverse to the brane and preserve the same number of supersymmetries as in
the brane probe approach.Comment: 41 pages, LaTeX; v2 references adde
Disentangling signatures of selection before and after European colonization in latin Americans
Throughout human evolutionary history, large-scale migrations have led to intermixing (i.e., admixture) between previously separated human groups. Although classical and recent work have shown that studying admixture can yield novel historical insights, the extent to which this process contributed to adaptation remains underexplored. Here, we introduce a novel statistical model, specific to admixed populations, that identifies loci under selection while determining whether the selection likely occurred post-admixture or prior to admixture in one of the ancestral source populations. Through extensive simulations, we show that this method is able to detect selection, even in recently formed admixed populations, and to accurately differentiate between selection occurring in the ancestral or admixed population. We apply this method to genome-wide SNP data of âŒ4,000 individuals in five admixed Latin American cohorts from Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru. Our approach replicates previous reports of selection in the human leukocyte antigen region that are consistent with selection post-admixture. We also report novel signals of selection in genomic regions spanning 47 genes, reinforcing many of these signals with an alternative, commonly used local-ancestry-inference approach. These signals include several genes involved in immunity, which may reflect responses to endemic pathogens of the Americas and to the challenge of infectious disease brought by European contact. In addition, some of the strongest signals inferred to be under selection in the Native American ancestral groups of modern Latin Americans overlap with genes implicated in energy metabolism phenotypes, plausibly reflecting adaptations to novel dietary sources available in the Americas
Open string modes at brane intersections
We study systematically the open string modes of a general class of BPS
intersections of branes. We work in the approximation in which one of the
branes is considered as a probe embedded in the near-horizon geometry generated
by the other type of branes. We mostly concentrate on the D3-D5 and D3-D3
intersections, which are dual to defect theories with a massive hypermultiplet
confined to the defect. In these cases we are able to obtain analytical
expressions for the fluctuation modes of the probe and to compute the
corresponding mass spectra of the dual operators in closed form. Other BPS
intersections are also studied and their fluctuation modes and spectra are
found numerically.Comment: 58 pages, 3 figures, LaTeX;v2: typos correcte
Screening effects on meson masses from holography
We study the spectra of scalar and vector mesons in four dimensional strongly
coupled SQCD-like theories in the Veneziano limit. The gauge theories describe
the low energy dynamics of intersecting D3 and D7-branes on the singular and
deformed conifold and their strong coupling regime can be explored by means of
dual fully backreacted supergravity backgrounds. The mesons we focus on are
dual to fluctuations of the worldvolume gauge field on a probe D7-brane in
these backgrounds. As we will comment in detail, the general occurrence of
various UV pathologies in the D3-D7 set-ups under study, forces us to adapt the
standard holographic recipes to theories with intrinsic cutoffs. Just as for
QED, the low energy spectra for mesonic-like bound states will be consistent
and largely independent of the UV cutoffs. We will study in detail how these
spectra vary with the number of the fundamental sea flavors and their mass.Comment: 30 pages + appendices, 10 figures; v2: subsection 3.3.3 and some
comments adde
Entanglement Entropy from a Holographic Viewpoint
The entanglement entropy has been historically studied by many authors in
order to obtain quantum mechanical interpretations of the gravitational
entropy. The discovery of AdS/CFT correspondence leads to the idea of
holographic entanglement entropy, which is a clear solution to this important
problem in gravity. In this article, we would like to give a quick survey of
recent progresses on the holographic entanglement entropy. We focus on its
gravitational aspects, so that it is comprehensible to those who are familiar
with general relativity and basics of quantum field theory.Comment: Latex, 30 pages, invited review for Classical and Quantum Gravity,
minor correction
NMR and NQR Fluctuation Effects in Layered Superconductors
We study the effect of thermal fluctuations of the s-wave order parameter of
a quasi two dimensional superconductor on the nuclear spin relaxation rate near
the transition temperature Tc. We consider both the effects of the amplitude
fluctuations and the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) phase fluctuations
in weakly coupled layered superconductors. In the treatment of the amplitude
fluctuations we employ the Gaussian approximation and evaluate the longitudinal
relaxation rate 1/T1 for a clean s-wave superconductor, with and without pair
breaking effects, using the static pair fluctuation propagator D. The increase
in 1/T1 due to pair breaking in D is overcompensated by the decrease arising
from the single particle Green's functions. The result is a strong effect on
1/T1 for even a small amount of pair breaking. The phase fluctuations are
described in terms of dynamical BKT excitations in the form of pancake
vortex-antivortex (VA) pairs. We calculate the effect of the magnetic field
fluctuations caused by the translational motion of VA excitations on 1/T1 and
on the transverse relaxation rate 1/T2 on both sides of the BKT transitation
temperature T(BKT)<Tc. The results for the NQR relaxation rates depend strongly
on the diffusion constant that governs the motion of free and bound vortices as
well as the annihilation of VA pairs. We discuss the relaxation rates for real
multilayer systems where the diffusion constant can be small and thus increase
the lifetime of a VA pair, leading to an enhancement of the rates. We also
discuss in some detail the experimental feasibility of observing the effects of
amplitude fluctuations in layered s-wave superconductors such as the
dichalcogenides and the effects of phase fluctuations in s- or d-wave
superconductors such as the layered cuprates.Comment: 38 pages, 12 figure
- âŠ