2,080 research outputs found
Electron-hole pairs during the adsorption dynamics of O2 on Pd(100) - Exciting or not?
During the exothermic adsorption of molecules at solid surfaces dissipation
of the released energy occurs via the excitation of electronic and phononic
degrees of freedom. For metallic substrates the role of the nonadiabatic
electronic excitation channel has been controversially discussed, as the
absence of a band gap could favour an easy coupling to a manifold of
electronhole pairs of arbitrarily low energies. We analyse this situation for
the highly exothermic showcase system of molecular oxygen dissociating at
Pd(100), using time-dependent perturbation theory applied to first-principles
electronic-structure calculations. For a range of different trajectories of
impinging O2 molecules we compute largely varying electron-hole pair spectra,
which underlines the necessity to consider the high-dimensionality of the
surface dynamical process when assessing the total energy loss into this
dissipation channel. Despite the high Pd density of states at the Fermi level,
the concomitant non-adiabatic energy losses nevertheless never exceed about 5%
of the available chemisorption energy. While this supports an electronically
adiabatic description of the predominant heat dissipation into the phononic
system, we critically discuss the non-adiabatic excitations in the context of
the O2 spin transition during the dissociation process.Comment: 20 pages including 7 figures; related publications can be found at
http://www.fhi-berlin.mpg.de/th/th.html [added two references, changed
V_{fsa} to V_{6D}, modified a few formulations in interpretation of spin
asymmetry of eh-spectra, added missing equals sign in Eg.(2.10)
Non-perturbative QEG Corrections to the Yang-Mills Beta Function
We discuss the non-perturbative renormalization group evolution of the gauge
coupling constant by using a truncated form of the functional flow equation for
the effective average action of the Yang-Mills-gravity system. Our result is
consistent with the conjecture that Quantum Einstein Gravity (QEG) is
asymptotically safe and has a vanishing gauge coupling constant at the
non-trivial fixed point.Comment: To appear in the proceedings of CORFU 200
Gluon Condensation in Nonperturbative Flow Equations
We employ nonperturbative flow equations for an investigation of the
effective action in Yang-Mills theories. We compute the effective action
for constant color magnetic fields and examine Savvidy's
conjecture of an unstable perturbative vacuum. Our results indicate that the
absolute minimum of occurs for B=0. Gluon condensation is described
by a nonvanishing expectation value of the regularized composite operator
which agrees with phenomenological estimates.Comment: 64 pages, late
Running Gauge Coupling in Asymptotically Safe Quantum Gravity
We investigate the non-perturbative renormalization group behavior of the
gauge coupling constant using a truncated form of the functional flow equation
for the effective average action of the Yang-Mills-gravity system. We find a
non-zero quantum gravity correction to the standard Yang-Mills beta function
which has the same sign as the gauge boson contribution. Our results fit into
the picture according to which Quantum Einstein Gravity (QEG) is asymptotically
safe, with a vanishing gauge coupling constant at the non-trivial fixed point.Comment: 27 page
Fabrication of quantum point contacts by engraving GaAs/AlGaAs-heterostructures with a diamond tip
We use the all-diamond tip of an atomic force microscope for the direct
engraving of high quality quantum point contacts in
GaAs/AlGaAs-heterostructures. The processing time is shortened by two orders of
magnitude compared to standard silicon tips. Together with a reduction of the
line width to below 90 nm the depletion length of insulating lines is reduced
by a factor of two with the diamond probes. The such fabricated defect free
ballistic constrictions show well resolved conductance plateaus and the 0.7
anomaly in electronic transport measurements.Comment: 3 pages, 3 figure
Specific Heat of a Fractional Quantum Hall System
Using a time-resolved phonon absorption technique, we have measured the
specific heat of a two-dimensional electron system in the fractional quantum
Hall effect regime. For filling factors
and 1/3 the specific heat displays a strong exponential temperature dependence
in agreement with excitations across a quasi-particle gap. At filling factor
we were able to measure the specific heat of a composite fermion
system for the first time. The observed linear temperature dependence on
temperature down to K agrees well with early predictions for a Fermi
liquid of composite fermions.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures (version is 1. resubmission: Added a paragraph to
include the problems which arise by the weak temperature dependence at \nu =
1/2, updated affiliation
Effective Average Action in N=1 Super-Yang-Mills Theory
For N=1 Super-Yang-Mills theory we generalize the effective average action
Gamma_k in a manifest supersymmetric way using the superspace formalism. The
exact evolution equation for Gamma_k is derived and, introducing as an
application a simple truncation, the standard one-loop beta-function of N=1 SYM
theory is obtained.Comment: 17 pages, LaTeX, some remarks added, misprints corrected, to appear
in Phys. Rev.
Polarization-preserving confocal microscope for optical experiments in a dilution refrigerator with high magnetic field
We present the design and operation of a fiber-based cryogenic confocal
microscope. It is designed as a compact cold-finger that fits inside the bore
of a superconducting magnet, and which is a modular unit that can be easily
swapped between use in a dilution refrigerator and other cryostats. We aimed at
application in quantum optical experiments with electron spins in
semiconductors and the design has been optimized for driving with, and
detection of optical fields with well-defined polarizations. This was
implemented with optical access via a polarization maintaining fiber together
with Voigt geometry at the cold finger, which circumvents Faraday rotations in
the optical components in high magnetic fields. Our unit is versatile for use
in experiments that measure photoluminescence, reflection, or transmission, as
we demonstrate with a quantum optical experiment with an ensemble of
donor-bound electrons in a thin GaAs film.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure
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