167 research outputs found
Electric excitation of spin resonance in antiferromagnetic conductors
Antiferromagnetism couples electron spin to its orbital motion, thus allowing
excitation of electron-spin transitions by an ac electric rather than magnetic
field - with absorption, exceeding that of common electron spin resonance at
least by four orders of magnitude. In addition to potential applications in
spin electronics, this phenomenon may be used as a spectroscopy to study
antiferromagnetic materials of interest - from chromium to borocarbides,
cuprates, iron pnictides, and organic and heavy fermion conductors.Comment: the journal print versio
A Population of Compact Elliptical Galaxies Detected with the Virtual Observatory
Compact elliptical galaxies are characterized by small sizes and high stellar
densities. They are thought to form through tidal stripping of massive
progenitors. However, only a handful of them were known, preventing us from
understanding the role played by this mechanism in galaxy evolution. We present
a population of 21 compact elliptical galaxies gathered with the Virtual
Observatory. Follow-up spectroscopy and data mining, using high-resolution
images and large databases, show that all the galaxies exhibit old metal-rich
stellar populations different from those of dwarf elliptical galaxies of
similar masses but similar to those of more massive early-type galaxies,
supporting the tidal stripping scenario. Their internal properties are
reproduced by numerical simulations, which result in compact dynamically hot
remnants resembling the galaxies in our sample.Comment: 26 pages, 5 figures, 2 tables. Science in press, published in Science
Express on 1/Oct/2009. Full resolution figures in the supplementary online
material are available from the Science Magazine web-sit
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Stellar metallicity gradients of Local Group dwarf galaxies
Aims. We explore correlations between the strength of metallicity gradients in Local Group dwarf galaxies and their stellar mass, star formation history timescales, and environment. Methods. We performed a homogeneous analysis of literature spectroscopic data of red giant stars and determined radial metallicity profiles for 30 Local Group dwarf galaxies. This is the largest compilation of this type to date. Results. The dwarf galaxies in our sample show a variety of metallicity profiles, most of them decreasing with radius and some with rather steep profiles. The derived metallicity gradients as a function of the half-light radius, [Fe/H](R/Re), show no statistical differences when compared with the morphological type of the galaxies, nor with their distance from the Milky Way or M31. No correlations are found with either stellar mass or star formation timescales. In particular, we do not find the linear relation between [Fe/H](R/Re) and the galaxy median age t50, which has been reported in the literature for a set of simulated systems. On the other hand, the high angular momentum in some of our galaxies does not seem to affect the gradient strengths. The strongest gradients in our sample are observed in systems that are likely to have experienced a past merger event. When these merger candidates are excluded, the analysed dwarf galaxies show mild gradients (ã-0.1 dex Re-1) with little scatter between them, regardless of their stellar mass, dynamical state, and their star formation history. These results agree well with different sets of simulations presented in the literature that were analysed using the same method as for the observed dwarf galaxies. Conclusions. The interplay between the multitude of factors that could drive the formation of metallicity gradients likely combine in complex ways to produce in general comparable mild [Fe/H](R/Re) values, regardless of stellar mass and star formation history. The strongest driver of steep gradients seems to be previous dwarf-dwarf merger events in a system
Microcantilever Studies of Angular Field Dependence of Vortex Dynamics in BSCCO
Using a nanogram-sized single crystal of BSCCO attached to a microcantilever
we demonstrate in a direct way that in magnetic fields nearly parallel to the
{\it ab} plane the magnetic field penetrates the sample in the form of
Josephson vortices rather than in the form of a tilted vortex lattice. We
further investigate the relation between the Josephson vortices and the pancake
vortices generated by the perpendicular field component.Comment: 5 pages, 8 figure
Combined Paramagnetic and Diamagnetic Response of YBCO
It has been predicted that the zero frequency density of states of YBCO in
the superconducting phase can display interesting anisotropy effects when a
magnetic field is applied parallel to the copper-oxide planes, due to the
diamagnetic response of the quasi-particles. In this paper we incorporate
paramagnetism into the theory and show that it lessens the anisotropy and can
even eliminate it altogether. At the same time paramagnetism also changes the
scaling with the square root of the magnetic field first deduced by Volovik
leading to an experimentally testable prediction. We also map out the analytic
structure of the zero frequency density of states as a function of the
diamagnetic and paramagnetic energies. At certain critical magnetic field
values we predict kinks as we vary the magnetic field. However these probably
lie beyond currently accessible field strengths
Kramers degeneracy in a magnetic field and Zeeman spin-orbit coupling in antiferromagnets
In this article, I analyze the symmetries and degeneracies of electron
eigenstates in a commensurate collinear antiferromagnet. In a magnetic field
transverse to the staggered magnetization, a hidden anti-unitary symmetry
protects double degeneracy of the Bloch eigenstates at a special set of
momenta. In addition to this `Kramers degeneracy' subset, the manifold of
momenta, labeling the doubly degenerate Bloch states in the Brillouin zone, may
also contain an `accidental degeneracy' subset, that is not protected by
symmetry and that may change its shape under perturbation. These degeneracies
give rise to a substantial momentum dependence of the transverse g-factor in
the Zeeman coupling, turning the latter into a spin-orbit interaction.
I discuss a number of materials, where Zeeman spin-orbit coupling is likely
to be present, and outline the simplest properties and experimental
consequences of this interaction, that may be relevant to systems from chromium
to borocarbides, cuprates, hexaborides, iron pnictides, as well as organic and
heavy fermion conductors.Comment: 16+ pages, extended version of arXiv:0805.0378; revised versio
Specific heat of MgB_2 after irradiation
We studied the effect of disorder on the superconducting properties of
polycrystalline MgB_2 by specific-heat measurements. In the pristine state,
these measurements give a bulk confirmation of the presence of two
superconducting gaps with 2 Delta 0 / k_B T_c = 1.3 and 3.9 with nearly equal
weights. The scattering introduced by irradiation suppresses T_c and tends to
average the two gaps although less than predicted by theory. We also found that
by a suitable irradiation process by fast neutrons, a substantial bulk increase
of dH_{c2}/dT at T_c can be obtained without sacrificing more than a few
degrees in T_c. The upper critical field of the sample after irradiation
exceeds 28 T at T goes to 0 K.Comment: 11 pages text, 6 figures, accepted by Journal of Physics: Condensed
Matte
Thermo-mechanical behavior of surface acoustic waves in ordered arrays of nanodisks studied by near infrared pump-probe diffraction experiments
The ultrafast thermal and mechanical dynamics of a two-dimensional lattice of
metallic nano-disks has been studied by near infrared pump-probe diffraction
measurements, over a temporal range spanning from 100 fs to several
nanoseconds. The experiments demonstrate that, in these systems, a
two-dimensional surface acoustic wave (2DSAW), with a wavevector given by the
reciprocal periodicity of the array, can be excited by ~120 fs Ti:sapphire
laser pulses. In order to clarify the interaction between the nanodisks and the
substrate, numerical calculations of the elastic eigenmodes and simulations of
the thermodynamics of the system are developed through finite-element analysis.
At this light, we unambiguously show that the observed 2DSAW velocity shift
originates from the mechanical interaction between the 2DSAWs and the
nano-disks, while the correlated 2DSAW damping is due to the energy radiation
into the substrate.Comment: 13 pages, 10 figure
MyD88 and TLR9 dependent immune responses mediate resistance to Leishmania guyanensis infections, irrespective of Leishmania RNA virus burden.
Infections with Leishmania parasites of the Leishmania Viannia subgenus give rise to both localized cutaneous (CL), and metastatic leishmaniasis. Metastasizing disease forms including disseminated (DCL) and mutocutaneous (MCL) leishmaniasis result from parasitic dissemination and lesion formation at sites distal to infection and have increased inflammatory responses. The presence of Leishmania RNA virus (LRV) in L. guyanensis parasites contributes to the exacerbation of disease and impacts inflammatory responses via activation of TLR3 by the viral dsRNA. In this study we investigated other innate immune response adaptor protein modulators and demonstrated that both MyD88 and TLR9 played a crucial role in the development of Th1-dependent healing responses against L. guyanensis parasites regardless of their LRV status. The absence of MyD88- or TLR9-dependent signaling pathways resulted in increased Th2 associated cytokines (IL-4 and IL-13), which was correlated with low transcript levels of IL-12p40. The reliance of IL-12 was further confirmed in IL12AB-/- mice, which were completely susceptible to infection. Protection to L. guyanensis infection driven by MyD88- and TLR9-dependent immune responses arises independently to those induced due to high LRV burden within the parasites
Dirac quasiparticles in the mixed state
Energies and wave functions are calculated for d-wave quasiparticles in the
mixed state using the formalism of Franz and Tesanovic for the low-lying energy
levels. The accuracy of the plane-wave expansion is explored by comparing
approximate to exact results for a simplified one-dimensional problem, and the
convergence of the plane- wave expansion to the two-dimensional case is
studied. The results are used to calculate the low-energy tunneling density of
states and the low-temperature specific heat, and these theoretical results are
compared to semiclassical treatments and to the available data. Implications
for the muon spin resonance measurements of vortex core size are also
discussed.Comment: 13 pages, 15 figures, RevTeX. References corrected. A factor of 2 in
the results has been corrected, and the conclusions have been update
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