Low Temperature Properties of Anisotropic Superconductors with Kondo Impurities

We present a self-consistent theory of superconductors in the presence of Kondo impurities, using large-$N$ slave-boson methods to treat the impurity dynamics. The technique is tested on the s-wave case and shown to give good results compared to other methods for $T_K > T_c$. We calculate low temperature thermodynamic and transport properties for various superconducting states, including isotropic s-wave and representative anisotropic model states with line and point nodes on the Fermi surface.Comment: 21 pages, RevTeX 3.0, 12 figures available upon request, UF preprin

Immunoglobulin Heavy Chain Exclusion in the Shark

The adaptive immune system depends on specific antigen receptors, immunoglobulins (Ig) in B lymphocytes and T cell receptors (TCR) in T lymphocytes. Adaptive responses to immune challenge are based on the expression of a single species of antigen receptor per cell; and in B cells, this is mediated in part by allelic exclusion at the Ig heavy (H) chain locus. How allelic exclusion is regulated is unclear; we considered that sharks, the oldest vertebrates possessing the Ig/TCR-based immune system, would yield insights not previously approachable and reveal the primordial basis of the regulation of allelic exclusion. Sharks have an IgH locus organization consisting of 15–200 independently rearranging miniloci (VH-D1-D2-JH-Cμ), a gene organization that is considered ancestral to the tetrapod and bony fish IgH locus. We found that rearrangement takes place only within a minilocus, and the recombining gene segments are assembled simultaneously and randomly. Only one or few H chain genes were fully rearranged in each shark B cell, whereas the other loci retained their germline configuration. In contrast, most IgH were partially rearranged in every thymocyte (developing T cell) examined, but no IgH transcripts were detected. The distinction between B and T cells in their IgH configurations and transcription reveals a heretofore unsuspected chromatin state permissive for rearrangement in precursor lymphocytes, and suggests that controlled limitation of B cell lineage-specific factors mediate regulated rearrangement and allelic exclusion. This regulation may be shared by higher vertebrates in which additional mechanistic and regulatory elements have evolved with their structurally complex IgH locus

Realising superoscillations: A review of mathematical tools and their application

Superoscillations are making a growing impact on an ever-increasing number of real-world applications, as early theoretical analysis has evolved into wide experimental realisation. This is particularly true in optics: the first application area to have extensively embraced superoscillations, with much recent growth. This review provides a tool for anyone planning to expand the boundaries in an application where superoscillations have already been used, or to apply superoscillations to a new application. By reviewing the mathematical methods for constructing superoscillations, including their considerations and capabilities, we lay out the options for anyone wanting to construct a device that uses superoscillations. Superoscillations have inherent trade-offs: as the size of spot reduces, its relative intensity decreases as high-energy sidebands appear. Different methods provide solutions for optimising different aspects of these trade-offs, to suit different purposes. Despite numerous technological ways of realising superoscillations, the mathematical methods can be categorised into three approaches: direct design of superoscillatory functions, design of pupil filters and design of superoscillatory lenses. This categorisation, based on mathematical methods, is used to highlight the transferability of methods between applications. It also highlights areas for future theoretical development to enable the scientific and technological boundaries to be pushed even further in real-world applications

Specific heat of a Kondo superconductor: (La, Ce) Al₂

The specific heat of LaAl2 and (La1-xCex)Al2 (x ⩽ 0.0064) has been measured between 0.3 and 5 K, both in the superconducting and in the normal state. For all samples the same values for the Debye temperature as well as for the electronic specific heat coefficient have been determined. LaAl2 shows an excellent BCS behavior. A remarkable excess specific heat at low temperatures due to the Kondo effect has been observed for all superconducting as well as for the normal conducting (La1-xCex) Al2 alloys. The specific heat jump ΔC at Tc depressed rapidly with increasing Ce concentration, allows the Kondo temperature TK ≅ 1 K to be determined. ΔC vanishes at finite temperatures

The T suppressor cell alloantigen Tsud maps near immunoglobulin allotype genes and may be an heavy chain constant-region marker on a T cell receptor.

The mouse T cell alloantigen, Tsud, is expressed on a minority of mature, Lyt-2+ cells, and its expression is controlled by a gene linked to the immunoglobulin heavy chain gene cluster, Igh. Tsud can be assayed by immunofluorescence staining with an antiserum made in BALB/c mice against C.AL-20 concanavalin A blasts. This antiserum can also be used to induced T suppressor cells in mice expressing Tsu(d). Both of these assays were used to type several panels of recombinant inbred strains and Igh recombinant strains to accurately map the Tsu(d) locus. The Tsu(d) gene is located very near the heavy chain constant-region genes, Igh-C, on the side toward the prealbumin gene, Pre-1. Tsu(d) is not among the heavy chain variable-region genes, Igh-V, and thus is not a variable-region framework allotype, subgroup determinant, or idiotype. The map position suggest that the Tsu(d) antigen is a constant region allotypic determinant on the as yet uncharacterized T cell receptor

Anomalous Behavious of the Kondo Superconductor (La_1-xCe_x) Al₂

At low temperatures two phenomena of collective behavior of the conduction electrons in metals are known: superconductivity and the Kondo effect. With the system (La, Ce) Al2 we succeeded in demonstrating a strong interaction between these two phenomena as predicted by Müller-Hartmann and Zittartz in 1971.1 The most unusual behavior of this superconducting alloy is the vanishing of superconductivity below a second transition temperature at very low temperatures. This second transition back into the normal state was first observed by Riblet and Winzer2 in an adiabatic demagnetization cryostat with a standard ac mutual inductance technique. Figure 1 shows a typical example of these two transitions. The induction signal of the specimen compared to that of a clean LaAl2 probe of the same size is plotted vs. temperature. This specimen with 0.67 at. % Ce substitution of La in LaAl2 becomes superconducting between 1.5 and 1°K and normal again below 0.5°K. As a consequence of this second transition, the temperature dependence of all the other superconducting properties becomes strange. It is therefore proposed to call such an alloy a “Kondo superconductor.