11,046 research outputs found
On the role of a new type of correlated disorder in extended electronic states in the Thue-Morse lattice
A new type of correlated disorder is shown to be responsible for the
appearance of extended electronic states in one-dimensional aperiodic systems
like the Thue-Morse lattice. Our analysis leads to an understanding of the
underlying reason for the extended states in this system, for which only
numerical evidence is available in the literature so far. The present work also
sheds light on the restrictive conditions under which the extended states are
supported by this lattice.Comment: 11 pages, LaTeX V2.09, 1 figure (available on request), to appear in
Physical Review Letter
The BTZ black hole with a time-dependent boundary
The non-rotating BTZ solution is expressed in terms of coordinates that allow
for an arbitrary time-dependent scale factor in the boundary metric. We provide
explicit expressions for the coordinate transformation that generates this form
of the metric, and determine the regions of the complete Penrose diagram that
are convered by our parametrization. This construction is utilized in order to
compute the stress-energy tensor of the dual CFT on a time-dependent
background. We study in detail the expansion of radial null geodesic
congruences in the BTZ background for various forms of the scale factor of the
boundary metric. We also discuss the relevance of our construction for the
holographic calculation of the entanglement entropy of the dual CFT on
time-dependent backgrounds.Comment: 14 pages, 13 figures, title changed in journal, conformal diagrams
added, references added, final version to appear in Classical and Quantum
Gravit
Two-dimensional mapping of triaxial strain fields in a multiferroic BiFeO3 thin film using scanning x-ray microdiffraction
The dramatically enhanced polarizations and saturation magnetizations observed in the epitaxially constrained BiFeO3 (BFO) thin films with their pronounced grain-orientation dependence have attracted much attention and are attributed largely to the constrained in-plane strain. Thus, it is highly desirable to directly obtain information on the two-dimensional (2D) distribution of the in-plane strain and its correlation with the grain orientation of each corresponding microregion. Here the authors report a 2D quantitative mapping of the grain orientation and the local triaxial strain field in a 250 nm thick multiferroic BFO film using a synchrotron x-ray microdiffraction technique. This direct scanning measurement demonstrates that the deviatoric component of the in-plane strain tensor is between 5x10(-3) and 6x10(-3) and that the local triaxial strain is fairly well correlated with the grain orientation in that particular region. (c) 2007 American Institute of Physics.X1145Nsciescopu
Monte Carlo simulations of infinitely dilute solutions of amphiphilic diblock star copolymers
Single-chain Monte Carlo simulations of amphiphilic diblock star copolymers
were carried out in continuous space using implicit solvents. Two distinct
architectures were studied: stars with the hydrophobic blocks attached to the
core, and stars with the polar blocks attached to the core, with all arms being
of equal length. The ratio of the lengths of the hydrophobic block to the
length of the polar block was varied from 0 to 1. Stars with 3, 6, 9 or 12
arms, each of length 10, 15, 25, 50, 75 and 100 Kuhn segments were analysed.
Four distinct types of conformations were observed for these systems. These,
apart from studying the snapshots from the simulations, have been
quantitatively characterised in terms of the mean-squared radii of gyration,
mean-squared distances of monomers from the centre-of-mass, asphericity
indices, static scattering form factors in the Kratky representation as well as
the intra-chain monomer-monomer radial distribution functions.Comment: 12 pages, 11 ps figures. Accepted for publication in J. Chem. Phy
Diffusive propagation of UHECR and the propagation theorem
We present a detailed analytical study of the propagation of ultra high
energy (UHE) particles in extragalactic magnetic fields. The crucial parameter
which affects the diffuse spectrum is the separation between sources. In the
case of a uniform distribution of sources with a separation between them much
smaller than all characteristic propagation lengths, the diffuse spectrum of
UHE particles has a {\em universal} form, independent of the mode of
propagation. This statement has a status of theorem. The proof is obtained
using the particle number conservation during propagation, and also using the
kinetic equation for the propagation of UHE particles. This theorem can be also
proved with the help of the diffusion equation. In particular, it is shown
numerically, how the diffuse fluxes converge to this universal spectrum, when
the separation between sources diminishes. We study also the analytic solution
of the diffusion equation in weak and strong magnetic fields with energy losses
taken into account. In the case of strong magnetic fields and for a separation
between sources large enough, the GZK cutoff can practically disappear, as it
has been found early in numerical simulations. In practice, however, the source
luminosities required are too large for this possibility.Comment: 16 pages, 13 eps figures, discussion of the absence of the GZK
cut-off in strong magnetic field added, a misprint in figure 6 corrected,
version accepted for publication in Ap
Mathematical modeling of the formation of apoptosome in intrinsic pathway of apoptosis
Caspase-9 is the protease that mediates the intrinsic pathway of apoptosis, a type of cell death. Activation of caspase-9 is a multi-step process that requires dATP or ATP and involves at least two proteins, cytochrome c and Apaf-1. In this study, we mathematically model caspase-9 activation by using a system of ordinary differential equations (an ODE model) generated by a systems biology tool Simpathica—a simulation and reasoning system, developed to study biological pathways. A rudimentary version of “model checking” based on comparing simulation data with that obtained from a recombinant system of caspase-9 activation, provided several new insights into regulation of this protease. The model predicts that the activation begins with binding of dATP to Apaf-1, which initiates the interaction between Apaf-1 and cytochrome c, thus forming a complex that oligomerizes into an active caspase-9 holoenzyme via a linear binding model with cooperative interaction rather than through network formation
Entanglement Entropy of Two Spheres
We study the entanglement entropy S_{AB} of a massless free scalar field on
two spheres A and B whose radii are R_1 and R_2, respectively, and the distance
between the centers of them is r. The state of the massless free scalar field
is the vacuum state. We obtain the result that the mutual information
S_{A;B}:=S_A+S_B-S_{AB} is independent of the ultraviolet cutoff and
proportional to the product of the areas of the two spheres when r>>R_1,R_2,
where S_A and S_B are the entanglement entropy on the inside region of A and B,
respectively. We discuss possible connections of this result with the physics
of black holes.Comment: 17 pages, 9 figures; v4, added references, revised argument in
section V, a typo in eq.(25) corrected, published versio
Interaction effects on 2D fermions with random hopping
We study the effects of generic short-ranged interactions on a system of 2D
Dirac fermions subject to a special kind of static disorder, often referred to
as ``chiral.'' The non-interacting system is a member of the disorder class BDI
[M. R. Zirnbauer, J. Math. Phys. 37, 4986 (1996)]. It emerges, for example, as
a low-energy description of a time-reversal invariant tight-binding model of
spinless fermions on a honeycomb lattice, subject to random hopping, and
possessing particle-hole symmetry. It is known that, in the absence of
interactions, this disordered system is special in that it does not localize in
2D, but possesses extended states and a finite conductivity at zero energy, as
well as a strongly divergent low-energy density of states. In the context of
the hopping model, the short-range interactions that we consider are
particle-hole symmetric density-density interactions. Using a perturbative
one-loop renormalization group analysis, we show that the same mechanism
responsible for the divergence of the density of states in the non-interacting
system leads to an instability, in which the interactions are driven strongly
relevant by the disorder. This result should be contrasted with the limit of
clean Dirac fermions in 2D, which is stable against the inclusion of weak
short-ranged interactions. Our work suggests a novel mechanism wherein a clean
system, initially insensitive to interaction effects, can be made unstable to
interactions upon the inclusion of weak static disorder.Comment: 16 pages, 10 figures; References added, figures enlarged; to be
published in Phys. Rev.
Conductivity landscape of highly oriented pyrolytic graphite surface containing ribbons and edges
We present an extensive study on electrical spectroscopy of graphene ribbons
and edges of highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) using atomic force
microscope (AFM). We have addressed in the present study two main issues, (1)
How does the electrical property of the graphite (graphene) sheet change when
the graphite layer is displaced by shear forces? and (2) How does the
electrical property of the graphite sheet change across a step edge? While
addressing these two issues we observed, (1) variation of conductance among the
graphite ribbons on the surface of HOPG. The top layer always exhibits more
conductance than the lower layers, (2) two different monolayer ribbons on the
same sheet of graphite shows different conductance, (3) certain ribbon/sheet
edges show sharp rise in current, (4) certain ribbons/sheets on the same edge
shows both presence and absense of the sharp rise in the current, (5) some
lower layers at the interface near a step edge shows a strange dip in the
current/conductance (depletion of charge). We discuss possible reasons for such
rich conducting landscape on the surface of graphite.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures. For better quality figures please contact autho
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