453 research outputs found
Multiferroicity and colossal magneto-capacitance in Cr-thiospinels
The sulfur based Cr-spinels RCr2S4 with R = Cd and Hg exhibit the coexistence
of ferromagnetic and ferroelectric properties together with a pronounced
magnetocapacitive coupling. While in CdCr2S4 purely ferromagnetic order is
established, in HgCr2S4 a bond-frustrated magnetic ground state is realized,
which, however, easily can be driven towards a ferromagnetic configuration in
weak magnetic fields. This paper shall review our recent investigation for both
compounds. Besides the characterization of the magnetic properties, the complex
dielectric permittivity was studied by means of broadband dielectric
spectroscopy as well as measurements of polarization hysteresis and
pyro-currents. The observed colossal magneto-capacitive effect at the magnetic
transition seems to be driven by an enormous variation of the relaxation
dynamics.Comment: 10 pages, 11 figure
Multiferroic behavior in CdCr2X4 (X = S, Se)
The recently discovered multiferroic material CdCr2S4 shows a coexistence of
ferromagnetism and relaxor ferroelectricity together with a colossal
magnetocapacitive effect. The complex dielectric permittivity of this compound
and of the structurally related CdCr2Se4 was studied by means of broadband
dielectric spectroscopy using different electrode materials. The observed
magnetocapacitive coupling at the magnetic transition is driven by enormous
changes of the relaxation dynamics induced by the development of magnetic
order
Colossal magnetocapacitance and colossal magnetoresistance in HgCr2S4
We present a detailed study of the dielectric and charge transport properties
of the antiferromagnetic cubic spinel HgCr2S4. Similar to the findings in
ferromagnetic CdCr2S4, the dielectric constant of HgCr2S4 becomes strongly
enhanced in the region below 60 - 80 K, which can be ascribed to polar
relaxational dynamics triggered by the onset of ferromagnetic correlations. In
addition, the observation of polarization hysteresis curves indicates the
development of ferroelectric order below about 70 K. Moreover, our
investigations in external magnetic fields up to 5 T reveal the simultaneous
occurrence of magnetocapacitance and magnetoresistance of truly colossal
magnitudes in this material.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Heat capacity of the quantum magnet TiOCl
Measurements of the heat capacity C(T,H) of the one-dimensional quantum
magnet TiOCl are presented for temperatures 2K < T < 300K and magnetic fields
up to 5T. Distinct anomalies at 91K and 67K signal two subsequent phase
transitions. The lower of these transitions clearly is of first order and seems
to be related to the spin degrees of freedom. The transition at 92K probably
involves the lattice and/or orbital moments. A detailed analysis of the data
reveals that the entropy change through both transitions is surprisingly small
(~ 0.1R), pointing to the existence strong fluctuations well into the
non-ordered high-temperature phase. No significant magnetic field dependence
was detected.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
Self-normalizing phase measurement in multimode terahertz spectroscopy based on photomixing of three lasers
Photomixing of two near-infrared lasers is well established for
continuous-wave terahertz spectroscopy. Photomixing of three lasers allows us
to measure at three terahertz frequencies simultaneously. Similar to Fourier
spectroscopy, the spectral information is contained in an nterferogram, which
is equivalent to the waveform in time-domain spectroscopy. We use one fixed
terahertz frequency \nu_ref to monitor temporal drifts of the setup, i.e., of
the optical path-length difference. The other two frequencies are scanned for
broadband high-resolution spectroscopy. The frequency dependence of the phase
is obtained with high accuracy by normalizing it to the data obtained at
\nu_ref, which eliminates drifts of the optical path-length difference. We
achieve an accuracy of about 1-2 microns or 10^{-8} of the optical path length.
This method is particularly suitable for applications in nonideal environmental
conditions outside of an air-conditioned laboratory.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure
Anisotropy of the paramagnetic susceptibility in LaTiO: The electron-distribution picture in the ground state
The energy-level scheme and wave functions of the titanium ions in
LaTiO are calculated using crystal-field theory and spin-orbit coupling.
The theoretically derived temperature dependence and anisotropy of the magnetic
susceptibility agree well with experimental data obtained in an untwinned
single crystal. The refined fitting procedure reveals an almost isotropic
molecular field and a temperature dependence of the van Vleck susceptibility.
The charge distribution of the 3d--electron on the Ti positions and the
principle values of the quadrupole moments are derived and agree with NMR data
and recent measurements of orbital momentum and crystal-field splitting.
The low value of the ordered moment in the antiferromagnetic phase is
discussed.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, 3 table
Transport, magnetic, thermodynamic and optical properties in Ti-doped Sr_2RuO_4
We report on electrical resistivity, magnetic susceptibility and
magnetization, on heat capacity and optical experiments in single crystals of
Sr_2Ru_(1-x)Ti_xO_4. Samples with x=0.1 and 0.2 reveal purely semiconducting
resistivity behavior along c and the charge transport is close to localization
within the ab-plane. A strong anisotropy in the magnetic susceptibility appears
at temperatures below 100 K. Moreover magnetic ordering in c-direction with a
moment of order 0.01 mu_B/f.u. occurs at low temperatures. On doping the
low-temperature linear term of the heat capacity becomes reduced significantly
and probably is dominated by spin fluctuations. Finally, the optical
conductivity reveals the anisotropic character of the dc resistance, with the
in-plane conductance roughly following a Drude-type behavior and an insulating
response along c
CdV2O4: A rare example of a collinear multiferroic spinel
By studying the dielectric properties of the geometrically frustrated spinel
CdV2O4, we observe ferroelectricity developing at the transition into the
collinear antiferromagnetic ground state. In this multiferroic spinel,
ferroelectricity is driven by local magnetostriction and not by the more common
scenario of spiral magnetism. The experimental findings are corroborated by
ab-initio calculations of the electric polarization and the underlying spin and
orbital order. The results point towards a charge rearrangement due to
dimerization, where electronic correlations and the proximity to the
insulator-metal transition play an important role.Comment: 4+ pages, 3 figure
Parameter estimation method that directly compares gravitational wave observations to numerical relativity
We present and assess a Bayesian method to interpret gravitational wave signals from binary black holes. Our method directly compares gravitational wave data to numerical relativity (NR) simulations. In this study, we present a detailed investigation of the systematic and statistical parameter estimation errors of this method. This procedure bypasses approximations used in semianalytical models for compact binary coalescence. In this work, we use the full posterior parameter distribution for only generic nonprecessing binaries, drawing inferences away from the set of NR simulations used, via interpolation of a single scalar quantity (the marginalized log likelihood, lnL) evaluated by comparing data to nonprecessing binary black hole simulations. We also compare the data to generic simulations, and discuss the effectiveness of this procedure for generic sources. We specifically assess the impact of higher order modes, repeating our interpretation with both l ≤ 2 as well as l ≤ 3 harmonic modes. Using the l ≤ 3 higher modes, we gain more information from the signal and can better constrain the parameters of the gravitational wave signal. We assess and quantify several sources of systematic error that our procedure could introduce, including simulation resolution and duration; most are negligible. We show through examples that our method can recover the parameters for equal mass, zero spin, GW150914-like, and unequal mass, precessing spin sources. Our study of this new parameter estimation method demonstrates that we can quantify and understand the systematic and statistical error. This method allows us to use higher order modes from numerical relativity simulations to better constrain the black hole binary parameters
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