Critical behavior of frustrated systems: Monte Carlo simulations versus Renormalization Group

We study the critical behavior of frustrated systems by means of Pade-Borel resummed three-loop renormalization-group expansions and numerical Monte Carlo simulations. Amazingly, for six-component spins where the transition is second order, both approaches disagree. This unusual situation is analyzed both from the point of view of the convergence of the resummed series and from the possible relevance of non perturbative effects.Comment: RevTex, 10 pages, 3 Postscript figure

Cross-contamination of oilseeds by insecticide residues during storage

Pesticide residues are found in oilseeds (rapeseed and sunflower) and crude oils: they are mainly organophosphate insecticides (pirimiophos-methyl, malathion when authorized) used in empty storage facilities and for direct application to stored cereal grain. Even if some secondary pests are found in stored oilseeds, French regulations do not allow use of these insecticides on stored oilseeds. These residues arise from cross-contamination from storage bins and grain handling equipment of grain stores, and not from illegal use. This uptake of insecticide residues from their storage environment by oilseeds may lead to residue contents that exceed regulatory limits. A three-year investigation in grain storage companies allowed us to follow the course of sunflower batches and rapeseed batches during storage seasons 2006-2007, 2007-2008 and 2008-2009, from reception at the storage facility to outloading. Each of these batches was sampled at outloading, and was analyzed for insecticide residues. Traceability of oilseeds established by grain-store managers allowed us to identify cross-contamination sources. The insecticides that were most commonly detected were pirimiophos-methyl, malathion, and dichlorvos (in sunflower 2006-2007), plus chlorpyriphos-methyl and deltamethrin. Pirimiophos-methyl was the most commonly detected active substance, and caused the most cases of non-accordance with regulatory levels in rapeseed. Cross-contamination could have occurred when cereal grains were treated upon receipt, when rapeseed was also delivered, especially when treatments were done systematically to the cereal grains. For sunflower, the main cross-contamination hazard resulted from treatment of cereals at the period of receipt or at their outloading, just before sunflower seeds batches were outloaded. Another situation led to cross-contamination, but generally at a lower extent: oilseeds stored in bins that contained previously treated cereals, or loaded in empty bins with handling equipment treated before the receipt of oilseeds.Keywords: Oilseed storage, Cross-contamination, Insecticide residues, Rapeseed, Sunflowe

Pores in Bilayer Membranes of Amphiphilic Molecules: Coarse-Grained Molecular Dynamics Simulations Compared with Simple Mesoscopic Models

We investigate pores in fluid membranes by molecular dynamics simulations of an amphiphile-solvent mixture, using a molecular coarse-grained model. The amphiphilic membranes self-assemble into a lamellar stack of amphiphilic bilayers separated by solvent layers. We focus on the particular case of tension less membranes, in which pores spontaneously appear because of thermal fluctuations. Their spatial distribution is similar to that of a random set of repulsive hard discs. The size and shape distribution of individual pores can be described satisfactorily by a simple mesoscopic model, which accounts only for a pore independent core energy and a line tension penalty at the pore edges. In particular, the pores are not circular: their shapes are fractal and have the same characteristics as those of two dimensional ring polymers. Finally, we study the size-fluctuation dynamics of the pores, and compare the time evolution of their contour length to a random walk in a linear potential

The critical behavior of frustrated spin models with noncollinear order

We study the critical behavior of frustrated spin models with noncollinear order, including stacked triangular antiferromagnets and helimagnets. For this purpose we compute the field-theoretic expansions at fixed dimension to six loops and determine their large-order behavior. For the physically relevant cases of two and three components, we show the existence of a new stable fixed point that corresponds to the conjectured chiral universality class. This contradicts previous three-loop field-theoretical results but is in agreement with experiments.Comment: 4 pages, RevTe

Monte Carlo renormalization group study of the Heisenberg and XY antiferromagnet on the stacked triangular lattice and the chiral ϕ4\phi^4 model

With the help of the improved Monte Carlo renormalization-group scheme, we numerically investigate the renormalization group flow of the antiferromagnetic Heisenberg and XY spin model on the stacked triangular lattice (STA-model) and its effective Hamiltonian, 2N-component chiral $\phi^4$ model which is used in the field-theoretical studies. We find that the XY-STA model with the lattice size $126\times 144 \times 126$ exhibits clear first-order behavior. We also find that the renormalization-group flow of STA model is well reproduced by the chiral $\phi^4$ model, and that there are no chiral fixed point of renormalization-group flow for N=2 and 3 cases. This result indicates that the Heisenberg-STA model also undergoes first-order transition.Comment: v1:15 pages, 15 figures v2:updated references v3:added comments on the higher order irrelevant scaling variables v4:added results of larger sizes v5:final version to appear in J.Phys.Soc.Jpn Vol.72, No.

Finite-Temperature Transition in the Spin-Dimer Antiferromagnet BaCuSi2O6

We consider a classical XY-like Hamiltonian on a body-centered tetragonal lattice, focusing on the role of interlayer frustration. A three-dimensional (3D) ordered phase is realized via thermal fluctuations, breaking the mirror-image reflection symmetry in addition to the XY symmetry. A heuristic field-theoretical model of the transition has a decoupled fixed point in the 3D XY universality, and our Monte Carlo simulation suggests that there is such a temperature region where long-wavelength fluctuations can be described by this fixed point. However, it is shown using scaling arguments that the decoupled fixed point is unstable against a fluctuation-induced biquadratic interaction, indicating that a crossover to nontrivial critical phenomena with different exponents appears as one approaches the critical point beyond the transient temperature region. This new scenario clearly contradicts the previous notion of the 3D XY universality.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figure

The ALMA-PILS survey: First tentative detection of 3-hydroxypropenal (HOCHCHCHO) in the interstellar medium and chemical modeling of the C3_3H4_4O2_2 isomers

Characterizing the molecular composition of solar-type protostars is useful for improving our understanding of the physico-chemical conditions under which the Sun and its planets formed. In this work, we analyzed the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) data of the Protostellar Interferometric Line Survey (PILS), an unbiased spectral survey of the solar-type protostar IRAS~16293--2422, and we tentatively detected 3-hydroxypropenal (HOCHCHCHO) for the first time in the interstellar medium towards source B. Based on the observed line intensities and assuming local thermodynamic equilibrium, its column density is constrained to be $\sim$10$^{15}$ cm$^{-2}$, corresponding to an abundance of 10$^{-4}$ relative to methanol, CH$_3$OH. Additional spectroscopic studies are needed to constrain the excitation temperature of this molecule. We included HOCHCHCHO and five of its isomers in the chemical network presented in Manigand et al. (2021) and we predicted their chemical evolution with the Nautilus code. The model reproduces the abundance of HOCHCHCHO within the uncertainties. This species is mainly formed through the grain surface reaction CH$_2$CHO + HCO $\rightarrow$ HCOCH$_2$CHO, followed by the tautomerization of HCOCH$_2$CHO into HOCHCHCHO. Two isomers, CH$_3$COCHO and CH$_2$COHCHO, are predicted to be even more abundant than HOCHCHCHO. Spectroscopic studies of these molecules are essential in searching for them in IRAS~16293--2422 and other astrophysical sources.Comment: Accepted in A&A Letter

Phase Transition of XY Model in Heptagonal Lattice

We numerically investigate the nature of the phase transition of the XY model in the heptagonal lattice with the negative curvature, in comparison to other interaction structures such as a flat two-dimensional (2D) square lattice and a small-world network. Although the heptagonal lattice has a very short characteristic path length like the small-world network structure, it is revealed via calculation of the Binder's cumulant that the former exhibits a zero-temperature phase transition while the latter has the finite-temperature transition of the mean-field nature. Through the computation of the vortex density as well as the correlation function in the low-temperature approximation, we show that the absence of the phase transition originates from the strong spinwave-type fluctuation, which is discussed in relation to the usual 2D XY model.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figures, to be published in Europhys. Let

Spin Stiffness of Stacked Triangular Antiferromagnets

We study the spin stiffness of stacked triangular antiferromagnets using both heat bath and broad histogram Monte Carlo methods. Our results are consistent with a continuous transition belonging to the chiral universality class first proposed by Kawamura.Comment: 5 pages, 7 figure