324 research outputs found
String Picture of Bose-Einstein Condensation
A nonrelativistic Bose gas is represented as a grand-canonical ensemble of
fluctuating closed spacetime strings of arbitrary shape and length. The loops
are characterized by their string tension and the number of times they wind
around the imaginary time axis. At the temperature where Bose-Einstein
condensation sets in, the string tension, being determined by the chemical
potential, vanishes, the system becomes critical, and the strings proliferate.
A comparison with Feynman's description in terms of rings of cyclicly permuted
bosons shows that the winding number of a loop corresponds to the number of
particles contained in a ring.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures; references adde
Vertical Melting of a Stack of Membranes
A stack of tensionless membranes with nonlinear curvature energy and vertical
harmonic interaction is studied. At low temperatures, the system forms a
lamellar phase. At a critical temperature, the stack disorders vertically in a
melting-like transition.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figure
Self-Duality in Superconductor-Insulator Quantum Phase Transitions
It is argued that close to a Coulomb interacting quantum critical point, the
interaction between two vortices in a disordered superconducting thin film
separated by a distance changes from logarithmic in the mean-field region
to in the region dominated by quantum critical fluctuations. This gives
support to the charge-vortex duality picture of the observed reflection
symmetry in the current-voltage characteristics on both sides of the
transition.Comment: 4 pages, no figures, 2nd version: title (slightly) changed and text
accordingl
Gauge-invariant critical exponents for the Ginzburg-Landau model
The critical behavior of the Ginzburg-Landau model is described in a
manifestly gauge-invariant manner. The gauge-invariant correlation-function
exponent is computed to first order in the and -expansion, and found
to agree with the ordinary exponent obtained in the covariant gauge, with the
parameter in the gauge-fixing term .Comment: 4 pages, no figure
Induced quantum numbers in the (2+1)-dimensional electron gas
A gas of electrons confined to a plane is examined in both the relativistic
and nonrelativistic case. Using a (0+1)-dimensional effective theory, a
remarkably simple method is proposed to calculate the spin density induced by
an uniform magnetic background field. The physical properties of possible
fluxon excitations are determined. It is found that while in the relativistic
case they can be considered as half-fermions (semions) in that they carry half
a fermion charge and half the spin of a fermion, in the nonrelativistic case
they should be thought of as fermions, having the charge and spin of a fermion.Comment: 19 pages, REVTE
Can verbal suggestions strengthen the effects of a relaxation intervention?
Short stress management interventions such as relaxation therapy have demonstrated preliminary effectiveness in reducing stress-related problems. A promising tool to strengthen the effectiveness of relaxation-based interventions is the use of verbal suggestions, as previous research provided evidence that verbal suggestions can induce positive outcome expectancies, facilitate adaptive responses to stress and improve health outcomes. The present experimental proof-of-concept study aimed to investigate the effects of a brief relaxation intervention and specifically the role of verbal suggestions on stress-related outcomes assessed by self-report questionnaires and psychophysiological data. 120 participants (mean age = 22.1 years) were randomized to one of four intervention conditions: a brief relaxation intervention plus verbal suggestions condition, a brief relaxation intervention only condition, a verbal suggestions only condition, and a control condition. Afterwards, participants were subjected to a psychosocial stress challenge to assess reactivity to a stressful event. Immediately after both relaxation interventions (with and without verbal suggestions), lower self-reported state anxiety was found compared to the control condition, but no differences were observed in response to the stressor. The verbal suggestions only condition did not impact state anxiety. No significant effects were found for verbal suggestion interventions on cortisol, alpha amylase, heart rate and skin conductance. This is the first study investigating the role of verbal suggestions in the effectiveness of a brief relaxation intervention. Although this experimental proof-of-concept study provides support for the effectiveness of a brief relaxation intervention in lowering state anxiety directly after the intervention, the effects did not impact the response to a subsequent stressor and we did not observe any evidence for the add-on effectiveness of verbal suggestions. The effectiveness of brief relaxation interventions on stress responses should be investigated further in future research by incorporating interventions that are tailored to the specific stress challenge and various types of verbal suggestions
Superconductor-insulator transition driven by local dephasing
We consider a system where localized bound electron pairs form an array of
"Andreev"-like scattering centers and are coupled to a fermionic subsystem of
uncorrelated electrons. By means of a path-integral approach, which describes
the bound electron pairs within a coherent pseudospin representation, we derive
and analyze the effective action for the collective phase modes which arise
from the coupling between the two subsystems once the fermionic degrees of
freedom are integrated out. This effective action has features of a quantum
phase model in the presence of a Berry phase term and exhibits a coupling to a
field which describes at the same time the fluctuations of density of the bound
pairs and those of the amplitude of the fermion pairs. Due to the competition
between the local and the hopping induced non-local phase dynamics it is
possible, by tuning the exchange coupling or the density of the bound pairs, to
trigger a transition from a phase ordered superconducting to a phase disordered
insulating state. We discuss the different mechanisms which control this
occurrence and the eventual destruction of phase coherence both in the weak and
strong coupling limit.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figures, submitted to PRB (05-Feb04
Electron Quasiparticles Drive the Superconductor-to-Insulator Transition in Homogeneously Disordered Thin Films
Transport data on Bi, MoGe, and PbBi/Ge homogeneously-disordered thin films
demonstrate that the critical resistivity, , at the nominal
insulator-superconductor transition is linearly proportional to the normal
sheet resistance, . In addition, the critical magnetic field scales
linearly with the superconducting energy gap and is well-approximated by
. Because is determined at high temperatures and is the
pair-breaking field, the two immediate consequences are: 1)
electron-quasiparticles populate the insulating side of the transition and 2)
standard phase-only models are incapable of describing the destruction of the
superconducting state. As gapless electronic excitations populate the
insulating state, the universality class is no longer the 3D XY model. The lack
of a unique critical resistance in homogeneously disordered films can be
understood in this context. In light of the recent experiments which observe an
intervening metallic state separating the insulator from the superconductor in
homogeneously disordered MoGe thin films, we argue that the two transitions
that accompany the destruction of superconductivity are 1) superconductor to
Bose metal in which phase coherence is lost and 2) Bose metal to localized
electron insulator via pair-breaking.Comment: This article is included in the Festschrift for Prof. Michael Pollak
on occasion of his 75th birthda
Perinatal exposure to fluoxetine and maternal adversity affect myelin-related gene expression and epigenetic regulation in the corticolimbic circuit of juvenile rats
Many pregnant women experience symptoms of depression, and are often treated with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants, such as fluoxetine. In utero exposure to SSRIs and maternal depressive symptoms is associated with sex-specific effects on the brain and behavior. However, knowledge about the neurobiological mechanisms underlying these sex differences is limited. In addition, most animal research into developmental SSRI exposure neglects the influence of maternal adversity. Therefore, we used a rat model relevant to depression to investigate the molecular effects of perinatal fluoxetine exposure in male and female juvenile offspring. We performed RNA sequencing and targeted DNA methylation analyses on the prefrontal cortex and basolateral amygdala; key regions of the corticolimbic circuit. Perinatal fluoxetine enhanced myelin-related gene expression in the prefrontal cortex, while inhibiting it in the basolateral amygdala. SSRI exposure and maternal adversity interacted to affect expression of genes such as myelin-associated glycoprotein (Mag) and myelin basic protein (Mbp). We speculate that altered myelination reflects altered brain maturation. In addition, these effects are stronger in males than in females, resembling known behavioral outcomes. Finally, Mag and Mbp expression correlated with DNA methylation, highlighting epigenetic regulation as a potential mechanism for developmental fluoxetine-induced changes in myelination
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