Effect of the attachment of ferromagnetic contacts on the conductivity and giant magnetoresistance of graphene nanoribbons

Carbon-based nanostructures and graphene, in particular, evoke a lot of interest as new promising materials for nanoelectronics and spintronics. One of the most important issue in this context is the impact of external electrodes on electronic properties of graphene nanoribbons (GNR). The present theoretical method is based on the tight-binding model and a modified recursive procedure for Green's functions. The results show that within the ballistic transport regime, the so called end-contacted geometry (of minimal GNR/electrode interface area), is usually more advantageous for practical applications than its side-contacted counterpart (with a larger coverage area), as far as the electrical conductivity is concerned. As regards the giant magnetoresistance coefficient, however, the situation is exactly opposite, since spin- splitting effects are more pronounced in the lower conductive side-contacted setups.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure

Large Momenta Fluctuations Of Charm Quarks In The Quark-Gluon Plasma

We show that large fluctuations of D mesons kinetic energy (or momentum) distributions might be a signature of a phase transition to the quark gluon plasma (QGP). In particular, a jump in the variance of the momenta or kinetic energy, as a function of a control parameter (temperature or Fermi energy at finite baryon densities) might be a signature for a first order phase transition to the QGP. This behaviour is completely consistent with the order parameter defined for a system of interacting quarks at zero temperature and finite baryon densities which shows a jump in correspondance to a first order phase transition to the QGP. The $J/\Psi$ shows exactly the same behavior of the order parameter and of the variance of the D mesons. We discuss implications for relativistic heavy ion collisions within the framework of a transport model and possible hints for experimental data.Comment: 4 pages 3 figure

Properties of superconducting MgB_2 wires: "in-situ" versus "ex-situ" reaction technique

We have fabricated a series of iron-sheathed superconducting wires prepared by the powder-in-tube technique from (MgB_2)_{1-x}:(Mg+2B)_x initial powder mixtures taken with different proportions, so that x varies from 0 to 1. It turned out that "ex-situ" prepared wire (x = 0) has considerable disadvantages compared to all the other wires in which "in-situ" assisted (0 < x < 1) or pure "in-situ" (x = 1) preparation was used due to weaker inter-grain connectivity. As a result, higher critical current densities J_c were measured over the entire range of applied magnetic fields B_a for all the samples with x > 0. Pinning of vortices in MgB_2 wires is shown to be due to grain boundaries. J_c(B_a) behavior is governed by an interplay between the transparency of grain boundaries and the amount of "pinning" grain boundaries. Differences between thermo-magnetic flux-jump instabilities in the samples and a possible threat to practical applications are also discussed.Comment: To be published in Supercond. Sci. Technol. (2003), in pres

Solution space heterogeneity of the random K-satisfiability problem: Theory and simulations

The random K-satisfiability (K-SAT) problem is an important problem for studying typical-case complexity of NP-complete combinatorial satisfaction; it is also a representative model of finite-connectivity spin-glasses. In this paper we review our recent efforts on the solution space fine structures of the random K-SAT problem. A heterogeneity transition is predicted to occur in the solution space as the constraint density alpha reaches a critical value alpha_cm. This transition marks the emergency of exponentially many solution communities in the solution space. After the heterogeneity transition the solution space is still ergodic until alpha reaches a larger threshold value alpha_d, at which the solution communities disconnect from each other to become different solution clusters (ergodicity-breaking). The existence of solution communities in the solution space is confirmed by numerical simulations of solution space random walking, and the effect of solution space heterogeneity on a stochastic local search algorithm SEQSAT, which performs a random walk of single-spin flips, is investigated. The relevance of this work to glassy dynamics studies is briefly mentioned.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures. Final version as will appear in Journal of Physics: Conference Series (Proceedings of the International Workshop on Statistical-Mechanical Informatics, March 7-10, 2010, Kyoto, Japan