1,247 research outputs found
Phase diagram of a semiflexible polymer chain in a solvent: application to protein folding
We consider a lattice model of a semiflexible homopolymer chain in a bad
solvent. Beside the temperature , this model is described by (i) a curvature
energy , representing the stiffness of the chain (ii) a
nearest-neighbour attractive energy , representing the solvent
(iii) the monomer density , where and
denote respectively the number of monomers and the number of lattice sites.
This model is a simplified view of the protein folding problem, which
encompasses the geometrical competition between secondary structures (the
curvature term modelling helix formation) and the global compactness (modeled
here by the attractive energy), but contains no side chain information...Comment: 17 pages, plain tex, 2 figures available upon reques
Theoretical study of X-ray absorption of three-dimensional topological insulator
X-ray absorption edge singularity which is usually relevant for metals is
studied for the prototype topological insulator .
The generalized integral equation of Nozi\`eres and Dominicis type for X-ray
edge singularity is derived and solved. The spin texture of surfaces states
causes a component of singularity dependent on the helicity of the spin
texture. It also yields another component for which the singularity from
excitonic processes is absent.Comment: RevTeX 4.1. 4 pages, no figur
Quantum Phase Transitions
We give a general introduction to quantum phase transitions in
strongly-correlated electron systems. These transitions which occur at zero
temperature when a non-thermal parameter like pressure, chemical
composition or magnetic field is tuned to a critical value are characterized by
a dynamic exponent related to the energy and length scales and
. Simple arguments based on an expansion to first order in the effective
interaction allow to define an upper-critical dimension (where
and is the spatial dimension) below which mean-field description is
no longer valid. We emphasize the role of pertubative renormalization group
(RG) approaches and self-consistent renormalized spin fluctuation (SCR-SF)
theories to understand the quantum-classical crossover in the vicinity of the
quantum critical point with generalization to the Kondo effect in heavy-fermion
systems. Finally we quote some recent inelastic neutron scattering experiments
performed on heavy-fermions which lead to unusual scaling law in
for the dynamical spin susceptibility revealing critical local modes beyond the
itinerant magnetism scheme and mention new attempts to describe this local
quantum critical point.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figure
Aharonov-Bohm oscillations in the local density of states
The scattering of electrons with inhomogeneities produces modulations in the
local density of states of a metal. We show that electron interference
contributions to these modulations are affected by the magnetic field via the
Aharonov-Bohm effect. This can be exploited in a simple STM setup that serves
as an Aharonov-Bohm interferometer at the nanometer scale.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures. v2 added reference
Antiferromagnetic and spin gap phases of the anisotropic Kondo necklace model
We have studied the effect of anisotropies on the quantum phase transition of
the Kondo necklace model in dimensions D=1, 2 and 3. Both the anisotropy
of the inter-site interaction term and anisotropy of the
on-site Kondo interaction have been included. We use a bond operator method
with constraints implemented in mean field approximation. Starting from the
paramagnetic phase we determine the critical ratio of the quantum
critical point and associated scaling exponents of the Kondo-singlet gap. We
show that in the case of easy-axis type anisotropy a qualitatively
new behavior in comparison to the conventional Kondo necklace model with
(,)=(0,1) appears. We have also obtained the antiferromagnetic
order parameter in the long range ordered phase for .Comment: 12 pages and 9 figures, to appear in PR
Competition between Kondo screening and indirect magnetic exchange in a quantum box
Nanoscale systems of metal atoms antiferromagnetically exchange coupled to
several magnetic impurities are shown to exhibit an unconventional re-entrant
competition between Kondo screening and indirect magnetic exchange interaction.
Depending on the atomic positions of the magnetic moments, the total
ground-state spin deviates from predictions of standard
Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida perturbation theory. The effect shows up on an
energy scale larger than the level width induced by the coupling to the
environment and is experimentally verifiable by studying magnetic field
dependencies.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, v3 with minor change
Quantum Critical Behavior in Kondo Systems
This article briefly reviews three topics related to the quantum critical
behavior of certain heavy-fermion systems. First, we summarize an extended
dynamical mean-field theory for the Kondo lattice, which treats on an equal
footing the quantum fluctuations associated with the Kondo and RKKY couplings.
The dynamical mean-field equations describe an effective Kondo impurity model
with an additional coupling to vector bosons. Two types of quantum phase
transition appear to be possible within this approach---the first a
conventional spin-density-wave transition, the second driven by local physics.
For the second type of transition to be realized, the effective impurity model
must have a quantum critical point exhibiting an anomalous local spin
susceptibility. In the second part of the paper, such a critical point is shown
to occur in two variants of the Kondo impurity problem. Finally, we propose an
operational test for the existence of quantum critical behavior driven by local
physics. Neutron scattering results suggest that CeCuAu passes this
test.Comment: 6 pages, 4 eps figures, REVTeX (epsf style
Ring Exchange and Phase Separation in the Two-dimensional Boson Hubbard model
We present Quantum Monte Carlo simulations of the soft-core bosonic Hubbard
model with a ring exchange term K. For values of K which exceed roughly half
the on-site repulsion U, the density is a non-monotonic function of the
chemical potential, indicating that the system has a tendency to phase
separate. This behavior is confirmed by an examination of the density-density
structure factor and real space images of the boson configurations. Adding a
near-neighbor repulsion can compete with phase separation, but still does not
give rise to a stable normal Bose liquid.Comment: 12 pages, 23 figure
Macroscopic Distinguishability Between Quantum States Defining Different Phases of Matter: Fidelity and the Uhlmann Geometric Phase
We study the fidelity approach to quantum phase transitions (QPTs) and apply
it to general thermal phase transitions (PTs). We analyze two particular cases:
the Stoner-Hubbard itinerant electron model of magnetism and the BCS theory of
superconductivity. In both cases we show that the sudden drop of the mixed
state fidelity marks the line of the phase transition. We conduct a detailed
analysis of the general case of systems given by mutually commuting
Hamiltonians, where the non-analyticity of the fidelity is directly related to
the non-analyticity of the relevant response functions (susceptibility and heat
capacity), for the case of symmetry-breaking transitions. Further, on the case
of BCS theory of superconductivity, given by mutually non-commuting
Hamiltonians, we analyze the structure of the system's eigenvectors in the
vicinity of the line of the phase transition showing that their sudden change
is quantified by the emergence of a generically non-trivial Uhlmann mixed state
geometric phase.Comment: 18 pages, 8 figures. Version to be publishe
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