36,567 research outputs found
Voting on the choice of core languages in the European Union
This is the post-print version of the final paper published in European Journal of Political Economy. The published article is available from the link below. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. Copyright @ 2008 Elsevier B.V.Extensive multilingualism is one of the most important and fundamental principles of the European Union (EU). However, a large number of languages (currently 23) hinders communication and imposes substantial financial and legal costs. On the other hand, the reduction of the number of languages would disenfranchise some or many EU citizens. We use the results of a survey on languages and argue that even though a linguistic reform reducing the number of languages is unlikely to gain sufficient political support today, this may change in the future since young people are more proficient at speaking foreign languages
Comparative study of the electron- and positron-atom bremsstrahlung
Fully relativistic treatment of the electron-atom and positron-atom
bremsstrahlung is reported. The calculation is based on the partial-wave
expansion of the Dirac scattering states in an external atomic field. A
comparison of the electron and positron bremsstrahlung is presented for the
single and double differential cross sections and the Stokes parameters of the
emitted photon. It is demonstrated that the electron-positron symmetry of the
bremsstrahlung spectra, which is nearly exact in the nonrelativistic regime, is
to a large extent removed by the relativistic effects
Coherent forward stimulated Brillouin scattering of a spatially incoherent laser beam in a plasma and its effect on beam spray
A statistical model for forward stimulated Brillouin scattering (FSBS) is
developed for a spatially incoherent, monochromatic, laser beam propagating in
a plasma. A threshold for the average power in a speckle is found, well below
the self-focusing one, above which the laser beam spatial incoherence can not
prevent the coherent growth of FSBS. Three-dimensional simulations confirm its
existence and reveal the onset of beam spray above it. From these results, we
propose a new figure of merit for the control of the propagation through a
plasma of a spatially incoherent laser beam.Comment: submitted to PR
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
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