113 research outputs found
collective mode as A Raman resonance in cuprate superconductors
We discuss the possible existence a spin singlet excitation with charge
(-mode) originating the Raman resonance in cuprate
superconductors. This -mode relates the -wave superconducting singlet
pairing channel to a -wave charge channel. We show that the boson
forms a particle-particle bound state below the threshold of the
particle-hole continuum where is the maximum -wave gap. Within a
generalized random phase approximation and Bethe-Salpether approximation study,
we find that this mode has energies similar to the resonance observed by
Inelastic Neutron Scattering (INS) below the superconducting (SC) coherent peak
at in various SC cuprates compounds. We show that it is a very good
candidate for the resonance observed in Raman scattering below the
peak in the symmetry. Since the -mode sits in the channel,
it may be observable via Raman, X -ray or Electron Energy Loss Spectroscopy
probes
Catching the fish - Constraining stellar parameters for TX Psc using spectro-interferometric observations
Stellar parameter determination is a challenging task when dealing with
galactic giant stars. The combination of different investigation techniques has
proven to be a promising approach. We analyse archive spectra obtained with the
Short-Wavelength-Spectrometer (SWS) onboard of ISO, and new interferometric
observations from the Very Large Telescope MID-infrared Interferometric
instrument (VLTI/MIDI) of a very well studied carbon-rich giant: TX Psc. The
aim of this work is to determine stellar parameters using spectroscopy and
interferometry. The observations are used to constrain the model atmosphere,
and eventually the stellar evolutionary model in the region where the tracks
map the beginning of the carbon star sequence. Two different approaches are
used to determine stellar parameters: (i) the 'classic' interferometric
approach where the effective temperature is fixed by using the angular diameter
in the N-band (from interferometry) and the apparent bolometric magnitude; (ii)
parameters are obtained by fitting a grid of state-of-the-art hydrostatic
models to spectroscopic and interferometric observations. We find a good
agreement between the parameters of the two methods. The effective temperature
and luminosity clearly place TX Psc in the carbon-rich AGB star domain in the
H-R-diagram. Current evolutionary tracks suggest that TX Psc became a C-star
just recently, which means that the star is still in a 'quiet' phase compared
to the subsequent strong-wind regime. This is in agreement with the C/O ratio
being only slightly larger than 1.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures, 5 table
Unconventional high-energy-state contribution to the Cooper pairing in under-doped copper-oxide superconductor HgBaCaCuO
We study the temperature-dependent electronic B1g Raman response of a
slightly under-doped single crystal HgBaCaCuO with a
superconducting critical temperature Tc=122 K. Our main finding is that the
superconducting pair-breaking peak is associated with a dip on its
higher-energy side, disappearing together at Tc. This result hints at an
unconventional pairing mechanism, whereas spectral weight lost in the dip is
transferred to the pair-breaking peak at lower energies. This conclusion is
supported by cellular dynamical mean-field theory on the Hubbard model, which
is able to reproduce all the main features of the B1g Raman response and
explain the peak-dip behavior in terms of a nontrivial relationship between the
superconducting and the pseudo gaps.Comment: 7 pages 4 figure
Geometrical model fitting for interferometric data: GEM-FIND
We developed the tool GEM-FIND that allows to constrain the morphology and
brightness distribution of objects. The software fits geometrical models to
spectrally dispersed interferometric visibility measurements in the N-band
using the Levenberg-Marquardt minimization method. Each geometrical model
describes the brightness distribution of the object in the Fourier space using
a set of wavelength-independent and/or wavelength-dependent parameters. In this
contribution we numerically analyze the stability of our nonlinear fitting
approach by applying it to sets of synthetic visibilities with statistically
applied errors, answering the following questions: How stable is the parameter
determination with respect to (i) the number of uv-points, (ii) the
distribution of points in the uv-plane, (iii) the noise level of the
observations?Comment: 14 pages, 12 figures; to appear in SPIE Astronomical Telescopes and
Instrumentation, SPIE Conference Series 844
Suppressed antinodal coherence with a single d-wave superconducting gap leads to two energy scales in underdoped cuprates
Conventional superconductors are characterized by a single energy scale, the
superconducting gap, which is proportional to the critical temperature Tc . In
hole-doped high-Tc copper oxide superconductors, previous experiments have
established the existence of two distinct energy scales for doping levels below
the optimal one. The origin and significance of these two scales are largely
unexplained, although they have often been viewed as evidence for two gaps,
possibly of distinct physical origins. By measuring the temperature dependence
of the electronic Raman response of Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+d (Bi-2212) and HgBa2CuO4+d
(Hg-1201) crystals with different doping levels, we establish that these two
scales are associated with coherent excitations of the superconducting state
which disappears at Tc. Using a simple model, we show that these two scales do
not require the existence of two gaps. Rather, a single d-wave superconducting
gap with a loss of Bogoliubov quasiparticle spectral weight in the antinodal
region is shown to reconcile spectroscopic and transport measurements.Comment: 3 figure
Fundamental parameters of 16 late-type stars derived from their angular diameter measured with VLTI/AMBER
Thanks to their large angular dimension and brightness, red giants and
supergiants are privileged targets for optical long-baseline interferometers.
Sixteen red giants and supergiants have been observed with the VLTI/AMBER
facility over a two-years period, at medium spectral resolution (R=1500) in the
K band. The limb-darkened angular diameters are derived from fits of stellar
atmospheric models on the visibility and the triple product data. The angular
diameters do not show any significant temporal variation, except for one
target: TX Psc, which shows a variation of 4% using visibility data. For the
eight targets previously measured by Long-Baseline Interferometry (LBI) in the
same spectral range, the difference between our diameters and the literature
values is less than 5%, except for TX Psc, which shows a difference of 11%. For
the 8 other targets, the present angular diameters are the first measured from
LBI. Angular diameters are then used to determine several fundamental stellar
parameters, and to locate these targets in the Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram
(HRD). Except for the enigmatic Tc-poor low-mass carbon star W Ori, the
location of Tc-rich stars in the HRD matches remarkably well the
thermally-pulsating AGB, as it is predicted by the stellar-evolution models.
For pulsating stars with periods available, we compute the pulsation constant
and locate the stars along the various sequences in the Period -- Luminosity
diagram. We confirm the increase in mass along the pulsation sequences, as
predicted by the theory, except for W Ori which, despite being less massive,
appears to have a longer period than T Cet along the first-overtone sequence.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures, 6 table
Intrinsic Low Temperature Paramagnetism in B-DNA
We present experimental study of magnetization in -DNA in
conjunction with structural measurements. The results show the surprising
interplay between the molecular structures and their magnetic property. In the
B-DNA state, -DNA exhibits paramagnetic behaviour below 20 K that is
non-linear in applied magnetic field whereas in the A-DNA state, remains
diamagnetic down to 2 K. We propose orbital paramagnetism as the origin of the
observed phenomena and discuss its relation to the existence of long range
coherent transport in B-DNA at low temperature.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Physical Review Letters October 200
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