10,203 research outputs found
Charge ordering of magnetic monopoles in triangular spin ice patterns
Artificial spin ice offers the possibility to investigate a variety of
dipolar orderings, spin frustrations and ground states. However, the most
fascinating aspect is the realization that magnetic charge order can be
established without spin order. We have investigated magnetic dipoles arranged
on a honeycomb lattice as a function of applied field, using magnetic force
microscopy. For the easy direction with the field parallel to one of the three
dipole sublattices we observe at coercivity a maximum of spin frustration and
simultaneously a maximum of charge order of magnetic monopoles with alternating
charges 3.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure
Neutrino physics with multi-ton scale liquid xenon detectors
We study the sensitivity of large-scale xenon detectors to low-energy solar
neutrinos, to coherent neutrino-nucleus scattering and to neutrinoless double
beta decay. As a concrete example, we consider the xenon part of the proposed
DARWIN (Dark Matter WIMP Search with Noble Liquids) experiment. We perform
detailed Monte Carlo simulations of the expected backgrounds, considering
realistic energy resolutions and thresholds in the detector. In a low-energy
window of 2-30 keV, where the sensitivity to solar pp and Be-neutrinos is
highest, an integrated pp-neutrino rate of 5900 events can be reached in a
fiducial mass of 14 tons of natural xenon, after 5 years of data. The
pp-neutrino flux could thus be measured with a statistical uncertainty around
1%, reaching the precision of solar model predictions. These low-energy solar
neutrinos will be the limiting background to the dark matter search channel for
WIMP-nucleon cross sections below 210 cm and WIMP
masses around 50 GeVc, for an assumed 99.5% rejection of
electronic recoils due to elastic neutrino-electron scatters. Nuclear recoils
from coherent scattering of solar neutrinos will limit the sensitivity to WIMP
masses below 6 GeVc to cross sections above
410cm. DARWIN could reach a competitive half-life
sensitivity of 5.610 y to the neutrinoless double beta decay of
Xe after 5 years of data, using 6 tons of natural xenon in the central
detector region.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figure
Bounds on Lorentz and CPT Violation from the Earth-Ionosphere Cavity
Electromagnetic resonant cavities form the basis of many tests of Lorentz
invariance involving photons. The effects of some forms of Lorentz violation
scale with cavity size. We investigate possible signals of violations in the
naturally occurring resonances formed in the Earth-ionosphere cavity.
Comparison with observed resonances places the first terrestrial constraints on
coefficients associated with dimension-three Lorentz-violating operators at the
level of 10^{-20} GeV.Comment: 8 pages REVTe
Iron single crystal growth from a lithium-rich melt
\alpha-Fe single crystals of rhombic dodecahedral habit were grown from a
melt of LiNFe. Crystals of several millimeter along a
side form at temperatures around C. Upon further cooling
the growth competes with the formation of Fe-doped LiN. The b.c.c.
structure and good sample quality of \alpha-Fe single crystals were confirmed
by X-ray and electron diffraction as well as magnetization measurements and
chemical analysis. A nitrogen concentration of 90\,ppm was detected by means of
carrier gas hot extraction. Scanning electron microscopy did not reveal any
sign of iron nitride precipitates.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figure
Graphite based Schottky diodes formed on Si, GaAs and 4H-SiC substrates
We demonstrate the formation of semimetal graphite/semiconductor Schottky
barriers where the semiconductor is either silicon (Si), gallium arsenide
(GaAs) or 4H-silicon carbide (4H-SiC). Near room temperature, the forward-bias
diode characteristics are well described by thermionic emission, and the
extracted barrier heights, which are confirmed by capacitance voltage
measurements, roughly follow the Schottky-Mott relation. Since the outermost
layer of the graphite electrode is a single graphene sheet, we expect that
graphene/semiconductor barriers will manifest similar behavior.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl
GeMSE: A new Low-Background Facility for Meteorite and Material Screening
We are currently setting up a facility for low-background gamma-ray
spectrometry based on a HPGe detector. It is dedicated to material screening
for the XENON and DARWIN dark matter projects as well as to the
characterization of meteorites. The detector will be installed in a medium
depth (620 m.w.e.) underground laboratory in Switzerland with several
layers of shielding and an active muon-veto. The GeMSE facility will be
operational by fall 2015 with an expected background rate of 250
counts/day (100-2700 keV).Comment: The following article appeared in AIP Conf. Proc. 1672, 120004 (2015)
and may be found at
http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/proceeding/aipcp/10.1063/1.4928010. The
muon spectrum in Figure 4 (left) was corrected due to a bug in the code.
After correction the muon flux is reduced by a factor of about
Performance of a tandem-rotor/tandem-stator conical-flow compressor designed for a pressure ratio of 3
A conical-flow compressor stage with a large radius change through the rotor was tested at three values of rotor tip clearance. The stage had a tandem rotor and a tandem stator. Peak efficiency at design speed was 0.774 at a pressure ratio of 2.613. The rotor was tested without the stator, and detailed survey data were obtained for each rotor blade row. Overall peak rotor efficiency was 0.871 at a pressure ratio of 2.952
Absence of signatures of Weyl orbits in the thickness dependence of quantum transport in cadmium arsenide
In a Weyl orbit, the Fermi arc surface states on opposite surfaces of the
topological semimetal are connected through the bulk Weyl or Dirac nodes.
Having a real-space component, these orbits accumulate a sample-size-dependent
phase. Following recent work on the three-dimensional Dirac semimetal cadmium
arsenide (Cd3As2), we have sought evidence for this thickness-dependent effect
in quantum oscillations and quantum Hall plateaus in (112)-oriented Cd3As2 thin
films grown by molecular beam epitaxy. We compare quantum transport in films of
varying thickness at apparently identical gate-tuned carrier concentrations and
find no clear dependence of the relative phase of the quantum oscillations on
the sample thickness. We show that small variations in carrier densities,
difficult to detect in low-field Hall measurements, lead to shifts in quantum
oscillations that are commensurate with previously reported phase shifts.
Future claims of Weyl orbits based on the thickness dependence of quantum
transport data require additional studies that demonstrate that these competing
effects have been disentangled
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