Nontrivial critical crossover between directed percolation models: Effect of infinitely many absorbing states

At non-equilibrium phase transitions into absorbing (trapped) states, it is well known that the directed percolation (DP) critical scaling is shared by two classes of models with a single (S) absorbing state and with infinitely many (IM) absorbing states. We study the crossover behavior in one dimension, arising from a considerable reduction of the number of absorbing states (typically from the IM-type to the S-type DP models), by following two different (excitatory or inhibitory) routes which make the auxiliary field density abruptly jump at the crossover. Along the excitatory route, the system becomes overly activated even for an infinitesimal perturbation and its crossover becomes discontinuous. Along the inhibitory route, we find continuous crossover with the universal crossover exponent $\phi\simeq 1.78(6)$, which is argued to be equal to $\nu_\|$, the relaxation time exponent of the DP universality class on a general footing. This conjecture is also confirmed in the case of the directed Ising (parity-conserving) class. Finally, we discuss the effect of diffusion to the IM-type models and suggest an argument why diffusive models with some hybrid-type reactions should belong to the DP class.Comment: 8 pages, 9 figure

Fulde-Ferrel-Larkin-Ovchinnikov Inhomogeneous Superconducting State and Phase Transitions Induced by Spin Accumulation in a Ferromagnet-dx2−y2 d_{x^{2}-y^{2}}-Wave Superconductor-Ferromagnet Tunnel Junction

Fulde-Ferrel-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) inhomogeneous superconducting (SC) state, first- and second-order phase transitions, and quantum criticality induced by spin accumulation in a ferromagnet-$d_{x^{2}-y^{2}}$-wave superconductor-ferromagnet tunnel junction are theoretically predicted. A complex phase diagram in the temperature-bias voltage plane is determined. It is found that the phase transitions from the homogeneous BCS state to the inhomogeneous FFLO state, and from the FFLO state with the momentum $\mathbf{q}$'s azimuthal angle $\theta_{\mathbf{q}}=0$ to that with $\theta_{\mathbf{q}}=\pi /4$, are of the first-order; while the transitions from all SC states to the normal state at critical voltages are of the second-order. A Lifshitz point, a bicritical point and a quantum critical point are identified.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

Dithered GMD Transform Coding

The geometric mean decomposition (GMD) transform coder (TC) was recently introduced and was shown to achieve the optimal coding gain without bit loading under the high bit rate assumption. However, the performance of the GMD transform coder is degraded in the low rate case. There are mainly two reasons for this degradation. First, the high bit rate quantizer model becomes invalid. Second, the quantization error is no longer negligible in the prediction process when the bit rate is low. In this letter, we introduce dithered quantization to tackle the first difficulty, and then redesign the precoders and predictors in the GMD transform coders to tackle the second. We propose two dithered GMD transform coders: the GMD subtractive dithered transform coder (GMD-SD) where the decoder has access to the dither information and the GMD nonsubtractive dithered transform coder (GMD-NSD) where the decoder has no knowledge about the dither. Under the uniform bit loading scheme in scalar quantizers, it is shown that the proposed dithered GMD transform coders perform significantly better than the original GMD coder in the low rate case

Topological Gauge Structure and Phase Diagram for Weakly Doped Antiferromagnets

We show that the topological gauge structure in the phase string theory of the {\rm t-J} model gives rise to a global phase diagram of antiferromagnetic (AF) and superconducting (SC) phases in a weakly doped regime. Dual confinement and deconfinement of holons and spinons play essential roles here, with a quantum critical point at a doping concentration $x_c\simeq 0.043$. The complex experimental phase diagram at low doping is well described within such a framework.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, modified version, to appear in Phys. Rev. Let

Debris Disks around Solar-Type Stars: Observations of the Pleiades with Spitzer Space Telescope

We present Spitzer MIPS observations at 24 um of 37 solar-type stars in the Pleiades and combine them with previous observations to obtain a sample of 71 stars. We report that 23 stars, or 32 +/- 6.8%, have excesses at 24 um at least 10% above their photospheric emission. We compare our results with studies of debris disks in other open clusters and with a study of A stars to show that debris disks around solar-type stars at 115 Myr occur at nearly the same rate as around A-type stars. We analyze the effects of binarity and X-ray activity on the excess flux. Stars with warm excesses tend not to be in equal-mass binary systems, possibly due to clearing of planetesimals by binary companions in similar orbits. We find that the apparent anti-correlations in the incidence of excess and both the rate of stellar rotation and also the level of activity as judged by X-ray emission are statistically weak.Comment: 34 pages; accepted for publication in ApJ; new version included corrections of typos, etc to match published versio

The Haldane Energy Gap of A Doped Linear-Chain Heisenberg Antiferromagnet

Using the valence-bond-solid (VBS) approach and the Schwinger boson mean field approximation, we study the dependence of the Haldane gap of a spin-1 linear chain Heisenberg antiferromagnet on impurity doping with different spins. The impurity spins affect the singlet pairing order parameter $\Delta$ and the constraint factor $\lambda$. As a result, the Haldane gap is reduced by a factor $\sim n_i^{2/3}$, with $n_i$ as the impurity concentration, and eventually collapses at $n_i \sim 1/\xi$ with $\xi$ as the VBS correlation length. This theoretical prediction can be verified by neutron scattering experiments.Comment: REVTEX, 12 pages, no figure

Relativistic precession and spin dynamics of an elliptic Rydberg wave packet

Time evolution of wave packets built from the eigenstates of the Dirac equation for a hydrogenic system is considered. We investigate the space and spin motion of wave packets which, in the non-relativistic limit, are stationary states with a probability density distributed uniformly along the classical, elliptical orbit (elliptic WP). We show that the precession of such a WP, due to relativistic corrections to the energy eigenvalues, is strongly correlated with the spin motion. We show also that the motion is universal for all hydrogenic systems with an arbitrary value of the atomic number Z.Comment: Latex2e, uses IOP style files (included), 10 pages, 5 jpg figures, 1 postscript figure. Relation between precession time and radiative liftime added (eq.(12)). Accepted for publication in J. Phys.

Midgap States in Antiferromagnetic Heisenberg Chains with A Staggered Field

We study low-energy excitations in antiferromagnetic Heisenberg chains with a staggered field which splits the spectrum into a longitudinal and a transverse branch. Bound states are found to exist inside the field induced gap in both branches. They originate from the edge effects and are inherent to spin-chain materials. The sine-Gordon scaling $h_s^{2/3}|\log h_s|^{1/6}$ ($h_s$: the staggered field) provides an accurate description for the gap and midgap energies in the transverse branch for $S=1/2$ and the midgap energies in both branches for $S=3/2$ over a wide range of magnetic field; however, it can fit other low-energy excitations only at much lower field. Moreover, the integer-spin S=1 chain displays scaling behavior that does not fit this scaling law. These results reveal intriguing features of magnetic excitations in spin-chain materials that deserve further investigation.Comment: 4 pages, 4figure

Mott-Peierls Transition in the extended Peierls-Hubbard model

The one-dimensional extended Peierls-Hubbard model is studied at several band fillings using the density matrix renormalization group method. Results show that the ground state evolves from a Mott-Peierls insulator with a correlation gap at half-filling to a soliton lattice with a small band gap away from half-filling. It is also confirmed that the ground state of the Peierls-Hubbard model undergoes a transition to a metallic state at finite doping. These results show that electronic correlations effects should be taken into account in theoretical studies of doped polyacetylene. They also show that a Mott-Peierls theory could explain the insulator-metal transition observed in this material.Comment: 4 pages with 3 embedded eps figure