233 research outputs found
High Frequency dynamics in metallic glasses
Using Inelastic X-ray Scattering we studied the collective dynamics of the
glassy alloy NiZr in the first pseudo Brillouin zone, an
energy-momentum region still unexplored in metallic glasses. We determine key
properties such as the momentum transfer dependence of the sound velocity and
of the acoustic damping, discussing the results in the general context of
recently proposed pictures for acoustic dynamics in glasses. Specifically, we
demonstrate the existence in this strong glass of well defined (in the Ioffe
Regel sense) acoustic-like excitations well above the Boson Peak energy.Comment: 4 pages, 4 .eps figures, accepted in Phys. Rev. Let
A finite-temperature liquid-quasicrystal transition in a lattice model
We consider a tiling model of the two-dimensional square-lattice, where each
site is tiled with one of the sixteen Wang tiles. The ground states of this
model are all quasi-periodic. The systems undergoes a disorder to
quasi-periodicity phase transition at finite temperature. Introducing a proper
order-parameter, we study the system at criticality, and extract the critical
exponents characterizing the transition. The exponents obtained are consistent
with hyper-scaling
Effect of physical aging on the low-frequency vibrational density of states of a glassy polymer
The effects of the physical aging on the vibrational density of states (VDOS)
of a polymeric glass is studied. The VDOS of a poly(methyl methacrylate) glass
at low-energy (<15 meV), was determined from inelastic neutron scattering at
low-temperature for two different physical thermodynamical states. One sample
was annealed during a long time at temperature lower than Tg, and another was
quenched from a temperature higher than Tg. It was found that the VDOS around
the boson peak, relatively to the one at higher energy, decreases with the
annealing at lower temperature than Tg, i.e., with the physical aging.Comment: To be published in Europhys. Let
Sound-propagation gap in fluid mixtures
We discuss the behavior of the extended sound modes of a dense binary
hard-sphere mixture. In a dense simple hard-sphere fluid the Enskog theory
predicts a gap in the sound propagation at large wave vectors. In a binary
mixture the gap is only present for low concentrations of one of the two
species. At intermediate concentrations sound modes are always propagating.
This behavior is not affected by the mass difference of the two species, but it
only depends on the packing fractions. The gap is absent when the packing
fractions are comparable and the mixture structurally resembles a metallic
glass.Comment: Published; withdrawn since ordering in archive gives misleading
impression of new publicatio
The structure of fluid trifluoromethane and methylfluoride
We present hard X-ray and neutron diffraction measurements on the polar
fluorocarbons HCF3 and H3CF under supercritical conditions and for a range of
molecular densities spanning about a factor of ten. The Levesque-Weiss-Reatto
inversion scheme has been used to deduce the site-site potentials underlying
the measured partial pair distribution functions. The orientational
correlations between adjacent fluorocarbon molecules -- which are characterized
by quite large dipole moments but no tendency to form hydrogen bonds -- are
small compared to a highly polar system like fluid hydrogen chloride. In fact,
the orientational correlations in HCF3 and H3CF are found to be nearly as small
as those of fluid CF4, a fluorocarbon with no dipole moment.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figure
Observation of Umklapp processes in non-crystalline materials
Umklapp processes are known to exist in cristalline materials, where they
control important properties such as thermal conductivity, heat capacity and
electrical conductivity. In this work we report the provocative observation of
Umklapp processes in a non-periodical system, namely liquid Lithium. The lack
of a well defined periodicity seems then not to prevent the existence of these
scattering processes mechanisms provided that the local order of the systems
i.e. the maxima of the static structure factor supply the equivalent of a
reciprocal lattice vector in the case of cristalline materials.Comment: 13 pages P
Anharmonicity, vibrational instability and Boson peak in glasses
We show that a {\em vibrational instability} of the spectrum of weakly
interacting quasi-local harmonic modes creates the maximum in the inelastic
scattering intensity in glasses, the Boson peak. The instability, limited by
anharmonicity, causes a complete reconstruction of the vibrational density of
states (DOS) below some frequency , proportional to the strength of
interaction. The DOS of the new {\em harmonic modes} is independent of the
actual value of the anharmonicity. It is a universal function of frequency
depending on a single parameter -- the Boson peak frequency, which
is a function of interaction strength. The excess of the DOS over the Debye
value is at low frequencies and linear in in the
interval . Our results are in an excellent
agreement with recent experimental studies.Comment: LaTeX, 8 pages, 6 figure
Role of spinon and spinon singlet pair excitations on phase transitions in superconductors
We examine the roles of massless Dirac spinon and spin singlet pair
excitations on the phase transition in superconductors. Although the
massless spinon excitations in the presence of the spin singlet pair
excitations do not alter the nature of the phase transition at , that
is, the XY universality class, they are seen to induce an additional attractive
interaction potential between vortices, further stabilizing vortex-antivortex
pairs at low temperature for lightly doped high samples.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figur
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