38,842 research outputs found
Chromium silicide formation by ion mixing
The formation of CrSi_2 by ion mixing was studied as a function of temperature, silicide thickness and irradiated interface. Samples were prepared by annealing evaporated couples of Cr on Si and Si on Cr at 450°C for short times to form Si/CrSi_2/Cr sandwiches. Xenon beams with energies up to 300 keV and fluences up to 8 X 10^15 cm^(-2) were used for mixing at temperatures between 20 and
300°C. Penetrating only the Cr/CrSi_2 interface at temperatures above 150°C induces further growth of the silicide as a uniform stoichiometric layer. The growth rate does not depend on the thickness of the initially formed silicide at least up to a thickness of 150 nm. The amount of growth depends linearly on the density of energy deposited at the interface. The growth is temperature
dependent with an apparent activation energy of 0.2 eV. Irradiating only through the Si/CrSi_2 interface does not induce silicide growth. We conclude that the formation of CrSi_2 by ion beam mixing is an interface-limited process and that the limiting reaction occurs at the Cr/CrSi_2 interface
Stochastic Matrix Product States
The concept of stochastic matrix product states is introduced and a natural
form for the states is derived. This allows to define the analogue of Schmidt
coefficients for steady states of non-equilibrium stochastic processes. We
discuss a new measure for correlations which is analogous to the entanglement
entropy, the entropy cost , and show that this measure quantifies the bond
dimension needed to represent a steady state as a matrix product state. We
illustrate these concepts on the hand of the asymmetric exclusion process
William H. Sorrell, Attorney General of Vermont, et al. v. IMS Health Inc., et al. - Amicus Brief in Support of Petitioners
On April 26, 2011, the US Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the Vermont data mining case, Sorrell v. IMS Health Inc. Respondents claim this is the most important commercial speech case in a decade. Petitioner (the State of Vermont) argues this is the most important medical privacy case since Whalen v. Roe.
The is an amicus brief supporting Vermont, written by law professors and submitted on behalf of the New England Journal of Medicin
Role of soft-iron impellers on the mode selection in the VKS dynamo experiment
A crucial point for the understanding of the von-K\'arm\'an-Sodium (VKS)
dynamo experiment is the influence of soft-iron impellers. We present numerical
simulations of a VKS-like dynamo with a localized permeability distribution
that resembles the shape of the flow driving impellers. It is shown that the
presence of soft-iron material essentially determines the dynamo process in the
VKS experiment. % An axisymmetric magnetic field mode can be explained by the
combined action of the soft-iron disk and a rather small -effect
parametrizing the induction effects of unresolved small scale flow
fluctuations
Classical no-cloning theorem under Liouville dynamics by non-Csisz\'ar f-divergence
The Csisz\'ar f-divergence, which is a class of information distances, is
known to offer a useful tool for analysing the classical counterpart of the
cloning operations that are quantum mechanically impossible for the factorized
and marginality classical probability distributions under Liouville dynamics.
We show that a class of information distances that does not belong to this
divergence class also allows for the formulation of a classical analogue of the
quantum no-cloning theorem. We address a family of nonlinear Liouville-like
equations, and generic distances, to obtain constraints on the corresponding
functional forms, associated with the formulation of classical analogue of the
no-cloning principle.Comment: 6 pages, revised, published versio
Why does wurtzite form in nanowires of III-V zinc-blende semiconductors?
We develop a nucleation-based model to explain the formation of the wurtzite
(WZ) crystalline phase during the vapor-liquid-solid growth of free-standing
nanowires of zinc-blende (ZB) semiconductors. We first show that, in nanowires,
nucleation generally occurs at the outer edge of the solid/liquid interface
(the triple phase line) rather than elsewhere at the solid/liquid interface. In
the present case, this entails major differences between ZB and WZ nuclei.
Depending on the pertinent interface energies, WZ nucleation is favored at high
liquid supersaturation. This explains our systematic observation of ZB during
the early stages of nanowire growth.Comment: 4 pages with 4 figures Submitted to Physical Review Letter
Horizon Pretracking
We introduce horizon pretracking as a method for analysing numerically
generated spacetimes of merging black holes. Pretracking consists of following
certain modified constant expansion surfaces during a simulation before a
common apparent horizon has formed. The tracked surfaces exist at all times,
and are defined so as to include the common apparent horizon if it exists. The
method provides a way for finding this common apparent horizon in an efficient
and reliable manner at the earliest possible time. We can distinguish inner and
outer horizons by examining the distortion of the surface. Properties of the
pretracking surface such as its expansion, location, shape, area, and angular
momentum can also be used to predict when a common apparent horizon will
appear, and its characteristics. The latter could also be used to feed back
into the simulation by adapting e.g. boundary or gauge conditions even before
the common apparent horizon has formed.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures, minor change
Very-High Energy Gamma-Ray Flux Limits for Nearby Active Galactic Nuclei
Combining the results of targeted observations, H.E.S.S. has accumulated a
large amount of extra-galactic exposure at TeV energies. Due to its large field
of view a considerable part of the sky (0.6 sr) has been observed with high
sensitivity outside the targeted observation positions. Since this exposure
region contains little inherent bias, it is well suited for studies of
extra-galactic source populations. Given the correlation between ultra-high
energy cosmic rays and nearby extra-galactic objects recently claimed by the
Auger collaboration, this unbiased sky sample by H.E.S.S. is of interest since
it includes (besides the targeted sources) 63 AGN within 100 Mpc, for which
very-high energy gamma-ray flux limits are derived.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, Submitted to Proceedings of "4th International
Symposium on High Energy Gamma-Ray Astronomy 2008
Electron kinetic effects in the nonlinear evolution of a driven ion-acoustic wave
The electron kinetic effects are shown to play an important role in the nonlinear evolution of a driven ion-acoustic wave. The numerical simulation results obtained (i) with a hybrid code, in which the electrons behave as a fluid and the ions are described along the particle-in-cell (PIC) method, are compared with those obtained (ii) with a full-PIC code, in which the kinetic effects on both species are retained. The electron kinetic effects interplay with the usual fluid-type nonlinearity to give rise to a broadband spectrum of ion-acoustic waves saturated at a low level, even in the case of a strong excitation. This low asymptotic level might solve the long-standing problem of the small stimulated Brillouin scattering reflectivity observed in laser-plasma interaction experiments
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