Towards a statistical theory of solid dry friction

Wearless dry friction of an elastic block of weight N, driven by an external force F over a rigid substrate, is investigated. The slider and substrate surfaces are both microscopically rough, interacting via a repulsive potential that depends on the local overlap. The model reproduces Amontons's laws which state that the friction force is proportional to the normal loading force N and independent of the nominal surface area. In this model, the dynamic friction force decays for large velocities and approaches a finite static friction for small velocities if the surface profiles are self-affine on small length scales.Comment: Latex, 10 pages. Jounal reference adde

On the efficient numerical solution of lattice systems with low-order couplings

We apply the Quasi Monte Carlo (QMC) and recursive numerical integration methods to evaluate the Euclidean, discretized time path-integral for the quantum mechanical anharmonic oscillator and a topological quantum mechanical rotor model. For the anharmonic oscillator both methods outperform standard Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods and show a significantly improved error scaling. For the quantum mechanical rotor we could, however, not find a successful way employing QMC. On the other hand, the recursive numerical integration method works extremely well for this model and shows an at least exponentially fast error scaling

Contact-induced charge contributions to non-local spin transport measurements in Co/MgO/graphene devices

Recently, it has been shown that oxide barriers in graphene-based non-local spin-valve structures can be the bottleneck for spin transport. The barriers may cause spin dephasing during or right after electrical spin injection which limit spin transport parameters such as the spin lifetime of the whole device. An important task is to evaluate the quality of the oxide barriers of both spin injection and detection contacts in a fabricated device. To address this issue, we discuss the influence of spatially inhomogeneous oxide barriers and especially conducting pinholes within the barrier on the background signal in non-local measurements of graphene/MgO/Co spin-valve devices. By both simulations and reference measurements on devices with non-ferromagnetic electrodes, we demonstrate that the background signal can be caused by inhomogeneous current flow through the oxide barriers. As a main result, we demonstrate the existence of charge accumulation next to the actual spin accumulation signal in non-local voltage measurements, which can be explained by a redistribution of charge carriers by a perpendicular magnetic field similar to the classical Hall effect. Furthermore, we present systematic studies on the phase of the low frequency non-local ac voltage signal which is measured in non-local spin measurements when applying ac lock-in techniques. This phase has so far widely been neglected in the analysis of non-local spin transport. We demonstrate that this phase is another hallmark of the homogeneity of the MgO spin injection and detection barriers. We link backgate dependent changes of the phase to the interplay between the capacitance of the oxide barrier to the quantum capacitance of graphene.Comment: 19 pages, 7 figure

Absence of non-trivial asymptotic scaling in the Kashchiev model of polynuclear growth

In this brief comment we show that, contrary to previous claims [Bartelt M C and Evans J W 1993 {\it J.\ Phys.\ A} ${\bf 26}$ 2743], the asymptotic behaviour of the Kashchiev model of polynuclear growth is trivial in all spatial dimensions, and therefore lies outside the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang universality class.Comment: 3 pages, 4 postscript figures, uses eps

Pion form factor in large NcN_c QCD

The electromagnetic form factor of the pion is obtained using a particular realization of QCD in the large $N_c$ limit, which sums up the infinite number of zero-width resonances to yield an Euler's Beta function of the Veneziano type. This form factor agrees with space-like data much better than single rho-meson dominance. A simple unitarization ansatz is illustrated, and the resulting vector spectral function in the time-like region is shown to be in reasonable agreement with the ALEPH data from threshold up to about 1.3 ${GeV}^2$.Comment: Plain Latex, 9 pages, 2 figure

Nanosecond spin lifetimes in single- and few-layer graphene-hBN heterostructures at room temperature

We present a new fabrication method of graphene spin-valve devices which yields enhanced spin and charge transport properties by improving both the electrode-to-graphene and graphene-to-substrate interface. First, we prepare Co/MgO spin injection electrodes onto Si$^{++}$/SiO$_2$. Thereafter, we mechanically transfer a graphene-hBN heterostructure onto the prepatterned electrodes. We show that room temperature spin transport in single-, bi- and trilayer graphene devices exhibit nanosecond spin lifetimes with spin diffusion lengths reaching 10$\mu$m combined with carrier mobilities exceeding 20,000 cm$^2$/Vs.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figure

Point island models for nucleation and growth of supported nanoclusters during surface deposition

Point island models (PIMs) are presented for the formation of supported nanoclusters (or islands) during deposition on flat crystalline substrates at lower submonolayer coverages. These models treat islands as occupying a single adsorption site, although carrying a label to track their size (i.e., they suppress island structure). However, they are particularly effective in describing the island size and spatial distributions. In fact, these PIMs provide fundamental insight into the key features for homogeneous nucleation and growth processes on surfaces. PIMs are also versatile being readily adapted to treat both diffusion-limited and attachment-limited growth and also a variety of other nucleation processes with modified mechanisms. Their behavior is readily and precisely assessed by kinetic Monte Carlo simulation

Light-Front Model of Transition Form-Factors in Heavy Meson Decay

Electroweak transition form factors of heavy meson decays are important ingredients in the extraction of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) matrix elements from experimental data. In this work, within a light-front framework, we calculate electroweak transition form factor for the semileptonic decay of $D$ mesons into a pion or a kaon. The model results underestimate in both cases the new data of CLEO for the larger momentum transfers accessible in the experiment. We discuss possible reasons for that in order to improve the model.Comment: Paper with 5 pages and 2 eps figures. To appear to Nuclear Physics B. Talk at Light Cone 2009: Relativistic Hadronic and Particle Physics (LC 2009), Sao Jose dos Campos, S.P, Brazil, 8-13 Jul 2009