Model Energy Landscapes of Low-Temperature Fluids: Dipolar Hard Spheres

An analytical model of non-Gaussian energy landscape of low-temperature fluids is developed based on the thermodynamics of the fluid of dipolar hard spheres. The entire excitation profile of the liquid, from the high temperatures to the point of ideal-glass transition, has been obtained from the Monte Carlo simulations. The fluid of dipolar hard spheres loses stability when reaching the point of ideal-glass transition transforming via a first-order transition into a columnar liquid phase of dipolar chains locally arranged in a body-centered tetragonal order.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Field-induced superconductor to insulator transition in Josephson-junction ladders

The superconductor to insulator transition is studied in a self-charging model for a ladder of Josephson-junctions in presence of an external magnetic field. Path integral Monte Carlo simulations of the equivalent (1+1)-dimensional classical model are used to study the phase diagram and critical behavior. In addition to a superconducting (vortex-free) phase, a vortex phase can also occur for increasing magnetic field and small charging energy. It is found that an intervening insulating phase separates the superconducting from the vortex phases. Surprisingly, a finite-size scaling analysis shows that the field-induced superconducting to insulator transition is in the KT universality class even tough the external field breaks time-reversal symmetry.Comment: 5 pages, 7 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Cotunneling Transport and Quantum Phase Transitions in Coupled Josephson-Junction Chains with Charge Frustration

We investigate the quantum phase transitions in two capacitively coupled chains of ultra-small Josephson-junctions, with emphasis on the external charge effects. The particle-hole symmetry of the system is broken by the gate voltage applied to each superconducting island, and the resulting induced charge introduces frustration to the system. Near the maximal-frustration line, where the system is transformed into a spin-1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnetic chain, cotunneling of the particles along the two chains is shown to play a major role in the transport and to drive a quantum phase transition out of the charge-density wave insulator, as the Josephson-coupling energy is increased. We also argue briefly that slightly off the symmetry line, the universality class of the transition remains the same as that right on the line, still being driven by the particle-hole pairs.Comment: Final version accepted to Phys. Rev. Lett. (Longer version is available from http://ctp.snu.ac.kr/~choims/

Numerical Studies of the Two Dimensional XY Model with Symmetry Breaking Fields

We present results of numerical studies of the two dimensional XY model with four and eight fold symmetry breaking fields. This model has recently been shown to describe hydrogen induced reconstruction on the W(100) surface. Based on mean-field and renormalization group arguments,we first show how the interplay between the anisotropy fields can give rise to different phase transitions in the model. When the fields are compatible with each other there is a continuous phase transition when the fourth order field is varied from negative to positive values. This transition becomes discontinuous at low temperatures. These two regimes are separated by a multicritical point. In the case of competing four and eight fold fields, the first order transition at low temperatures opens up into two Ising transitions. We then use numerical methods to accurately locate the position of the multicritical point, and to verify the nature of the transitions. The different techniques used include Monte Carlo histogram methods combined with finite size scaling analysis, the real space Monte Carlo Renormalization Group method, and the Monte Carlo Transfer Matrix method. Our numerical results are in good agreement with the theoretical arguments.Comment: 29 pages, HU-TFT-94-36, to appear in Phys. Rev. B, Vol 50, November 1, 1994. A LaTeX file with no figure

Dynamical transitions and sliding friction of the phase-field-crystal model with pinning

We study the nonlinear driven response and sliding friction behavior of the phase-field-crystal (PFC) model with pinning including both thermal fluctuations and inertial effects. The model provides a continuous description of adsorbed layers on a substrate under the action of an external driving force at finite temperatures, allowing for both elastic and plastic deformations. We derive general stochastic dynamical equations for the particle and momentum densities including both thermal fluctuations and inertial effects. The resulting coupled equations for the PFC model are studied numerically. At sufficiently low temperatures we find that the velocity response of an initially pinned commensurate layer shows hysteresis with dynamical melting and freezing transitions for increasing and decreasing applied forces at different critical values. The main features of the nonlinear response in the PFC model are similar to the results obtained previously with molecular dynamics simulations of particle models for adsorbed layers.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figures, to appear in Physcial Review

Characterizing Diffused Stellar Light in simulated galaxy clusters

[Abridged] In this paper, we carry out a detailed analysis of the performance of two different methods to identify the diffuse stellar light in cosmological hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy clusters. One method is based on a dynamical analysis of the stellar component. The second method is closer to techniques commonly employed in observational studies. Both the dynamical method and the method based on the surface brightness limit criterion are applied to the same set of hydrodynamical simulations for a large sample about 80 galaxy clusters. We find significant differences between the ICL and DSC fractions computed with the two corresponding methods, which amounts to about a factor of two for the AGN simulations, and a factor of four for the CSF set. We also find that the inclusion of AGN feedback boosts the DSC and ICL fractions by a factor of 1.5-2, respectively, while leaving the BCG+ICL and BCG+DSC mass fraction almost unchanged. The sum of the BCG and DSC mass stellar mass fraction is found to decrease from ~80 per cent in galaxy groups to ~60 per cent in rich clusters, thus in excess of what found from observational analysis. We identify the average surface brightness limits that yields the ICL fraction from the SBL method close to the DSC fraction from the dynamical method. These surface brightness limits turn out to be brighter in the CSF than in the AGN simulations. This is consistent with the finding that AGN feedback makes BCGs to be less massive and with shallower density profiles than in the CSF simulations. The BCG stellar component, as identified by both methods, are slightly older and more metal-rich than the stars in the diffuse component.Comment: 18 Pages, 15 figures. Matches to MNRAS published versio

The role of Helium-3 impurities in the stress induced roughening of superclimbing dislocations in solid Helium-4

We analyze the stress induced and thermally assisted roughening of a forest of superclimbing dislocations in a Peierls potential in the presence of Helium-3 impurities and randomly frozen in static stresses. It is shown that the temperature of the dip $T_d$ in the flow rate observed by Ray and Hallock (Phys.Rev. Lett. {\bf 105}, 145301 (2010)) is determined by the energy of the impurity activation from dislocation core. However, it is suppressed by, essentially, the logarithm of the impurity fraction. The width of the dip is determined by inhomogeneous fluctuations of the stresses and is shown to be much smaller than $T_d$.Comment: Submitted to the LT26-conference proceeding

Cool Core Clusters from Cosmological Simulations

We present results obtained from a set of cosmological hydrodynamic simulations of galaxy clusters, aimed at comparing predictions with observational data on the diversity between cool-core (CC) and non-cool-core (NCC) clusters. Our simulations include the effects of stellar and AGN feedback and are based on an improved version of the smoothed particle hydrodynamics code GADGET-3, which ameliorates gas mixing and better captures gas-dynamical instabilities by including a suitable artificial thermal diffusion. In this Letter, we focus our analysis on the entropy profiles, the primary diagnostic we used to classify the degree of cool-coreness of clusters, and on the iron profiles. In keeping with observations, our simulated clusters display a variety of behaviors in entropy profiles: they range from steadily decreasing profiles at small radii, characteristic of cool-core systems, to nearly flat core isentropic profiles, characteristic of non-cool-core systems. Using observational criteria to distinguish between the two classes of objects, we find that they occur in similar proportions in both simulations and in observations. Furthermore, we also find that simulated cool-core clusters have profiles of iron abundance that are steeper than those of NCC clusters, which is also in agreement with observational results. We show that the capability of our simulations to generate a realistic cool-core structure in the cluster population is due to AGN feedback and artificial thermal diffusion: their combined action allows us to naturally distribute the energy extracted from super-massive black holes and to compensate for the radiative losses of low-entropy gas with short cooling time residing in the cluster core.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, accepted in ApJL, v2 contains some modifications on the text (results unchanged

Pairing of Cooper Pairs in a Fully Frustrated Josephson Junction Chain

We study a one-dimensional Josephson junction chain embedded in a magnetic field. We show that when the magnetic flux per elementary loop equals half the superconducting flux quantum $\phi_0=h/2e$, a local \nbZ_2 symmetry arises. This symmetry is responsible for a nematic Luttinger liquid state associated to bound states of Cooper pairs. We analyze the phase diagram and we discuss some experimental possibilities to observe this exotic phase.Comment: 4 pages, 4 EPS figure