30,753 research outputs found
Two-vibron bound states lifetime in a one-dimensional molecular lattice coupled to acoustic phonons
The lifetime of two-vibron bound states in the overtone region of a
one-dimensional anharmonic molecular lattice is investigated. The
anharmonicity, introduced within an attractive Hubbard Hamiltonian for bosons,
is responsible for the formation of bound states which belong to a finite
linewidth band located below the continuum of two-vibron free states. The decay
of these bound states into either bound or free states, is described by
considering the coupling between the vibrons and a thermal bath formed by a set
of low frequency acoustic phonons. The relaxation rate is expressed in terms of
the spectral distribution of the vibron/phonon coupling and of the two-vibron
Green operator which is calculated exactly by using the number states method.
The behavior of the two-vibron bound states relaxation rate is analyzed with a
special emphasis on the influence of the anharmonicity. It is shown that the
rate exhibits two distinct regimes depending on the thermal bath dimension.
When the bath dimension is equal to unity, the rate increases with the
anharmonicity and the decay of the two-vibron bound states into the other bound
states appears as the main contribution of the rate. By contrast, when the bath
dimension is equal to 2 and 3, the rate decreases as the anharmonicity
increases indicating that the two-vibron bound states decay into the two-vibron
free states continuum.Comment: January 200
Vibron-polaron critical localization in a finite size molecular nanowire
The small polaron theory is applied to describe the vibron dynamics in an
adsorbed nanowire with a special emphasis onto finite size effects. It is shown
that the finite size of the nanowire discriminates between side molecules and
core molecules which experience a different dressing mechanism. Moreover, the
inhomogeneous behavior of the polaron hopping constant is established and it is
shown that the core hopping constant depends on the lattice size. However, the
property of a lattice with translational invariance is recovered when the size
of the nanowire is greater than a critical value. Finally, it is pointed out
that these features yield the occurrence of high energy localized states which
both the nature and the number are summarized in a phase diagram in terms of
the relevant parameters of the problem (small polaron binding energy,
temperature, lattice size).Comment: 17 pages, 10 figure
The social geography of childcare: 'making up' the middle class child
Childcare is a condensate of disparate social forces and social processes. It is gendered and classed. It is subject to an excess of policy and political discourse. It is increasingly a focus for commercial exploitation. This is a paper reporting on work in progress in an ESRC funded research project (R000239232) on the choice and provision of pre-school childcare by middle class (service class) families in two contrasting London locations. Drawing on recent work in class analysis the paper examines the relationships between childcare choice, middle class fractions and locality. It suggests that on the evidence of the findings to date, there is some evidence of systematic differences between fractions in terms of values, perspectives and preferences for childcare, but a more powerful case for intra-class similarities, particularly when it comes to putting preferences into practice in the 'making up of a middle class child' through care and education
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Microbiomes Reduce Their Host's Sensitivity to Interspecific Interactions.
Bacteria associated with eukaryotic hosts can affect host fitness and trophic interactions between eukaryotes, but the extent to which bacteria influence the eukaryotic species interactions within trophic levels that modulate biodiversity and species coexistence is mostly unknown. Here, we used phytoplankton, which are a classic model for evaluating interactions between species, grown with and without associated bacteria to test whether the bacteria alter the strength and type of species interactions within a trophic level. We demonstrate that host-associated bacteria alter host growth rates and carrying capacity. This did not change the type but frequently changed the strength of host interspecific interactions by facilitating host growth in the presence of an established species. These findings indicate that microbiomes can regulate their host species' interspecific interactions. As between-species interaction strength impacts their ability to coexist, our findings show that microbiomes have the potential to modulate eukaryotic species diversity and community composition.IMPORTANCE Description of the Earth's microbiota has recently undergone a phenomenal expansion that has challenged basic assumptions in many areas of biology, including hominid evolution, human gastrointestinal and neurodevelopmental disorders, and plant adaptation to climate change. By using the classic model system of freshwater phytoplankton that has been drawn upon for numerous foundational theories in ecology, we show that microbiomes, by facilitating their host population, can also influence between-species interactions among their eukaryotic hosts. Between-species interactions, including competition for resources, has been a central tenet in the field of ecology because of its implications for the diversity and composition of communities and how this in turn shapes ecosystem functioning
High Multiplicity Scheduling with Switching Costs for few Products
We study a variant of the single machine capacitated lot-sizing problem with
sequence-dependent setup costs and product-dependent inventory costs. We are
given a single machine and a set of products associated with a constant demand
rate, maximum loading rate and holding costs per time unit. Switching
production from one product to another incurs sequencing costs based on the two
products. In this work, we show that by considering the high multiplicity
setting and switching costs, even trivial cases of the corresponding "normal"
counterparts become non-trivial in terms of size and complexity. We present
solutions for one and two products.Comment: 10 pages (4 appendix), to be published in Operations Research
Proceedings 201
Rejuvenation and overaging in a colloidal glass under shear
We report the modifications of the microscopic dynamics of a colloidal glass
submitted to shear. We use multispeckle diffusing wave spectroscopy to monitor
the evolution of the spontaneous slow relaxation processes after the sample
have been submitted to various straining. We show that high shear rejuvenates
the system and accelerates its dynamics whereas moderate shear overage the
system. We analyze this phenomena within the frame of the Bouchaud's trap
model.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, to be published in PR
Soft Handoff and Uplink Capacity in a Two-Tier CDMA System
This paper examines the effect of soft handoff on the uplink user capacity of
a CDMA system consisting of a single macrocell in which a single hotspot
microcell is embedded. The users of these two base stations operate over the
same frequency band. In the soft handoff scenario studied here, both macrocell
and microcell base stations serve each system user and the two received copies
of a desired user's signal are summed using maximal ratio combining. Exact and
approximate analytical methods are developed to compute uplink user capacity.
Simulation results demonstrate a 20% increase in user capacity compared to hard
handoff. In addition, simple, approximate methods are presented for estimating
soft handoff capacity and are shown to be quite accurate.Comment: To appear in IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communication
Nonequilibrium Green's function theory for nonadiabatic effects in quantum electron transport
We develop nonequilibribrium Green's function based transport theory, which
includes effects of nonadiabatic nuclear motion in the calculation of the
electric current in molecular junctions. Our approach is based on the
separation of slow and fast timescales in the equations of motion for the
Green's functions by means of the Wigner representation. Time derivatives with
respect to central time serves as a small parameter in the perturbative
expansion enabling the computation of nonadiabatic corrections to molecular
Green's functions. Consequently, we produce series of analytic expressions for
non-adiabatic electronic Green's functions (up to the second order in the
central time derivatives); which depend not solely on instantaneous molecular
geometry but likewise on nuclear velocities and accelerations. Extended formula
for electric current is derived which accounts for the non-adiabatic
corrections. This theory is concisely illustrated by the calculations on a
model molecular junction
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