Phase Fluctuations and Vortex Lattice Melting in Triplet Quasi-One-Dimensional Superconductors at High Magnetic Fields

Assuming that the order parameter corresponds to an equal spin triplet pairing symmetry state, we calculate the effect of phase fluctuations in quasi-one-dimensional superconductors at high magnetic fields applied along the y (b') axis. We show that phase fluctuations can destroy the theoretically predicted triplet reentrant superconducting state, and that they are responsible for melting the magnetic field induced Josephson vortex lattice above a magnetic field dependent melting temperature Tm.Comment: 4 pages (double column), 1 eps figur

Role of paan chewing and dietary habits in cervical carcinoma in Chennai, India

/=5 paan day(-1)=4.0; 95% CI 1.2-13.3). Among dietary habits, the highest vs lowest intake tertile for vegetables and fruit was associated with an OR of 0.5 (95% CI 0.2-1.0). Low education level and low body weight were also risk factors for ICC, but they did not account for the associations of paan chewing and low vegetable and fruit intake. In the analyses restricted to HPV-positive cases and controls, the inverse association with vegetable and fruit intake was confirmed. Conversely, the adverse influence of paan chewing on ICC risk seemed to be attributable to a higher prevalence of cervical HPV infection in women who chewed

Fractional ac Josephson effect in unconventional superconductors

For certain orientations of Josephson junctions between two p_x-wave or two d-wave superconductors, the subgap Andreev bound states produce a 4pi-periodic relation between the Josephson current I and the phase difference phi: I ~ sin(phi/2). Consequently, the ac Josephson current has the fractional frequency eV/h, where V is the dc voltage. In the tunneling limit, the Josephson current is proportional to the first power (not square) of the electron tunneling amplitude. Thus, the Josephson current between unconventional superconductors is carried by single electrons, rather than by Cooper pairs. The fractional ac Josephson effect can be observed experimentally by measuring frequency spectrum of microwave radiation from the junction.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, RevTEX 4; v2. - minor typos corrected in proof

Spin-Triplet Superconductivity Mediated by Phonons in Quasi-One-Dimensional Systems

We investigate the spin-triplet superconductivity mediated by phonons in quasi-one-dimensional (Q1D) systems with open Fermi surfaces. We obtain the ground state phase diagrams. It is found that spin-triplet superconductivity occurs for weak screening and strong on-site Coulomb interaction, even in the absence of any additional nonphonon pairing interactions. We find that the nodeless spin-triplet state is more favorable than the spin-triplet state with line nodes, for the parameter values of the Q1D superconductors (TMTSF)_2X. We also find that Q1D open Fermi surface, which is the specific feature of this system, plays an essential role in the pairing symmetry. We discuss the compatibility of the present results with the experimental results in these compounds.Comment: 8 pages, 15 figures, with jpsj2.cl

Interferometric imaging with the 32 element Murchison Wide-field Array

The Murchison Wide-field Array (MWA) is a low frequency radio telescope, currently under construction, intended to search for the spectral signature of the epoch of re-ionisation (EOR) and to probe the structure of the solar corona. Sited in Western Australia, the full MWA will comprise 8192 dipoles grouped into 512 tiles, and be capable of imaging the sky south of 40 degree declination, from 80 MHz to 300 MHz with an instantaneous field of view that is tens of degrees wide and a resolution of a few arcminutes. A 32-station prototype of the MWA has been recently commissioned and a set of observations taken that exercise the whole acquisition and processing pipeline. We present Stokes I, Q, and U images from two ~4 hour integrations of a field 20 degrees wide centered on Pictoris A. These images demonstrate the capacity and stability of a real-time calibration and imaging technique employing the weighted addition of warped snapshots to counter extreme wide field imaging distortions.Comment: Accepted for publication in PASP. This is the draft before journal typesetting corrections and proofs so does contain formatting and journal style errors, also has with lower quality figures for space requirement

The Murchison Widefield Array

It is shown that the excellent Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory site allows the Murchison Widefield Array to employ a simple RFI blanking scheme and still calibrate visibilities and form images in the FM radio band. The techniques described are running autonomously in our calibration and imaging software, which is currently being used to process an FM-band survey of the entire southern sky.Comment: Accepted for publication in Proceedings of Science [PoS(RFI2010)016]. 6 pages and 3 figures. Presented at RFI2010, the Third Workshop on RFI Mitigation in Radio Astronomy, 29-31 March 2010, Groningen, The Netherland

Josephson effect in quasi one-dimensional unconventional superconductors

Josephson effect in junctions of quasi one-dimensional triangular lattice superconductors is discussed, where the theoretical model corresponds to organic superconductors (TMTSF)_2PF_6. We assume the quarter-filling electron band and p, d and f wave like pairing symmetries in organic superconductors. To realize the electronic structures in organic superconductors, we introduce the asymmetric hopping integral, (t') among second nearest lattice sites. At t'=0, the Josephson current in the d wave symmetry saturates in low temperatures, whereas those in the p and the f wave symmetries show the low-temperature anomaly due to the zero-energy state at the junction interfaces. The low-temperature anomaly appears even in the d wave symmetry in the presence of t', whereas the anomaly is suppressed in the f wave symmetry. The shape of the Fermi surface is an important factor for the formation of the ZES in the quarter-filling electron systems.Comment: 10 page

Magnetic-Field Variations of the Pair-Breaking Effects of Superconductivity in (TMTSF)2ClO4

We have studied the onset temperature of the superconductivity Tc_onset of the organic superconductor (TMTSF)2ClO4, by precisely controlling the direction of the magnetic field H. We compare the results of two samples with nearly the same onset temperature but with different scattering relaxation time tau. We revealed a complicated interplay of a variety of pair-breaking effects and mechanisms that overcome these pair-breaking effects. In low fields, the linear temperature dependences of the onset curves in the H-T phase diagrams are governed by the orbital pair-breaking effect. The dips in the in-plane field-angle phi dependence of Tc_onset, which were only observed in the long-tau sample, provides definitive evidence that the field-induced dimensional crossover enhances the superconductivity if the field direction is more than about 19-degrees away from the a axis. In the high-field regime for H//a, the upturn of the onset curve for the long-tau sample indicates a new superconducting state that overcomes the Pauli pair-breaking effect but is easily suppressed by impurity scatterings. The Pauli effect is also overcome for H//b' by a realization of another state for which the maximum of Tc_onset(phi) occurs in a direction different from the crystalline axes. The effect on Tc_onset of tilting the applied field out of the conductive plane suggests that the Pauli effect plays a significant role in determining Tc_onset. The most plausible explanation of these results is that (TMTSF)2ClO4 is a singlet superconductor and exhibits Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) states in high fields.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures. To be published in J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. (vol.77, 2008

Wanted dead or alive : high diversity of macroinvertebrates associated with living and ’dead’ Posidonia oceanica matte

The Mediterranean endemic seagrass Posidonia oceanica forms beds characterised by a dense leaf canopy and a thick root-rhizome ‘matte’. Death of P. oceanica shoots leads to exposure of the underlying matte, which can persist for many years, and is termed ‘dead’ matte. Traditionally, dead matte has been regarded as a degraded habitat. To test whether this assumption was true, the motile macroinvertebrates of adjacent living (with shoots) and dead (without shoots) matte of P. oceanica were sampled in four different plots located at the same depth (5–6 m) in Mellieha Bay, Malta (central Mediterranean). The total number of species and abundance were significantly higher (ANOVA; P<0.05 and P<0.01, respectively) in the dead matte than in living P. oceanica matte, despite the presence of the foliar canopy in the latter. Multivariate analysis (MDS) clearly showed two main groups of assemblages, corresponding to the two matte types. The amphipods Leptocheirus guttatus and Maera grossimana, and the polychaete Nereis rava contributed most to the dissimilarity between the two different matte types. Several unique properties of the dead matte contributing to the unexpected higher number of species and abundance of motile macroinvertebrates associated with this habitat are discussed. The findings have important implications for the conservation of bare P. oceanica matte, which has been generally viewed as a habitat of low ecological value.peer-reviewe

Pairing Symmetry Competition in Organic Superconductors

A review is given on theoretical studies concerning the pairing symmetry in organic superconductors. In particular, we focus on (TMTSF)$_2$X and $\kappa$-(BEDT-TTF)$_2$X, in which the pairing symmetry has been extensively studied both experimentally and theoretically. Possibilities of various pairing symmetry candidates and their possible microscopic origin are discussed. Also some tests for determining the actual pairing symmtery are surveyed.Comment: 16 pages, 8 figures, to be published in J. Phys. Soc. Jpn., special issue on "Organic Conductors