14 research outputs found
Instability of charge ordered states in doped antiferromagnets
We analyze the induced interactions between localized holes in weakly-doped
Heisenberg antiferromagnets due to the modification of the quantum zero point
spin wave energy; i.e. the analogue of the Casimir effect. We show that this
interaction is uniformly attractive and falls off as r^{-2 d+1} in d
dimensions. For ``stripes'', i.e parallel (d-1)-dimensional hypersurfaces of
localized holes, the interaction energy per unit hyperarea is attractive and
falls, generically, like r^{-d}. We argue that, in the absence of a long-range
Coulomb repulsion between holes, this interaction leads to an instability of
any charge-ordered state in the dilute doping limit.Comment: Revtex, 5 pages two-column format, 3 ps figures (epsf). Two
references added and some textual change
Complexity of multi-dimensional spontaneous EEG decreases during propofol induced general anaesthesia
Emerging neural theories of consciousness suggest a correlation between a specific type of neural dynamical complexity and the level of consciousness: When awake and aware, causal interactions between brain regions are both integrated (all regions are to a certain extent connected) and differentiated (there is inhomogeneity and variety in the interactions). In support of this, recent work by Casali et al (2013) has shown that Lempel-Ziv complexity correlates strongly with conscious level, when computed on the EEG response to transcranial magnetic stimulation. Here we investigated complexity of spontaneous high-density EEG data during propofol-induced general anaesthesia. We consider three distinct measures: (i) Lempel-Ziv complexity, which is derived from how compressible the data are; (ii) amplitude coalition entropy, which measures the variability in the constitution of the set of active channels; and (iii) the novel synchrony coalition entropy (SCE), which measures the variability in the constitution of the set of synchronous channels. After some simulations on Kuramoto oscillator models which demonstrate that these measures capture distinct ‘flavours’ of complexity, we show that there is a robustly measurable decrease in the complexity of spontaneous EEG during general anaesthesia
Topological doping and the stability of stripe phases
We analyze the properties of a general Ginzburg-Landau free energy with
competing order parameters, long-range interactions, and global constraints
(e.g., a fixed value of a total ``charge'') to address the physics of stripe
phases in underdoped high-Tc and related materials. For a local free energy
limited to quadratic terms of the gradient expansion, only uniform or
phase-separated configurations are thermodynamically stable. ``Stripe'' or
other non-uniform phases can be stabilized by long-range forces, but can only
have non-topological (in-phase) domain walls where the components of the
antiferromagnetic order parameter never change sign, and the periods of charge
and spin density waves coincide. The antiphase domain walls observed
experimentally require physics on an intermediate lengthscale, and they are
absent from a model that involves only long-distance physics. Dense stripe
phases can be stable even in the absence of long-range forces, but domain walls
always attract at large distances, i.e., there is a ubiquitous tendency to
phase separation at small doping. The implications for the phase diagram of
underdoped cuprates are discussed.Comment: 18 two-column pages, 2 figures, revtex+eps
Significant suppression of weak ferromagnetism in (LaEu)CuO
The magnetic structure of (LaEu)CuO has been
studied by magnetization measurements of single crystals, which show
antiferromagnetic long-range order below = 265 K and a structural phase
transition at = 130 K. At , the Cu spin susceptibility
exhibits almost the same behavior as that of LaCuO in the
low-temperature orthorhombic phase, which indicates the existence of finite
spin canting out of the CuO plane. At , the magnitude of the
weak-ferromagnetic moment induced by the spin canting is suppressed
approximately by 70{%}. This significant suppression of the weak-ferromagnetic
moment is carefully compared with the theoretical analysis of weak
ferromagnetism by Stein {\it et al.} (Phys. Rev. B {\bf 53}, 775 (1996)), in
which the magnitude of weak-ferromagnetic moments strongly depend on the
crystallographic symmetry. Based on such comparison, below
(LaEu)CuO is in the low-temperature less-orthorhombic
phase with a space group of . We also discuss the possible magnetic
structure of the pure low-temperature tetragonal phase with space group
, which is relevant for rare-earth and alkaline-earth ions co-doped
LaCuO.Comment: 16 pages including 5 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. B. Fig. 4 is
newly adde
Processing of spatial-frequency altered faces in schizophrenia: Effects of illness phase and duration
Low spatial frequency (SF) processing has been shown to be impaired in people with schizophrenia, but it is not clear how this varies with clinical state or illness chronicity. We compared schizophrenia patients (SCZ, n534), first episode psychosis patients (FEP, n522), and healthy controls (CON, n535) on a gender/facial discrimination task. Images were either unaltered (broadband spatial frequency, BSF), or had high or low SF information removed (LSF and HSF conditions, respectively). The task was performed at hospital admission and discharge for patients, and at corresponding time points for controls. Groups were matched on visual acuity. At admission, compared to their BSF performance, each group was significantly worse with low SF stimuli, and most impaired with high SF stimuli. The level of impairment at each SF did not depend on group. At discharge, the SCZ group performed more poorly in the LSF condition than the other groups, and showed the greatest degree of performance decline collapsed over HSF and LSF conditions, although the latter finding was not significant when controlling for visual acuity. Performance did not change significantly over time for any group. HSF processing was strongly related to visual acuity at both time points for all groups. We conclude the following: 1) SF processing abilities in schizophrenia are relatively stable across clinical state; 2) face processing abnormalities in SCZ are not secondary to problems processing specific SFs, but are due to other known difficulties constructing visual representations from degraded information; and 3) the relationship between HSF processing and visual acuity, along with known SCZ- and medication-related acuity reductions, and the elimination of a SCZ-related impairment after controlling for visual acuity in this study, all raise the possibility that some prior findings of impaired perception in SCZ may be secondary to acuity reductions
Sleep symptoms and long-term outcome in adolescents with major depressive disorder: a naturalistic follow-up study
Activities of daily living, social functioning and their determinants in persons with psychotic disorder
Recommended from our members
Is 20/20 vision good enough? Visual acuity differences within the normal range predict contour element detection and integration
Contour integration (CI) combines appropriately aligned and oriented elements into continuous boundaries. Collinear facilitation (CF) occurs when a low-contrast oriented element becomes more visible when flanked by collinear high-contrast elements. Both processes rely at least partly on long-range horizontal connections in early visual cortex, and thus both have been extensively studied to understand visual cortical functioning in aging, development, and clinical disorders. Here, we ask: Can acuity differences within the normal range predict CI or CF? To consider this question, we measured binocular visual acuity and compared subjects with 20/20 vision to those with better-than-20/20 vision (SharpPerceivers) on two tasks. In the CI task, subjects located an integrated shape embedded in varying amounts of noise; in the CF task, subjects detected a low-contrast element flanked by collinear or orthogonal high-contrast elements. In each case, displays were scaled in size to modulate element visibility and spatial frequency (4-12 cycles/deg). SharpPerceivers could integrate contours under noisier conditions than the 20/20 group (p=.0002) especially for high spatial frequency displays. Moreover, although the two groups exhibited similar collinear facilitation, SharpPerceivers could detect the central target with lower contrast at high spatial frequencies (p<.05). These results suggest that small acuity differences within the normal range—corresponding to about a one line difference on a vision chart—strongly predict element detection and integration. Furthermore, simply ensuring that subjects have normal or corrected-to-normal vision is not sufficient when comparing groups on contour tasks; visual acuity confounds also need to be ruled out