Spectral functions and optical conductivity of spinless fermions on a checkerboard lattice

We study the dynamical properties of spinless fermions on the checkerboard lattice. Our main interest is the limit of large nearest-neighbor repulsion $V$ as compared with hopping $|t|$. The spectral functions show broad low-energy excitation which are due to the dynamics of fractionally charged excitations. Furthermore, it is shown that the fractional charges contribute to the electrical current density.Comment: 9 Pages, 9 Figure

Mass Shift and Width Broadening of J/psi in hot gluonic plasma from QCD Sum Rules

We investigate possible mass shift and width broadening of J/psi in hot gluonic matter using QCD sum rule. Input values of gluon condensates at finite temperature are extracted from lattice QCD data for the energy density and pressure. Although stability of the moment ratio is achieved only up to T/Tc ~ 1.05, the gluon condensates cause a decrease of the moment ratio, which results in change of spectral properties. Using the Breit-Wigner form for the phenomenological side, we find that mass shift of J/psi just above Tc can reach maximally 200 MeV and width can broaden to dozens of MeV.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, version to appear in Physical Review Letter

Aharonov-Casher phase and persistent current in a polyacetylene ring

We investigate a polyacetylene ring in an axially symmetric, static electric field with a modified SSH Hamiltonian of a polyacetylene chain. An effective gauge potential of the single electron Hamiltonian due to spin-field interaction is obtained and it results in a Fr\"{o}hlich's type of superconductivity equivalent to the effect of travelling lattice wave. The total energy as well as the persistent current density are shown to be a periodic function of the flux of the gauge field embraced by the polyacetylene ring.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figure

Critical behavior of charmonia across the phase transition: A QCD sum rule approach

We investigate medium-induced change of mass and width of J/psi and eta_c across the phase transition in hot gluonic matter using QCD sum rules. In the QCD sum rule approach, the medium effect on heavy quarkonia is induced by the change of both scalar and twist-2 gluon condensates, whose temperature dependences are extracted from the lattice calculations of energy density and pressure. Although the stability of the operator product expansion side seems to break down at T > 1.06Tc for the vector channel and T>1.04Tc for the pseudoscalar channel, we find a sudden change of the spectral property across the critical temperature Tc, which originates from an equally rapid change of the scalar gluon condensate characterized by e-3p. By parameterizing the ground state of the spectral density by the Breit-Wigner form, we find that for both J/psi and eta_c, the masses suddenly decrease maximally by a few hundreds of MeV and the widths broaden to ~100 MeV slightly above Tc. Implications for recent and future heavy ion experiments are discussed. We also carry out a similar analysis for charmonia in nuclear matter, which could serve as a testing ground for observing the precursor phenomena of the QCD phase transition. We finally discuss the possibility of observing the mass shift at nuclear matter at the FAIR project at GSI.Comment: 18 pages, 21 figures, 2 figures are added and discussion on effect of dynamical quarks is extended. version to appear in Phys.Rev.

Theory for Gossamer and Resonating Valence Bond Superconductivity

We use an effective Hamiltonian for two-dimensional Hubbard model including an antiferromagnetic spin-spin coupling term to study recently proposed gossamer superconductivity. We formulate a renormalized mean field theory to approximately take into account the strong correlation effect in the partially projected Gutzwiller wavefucntions. At the half filled, there is a first order phase transition to separate a Mott insulator at large Coulomb repulsion U from a gossamer superconductor at small U. Away from the half filled,the Mott insulator is evolved into an resonating valence bond state, which is adiabatically connected to the gossamer superconductor.Comment: 10 pages, 13 figure

Understanding the Clean Interface between Covalent Si and Ionic Al2O3

The atomic and electronic structures of the (001)-Si/(001)-gamma-Al2O3 heterointerface are investigated by first principles total energy calculations combined with a newly developed "modified basin-hopping" method. It is found that all interface Si atoms are fourfold coordinated due to the formation of Si-O and unexpected covalent Si-Al bonds in the new abrupt interface model. And the interface has perfect electronic properties in that the unpassivated interface has a large LDA band gap and no gap levels. These results show that it is possible to have clean semiconductor-oxide interfaces