657 research outputs found
A New Source of Reaction - Diffusion Coupling in Confined Systems due to Temperature Inhomogeneity
Diffusion is often accompanied by a reaction or sorption which can induce
temperature inhomogeneities. Monte Carlo simulations of Lennard-Jones atoms in
zeolite NaCaA are reported with a hot zone presumed to be created by a
reaction. Our simulations show that localised hot regions can alter both the
kinetic and transport properties. Further, enhancement of the diffusion
constant is greater for larger barrier height, a surprising result of
considerable significance to many chemical and biological processes. We find an
unanticipated coupling between reaction and diffusion due to the presence of
hot zone in addition to that which normally exists via concentration.Comment: to be published in Phys. Rev. Let
Operator-Based Truncation Scheme Based on the Many-Body Fermion Density Matrix
In [S. A. Cheong and C. L. Henley, cond-mat/0206196 (2002)], we found that
the many-particle eigenvalues and eigenstates of the many-body density matrix
of a block of sites cut out from an infinite chain of
noninteracting spinless fermions can all be constructed out of the one-particle
eigenvalues and one-particle eigenstates respectively. In this paper we
developed a statistical-mechanical analogy between the density matrix
eigenstates and the many-body states of a system of noninteracting fermions.
Each density matrix eigenstate corresponds to a particular set of occupation of
single-particle pseudo-energy levels, and the density matrix eigenstate with
the largest weight, having the structure of a Fermi sea ground state,
unambiguously defines a pseudo-Fermi level. We then outlined the main ideas
behind an operator-based truncation of the density matrix eigenstates, where
single-particle pseudo-energy levels far away from the pseudo-Fermi level are
removed as degrees of freedom. We report numerical evidence for scaling
behaviours in the single-particle pseudo-energy spectrum for different block
sizes and different filling fractions \nbar. With the aid of these
scaling relations, which tells us that the block size plays the role of an
inverse temperature in the statistical-mechanical description of the density
matrix eigenstates and eigenvalues, we looked into the performance of our
operator-based truncation scheme in minimizing the discarded density matrix
weight and the error in calculating the dispersion relation for elementary
excitations. This performance was compared against that of the traditional
density matrix-based truncation scheme, as well as against a operator-based
plane wave truncation scheme, and found to be very satisfactory.Comment: 22 pages in RevTeX4 format, 22 figures. Uses amsmath, amssymb,
graphicx and mathrsfs package
Degradation of human kininogens with the release of kinin peptides by extracellular proteinases of Candida spp.
The secretion of proteolytic enzymes by pathogenic microorganisms is one of the most successful strategies used by pathogens to colonize and infect the host organism. The extracellular microbial proteinases can seriously deregulate the homeostatic proteolytic cascades of the host, including the kinin-forming system, repeatedly reported to he activated during bacterial infection. The current study assigns a kinin-releasing activity to secreted proteinases of Candida spp. yeasts, the major fungal pathogens of humans. Of several Candida species studied, C. parapsilosis and C. albicans in their invasive filamentous forms are shown to produce proteinases which most effectively degrade proteinaceous kinin precursors, the kininogens. These enzymes, classified as aspartyl proteinases, have the highest kininogen-degrading activity at low pH (approx. 3.5), but the associated production of bradykinin-related peptides from a small fraction of kininogen molecules is optimal at neutral pH (6.5). The peptides effectively interact with cellular B2-type kinin receptors. Moreover, kinin-related peptides capable of interacting with inflammation-induced B1-type receptors are also formed, but with a reversed pH dependence. The presented variability of the potential extracellular kinin production by secreted aspartyl proteinases of Candida spp. is consistent with the known adaptability of these opportunistic pathogens to different niches in the host organism
Magnetization jump in the XXZ chain with next-nearest-neighbor exchange
We study the dependence of the magnetization M with magnetic field B at zero
temperature in the spin-1/2 XXZ chain with nearest-neighbor (NN) J1 and next-NN
J2 exchange interactions, with anisotropies Delta1 and Delta2 respectively. The
region of parameters for which a jump in M(B) exists is studied using numerical
diagonalization, and analytical results for two magnons on a ferromagnetic
background in the thermodynamic limit. We find a line in the parameter space
(J2/J1, Delta1/J1, Delta2/J2) (determined by two simple equations) at which the
ground state is highly degenerate. M(B) has a jump near this line, and at or
near the isotropic case with ferromagnetic J1 and antiferromagnetic J2, with
|J2/J1| near 1/4. These results are relevant for some systems containing CuO
chains with edge-sharing CuO4 units.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.
Decoupling of the S=1/2 antiferromagnetic zig-zag ladder with anisotropy
The spin-1/2 antiferromagnetic zig-zag ladder is studied by exact
diagonalization of small systems in the regime of weak inter-chain coupling. A
gapless phase with quasi long-range spiral correlations has been predicted to
occur in this regime if easy-plane (XY) anisotropy is present. We find in
general that the finite zig-zag ladder shows three phases: a gapless collinear
phase, a dimer phase and a spiral phase. We study the level crossings of the
spectrum,the dimer correlation function, the structure factor and the spin
stiffness within these phases, as well as at the transition points. As the
inter-chain coupling decreases we observe a transition in the anisotropic XY
case from a phase with a gap to a gapless phase that is best described by two
decoupled antiferromagnetic chains. The isotropic and the anisotropic XY cases
are found to be qualitatively the same, however, in the regime of weak
inter-chain coupling for the small systems studied here. We attribute this to a
finite-size effect in the isotropic zig-zag case that results from
exponentially diverging antiferromagnetic correlations in the weak-coupling
limit.Comment: to appear in Physical Review
Temperature dependence of single particle excitations in a S=1 chain: exact diagonalization calculations compared to neutron scattering experiments
Exact diagonalization calculations of finite antiferromagnetic spin-1
Heisenberg chains at finite temperatures are presented and compared to a recent
inelastic neutron scattering experiment for temperatures T up to 7.5 times the
intrachain exchange constant J. The calculations show that the excitations at
the antiferromagnetic point q=1 and at q=0.5 remain resonant up to at least
T=2J, confirming the recent experimental observation of resonant
high-temperature domain wall excitations. The predicted first and second
moments are in good agreement with experiment, except at temperatures where
three-dimensional spin correlations are most important. The ratio of the
structure factors at q=1 and at q=0.5 is well predicted for the paramagnetic
infinite-temperature limit. For T=2J, however, we found that the experimentally
observed intensity is considerably less than predicted. This suggests that
domain wall excitations on different chains interact up to temperatures of the
order of the spin band width.Comment: 9 pages revtex, submitted to PR
Coulomb gap in a model with finite charge transfer energy
The Coulomb gap in a donor-acceptor model with finite charge transfer energy
describing the electronic system on the dielectric side of the
metal-insulator transition is investigated by means of computer simulations on
two- and three-dimensional finite samples with a random distribution of equal
amounts of donor and acceptor sites. Rigorous relations reflecting the symmetry
of the model presented with respect to the exchange of donors and acceptors are
derived. In the immediate neighborhood of the Fermi energy the the
density of one-electron excitations is determined solely by
finite size effects and further away from is described by
an asymmetric power law with a non-universal exponent, depending on the
parameter .Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.
On the degree of scale invariance of inflationary perturbations
Many, if not most, inflationary models predict the power-law index of the
spectrum of density perturbations is close to one, though not precisely equal
to one, |n-1| \sim O(0.1), implying that the spectrum of density perturbations
is nearly, but not exactly, scale invariant. Some models allow n to be
significantly less than one (n \sim 0.7); a spectral index significantly
greater than one is more difficult to achieve. We show that n \approx 1 is a
consequence of the slow-roll conditions for inflation and ``naturalness,'' and
thus is a generic prediction of inflation. We discuss what is required to
deviate significantly from scale invariance, and then show, by explicit
construction, the existence of smooth potentials that satisfy all the
conditions for successful inflation and give as large as 2.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.
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