Calibration update of the COMBO-17 CDFS catalogue

We present an update to the photometric calibration of the COMBO-17 catalogue on the Extended Chandra Deep Field South, which is now consistent with the GaBoDS and MUSYC catalogues. As a result, photometric redshifts become slightly more accurate, with <0.01 rms and little bias in the delta_z/(1+z) of galaxies with R<21 and of QSOs with R<24. With increasing photon noise the rms of galaxies reaches 0.02 for R<23 and 0.035 at R~23.5. Consequences for the rest-frame colours of galaxies at z<1 are discussed.Comment: A&A research note, resubmitted 02 Oct 2008, 4 pages in print forma

Damping of Oscillations in Layer-by-Layer Growth

We present a theory for the damping of layer-by-layer growth oscillations in molecular beam epitaxy. The surface becomes rough on distances larger than a layer coherence length which is substantially larger than the diffusion length. The damping time can be calculated by a comparison of the competing roughening and smoothening mechanisms. The dependence on the growth conditions, temperature and deposition rate, is characterized by a power law. The theoretical results are confirmed by computer simulations.Comment: 19 pages, RevTex, 5 Postscript figures, needs psfig.st

Coupling between static friction force and torque for a tripod

If a body is resting on a flat surface, the maximal static friction force before motion sets in is reduced if an external torque is also applied. The coupling between the static friction force and static friction torque is nontrivial as our studies for a tripod lying on horizontal flat surface show. In this article we report on a series of experiments we performed on a tripod and compare these with analytical and numerical solutions. It turns out that the coupling between force and torque reveals information about the microscopic properties at the onset to sliding.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, revte

Construction of a Versatile Ultra-Low Temperature Scanning Tunneling Microscope

We constructed a dilution-refrigerator (DR) based ultra-low temperature scanning tunneling microscope (ULT-STM) which works at temperatures down to 30 mK, in magnetic fields up to 6 T and in ultrahigh vacuum (UHV). Besides these extreme operation conditions, this STM has several unique features not available in other DR based ULT-STMs. One can load STM tips as well as samples with clean surfaces prepared in a UHV environment to an STM head keeping low temperature and UHV conditions. After then, the system can be cooled back to near the base temperature within 3 hours. Due to these capabilities, it has a variety of applications not only for cleavable materials but also for almost all conducting materials. The present ULT-STM has also an exceptionally high stability in the presence of magnetic field and even during field sweep. We describe details of its design, performance and applications for low temperature physics.Comment: 6 pages, 9 figures. accepted for publication in Rev. Sci. Instru

The Wolf effect and the Redshift of Quasars

We consider a simple model, based on currently accepted models for active galactic nuclei, for a quasi-stellar object (QSO or ``quasar'') and examine the influence that correlation- induced spectral changes (``The Wolf Effect'') may have upon the redshifts of the optical emission lines.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures. To be published in J. European Optical Soc. A: Pure and Applied Optic

Statistical mechanics of non-hamiltonian systems: Traffic flow

Statistical mechanics of a small system of cars on a single-lane road is developed. The system is not characterized by a Hamiltonian but by a conditional probability of a velocity of a car for the given velocity and distance of the car ahead. Distribution of car velocities for various densities of a group of cars are derived as well as probabilities of density fluctuations of the group for different velocities. For high braking abilities of cars free-flow and congested phases are found. Platoons of cars are formed for system of cars with inefficient brakes. A first order phase transition between free-flow and congested phase is suggested.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, presented at TGF, Paris, 200

Test of constancy of speed of light with rotating cryogenic optical resonators

A test of Lorentz invariance for electromagnetic waves was performed by comparing the resonance frequencies of two optical resonators as a function of orientation in space. In terms of the Robertson-Mansouri-Sexl theory, we obtain $\beta-\delta-1/2=(+0.5\pm 3\pm 0.7) E-10$, a ten-fold improvement compared to the previous best results. We also set a first upper limit for a so far unknown parameter of the Standard Model Extension test theory, $|(\tilde{\kappa}_{e-})^{ZZ}| < 2\cdot E-14$.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication Phys. Rev. A (2005