Sum rules for charmed baryon masses

The measured masses of the three charge states of the charmed $\Sigma_c$ baryon are found to be in disagreement with a sum rule based on the quark model, but relying on no detailed assumptions about the form of the interaction. This poses a significant problem for the charmed baryon sector of the quark model. Other relations among charmed baryon masses are also discussed.Comment: 5 pages, latex, no figure

Potential barrier lowering and electrical transport at the LaAlO3_{3}/SrTiO3_{3} heterointerface

Using a combination of vertical transport measurements across and lateral transport measurements along the LaAlO$_{3}$/SrTiO$_{3}$ heterointerface, we demonstrate that significant potential barrier lowering and band bending are the cause of interfacial metallicity. Barrier lowering and enhanced band bending extends over 2.5 nm into LaAlO$_{3}$ as well as SrTiO$_{3}$. We explain origins of high-temperature carrier saturation, lower carrier concentration, and higher mobility in the sample with the thinnest LaAlO$_{3}$ film on a SrTiO$_{3}$ substrate. Lateral transport results suggest that parasitic interface scattering centers limit the low-temperature lateral electron mobility of the metallic channel.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, and 1 tabl

The Berkeley Sample of Stripped-Envelope Supernovae

We present the complete sample of stripped-envelope supernova (SN) spectra observed by the Lick Observatory Supernova Search (LOSS) collaboration over the last three decades: 888 spectra of 302 SNe, 652 published here for the first time, with 384 spectra (of 92 SNe) having photometrically-determined phases. After correcting for redshift and Milky Way dust reddening and reevaluating the spectroscopic classifications for each SN, we construct mean spectra of the three major spectral subtypes (Types IIb, Ib, and Ic) binned by phase. We compare measures of line strengths and widths made from this sample to the results of previous efforts, confirming that O I {\lambda}7774 absorption is stronger and found at higher velocity in Type Ic SNe than in Types Ib or IIb SNe in the first 30 days after peak brightness, though the widths of nebular emission lines are consistent across subtypes. We also highlight newly available observations for a few rare subpopulations of interest.Comment: 13 pages; 14 figures; 3 tables. Accepted for publication in MNRA

Ferromagnetism in tetragonally distorted LaCoO3 thin films

Thin films of epitaxial LaCoO{sub 3} were synthesized on SrTiO{sub 3} and (La, Sr)(Al, Ta)O{sub 3} substrates varying the oxygen background pressure in order to evaluate the impact of epitaxial growth as well as oxygen vacancies on the long range magnetic order. The epitaxial constraints from the substrate impose a tetragonal distortion compared to the bulk form. X-ray absorption and x-ray magnetic circular dichroism measurements confirmed that the ferromagnetism arises from the Co ions and persists through the entire thickness of the film. It was found that for the thin films to show ferromagnetic order they have to be grown under the higher oxygen pressures, since a decrease in oxygen deposition pressure alters the film structure and suppresses ferromagnetism in the LaCoO{sub 3} films. A correlation of the structure and magnetism suggests that the tetragonal distortions induce the ferromagnetism

Magnetism and transport in transparent high-mobility BaSnO3 films doped with La, Pr, Nd, and Gd

We have explored the effect of magnetic rare-earth dopants substitutionally incorporated on the Ba sites of BaSnO3 in terms of electronic transport, magnetism, and optical properties. We show that for Ba0.92R0.08SnO3 thin films (where R=La,Pr,Nd,Gd), there is a linear increase of mobility with carrier concentration across all doping schemes. La-doped films have the highest mobilities, followed by Pr- and Nd-doped films. Gd-doped samples have the largest ionic size mismatch with the Ba site and correspondingly the lowest carrier concentrations and electron mobilities. However, crystallinity does not appear to be a strong predictor of transport phenomena; our results suggest that point defects more than grain boundaries are key ingredients in tuning the conduction of BaSnO3 films grown by pulsed laser deposition. Pronounced, nonhysteretic x-ray magnetic dichroism signals are observed for Pr-, Nd-, and Gd-doped samples, indicating paramagnetism. Finally, we probe the optical constants for each of the BaSnO3 doping schemes and note that there is little change in the transmittance across all samples. Together these results shed light on conduction mechanisms in BaSnO3 doped with rare-earth cations

Quarkonium and hydrogen spectra with spin dependent relativistic wave equation

A non-linear non-perturbative relativistic atomic theory introduces spin in the dynamics of particle motion. The resulting energy levels of Hydrogen atom are exactly same as the Dirac theory. The theory accounts for the energy due to spin-orbit interaction and for the additional potential energy due to spin and spin-orbit coupling. Spin angular momentum operator is integrated into the equation of motion. This requires modification to classical Laplacian operator. Consequently the Dirac matrices and the k operator of Dirac's theory are dispensed with. The theory points out that the curvature of the orbit draws on certain amount of kinetic and potential energies affecting the momentum of electron and the spin-orbit interaction energy constitutes a part of this energy. The theory is developed for spin 1/2 bound state single electron in Coulomb potential and then further extended to quarkonium physics by introducing the linear confining potential. The unique feature of this quarkonium model is that the radial distance can be exactly determined and does not have a statistical interpretation. The established radial distance is then used to determine the wave function. The observed energy levels are used as the input parameters and the radial distance and the string tension are predicted. This ensures 100% conformance to all observed energy levels for the heavy quarkonium.Comment: 14 pages, v7: Journal reference adde

Berkeley Supernova Ia Program I: Observations, Data Reduction, and Spectroscopic Sample of 582 Low-Redshift Type Ia Supernovae

In this first paper in a series we present 1298 low-redshift (z\leq0.2) optical spectra of 582 Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) observed from 1989 through 2008 as part of the Berkeley SN Ia Program (BSNIP). 584 spectra of 199 SNe Ia have well-calibrated light curves with measured distance moduli, and many of the spectra have been corrected for host-galaxy contamination. Most of the data were obtained using the Kast double spectrograph mounted on the Shane 3 m telescope at Lick Observatory and have a typical wavelength range of 3300-10,400 Ang., roughly twice as wide as spectra from most previously published datasets. We present our observing and reduction procedures, and we describe the resulting SN Database (SNDB), which will be an online, public, searchable database containing all of our fully reduced spectra and companion photometry. In addition, we discuss our spectral classification scheme (using the SuperNova IDentification code, SNID; Blondin & Tonry 2007), utilising our newly constructed set of SNID spectral templates. These templates allow us to accurately classify our entire dataset, and by doing so we are able to reclassify a handful of objects as bona fide SNe Ia and a few other objects as members of some of the peculiar SN Ia subtypes. In fact, our dataset includes spectra of nearly 90 spectroscopically peculiar SNe Ia. We also present spectroscopic host-galaxy redshifts of some SNe Ia where these values were previously unknown. [Abridged]Comment: 34 pages, 11 figures, 11 tables, revised version, re-submitted to MNRAS. Spectra will be released in January 2013. The SN Database homepage (http://hercules.berkeley.edu/database/index_public.html) contains the full tables, plots of all spectra, and our new SNID template

Climate change promotes parasitism in a coral symbiosis.

Coastal oceans are increasingly eutrophic, warm and acidic through the addition of anthropogenic nitrogen and carbon, respectively. Among the most sensitive taxa to these changes are scleractinian corals, which engineer the most biodiverse ecosystems on Earth. Corals' sensitivity is a consequence of their evolutionary investment in symbiosis with the dinoflagellate alga, Symbiodinium. Together, the coral holobiont has dominated oligotrophic tropical marine habitats. However, warming destabilizes this association and reduces coral fitness. It has been theorized that, when reefs become warm and eutrophic, mutualistic Symbiodinium sequester more resources for their own growth, thus parasitizing their hosts of nutrition. Here, we tested the hypothesis that sub-bleaching temperature and excess nitrogen promotes symbiont parasitism by measuring respiration (costs) and the assimilation and translocation of both carbon (energy) and nitrogen (growth; both benefits) within Orbicella faveolata hosting one of two Symbiodinium phylotypes using a dual stable isotope tracer incubation at ambient (26 °C) and sub-bleaching (31 °C) temperatures under elevated nitrate. Warming to 31 °C reduced holobiont net primary productivity (NPP) by 60% due to increased respiration which decreased host %carbon by 15% with no apparent cost to the symbiont. Concurrently, Symbiodinium carbon and nitrogen assimilation increased by 14 and 32%, respectively while increasing their mitotic index by 15%, whereas hosts did not gain a proportional increase in translocated photosynthates. We conclude that the disparity in benefits and costs to both partners is evidence of symbiont parasitism in the coral symbiosis and has major implications for the resilience of coral reefs under threat of global change