Modeling Pressure-Ionization of Hydrogen in the Context of Astrophysics

The recent development of techniques for laser-driven shock compression of hydrogen has opened the door to the experimental determination of its behavior under conditions characteristic of stellar and planetary interiors. The new data probe the equation of state (EOS) of dense hydrogen in the complex regime of pressure ionization. The structure and evolution of dense astrophysical bodies depend on whether the pressure ionization of hydrogen occurs continuously or through a ``plasma phase transition'' (PPT) between a molecular state and a plasma state. For the first time, the new experiments constrain predictions for the PPT. We show here that the EOS model developed by Saumon and Chabrier can successfully account for the data, and we propose an experiment that should provide a definitive test of the predicted PPT of hydrogen. The usefulness of the chemical picture for computing astrophysical EOS and in modeling pressure ionization is discussed.Comment: 16 pages + 4 figures, to appear in High Pressure Researc

Radiation-Induced "Zero-Resistance State" and the Photon Assisted Transport

We demonstrate that the radiation induced "zero-resistance state" observed in a two-dimensional electron gas is a result of the non-trivial structure of the density of states of the systems and the photon assisted transport. A toy model of a structureless quantum tunneling junction where the system has oscillatory density of states catches most of the important features of the experiments. We present a generalized Kubo-Greenwood conductivity formula for the photon assisted transport in a general system, and show essentially the same nature of the transport anomaly in a uniform system.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures. Please send comment to [email protected]. This version added a paragraph to discuss the implication of negative conductanc

Scalable Parallel Numerical CSP Solver

We present a parallel solver for numerical constraint satisfaction problems (NCSPs) that can scale on a number of cores. Our proposed method runs worker solvers on the available cores and simultaneously the workers cooperate for the search space distribution and balancing. In the experiments, we attained up to 119-fold speedup using 256 cores of a parallel computer.Comment: The final publication is available at Springe

Half-metallic ferromagnetism and structural stability of zincblende phases of the transition-metal chalcogenides

An accurate density-functional method is used to study systematically half-metallic ferromagnetism and stability of zincblende phases of 3d-transition-metal chalcogenides. The zincblende CrTe, CrSe, and VTe phases are found to be excellent half-metallic ferromagnets with large half-metallic gaps (up to 0.88 eV). They are mechanically stable and approximately 0.31-0.53 eV per formula unit higher in total energy than the corresponding nickel-arsenide ground-state phases, and therefore would be grown epitaxially in the form of films and layers thick enough for spintronic applications.Comment: 4 pages with 4 figures include

Jahn-Teller effect and stability of the charge-ordered state in La1-xCaxMnO3 (0.5<x<0.9) manganites

The longitudinal ultrasonic sound velocity and attenuation, the resistivity, and lattice parameters were studied as a function of temperature from 30 K to 300 K in La1-xCaxMnO3 (0.5<x<0.9). For all the samples, a dramatic stiffening of the sound velocity below the charge ordering transition temperature TCO was directly driven by distinct changes of the lattice parameters due to the formation of long range ordering of Jahn-Teller distorted MnO6 octahedra. The relative change of the sound velocity (DeltaV/V) below TCO depends on the Ca concentration x and reaches the maximum at x=0.75, implying that the effective strength of electron-lattice interaction with the Jahn-Teller distortion is the strongest at x=0.75 and hence the charge ordered state is mostly stabilized near x=0.75 and insensitive to the application of a magnetic field, which is supported by the charge transport properties under high magnetic fields up to 14T.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figures, PD

Historic Light Curve and Long-term Optical Variation of BL Lacertae 2200+420

In this paper, historical optical(UBVRI) data and newly observed data from the Yunnan Observatory of China(about100 years) are presented for BL Lacertae. Maximum variations in UBVRI: 5.12, 5.31, 4.73, 2.59, and 2.54 and color indices of U-B = -0.11 +/- 0.20, B-V= 1.0 +/- 0.11, V-R= 0.73 +/- 0.19, V-I= 1.42 +/- 0.25, R-I= 0.82 +/- 0.11, and B-I= 2.44 +/- 0.29 have been obtained from the literature; The Jurkevich method is used to investigate the existence of periods in the B band light curve, and a long-term period of 14 years is found. The 0.6 and 0.88 year periods reported by Webb et al.(1988) are confirmed. In addition, a close relation between B-I and B is found, suggesting that the spectra flattens when the source brightens.Comment: 21 pages, 6 figures, 2 table, aasms4.sty, to be published in ApJ, Vol. 507, 199