611 research outputs found
Electron-Phonon mechanism for Superconductivity in NaCoO: Valence-Band Suhl-Kondo effect Driven by Shear Phonons
To study the possible mechanism of superconductivity in NaCoO,
we examine the interaction between all the relevant optical phonons (breathing
and shear phonons) and -electrons of Co-ions, and study
the transition temperature for a s-wave superconductivity. The obtained is very low when the -valence-bands are far below the Fermi level.
However, is strongly enhanced when the top of the
-valence-bands is close to the Fermi level (say -50meV), thanks to
interband hopping of Cooper pairs caused by shear phonons. This ``valence-band
Suhl-Kondo mechanism'' due to shear phonons is significant to understand the
superconductivity in NaCoO. By the same mechanism, the kink
structure of the band-dispersion observed by ARPES, which indicates the strong
mass-enhancement () due to optical phonons, is also explained.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures; v2:Added references, published in J. Phys. Soc.
Jp
Flat bands in topological media
Topological media are systems whose properties are protected by topology and
thus are robust to deformations of the system. In topological insulators and
superconductors the bulk-surface and bulk-vortex correspondence gives rise to
the gapless Weyl, Dirac or Majorana fermions on the surface of the system and
inside vortex cores. Here we show that in gapless topological media, the
bulk-surface and bulk-vortex correspondence is more effective: it produces
topologically protected gapless fermions without dispersion -- the flat band.
Fermion zero modes forming the flat band are localized on the surface of
topological media with protected nodal lines and in the vortex core in systems
with topologically protected Fermi points (Weyl points). Flat band has an
extremely singular density of states, and we show that this property may give
rise in particular to surface superconductivity which could exist even at room
temperature.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, version to appear in JETP Letter
d-Wave Spin Density Wave phase in the Attractive Hubbard Model with Spin Polarization
We investigate the possibility of unconventional spin density wave (SDW) in
the attractive Hubbard model with finite spin polarization. We show that
pairing and density fluctuations induce the transverse d-wave SDW near the
half-filling. This novel SDW is related to the d-wave superfluidity induced by
antiferromagnetic spin fluctuations, in the sense that they are connected with
each other through Shiba's attraction-repulsion transformation. Our results
predict the d-wave SDW in real systems, such as cold Fermi atom gases with
population imbalance and compounds involving valence skipper elements
Identification of simple sequence repeat markers for sweetpotato weevil resistance
The development of sweetpotato [Ipomoea batatas (L.) Lam] germplasm with resistance to sweetpotato weevil (SPW) requires an understanding of the biochemical and genetic mechanisms of resistance to optimize crop resistance. The African sweetpotato landrace, ‘New Kawogo’, was reported to be moderately resistant to two species of SPW, Cylas puncticollis and Cylas brunneus. Resistance has been associated with the presence of hydroxycinnamic acids esters (HCAs), but the underlying genetic basis remains unknown. To determine the genetic basis of this resistance, a bi-parental sweetpotato population from a cross between the moderately resistant, white-fleshed ‘New Kawogo’ and the highly susceptible, orange-fleshed North American variety ‘Beauregard’ was evaluated for SPW resistance and genotyped with simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers to identify weevil resistance loci. SPW resistance was measured on the basis of field storage root SPW damage severity and total HCA ester concentrations. Moderate broad sense heritability (H2 = 0.49) was observed for weevil resistance in the population. Mean genotype SPW severity scores ranged from 1.0 to 9.0 and 25 progeny exhibited transgressive segregation for SPW resistance. Mean genotype total HCA ester concentrations were significantly different (P < 0.0001). A weak but significant correlation (r = 0.103, P = 0.015) was observed between total HCA ester concentration and SPW severity. A total of five and seven SSR markers were associated with field SPW severity and total HCA ester concentration, respectively. Markers IBS11, IbE5 and IbJ544b showed significant association with both field and HCA-based resistance, representing potential markers for the development of SPW resistant sweetpotato cultivars
Ablation and Chemical Alteration of Cosmic Dust Particles During Entry into the Earth's Atmosphere
Symmetry and Topology in Superconductors - Odd-frequency pairing and edge states -
Superconductivity is a phenomenon where the macroscopic quantum coherence
appears due to the pairing of electrons. This offers a fascinating arena to
study the physics of broken gauge symmetry. However, the important symmetries
in superconductors are not only the gauge invariance. Especially, the symmetry
properties of the pairing, i.e., the parity and spin-singlet/spin-triplet,
determine the physical properties of the superconducting state. Recently it has
been recognized that there is the important third symmetry of the pair
amplitude, i.e., even or odd parity with respect to the frequency. The
conventional uniform superconducting states correspond to the even-frequency
pairing, but the recent finding is that the odd-frequency pair amplitude arises
in the spatially non-uniform situation quite ubiquitously. Especially, this is
the case in the Andreev bound state (ABS) appearing at the surface/interface of
the sample. The other important recent development is on the nontrivial
topological aspects of superconductors. As the band insulators are classified
by topological indices into (i) conventional insulator, (ii) quantum Hall
insulator, and (iii) topological insulator, also are the gapped
superconductors. The influence of the nontrivial topology of the bulk states
appears as the edge or surface of the sample. In the superconductors, this
leads to the formation of zero energy ABS (ZEABS). Therefore, the ABSs of the
superconductors are the place where the symmetry and topology meet each other
which offer the stage of rich physics. In this review, we discuss the physics
of ABS from the viewpoint of the odd-frequency pairing, the topological
bulk-edge correspondence, and the interplay of these two issues. It is
described how the symmetry of the pairing and topological indices determines
the absence/presence of the ZEABS, its energy dispersion, and properties as the
Majorana fermions.Comment: 91 pages, 38 figures, Review article, references adde
Activation of AMPK-Regulated CRH Neurons in the PVH is Sufficient and Necessary to Induce Dietary Preference for Carbohydrate over Fat
Food selection is essential for metabolic homeostasis and is influenced by nutritional state, food palatability, and social factors such as stress. However, the mechanism responsible for selection between a high-carbohydrate diet (HCD) and a high-fat diet (HFD) remains unknown. Here, we show that activation of a subset of corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH)-positive neurons in the rostral region of the paraventricular hypothalamus (PVH) induces selection of an HCD over an HFD in mice during refeeding after fasting, resulting in a rapid recovery from the change in ketone metabolism. These neurons manifest activation of AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) during food deprivation, and this activation is necessary and sufficient for selection of an HCD over an HFD. Furthermore, this effect is mediated by carnitine palmitoyltransferase 1c (CPT1c). Thus, our results identify the specific neurons and intracellular signaling pathway responsible for regulation of the complex behavior of selection between an HCD and an HFD
Discovering temporal regularities in retail customers’ shopping behavior
In this paper we investigate the regularities characterizing the temporal purchasing behavior of the customers of a retail market chain. Most of the literature studying purchasing behavior focuses on what customers buy while giving few importance to the temporal dimension. As a consequence, the state of the art does not allow capturing which are the temporal purchasing patterns of each customers. These patterns should describe the customerâ\u80\u99s temporal habits highlighting when she typically makes a purchase in correlation with information about the amount of expenditure, number of purchased items and other similar aggregates. This knowledge could be exploited for different scopes: set temporal discounts for making the purchases of customers more regular with respect the time, set personalized discounts in the day and time window preferred by the customer, provide recommendations for shopping time schedule, etc. To this aim, we introduce a framework for extracting from personal retail data a temporal purchasing profile able to summarize whether and when a customer makes her distinctive purchases. The individual profile describes a set of regular and characterizing shopping behavioral patterns, and the sequences in which these patterns take place. We show how to compare different customers by providing a collective perspective to their individual profiles, and how to group the customers with respect to these comparable profiles. By analyzing real datasets containing millions of shopping sessions we found that there is a limited number of patterns summarizing the temporal purchasing behavior of all the customers, and that they are sequentially followed in a finite number of ways. Moreover, we recognized regular customers characterized by a small number of temporal purchasing behaviors, and changing customers characterized by various types of temporal purchasing behaviors. Finally, we discuss on how the profiles can be exploited both by customers to enable personalized services, and by the retail market chain for providing tailored discounts based on temporal purchasing regularity
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