A Theory of Ferroelectric Phase Transition in SrTiO3_3 induced by Isotope Replacement

A theory to describe the dielectric anomalies and the ferroelectric phase transition induced by oxygen isotope replacement in SrTiO$_3$ is developed. The proposed model gives consistent explanation between apparently contradictory experimental results on macroscopic dielectric measurements versus microscopic lattice dynamical measurements by neutron scattering studies. The essential feature is described by a 3-state quantum order-disorder system characterizing the degenerated excited states in addition to the ground state of TiO$_6$ cluster. The effect of isotope replacement is taken into account through the tunneling frequency between the excited states. The dielectric properties are analyzed by the mean field approximation (MFA), which gives qualitative agreements with experimental results throughout full range of the isotope concentration.The phase diagram in the temperature-tunneling frequencycoordinate is studied by a QMC method to confirm the qualitative validity of the MFA analysis.Comment: 26 pages, 8 figure

Exponential distribution of long heart beat intervals during atrial fibrillation and their relevance for white noise behaviour in power spectrum

The statistical properties of heart beat intervals of 130 long-term surface electrocardiogram recordings during atrial fibrillation (AF) are investigated. We find that the distribution of interbeat intervals exhibits a characteristic exponential tail, which is absent during sinus rhythm, as tested in a corresponding control study with 72 healthy persons. The rate of the exponential decay lies in the range 3-12 Hz and shows diurnal variations. It equals, up to statistical uncertainties, the level of the previously uncovered white noise part in the power spectrum, which is also characteristic for AF. The overall statistical features can be described by decomposing the intervals into two statistically independent times, where the first one is associated with a correlated process with 1/f noise characteristics, while the second one belongs to an uncorrelated process and is responsible for the exponential tail. It is suggested to use the rate of the exponential decay as a further parameter for a better classification of AF and for the medical diagnosis. The relevance of the findings with respect to a general understanding of AF is pointed out

High-precision molecular dynamics simulation of UO2-PuO2: Anion self-diffusion in UO2

Our series of articles is devoted to high-precision molecular dynamics simulation of mixed actinide-oxide (MOX) fuel in the approximation of rigid ions and pair interactions (RIPI) using high-performance graphics processors (GPU). In this article we study self-diffusion mechanisms of oxygen anions in uranium dioxide (UO2) with the ten recent and widely used sets of interatomic pair potentials (SPP) under periodic (PBC) and isolated (IBC) boundary conditions. Wide range of measured diffusion coefficients (from 10^-3 cm^2/s at melting point down to 10^-12 cm^2/s at 1400 K) made possible a direct comparison (without extrapolation) of the simulation results with the experimental data, which have been known only at low temperatures (T < 1500 K). A highly detailed (with the temperature step of 1 K) calculation of the diffusion coefficient allowed us to plot temperature dependences of the diffusion activation energy and its derivative, both of which show a wide (~1000 K) superionic transition region confirming the broad lambda-peaks of heat capacity obtained by us earlier. It is shown that regardless of SPP the anion self-diffusion in model crystals without surface or artificially embedded defects goes on via exchange mechanism, rather than interstitial or vacancy mechanisms suggested by the previous works. The activation energy of exchange diffusion turned out to coincide with the anti-Frenkel defect formation energy calculated by the lattice statics.Comment: 18 pages, 11 figures, 5 table

Hot Spots and Transition from d-Wave to Another Pairing Symmetry in the Electron-Doped Cuprate Superconductors

We present a simple theoretical explanation for a transition from d-wave to another superconducting pairing observed in the electron-doped cuprates. The d_{x^2-y^2} pairing potential Delta, which has the maximal magnitude and opposite signs at the hot spots on the Fermi surface, becomes suppressed with the increase of electron doping, because the hot spots approach the Brillouin zone diagonals, where Delta vanishes. Then, the d_{x^2-y^2} pairing is replaced by either singlet s-wave or triplet p-wave pairing. We argue in favor of the latter and discuss experiments to uncover it.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, RevTeX 4. V.2: Extra figure and many references added. V.3: Minor update of references for the proof

Spectral and transport properties of doped Mott-Hubbard systems with incommensurate magnetic order

We present spectral and optical properties of the Hubbard model on a two-dimensional square lattice using a generalization of dynamical mean-field theory to magnetic states in finite dimension. The self-energy includes the effect of spin fluctuations and screening of the Coulomb interaction due to particle-particle scattering. At half-filling the quasiparticles reduce the width of the Mott-Hubbard `gap' and have dispersions and spectral weights that agree remarkably well with quantum Monte Carlo and exact diagonalization calculations. Away from half-filling we consider incommensurate magnetic order with a varying local spin direction, and derive the photoemission and optical spectra. The incommensurate magnetic order leads to a pseudogap which opens at the Fermi energy and coexists with a large Mott-Hubbard gap. The quasiparticle states survive in the doped systems, but their dispersion is modified with the doping and a rigid band picture does not apply. Spectral weight in the optical conductivity is transferred to lower energies and the Drude weight increases linearly with increasing doping. We show that incommensurate magnetic order leads also to mid-gap states in the optical spectra and to decreased scattering rates in the transport processes, in qualitative agreement with the experimental observations in doped systems. The gradual disappearence of the spiral magnetic order and the vanishing pseudogap with increasing temperature is found to be responsible for the linear resistivity. We discuss the possible reasons why these results may only partially explain the features observed in the optical spectra of high temperature superconductors.Comment: 22 pages, 18 figure

Colossal dielectric constants in transition-metal oxides

Many transition-metal oxides show very large ("colossal") magnitudes of the dielectric constant and thus have immense potential for applications in modern microelectronics and for the development of new capacitance-based energy-storage devices. In the present work, we thoroughly discuss the mechanisms that can lead to colossal values of the dielectric constant, especially emphasising effects generated by external and internal interfaces, including electronic phase separation. In addition, we provide a detailed overview and discussion of the dielectric properties of CaCu3Ti4O12 and related systems, which is today's most investigated material with colossal dielectric constant. Also a variety of further transition-metal oxides with large dielectric constants are treated in detail, among them the system La2-xSrxNiO4 where electronic phase separation may play a role in the generation of a colossal dielectric constant.Comment: 31 pages, 18 figures, submitted to Eur. Phys. J. for publication in the Special Topics volume "Cooperative Phenomena in Solids: Metal-Insulator Transitions and Ordering of Microscopic Degrees of Freedom

Fitting the integrated Spectral Energy Distributions of Galaxies

Fitting the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of galaxies is an almost universally used technique that has matured significantly in the last decade. Model predictions and fitting procedures have improved significantly over this time, attempting to keep up with the vastly increased volume and quality of available data. We review here the field of SED fitting, describing the modelling of ultraviolet to infrared galaxy SEDs, the creation of multiwavelength data sets, and the methods used to fit model SEDs to observed galaxy data sets. We touch upon the achievements and challenges in the major ingredients of SED fitting, with a special emphasis on describing the interplay between the quality of the available data, the quality of the available models, and the best fitting technique to use in order to obtain a realistic measurement as well as realistic uncertainties. We conclude that SED fitting can be used effectively to derive a range of physical properties of galaxies, such as redshift, stellar masses, star formation rates, dust masses, and metallicities, with care taken not to over-interpret the available data. Yet there still exist many issues such as estimating the age of the oldest stars in a galaxy, finer details ofdust properties and dust-star geometry, and the influences of poorly understood, luminous stellar types and phases. The challenge for the coming years will be to improve both the models and the observational data sets to resolve these uncertainties. The present review will be made available on an interactive, moderated web page (sedfitting.org), where the community can access and change the text. The intention is to expand the text and keep it up to date over the coming years.Comment: 54 pages, 26 figures, Accepted for publication in Astrophysics & Space Scienc

Horizontal Branch Stars: The Interplay between Observations and Theory, and Insights into the Formation of the Galaxy

We review HB stars in a broad astrophysical context, including both variable and non-variable stars. A reassessment of the Oosterhoff dichotomy is presented, which provides unprecedented detail regarding its origin and systematics. We show that the Oosterhoff dichotomy and the distribution of globular clusters (GCs) in the HB morphology-metallicity plane both exclude, with high statistical significance, the possibility that the Galactic halo may have formed from the accretion of dwarf galaxies resembling present-day Milky Way satellites such as Fornax, Sagittarius, and the LMC. A rediscussion of the second-parameter problem is presented. A technique is proposed to estimate the HB types of extragalactic GCs on the basis of integrated far-UV photometry. The relationship between the absolute V magnitude of the HB at the RR Lyrae level and metallicity, as obtained on the basis of trigonometric parallax measurements for the star RR Lyrae, is also revisited, giving a distance modulus to the LMC of (m-M)_0 = 18.44+/-0.11. RR Lyrae period change rates are studied. Finally, the conductive opacities used in evolutionary calculations of low-mass stars are investigated. [ABRIDGED]Comment: 56 pages, 22 figures. Invited review, to appear in Astrophysics and Space Scienc

Search for direct production of charginos and neutralinos in events with three leptons and missing transverse momentum in √s = 7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with three electrons or muons and missing transverse momentum is presented. The analysis is based on 4.7 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations in three signal regions that are either depleted or enriched in Z-boson decays. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set in R-parity conserving phenomenological minimal supersymmetric models and in simplified models, significantly extending previous results

Jet size dependence of single jet suppression in lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s(NN)) = 2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

Measurements of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions at the LHC provide direct sensitivity to the physics of jet quenching. In a sample of lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s) = 2.76 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of approximately 7 inverse microbarns, ATLAS has measured jets with a calorimeter over the pseudorapidity interval |eta| < 2.1 and over the transverse momentum range 38 < pT < 210 GeV. Jets were reconstructed using the anti-kt algorithm with values for the distance parameter that determines the nominal jet radius of R = 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5. The centrality dependence of the jet yield is characterized by the jet "central-to-peripheral ratio," Rcp. Jet production is found to be suppressed by approximately a factor of two in the 10% most central collisions relative to peripheral collisions. Rcp varies smoothly with centrality as characterized by the number of participating nucleons. The observed suppression is only weakly dependent on jet radius and transverse momentum. These results provide the first direct measurement of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions and complement previous measurements of dijet transverse energy imbalance at the LHC.Comment: 15 pages plus author list (30 pages total), 8 figures, 2 tables, submitted to Physics Letters B. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at http://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/HION-2011-02