4,841 research outputs found

    Josephson Current between Triplet and Singlet Superconductors

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    The Josephson effect between triplet and singlet superconductors is studied. Josephson current can flow between triplet and singlet superconductors due to the spin-orbit coupling in the spin-triplet superconductor but it is finite only when triplet superconductor has Lz=Sz=±1L_z=-S_z=\pm 1, where LzL_z and SzS_z are the perpendicular components of orbital angular momentum and spin angular momentum of the triplet Cooper pairs, respectively. The recently observed temperature and orientational dependence of the critical current through a Josephson junction between UPt3_3 and Nb is investigated by considering a non-unitary triplet state.Comment: 4 pages, no figure

    Magnetic Field Effect on the Supercurrent of an SNS junction

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    In this paper we study the effect of a Zeeman field on the supercurrent of a mesoscopic SNS junction. It is shown that the supercurrent suppression is due to a redistribution of current-carrying states in energy space. A dramatic consequence is that (part of the) the suppressed supercurrent can be recovered with a suitable non-equilibrium distribution of quasiparticles.Comment: 4 figures in postscrip

    Center of mass and relative motion in time dependent density functional theory

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    It is shown that the exchange-correlation part of the action functional Axc[ρ(r,t)]A_{xc}[\rho (\vec r,t)] in time-dependent density functional theory , where ρ(r,t)\rho (\vec r,t) is the time-dependent density, is invariant under the transformation to an accelerated frame of reference ρ(r,t)ρ(r,t)=ρ(r+x(t),t)\rho (\vec r,t) \to \rho ' (\vec r,t) = \rho (\vec r + \vec x (t),t), where x(t)\vec x (t) is an arbitrary function of time. This invariance implies that the exchange-correlation potential in the Kohn-Sham equation transforms in the following manner: Vxc[ρ;r,t]=Vxc[ρ;r+x(t),t]V_{xc}[\rho '; \vec r, t] = V_{xc}[\rho; \vec r + \vec x (t),t]. Some of the approximate formulas that have been proposed for VxcV_{xc} satisfy this exact transformation property, others do not. Those which transform in the correct manner automatically satisfy the ``harmonic potential theorem", i.e. the separation of the center of mass motion for a system of interacting particles in the presence of a harmonic external potential. A general method to generate functionals which possess the correct symmetry is proposed

    Pinhole calculations of the Josephson effect in 3He-B

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    We study theoretically the dc Josephson effect between two volumes of superfluid 3He-B. We first discuss how the calculation of the current-phase relationships is divided into a mesoscopic and a macroscopic problem. We then analyze mass and spin currents and the symmetry of weak links. In quantitative calculations the weak link is assumed to be a pinhole, whose size is small in comparison to the coherence length. We derive a quasiclassical expression for the coupling energy of a pinhole, allowing also for scattering in the hole. Using a selfconsistent order parameter near a wall, we calculate the current-phase relationships in several cases. In the isotextural case, the current-phase relations are plotted assuming a constant spin-orbit texture. In the opposite anisotextural case the texture changes as a function of the phase difference. For that we have to consider the stiffness of the macroscopic texture, and we also calculate some surface interaction parameters. We analyze the experiments by Marchenkov et al. We find that the observed pi states and bistability hardly can be explained with the isotextural pinhole model, but a good quantitative agreement is achieved with the anisotextural model.Comment: 20 pages, 21 figures, revtex

    Basic fibroblast growth factor modulates cell cycle of human umbilical cord-derived mesenchymal stem cells.

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    Background: Mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) have great potential in regenerative medicine, immunotherapy and gene therapy due to their unique properties of self-renewal, high plasticity, immune modulation and ease for genetic modification. However, production of MSC at sufficient clinical scale remains an issue as in vitro generation of MSC inadequately fulfils the demand with respect to patients. Objectives: This study has aimed to establish optimum conditions to generate and characterize MSC from human umbilical cord (UC-MSC). Materials and methods: To optimize MSC population growth, basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) was utilized in culture media. Effects of bFGF on expansion kinetics, cell cycle, survival of UC-MSC, cytokine secretion, expression of early stem-cell markers and immunomodulation were investigated. Results: bFGF supplementation profoundly enhanced UC-MSC proliferation by reducing population doubling time without altering immunophenotype and immunomodulatory function of UC-MSC. However, cell cycle studies revealed that bFGF drove the cells into the cell cycle, as a higher proportion of cells resided in S phase and progressed into M phase. Consistent with this, bFGF was shown to promote expression of cyclin D proteins and their relevant kinases to drive UC-MSC to transverse cell cycle check points, thus, committing the cells to DNA synthesis. Furthermore, supplementation with bFGF changed the cytokine profiles of the cells and reduced their apoptotic level. Conclusion: Our study showed that bFGF supplementation of UC-MSC culture enhanced the cells' growth kinetics without compromising their nature

    Deformation of Quantum Dots in the Coulomb Blockade Regime

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    We extend the theory of Coulomb blockade oscillations to quantum dots which are deformed by the confining potential. We show that shape deformations can generate sequences of conductance resonances which carry the same internal wavefunction. This fact may cause strong correlations of neighboring conductance peaks. We demonstrate the relevance of our results for the interpretation of recent experiments on semiconductor quantum dots.Comment: 4 pages, Revtex, 4 postscript figure

    Kinetically driven glassy transition in an exactly solvable toy model with reversible mode coupling mechanism and trivial statics

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    We propose a toy model with reversible mode coupling mechanism and with trivial Hamiltonian (and hence trivial statics). The model can be analyzed exactly without relying upon uncontrolled approximation such as the factorization approximation employed in the current MCT. We show that the model exhibits a kinetically driven transition from an ergodic phase to nonergodic phase. The nonergodic state is the nonequilibrium stationary solution of the Fokker-Planck equation for the distribution function of the modelComment: 10 pages, 1 figure, contribution to the Proceedings of the Barcelona Workshop 'Glassy Behavior of Kinetically Constrained Models'. To appear in J. Phys. Condens. Matte
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