The extended Hubbard model applied to phase diagram and the pressure effects in \Bi superconductors

We use the two dimensional extended Hubbard Hamiltonian with the position of the attractive potential as a variable parameter with a BCS type approach to study the interplay between the superconductor transition temperature $T_c$ and hole content for high temperature superconductors. This novel method gives some insight on the range and intensity of the Cooper pair interaction and why different compounds have different values for their measured coherence lengths and it describes well the experimental results of the superconducting phase diagram $T_c \times n$. The calculations may also be used to study the effect of the applied pressure with the assumption that it increases the attractive potential which is accompanied by an increase in the superconductor gap. In this way we obtain a microscopic interpretation for the intrinsic term and a general expansion for $T_c$ in terms of the pressure which reproduces well the experimental measurements on the \Bi superconductors.Comment: 11 pags in RevTex, 5 fi2s. in eps, accepted in Braz. J. of Physic

Theory of the Fermi Arcs, the Pseudogap, TcT_c and the Anisotropy in k-space of Cuprate Superconductors

The appearance of the Fermi arcs or gapless regions at the nodes of the Fermi surface just above the critical temperature is described through self-consistent calculations in an electronic disordered medium. We develop a model for cuprate superconductors based on an array of Josephson junctions formed by grains of inhomogeneous electronic density derived from a phase separation transition. This approach provides physical insights to the most important properties of these materials like the pseudogap phase as forming by the onset of local (intragrain) superconducting amplitudes and the zero resistivity critical temperature $T_c$ due to phase coherence activated by Josephson coupling. The formation of the Fermi arcs and the dichotomy in k-space follows from the direction dependence of the junctions tunneling current on the d-wave symmetry on the $CuO_2$ planes. We show that this semi-phenomenological approach reproduces also the main future of the cuprates phase diagram.Comment: 5 pages 7 fig

Effective three-band structure in Fe-based superconductors

We present self-consistent calculations of the multi-gap structure measured in some Fe-based superconductors. These materials are known to have structural disorder in real space and a multi-gap structure due to the $3d$ Fe-orbitals contributing to a complex Fermi surface topology with hole and electron pockets. Different experiments identify three s-wave like superconducting gaps with a single critical temperature ($T_c$). We investigate the temperature dependence of these gaps by a multi-band Bogoliubov-deGennes theory at different pockets in the presence of effective hybridizations between some bands and an attractive temperature dependent intra-band interaction. We show that this approach reproduces the three observed gaps and single $T_c$ in different compounds of Ba$_{1-x}$K$_{x}$Fe$_2$As$_2$, providing some insights on the inter-band interactions

Electronic Phase Separation Transition as the Origin of the Superconductivity and the Pseudogap Phase of Cuprates

We propose a new phase of matter, an electronic phase separation transition that starts near the upper pseudogap and segregates the holes into high and low density domains. The Cahn-Hilliard approach is used to follow quantitatively this second order transition. The resulting grain boundary potential confines the charge in domains and favors the development of intragrain superconducting amplitudes. The zero resistivity transition arises only when the intergrain Josephson coupling $E_J$ is of the order of the thermal energy and phase locking among the superconducting grains takes place. We show that this approach explains the pseudogap and superconducting phases in a natural way and reproduces some recent scanning tunneling microscopy dataComment: 4 pages and 5 eps fig

Ongoing Mass Transfer in the Interacting Galaxy Pair NGC 1409/10

I present two-band HST STIS imaging, and WIYN spectral mapping, of ongoing mass transfer in the interacting galaxy pair NGC 1409/10 (where NGC 1410 is the Seyfert galaxy also catalogued as III Zw 55). Archival snapshot WFPC2 imaging from the survey by Malkan et al. showed a dust feature stretching between the galaxies, apparently being captured by NGC 1409. The new images allow estimates of the mass being transferred and rate of transfer. An absorption lane typically 0.25" (100 pc) wide with a representative optical depth tau_B = 0.2 cuts across the spiral structure of NGC 1410, crosses the 7-kpc projected space between the nuclei, wraps in front of and, at the limits of detection, behind NGC 1409, and becomes a denser (tau_B = 0.4) polar feature around the core of NGC 1409. Combination of extinction data in two passbands allows a crude three-dimensional recovery of the dust structure, supporting the front/back geometry derived from colors and extinction estimates. The whole feature contains of order $10^6$ solar masses in dust, implying about 2x10^7 solar masses of gas, requiring a mass transfer rate averaging ~1 solar mass per year unless we are particularly unlucky in viewing angle. Curiously, this demonstrable case of mass transfer seems to be independent of the occurrence of a Seyfert nucleus, since the Seyfert galaxy in this pair is the donor of the material. Likewise, the recipient shows no signs of recent star formation from incoming gas, although NGC 1410 has numerous luminous young star clusters and widespread H-alpha emission.Comment: 27 pages, 9 figures. Accepted for the Astronomical Journal, March 200

Casimir Densities for a Massive Fermionic Quantum Field in a Global Monopole Background with Spherical Boundary

We investigate the vacuum expectation value of the energy-momentum tensor associated with a massive fermionic field obeying the MIT bag boundary condition on a spherical shell in the global monopole spacetime. The asymptotic behavior of the vacuum densities is investigated near the sphere center and surface, and at large distances from the sphere. In the limit of strong gravitational field corresponding to small values of the parameter describing the solid angle deficit in global monopole geometry, the sphere-induced expectation values are exponentially suppressed.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, 6th Alexander Friedmann International Seminar on Gravitation and Cosmolog