First-principles calculation of the piezoelectric tensor d of III-V nitrides

We report direct first-principles density-functional calculations of the piezoelectric tensor \tensor{d} relating polarization to applied stress for the binary compounds AlN, GaN, and InN. The values of \tensor{d} are rather sensitive to the choice of the exchange-correlation functional, and results are presented for both the local-density and gradient approximations. A comparison with experiment and with values predicted indirectly from the elastic and e-piezoconstant tensors is also presented.Comment: RevTeX 3 pages, no figure

Russo's formula for random interlacements

In this paper we obtain a couple of explicit expressions for the derivative of the probability of an increasing event in the random interlacements model. The event is supported in a finite subset of the lattice, and the derivative is with respect to the intensity parameter of the model.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures, added section, accepted for publication in the Journal of Statistical Physic

The phase diagrams of iron-based superconductors: theory and experiments

Phase diagrams play a primary role in the understanding of materials properties. For iron-based superconductors (Fe-SC), the correct definition of their phase diagrams is crucial because of the close interplay between their crystallo-chemical and magnetic properties, on one side, and the possible coexistence of magnetism and superconductivity, on the other. The two most difficult issues for understanding the Fe-SC phase diagrams are: 1) the origin of the structural transformation taking place during cooling and its relationship with magnetism; 2) the correct description of the region where a crossover between the magnetic and superconducting electronic ground states takes place. Hence a proper and accurate definition of the structural, magnetic and electronic phase boundaries provides an extremely powerful tool for material scientists. For this reason, an exact definition of the thermodynamic phase fields characterizing the different structural and physical properties involved is needed, although it is not easy to obtain in many cases. Moreover, physical properties can often be strongly dependent on the occurrence of micro-structural and other local-scale features (lattice micro-strain, chemical fluctuations, domain walls, grain boundaries, defects), which, as a rule, are not described in a structural phase diagram. In this review, we critically summarize the results for the most studied 11-, 122- and 1111-type compound systems, providing a correlation between experimental evidence and theory

Stability of Ge-related point defects and complexes in Ge-doped SiO_2

We analyze Ge-related defects in Ge-doped SiO_2 using first-principles density functional techniques. Ge is incorporated at the level of ~ 1 mol % and above. The growth conditions of Ge:SiO_2 naturally set up oxygen deficiency, with vacancy concentration increasing by a factor 10^5 over undoped SiO_2, and O vacancies binding strongly to Ge impurities. All the centers considered exhibit potentially EPR-active states, candidates for the identification of the Ge(n) centers. Substitutional Ge produces an apparent gap shrinking via its extrinsic levels.Comment: RevTeX 4 pages, 2 ps figure

Cν\nuB damping of primordial gravitational waves and the fine-tuning of the Cγ\gammaB temperature anisotropy

Damping of primordial gravitational waves due to the anisotropic stress contribution owing to the cosmological neutrino background (C$\nu$B) is investigated in the context of a radiation-to-matter dominated Universe. Besides its inherent effects on the gravitational wave propagation, the inclusion of the C$\nu$B anisotropic stress into the dynamical equations also affects the tensor mode contribution to the anisotropy of the cosmological microwave background (C$\gamma$B) temperature. Given that the fluctuations of the C$\nu$B temperature in the (ultra)relativistic regime are driven by a multipole expansion, the mutual effects on the gravitational waves and on the C$\gamma$B are obtained through a unified prescription for a radiation-to-matter dominated scenario. The results are confronted with some preliminary results for the radiation dominated scenario. Both scenarios are supported by a simplified analytical framework, in terms of a scale independent dynamical variable, $k \eta$, that relates cosmological scales, $k$, and the conformal time, $\eta$. The background relativistic (hot dark) matter essentially works as an effective dispersive medium for the gravitational waves such that the damping effect is intensified for the Universe evolving to the matter dominated era. Changes on the temperature variance owing to the inclusion of neutrino collision terms into the dynamical equations result into spectral features that ratify that the multipole expansion coefficients $C_{l}^{T}$'s die out for $l \sim 100$.Comment: 24 pages, 8 figure

On uniform closeness of local times of Markov chains and i.i.d. sequences

In this paper we consider the field of local times of a discrete-time Markov chain on a general state space, and obtain uniform (in time) upper bounds on the total variation distance between this field and the one of a sequence of $n$ i.i.d. random variables with law given by the invariant measure of that Markov chain. The proof of this result uses a refinement of the soft local time method of [11].Comment: 42 pages, 2 figures, coupling construction of Section 4 corrected, results unchange