Consequences of the peculiar intrinsic properties of MgB2 on its macroscopic current flow

The influence of two important features of magnesium diboride on the macroscopic transport properties of polycrystalline MgB2 is discussed in the framework of a percolation model. While two band superconductivity does not have significant consequences in the field and temperature range of possible power applications, the opposite is true for the anisotropy of the upper critical field. The field dependence of the critical current densities strongly increases and the macroscopic supercurrents disappear well below the apparent upper critical field. The common scaling laws for the field dependence of the volume pinning force are altered and Kramer's plot is no longer linear, although grain boundary pinning dominates in nearly all polycrystalline MgB2 conductors. In contrast to the conventional superconductors NbTi and Nb3Sn, a significant critical current anisotropy can be induced by the preparation technique of MgB2 tapes

Symmetry in the insulator - quantum Hall - insulator transitions observed in a Ge/SiGe quantum well

We examine the magnetic field driven insulator-quantum Hall-insulator transitions of the two dimensional hole gas in a Ge/SiGe quantum well. We observe direct transitions between low and high magnetic field insulators and the $\nu=1$ quantum Hall state. With increasing magnetic field, the transitions from insulating to quantum Hall and quantum Hall to insulating are very similar with respect to their transport properties. We address the temperature dependence around the transitions and show that the characteristic energy scale for the high field transition is larger.Comment: 4 page

Facilitating children's self-concept: A rationale and evaluative study

This study reports on the design and effectiveness of the Exploring Self-Concept program for primary school children using self-concept as the outcome measure. The program aims to provide a procedure that incorporates organisation, elaboration, thinking, and problem-solving strategies and links these to children's multidimensional self-concept. The results of this research support the notion that teachers and guidance counsellors need to establish a nonthreatening framework that allows them to discuss with children a range of relevant issues related to peer pressure, parent relations, self-image, body image, gender bias, media pressure, values and life goals, in a systematic, objective and cooperative manner. Within the paper, notions associated with self-concept maturation, 'crystallisation' of self-concept beliefs, cognitive differentiation and self-concept segmentation are reviewed

15N MAS NMR studies of Cph1 phytochrome:chromophore dynamics and intramolecular signal transduction

Solid state NMR/Biophysical Organic Chemistr

Quantifying the levitation picture of extended states in lattice models

The behavior of extended states is quantitatively analyzed for two dimensional lattice models. A levitation picture is established for both white-noise and correlated disorder potentials. In a continuum limit window of the lattice models we find simple quantitative expressions for the extended states levitation, suggesting an underlying universal behavior. On the other hand, these results point out that the Quantum Hall phase diagrams may be disorder dependent.Comment: 5 pages, submitted to PR

Levitation of quantum Hall critical states in a lattice model with spatially correlated disorder

The fate of the current carrying states of a quantum Hall system is considered in the situation when the disorder strength is increased and the transition from the quantum Hall liquid to the Hall insulator takes place. We investigate a two-dimensional lattice model with spatially correlated disorder potentials and calculate the density of states and the localization length either by using a recursive Green function method or by direct diagonalization in connection with the procedure of level statistics. From the knowledge of the energy and disorder dependence of the localization length and the density of states (DOS) of the corresponding Landau bands, the movement of the current carrying states in the disorder--energy and disorder--filling-factor plane can be traced by tuning the disorder strength. We show results for all sub-bands, particularly the traces of the Chern and anti-Chern states as well as the peak positions of the DOS. For small disorder strength $W$ we recover the well known weak levitation of the critical states, but we also reveal, for larger $W$, the strong levitation of these states across the Landau gaps without merging. We find the behavior to be similar for exponentially, Gaussian, and Lorentzian correlated disorder potentials. Our study resolves the discrepancies of previously published work in demonstrating the conflicting results to be only special cases of a general lattice model with spatially correlated disorder potentials. To test whether the mixing between consecutive Landau bands is the origin of the observed floating, we truncate the Hilbert space of our model Hamiltonian and calculate the behavior of the current carrying states under these restricted conditions.Comment: 10 pages, incl. 13 figures, accepted for publication in PR

Search for the lepton-family-number nonconserving decay \mu -> e + \gamma

The MEGA experiment, which searched for the muon- and electron-number violating decay \mu -> e + \gamma, is described. The spectrometer system, the calibrations, the data taking procedures, the data analysis, and the sensitivity of the experiment are discussed. The most stringent upper limit on the branching ratio of \mu -> e + \gamma) < 1.2 x 10^{-11} was obtained