Non-equilibrium and non-linear stationary state in thermoelectric materials

Efficiency of thermoelectric materials is characterized by the figure of merit Z. Z has been believed to be a peculiar material constant. However, the accurate measurements in the present work reveal that Z has large size dependence and a non-linear temperature distribution appears as stationary state in the thermoelectric material. The observation of these phenomena is achieved by the Harman method. This method is the most appropriate way to investigate the thermoelectric properties because the dc and ac resistances are measured by the same electrode configuration. We describe the anomalous thermoelectric properties observed in mainly (Bi,Sb)2Te3 by the Harman method and then insist that Z is not the peculiar material constant but must be defined as the physical quantity dependent of the size and the position in the material.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures. submitted to Applied Physics Lette

Chiral Phase Transition in Lattice QCD with Wilson Quarks

The nature of the chiral phase transition in lattice QCD is studied for the cases of 2, 3 and 6 flavors with degenerate Wilson quarks, mainly on a lattice with the temporal direction extension $N_t=4$. We find that the chiral phase transition is continuous for the case of 2 flavors, while it is of first order for 3 and 6 flavors.Comment: uuencoded compressed tar file, LaTeX, 14 pages, 7 figure

Phase transition of color-superconductivity and cooling behavior of quark stars

We discuss the color-superconductivity and its effect on the cooling behavior of strange quark stars. The neutrino emissivity and specific heat of quark matter are calculated within the BCS theory. In the superconducting phase, the emissivity decreases and causes suppression of the cooling rate. It is shown that the phase transition leads to a sudden discontinuous suppression of the cooling rate in cooperation with the specific heat.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure

QCD Phase Transition with Strange Quark in Wilson Formalism for Fermions

The nature of QCD phase transition is studied with massless up and down quarks and a light strange quark, using the Wilson formalism for quarks on a lattice with the temporal direction extension $N_t=4$. We find that the phase transition is first order in the cases of both about 150 MeV and 400 MeV for the strange quark mass. These results together with those for three degenerate quarks suggest that QCD phase transition in nature is first order.Comment: uuencoded compressed tar file, LaTeX, 13 pages, 9 figures, Minor errors for quoting references are corrected and a reference is adde

Hadron spectroscopy and static quark potential in full QCD: A comparison of improved actions on the CP-PACS

We present first results from a full QCD calculation on the CP-PACS, comparing various actions at $a^{-1} \sim 1 GeV$ and $m_\pi/m_\rho \approx 0.7$--0.9. We use the plaquette and a renormalization group improved action for the gluons, and the Wilson and the SW-Clover action for quarks. We find that significant improvements in the hadron spectrum results from improving the quarks, while the gluon improvement is required for a rotationally invariant static potential. An ongoing effort towards exploring the chiral limit in full QCD is described.Comment: 6 pages, based on talks presented by R. Burkhalter and T. Kaneko at Lattice97, Edinburg

RAD6-RAD18-RAD5-pathway-dependent tolerance to chronic low-dose ultraviolet light

In nature, organisms are exposed to chronic low- dose ultraviolet light ( CLUV) as opposed to the acute high doses common to laboratory experiments. Analysis of the cellular response to acute high-dose exposure has delineated the importance of direct DNA repair by the nucleotide excision repair pathway(1) and for checkpoint-induced cell cycle arrest in promoting cell survival(2). Here we examine the response of yeast cells to CLUV and identify a key role for the RAD6-RAD18-RAD5 error- free postreplication repair (RAD6 error-free PRR) pathway(3,4) in promoting cell growth and survival. We show that loss of the RAD6 error- free PRR pathway results in DNA-damage-checkpoint- induced G2 arrest in CLUV-exposed cells, whereas wild-type and nucleotide-excision-repair-deficient cells are largely unaffected. Cell cycle arrest in the absence of the RAD6 error- free PRR pathway was not caused by a repair defect or by the accumulation of ultraviolet-induced photoproducts. Notably, we observed increased replication protein A (RPA) and Rad52 - yellow fluorescent protein foci(5) in the CLUV- exposed rad18 Delta cells and demonstrated that Rad52- mediated homologous recombination is required for the viability of the rad18 Delta cells after release from CLUV- induced G2 arrest. These and other data presented suggest that, in response to environmental levels of ultraviolet exposure, the RAD6 error- free PRR pathway promotes replication of damaged templates without the generation of extensive single- stranded DNA regions. Thus, the error- free PRR pathway is specifically important during chronic low- dose ultraviolet exposure to prevent counter- productive DNA checkpoint activation and allow cells to proliferate normally

Equation of state in finite-temperature QCD with improved Wilson quarks

We study finite-temperature phase transition and equation of state for two-flavor QCD at $N_t=4$ using an RG-improved gauge action and a meanfield-improved clover quark action. The pressure is computed using the integral method. The O(4) scaling of chiral order parameter is also examined.Comment: LATTICE99(finite temperature), 3 page

Phase structure of lattice QCD for general number of flavors

We investigate the phase structure of lattice QCD for the general number of flavors in the parameter space of gauge coupling constant and quark mass, employing the one-plaquette gauge action and the standard Wilson quark action. Performing a series of simulations for the number of flavors $N_F=6$--360 with degenerate-mass quarks, we find that when $N_F \ge 7$ there is a line of a bulk first order phase transition between the confined phase and a deconfined phase at a finite current quark mass in the strong coupling region and the intermediate coupling region. The massless quark line exists only in the deconfined phase. Based on these numerical results in the strong coupling limit and in the intermediate coupling region, we propose the following phase structure, depending on the number of flavors whose masses are less than $\Lambda_d$ which is the physical scale characterizing the phase transition in the weak coupling region: When $N_F \ge 17$, there is only a trivial IR fixed point and therefore the theory in the continuum limit is free. On the other hand, when $16 \ge N_F \ge 7$, there is a non-trivial IR fixed point and therefore the theory is non-trivial with anomalous dimensions, however, without quark confinement. Theories which satisfy both quark confinement and spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking in the continuum limit exist only for $N_F \le 6$.Comment: RevTeX, 20 pages, 43 PS figure