Pseudo diamagnetism of four component exciton condensates

We analyze the spin structure of the ground state of four-component exciton condensates in coupled quantum wells as a function of spin-dependent interactions and applied magnetic field. The four components correspond to the degenerate exciton states characterized by $\pm2$ and $\pm1$ spin projections to the axis of the structure. We show that in a wide range of parameters, the chemical potential of the system increases as a function of magnetic field, which manifests a pseudo-diamagnetism of the system. The transitions to polarized two- and one-component condensates can be of the first-order in this case. The predicted effects are caused by energy conserving mixing of $\pm2$ and $\pm1$ excitons.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Impurity Scattering in Luttinger Liquid with Electron-Phonon Coupling

We study the influence of electron-phonon coupling on electron transport through a Luttinger liquid with an embedded weak scatterer or weak link. We derive the renormalization group (RG) equations which indicate that the directions of RG flows can change upon varying either the relative strength of the electron-electron and electron-phonon coupling or the ratio of Fermi to sound velocities. This results in the rich phase diagram with up to three fixed points: an unstable one with a finite value of conductance and two stable ones, corresponding to an ideal metal or insulator.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Dimensional Crossover of the Dephasing Time in Disordered Mesoscopic Rings: From Diffusive through Ergodic to 0D Behavior

We analyze dephasing by electron interactions in a small disordered quasi-one dimensional (1D) ring weakly coupled to leads, where we recently predicted a crossover for the dephasing time \tPh(T) from diffusive or ergodic 1D (\tPh^{-1} \propto T^{2/3}, T^{1}) to $0D$ behavior (\tPh^{-1} \propto T^{2}) as $T$ drops below the Thouless energy \ETh. We provide a detailed derivation of our results, based on an influence functional for quantum Nyquist noise, and calculate all leading and subleading terms of the dephasing time in the three regimes. Explicitly taking into account the Pauli blocking of the Fermi sea in the metal allows us to describe the $0D$ regime on equal footing as the others. The crossover to $0D$, predicted by Sivan, Imry and Aronov for 3D systems, has so far eluded experimental observation. We will show that for T \ll \ETh, $0D$ dephasing governs not only the $T$-dependence for the smooth part of the magnetoconductivity but also for the amplitude of the Altshuler-Aronov-Spivak oscillations, which result only from electron paths winding around the ring. This observation can be exploited to filter out and eliminate contributions to dephasing from trajectories which do not wind around the ring, which may tend to mask the $T^{2}$ behavior. Thus, the ring geometry holds promise of finally observing the crossover to $0D$ experimentally.Comment: in "Perspectives of Mesoscopic Physics - Dedicated to Yoseph Imry's 70th Birthday", edited by Amnon Aharony and Ora Entin-Wohlman (World Scientific, 2010), chap. 20, p. 371-396, ISBN-13 978-981-4299-43-

Thermal noise and dephasing due to electron interactions in non-trivial geometries

We study Johnson-Nyquist noise in macroscopically inhomogeneous disordered metals and give a microscopic derivation of the correlation function of the scalar electric potentials in real space. Starting from the interacting Hamiltonian for electrons in a metal and the random phase approximation, we find a relation between the correlation function of the electric potentials and the density fluctuations which is valid for arbitrary geometry and dimensionality. We show that the potential fluctuations are proportional to the solution of the diffusion equation, taken at zero frequency. As an example, we consider networks of quasi-1D disordered wires and give an explicit expression for the correlation function in a ring attached via arms to absorbing leads. We use this result in order to develop a theory of dephasing by electronic noise in multiply-connected systems.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures (version submitted to PRB

Fluctuation spectroscopy of granularity in superconducting structures

We suggest to use `fluctuation spectroscopy' as a method to detect granularity in a disordered metal close to a superconducting transition. We show that with lowering temperature $T$ the resistance $R(T)$ of a system of relatively large grains initially grows due to the fluctuation suppression of the one-electron tunneling but decreases with further lowering $T$ due to the coherent charge transfer of the fluctuation Cooper pairs. Under certain conditions, such a maximum in $R(T)$ turns out to be sensitive to weak magnetic fields due to a novel Maki -- Thompson type mechanism.Comment: A final version, as published; the introduction and summary are considerably revise

Crossover from diffusive to strongly localized regime in two-dimensional systems

We have studied the conductance distribution function of two-dimensional disordered noninteracting systems in the crossover regime between the diffusive and the localized phases. The distribution is entirely determined by the mean conductance, g, in agreement with the strong version of the single-parameter scaling hypothesis. The distribution seems to change drastically at a critical value very close to one. For conductances larger than this critical value, the distribution is roughly Gaussian while for smaller values it resembles a log-normal distribution. The two distributions match at the critical point with an often appreciable change in behavior. This matching implies a jump in the first derivative of the distribution which does not seem to disappear as system size increases. We have also studied 1/g corrections to the skewness to quantify the deviation of the distribution from a Gaussian function in the diffusive regime.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Ship-based nitric acid measurements in the Gulf of Maine during New England Air Quality Study 2002

Gas phase nitric acid (HNO3) was measured at 5-min resolution on board the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) research vessel Ronald H. Brown during the second leg (29 July to 10 August) of the New England Air Quality Study (NEAQS) 2002 cruise. A primary objective of the cruise was to improve understanding of the oxidation of NOx in, and removal of the oxidation products from, the polluted marine boundary layer east of northeastern North America. For the first 9 days of this leg the ship remained north of Cape Cod, and the cruise track did not extend much farther north than the New Hampshire-Maine border. During this period, HNO3 averaged 1.1 ppb and accounted for 19% of total reactive nitrogen oxides (measured NOy). On all days, peak HNO3 mixing ratios were observed in the early afternoon (average 2.3 ppb), at levels twofold to fourfold higher than the minima around sunrise and sunset. In these daytime peaks, HNO3/NOy averaged 28%. There were secondary nighttime peaks of HNO3 (0.9 ppb average), when HNO3 accounted for 16% of total reactive nitrogen oxides. This pronounced diurnal pattern confirms that production, and subsequent deposition, of HNO3 in the polluted marine boundary layer downwind of New England removes a significant fraction of the NOx exported to the atmosphere over the Gulf of Maine. Nitric acid was correlated with O3, particularly during the early afternoon interval when both molecules reached maximum mixing ratios (R2 = 0.66). The ozone production efficiency (OPE) inferred from the slope (10 ppb O3/ppb HNO3) was similar to the OPE of 9 estimated at the Atmospheric Investigation, Regional Modeling, Analysis and Prediction (AIRMAP) Thompson Farm station in coastal New Hampshire during the study period

MoodBar: Increasing new user retention in Wikipedia through lightweight socialization

Socialization in online communities allows existing members to welcome and recruit newcomers, introduce them to community norms and practices, and sustain their early participation. However, socializing newcomers does not come for free: in large communities, socialization can result in a significant workload for mentors and is hard to scale. In this study we present results from an experiment that measured the effect of a lightweight socialization tool on the activity and retention of newly registered users attempting to edit for the first time Wikipedia. Wikipedia is struggling with the retention of newcomers and our results indicate that a mechanism to elicit lightweight feedback and to provide early mentoring to newcomers improves their chances of becoming long-term contributors.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, accepted for presentation at CSCW'1

Spin Relaxation in a Quantized Hall Regime in Presence of a Disorder

We study the spin relaxation (SR) of a two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) in the quantized Hall regime and discuss the role of spatial inhomogeneity effects on the relaxation. The results are obtained for small filling factors ($\nu\ll 1$) or when the filling factor is close to an integer. In either case SR times are essentially determined by a smooth random potential. For small $\nu$ we predict a "magneto-confinement" resonance manifested in the enhancement of the SR rate when the Zeeman energy is close to the spacing of confinement sublevels in the low-energy wing of the disorder-broadened Landau level. In the resonant region the $B$-dependence of the SR time has a peculiar non-monotonic shape. If $\nu\simeq 2n+1$, the SR is going non-exponentially. Under typical conditions the calculated SR times range from $10^{-8}$ to $10^{-6}$s.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figure. To appear in JETP Letter