Low temperature behavior of the heavy Fermion Ce3Co4Sn13

The compound Ce3Co4Sn13 is an extremely heavy cubic heavy fermion system with a low temperature electronic specific heat of order ~4 J/mol-K2. If the compound is nonmagnetic, it would be one of the heaviest nonmagnetic Ce-based heavy fermions reported to date and therefore would be expected to lie extremely close to a quantum critical point. However, a broad peak of unknown origin is observed at 0.8 K in the specific heat and magnetic susceptibility, suggesting the possibility of antiferromagnetic order. We present neutron diffraction data from polycrystalline samples which do not show any sign of magnetic scattering below 0.8 K. In addition, we present inelastic neutron scattering data from a single crystal sample which is consistent with the 1.2 K energy scale for Kondo spin fluctuations determined from specific heat measurements.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, submitted to J. Mag. Mag. Mater. for ICM 200

Response to Comment on "A commensal strain of Staphylococcus epidermidis protects against skin neoplasia" by Nakatsuji et al.

Kozmin et al. contend that observations previously reported regarding the antimicrobial and antitumor activities of 6-N-hydroxy aminopurine (6-HAP) were incorrect. Their conclusions rely on poorly characterized reagents and focus strictly on in vitro techniques without validation in relevant mammalian model systems. We are pleased to be able to illuminate the weaknesses in their technical comment. The totality of current results continues to support our original conclusion that a strain of the common human commensal skin bacterium, Staphylococcus epidermidis, produces 6-HAP that can inhibit tumor growth

Raman scattering studies of spin, charge, and lattice dynamics in Ca_{2-x}Sr_{x}RuO_{4} (0 =< x < 0.2)

We use Raman scattering to study spin, charge, and lattice dynamics in various phases of Ca_{2-x}Sr_{x}RuO_{4}. With increasing substitution of Ca by Sr in the range 0 =< x < 0.2, we observe (1) evidence for an increase of the electron-phonon interaction strength, (2) an increased temperature-dependence of the two-magnon energy and linewidth in the antiferromagnetic insulating phase, and (3) evidence for charge gap development, and hysteresis associated with the structural phase change, both of which are indicative of a first-order metal-insulator transition (T_{MI}) and a coexistence of metallic and insulating components for T < T_{MI}

Orbital-selective Mott transitions in two-band Hubbard models

The anisotropic two-orbital Hubbard model is investigated at low temperatures using high-precision quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) simulations within dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT). We demonstrate that two distinct orbital-selective Mott transitions (OSMTs) occur for a bandwidth ratio of 2 even without spin-flip contributions to the Hund exchange, and we quantify numerical errors in earlier QMC data which had obscured the second transition. The limit of small inter-orbital coupling is introduced via a new generalized Hamiltonian and studied using QMC and Potthoff's self-energy functional method, yielding insight into the nature of the OSMTs and the non-Fermi-liquid OSM phase and opening the possibility for a new quantum-critical point.Comment: 2 pages, 4 figures, presented at ICM2006 and accepted for JMM