Melting and structure of the vortex solid in strongly anisotropic layered superconductors with random columnar pins

We study the melting transition of the low-temperature vortex solid in strongly anisotropic layered superconductors with a concentration of random columnar pinning centers small enough so that the areal density of the pins is much less than that of the vortex lines. Both the external magnetic field and the columnar pins are assumed to be oriented perpendicular to the layers Our method, involving numerical minimization of a model free energy functional, yields not only the free energy values at the local minima of the functional but also the detailed density distribution of the system at each minimum: this allows us to study in detail the structure of the different phases. We find that at these pin concentrations and low temperatures, the thermodynamically stable state is a topologically ordered Bragg glass. This nearly crystalline state melts into an interstitial liquid (a liquid in which a small fraction of vortex lines remain localized at the pinning centers) in two steps, so that the Bragg glass and the liquid are separated by a narrow phase that we identify from analysis of its density structure as a polycrystalline Bose glass. Both the Bragg glass to Bose glass and the Bose glass to interstitial liquid transitions are first-order. We also find that a local melting temperature defined using a criterion based on the degree of localization of the vortex lines exhibits spatial variations similar to those observed in recent experiments.Comment: 17 page

Phase effects in neutrino conversions during a supernova shock wave

Neutrinos escaping from a core collapse supernova a few seconds after bounce pass through the shock wave, where they may encounter one or more resonances corresponding to $\Delta m^2_{\rm atm}$. The neutrino mass eigenstates in matter may stay coherent between these multiple resonances, giving rise to oscillations in the survival probabilities of neutrino species. We provide an analytical approximation to these inevitable phase effects, that relates the density profile of the shock wave to the oscillation pattern. The phase effects are present only if the multiple resonances encountered by neutrinos are semi-adiabatic, which typically happens for 10^{-5} \lsim \sin^2 \theta_{13} \lsim 10^{-3}. The observability of these oscillations is severely limited by the inability of the detectors to reconstruct the neutrino energy faithfully. For typical shock wave profiles, the detection of these phase effects seems rather unlikely. However, if the effects are indeed identified in the \nuebar spectra, they would establish inverted hierarchy and a nonzero value of $\theta_{13}$.Comment: 10 pages, 9 eps figures. Major changes made. Final version to be published in PR

Warped brane-world compactification with Gauss-Bonnet term

In the Randall-Sundrum (RS) brane-world model a singular delta-function source is matched by the second derivative of the warp factor. So one should take possible curvature corrections in the effective action of the RS models in a Gauss-Bonnet (GB) form. We present a linearized treatment of gravity in the RS brane-world with the Gauss-Bonnet modification to Einstein gravity. We give explicit expressions for the Neumann propagator in arbitrary D dimensions and show that a bulk GB term gives, along with a tower of Kaluza-Klein modes in the bulk, a massless graviton on the brane, as in the standard RS model. Moreover, a non-trivial GB coupling can allow a new branch of solutions with finite Planck scale and no naked bulk singularity, which might be useful to avoid some of the previously known ``no--go theorems'' for RS brane-world compactifications.Comment: 23 pages, typos in Secs. 5 & 6 corrected, expanded/published version (IJMPA

Narrow Identities

A person's social identity has many facets, involving language, personal interests, customs, religion, and ethnicity, among other attributes. Yet, all over the world many people seek to define themselves in exclusive terms. This paper develops a simple model of personal incentives and group interests to offer one possible explanation for the puzzle

Phase diagram of vortex matter in layered superconductors with random point pinning

We study the phase diagram of the superconducting vortex system in layered high-temperature superconductors in the presence of a magnetic field perpendicular to the layers and of random atomic scale point pinning centers. We consider the highly anisotropic limit where the pancake vortices on different layer are coupled only by their electromagnetic interaction. The free energy of the vortex system is then represented as a Ramakrishnan-Yussouff free energy functional of the time averaged vortex density. We numerically minimize this functional and examine the properties of the resulting phases. We find that, in the temperature ($T$) -- pinning strength ($s$) plane at constant magnetic induction, the equilibrium phase at low $T$ and $s$ is a Bragg glass. As one increases $s$ or $T$ a first order phase transition occurs to another phase that we characterize as a pinned vortex liquid. The weakly pinned vortex liquid obtained for high $T$ and small $s$ smoothly crosses over to the strongly pinned vortex liquid as $T$ is decreased or $s$ increased -- we do not find evidence for the existence, in thermodynamic equilibrium, of a distinct vortex glass phase in the range of pinning parameters considered here. %cdr We present results for the density correlation functions, the density and defect distributions, and the local field distribution accessible via $\mu$SR experiments. These results are compared with those of existing theoretical, numerical and experimental studies.Comment: 15 pages, including figures. Higher resolution files for Figs 3a and 11 available from author

Adiabatic Faraday effect in a two-level Hamiltonian formalism

The helicity of a photon traversing a magnetized plasma can flip when the B-field along the trajectory slowly reverses. Broderick and Blandford have recently shown that this intriguing effect can profoundly change the usual Faraday effect for radio waves. We study this phenomenon in a formalism analogous to neutrino flavor oscillations: the evolution is governed by a Schroedinger equation for a two-level system consisting of the two photon helicities. Our treatment allows for a transparent physical understanding of this system and its dynamics. In particular, it allows us to investigate the nature of transitions at intermediate adiabaticities.Comment: 8 pages, 2 eps figures, and a note added. Title changed. Matches published versio

Comparative study of FeCr2S4 and FeSc2S4: Spinels with orbitally active A site

Using first-principles density functional calculations, we perform a comparative study of two Fe based spinel compounds, FeCr2S4 and FeSc2S4. Though both systems contain an orbitally active A site with an Fe2+ ion, their properties are rather dissimilar. Our study unravels the microscopic origin of their behavior driven by the differences in hybridization of Fe d states with Cr/Sc d states and S p states in the two cases. This leads to important differences in the nature of the magnetic exchanges as well as the nearest versus next nearest neighbor exchange parameter ratios, resulting into significant frustration effects in FeSc2S4 which are absent in FeCr2S4.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures Phys Rev B (rapid commun) to appear (2010

Stability analysis of collective neutrino oscillations in the supernova accretion phase with realistic energy and angle distributions

We revisit our previous results on the matter suppression of self-induced neutrino flavor conversions during a supernova (SN) accretion phase, performing a linearized stability analysis of the neutrino equations of motion, in the presence of realistic SN density profiles. In our previous numerical study, we used a simplified model based on an isotropic neutrino emission with a single typical energy. Here, we take into account realistic neutrino energy and angle distributions. We find that multi-energy effects have a sub-leading impact in the flavor stability of the SN neutrino fluxes with respect to our previous single-energy results. Conversely, realistic forward-peaked neutrino angular distributions would enhance the matter suppression of the self-induced oscillations with respect to an isotropic neutrino emission. As a result, in our models for iron-core SNe, collective flavor conversions have a negligible impact on the characterization of the observable neutrino signal during the accretion phase. Instead, for a low-mass O-Ne-Mg core SN model, with lower matter density profile and less forward-peaked angular distributions, collective conversions are possible also at early times.Comment: v2: 8 pages, 3 eps figures. Revised version. Minor changes. References updated. Matches the version published on PR