Multivalued memory effects in electronic phase-change manganites controlled by Joule heating

Non-volatile multivalued memory effects caused by magnetic fields, currents, and voltage pulses are studied in Nd_{0.65}Ca_{0.35}MnO_3 and (Nd_{1-y}Sm_{y})_{0.5}Sr_{0.5}MnO_3 (y=0.75) single crystals in the hysteretic region between ferromagnetic metallic and charge-ordered insulating states. The current/voltage effects observed in this study are explained by the self-heating effect, which enable us to control the colossal electroresistance effects. This thermal-cycle induced switching between electronic solid and liquid states can be regarded as electronic version of atomic crystal/amorphous transitions in phase-change chalcogenides.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures. to appear in Phys. Rev.

Near-Infrared Spectroscopy of Very Low-Luminosity Young Stellar Objects in the Taurus Molecular Cloud

We have carried out near-infrared spectroscopic observations of 23 very low-luminosity young stellar object (YSO) candidates and 5 their companions in Heiles Cloud 2, one of the densest parts of the Taurus molecular cloud. Twelve objects were confirmed as YSOs by Br gamma feature. The effective temperatures of the YSOs and of the companions are estimated from the 2.26 micron feature, the 2.21 micron feature, and the H2O band strengths. Detailed comparisons of our photometric and spectroscopic observations with evolutionary tracks on the HR diagram suggest some objects to be very low-mass YSOs.Comment: 15 pages, 19 figures. PASJ accepte

Versatile helimagnetic phases under magnetic fields in cubic perovskite SrFeO3

A helical spin texture is of great current interest for a host of novel spin-dependent transport phenomena. We report a rich variety of nontrivial, helimagnetic phases in the simple cubic perovskite SrFeO3 under magnetic fields up to 42 T. Magnetic and resistivity measurements revealed that the proper-screw spin phase proposed for SrFeO3 can be subdivided into at least five kinds of ordered phases. Near the multicritical point, an unconventional anomalous Hall effect was found to show up and was interpreted as due to a possible long-period noncoplanar spin texture with scalar spin chirality.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, Physical Review B in pres

Low-dimensional chaos induced by frustration in a non-monotonic system

We report a novel mechanism for the occurrence of chaos at the macroscopic level induced by the frustration of interaction, namely frustration-induced chaos, in a non-monotonic sequential associative memory model. We succeed in deriving exact macroscopic dynamical equations from the microscopic dynamics in the case of the thermodynamic limit and prove that two order parameters dominate this large-degree-of-freedom system. Two-parameter bifurcation diagrams are obtained from the order-parameter equations. Then we analytically show that the chaos is low-dimensional at the macroscopic level when the system has some degree of frustration, but that the chaos definitely does not occur without the frustration.Comment: 2 figure

Multiferroic properties of an \aa kermanite Sr2_2CoSi2_2O7_7 single crystal in high magnetic fields

The magnetic and dielectric properties of \aa kermanite Sr$_2$CoSi$_2$O$_7$ single crystals in high magnetic fields were investigated. We have observed finite induced electric polarization along the c axis in high fields, wherein all Co spins were forcibly aligned to the magnetic field direction. Existence of the induced polarization in the spin-polarized state accompanied with the finite slope in the magnetization curve suggests the possible role of the orbital angular momenta in the excited states as its microscopic origin. The emergence of the field-induced polarization without particular magnetic order can be regarded as the magnetoelectric effects of the second order from the symmetry point of view. A low magnetic field-driven electric polarization flip induced by a rotating field, even at room temperature, has been successfully demonstrated.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure

Vortex-chain phases in layered superconductors

Layered superconductors in tilted magnetic field have a very rich spectrum of vortex lattice configurations. In the presence of in-plane magnetic field, a small c-axis field penetrates in the form of isolated vortex chains. The structure of a single chain is mainly determined by the ratio of the London [$\lambda$] and Josephson [$\lambda_{J}$] lengths, $\alpha= \lambda/\lambda_{J}$. At large $\alpha$ the chain is composed of tilted vortices [tilted chains] and at small $\alpha$ it consists of a crossing array of Josephson vortices and pancake stacks [crossing chains]. We studied the chain structures at intermediate $\alpha$'s and found two types of behavior. (I) In the range $0.4 < \alpha < 0.5$ a c-axis field first penetrates in the form of pancake-stack chains located on Josephson vortices. Due to attractive coupling between deformed stacks, their density jumps from zero to a finite value. With further increase of the c-axis field the chain structure smoothly evolves into modulated tilted vortices and then transforms via a second-order phase transition, into the tilted straight vortices. (II) In the range $0.5 < \alpha < 0.65$ a c-axis field first penetrates in the form of kinks creating kinked tilted vortices. With increasing the c-axis field this structure is replaced via a first-order phase transition by the strongly deformed crossing chain. This transition is accompanied by a large jump of pancake density. Further evolution of the chain structure is similar to the higher anisotropy scenario: it smoothly transforms back into the tilted straight vortices.Comment: Accepted to Phys. Rev. B, 20 pages 12 figures, animation of chain structure is available in http://mti.msd.anl.gov/movies/Chains/Nl8al06Im.gif (gif, 441 KB

Nodal degenerations of plane curves and Galois covers

Globally irreducible nodes (i.e. nodes whose branches belong to the same irreducible component) have mild effects on the most common topological invariants of an algebraic curve. In other words, adding a globally irreducible node (simple nodal degeneration) to a curve should not change them a lot. In this paper we study the effect of nodal degeneration of curves on fundamental groups and show examples where simple nodal degenerations produce non-isomorphic fundamental groups and this can be detected in an algebraic way by means of Galois coverings.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figure