18,019 research outputs found
Comment on "High Field Studies of Superconducting Fluctuations in High-Tc Cuprates. Evidence for a Small Gap distinct from the Large Pseudogap"
By using high magnetic field data to estimate the background conductivity,
Rullier-Albenque and coworkers have recently published [Phys.Rev.B 84, 014522
(2011)] experimental evidence that the in-plane paraconductivity in cuprates is
almost independent of doping. In this Comment we also show that, in contrast
with their claims, these useful data may be explained at a quantitative level
in terms of the Gaussian-Ginzburg-Landau approach for layered superconductors,
extended by Carballeira and coworkers to high reduced-temperatures by
introducing a total-energy cutoff [Phys.Rev.B 63, 144515 (2001)]. When
combined, these two conclusions further suggest that the paraconductivity in
cuprates is conventional, i.e., associated with fluctuating superconducting
pairs above the mean-field critical temperature.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figur
On the energy saved by interlayer interactions in the superconducting state of cuprates
A Ginzburg-Landau-like functional is proposed reproducing the main low-energy
features of various possible high-Tc superconducting mechanisms involving
energy savings due to interlayer interactions. The functional may be used to
relate these savings to experimental quantities. Two examples are given,
involving the mean-field specific heat jump at Tc and the superconducting
fluctuations above Tc. Comparison with existing data suggests, e.g., that the
increase of Tc due to the so-called interlayer tunneling (ILT) mechanism of
interlayer kinetic-energy savings is negligible in optimally-doped Bi-2212.Comment: 12 pages, no figures. Version history: 21-aug-2003, first version
(available on http://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0308423v1); 15-jan-2004, update
to match Europhys. Lett. publication (minor grammar changes, updates in
bibliography - e.g., refs. 5 and 26
Pairing of Cooper Pairs in a Fully Frustrated Josephson Junction Chain
We study a one-dimensional Josephson junction chain embedded in a magnetic
field. We show that when the magnetic flux per elementary loop equals half the
superconducting flux quantum , a local \nbZ_2 symmetry arises.
This symmetry is responsible for a nematic Luttinger liquid state associated to
bound states of Cooper pairs. We analyze the phase diagram and we discuss some
experimental possibilities to observe this exotic phase.Comment: 4 pages, 4 EPS figure
Entanglement entropy in collective models
We discuss the behavior of the entanglement entropy of the ground state in
various collective systems. Results for general quadratic two-mode boson models
are given, yielding the relation between quantum phase transitions of the
system (signaled by a divergence of the entanglement entropy) and the
excitation energies. Such systems naturally arise when expanding collective
spin Hamiltonians at leading order via the Holstein-Primakoff mapping. In a
second step, we analyze several such models (the Dicke model, the two-level BCS
model, the Lieb-Mattis model and the Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick model) and
investigate the properties of the entanglement entropy in the whole parameter
range. We show that when the system contains gapless excitations the
entanglement entropy of the ground state diverges with increasing system size.
We derive and classify the scaling behaviors that can be met.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figure
VLBI observations of SN2011dh: imaging of the youngest radio supernova
We report on the VLBI detection of supernova SN2011dh at 22GHz using a subset
of the EVN array. The observations took place 14 days after the discovery of
the supernova, thus resulting in a VLBI image of the youngest radio-loud
supernova ever. We provide revised coordinates for the supernova with
milli-arcsecond precision, linked to the ICRF. The recovered flux density is a
factor 2 below the EVLA flux density reported by other authors at the same
frequency and epoch of our observations. This discrepancy could be due to
extended emission detected with the EVLA or to calibration problems in the VLBI
and/or EVLA observations.Comment: Letter. Accepted in A&
Variational quantum Monte Carlo simulations with tensor-network states
We show that the formalism of tensor-network states, such as the matrix
product states (MPS), can be used as a basis for variational quantum Monte
Carlo simulations. Using a stochastic optimization method, we demonstrate the
potential of this approach by explicit MPS calculations for the transverse
Ising chain with up to N=256 spins at criticality, using periodic boundary
conditions and D*D matrices with D up to 48. The computational cost of our
scheme formally scales as ND^3, whereas standard MPS approaches and the related
density matrix renromalization group method scale as ND^5 and ND^6,
respectively, for periodic systems.Comment: 4+ pages, 2 figures. v2: improved data, comparisons with exact
results, to appear in Phys Rev Let
Three qubits can be entangled in two inequivalent ways
Invertible local transformations of a multipartite system are used to define
equivalence classes in the set of entangled states. This classification
concerns the entanglement properties of a single copy of the state.
Accordingly, we say that two states have the same kind of entanglement if both
of them can be obtained from the other by means of local operations and
classical communcication (LOCC) with nonzero probability. When applied to pure
states of a three-qubit system, this approach reveals the existence of two
inequivalent kinds of genuine tripartite entanglement, for which the GHZ state
and a W state appear as remarkable representatives. In particular, we show that
the W state retains maximally bipartite entanglement when any one of the three
qubits is traced out. We generalize our results both to the case of higher
dimensional subsystems and also to more than three subsystems, for all of which
we show that, typically, two randomly chosen pure states cannot be converted
into each other by means of LOCC, not even with a small probability of success.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figure; replaced with revised version; terminology
adapted to earlier work; reference added; results unchange
Effects of critical temperature inhomogeneities on the voltage-current characteristics of a planar superconductor near the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition
We analyze numerically how the voltage-current (V-I) characteristics near the
so-called Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) transition of 2D
superconductors are affected by a random spatial Gaussian distribution of
critical temperature inhomogeneities with long characteristic lengths (much
larger than the in-plane superconducting coherence length amplitude). Our
simulations allow to quantify the broadening around the average BKT transition
temperature of both the exponent alpha in V I^alpha and of the resistance V/I.
These calculations reveal that strong spatial redistributions of the local
current will occur around the transition as either I or the temperature T are
varied. Our results also support that the condition alpha=3 provides a good
estimate for the location of the average BKT transition temperature, and that
extrapolating to alpha->1 the alpha(T) behaviour well below the transition
provides a good estimate for the average mean-field critical temperature.Comment: 18 pages; pdfLaTeX; 1 TeX file + 8 PDF files for figures
(figs.1,2,3a,3b,4,5a,5b,6
Scaling of the von Neumann entropy across a finite temperature phase transition
The spectrum of the reduced density matrix and the temperature dependence of
the von Neumann entropy (VNE) are analytically obtained for a system of hard
core bosons on a complete graph which exhibits a phase transition to a
Bose-Einstein condensate at . It is demonstrated that the VNE undergoes
a crossover from purely logarithmic at T=0 to purely linear in block size
behaviour for . For intermediate temperatures, VNE is a sum of two
contributions which are identified as the classical (Gibbs) and the quantum
(due to entanglement) parts of the von Neumann entropy.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
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