Relativistic Coulomb scattering of spinless bosons

The relativistic scattering of spin-0 bosons by spherically symmetric Coulomb fields is analyzed in detail with an arbitrary mixing of vector and scalar couplings. It is shown that the partial wave series reduces the scattering amplitude to the closed Rutherford formula exactly when the vector and scalar potentials have the same magnitude, and as an approximation for weak fields. The behavior of the scattering amplitude near the conditions that furnish its closed form is also discussed. Strong suppressions of the scattering amplitude when the vector and scalar potentials have the same magnitude are observed either for particles or antiparticles with low incident momentum. We point out that such strong suppressions might be relevant in the analysis of the scattering of fermions near the conditions for the spin and pseudospin symmetries. From the complex poles of the partial scattering amplitude the exact closed form of bound-state solutions for both particles and antiparticles with different scenarios for the coupling constants are obtained. Perturbative breaking of the accidental degeneracy appearing in a pair of special cases is related to the nonconservation of the Runge-Lenz vector

New solutions of the D-dimensional Klein-Gordon equation via mapping onto the nonrelativistic one-dimensional Morse potential

New exact analytical bound-state solutions of the D-dimensional Klein-Gordon equation for a large set of couplings and potential functions are obtained via mapping onto the nonrelativistic bound-state solutions of the one-dimensional generalized Morse potential. The eigenfunctions are expressed in terms of generalized Laguerre polynomials, and the eigenenergies are expressed in terms of solutions of irrational equations at the worst. Several analytical results found in the literature, including the so-called Klein-Gordon oscillator, are obtained as particular cases of this unified approac

Absence of Klein's paradox for massive bosons coupled by nonminimal vector interactions

A few properties of the nonminimal vector interactions in the Duffin-Kemmer-Petiau theory are revised. In particular, it is shown that the space component of the nonminimal vector interaction plays a peremptory role for confining bosons whereas its time component contributes to the leakage. Scattering in a square step potential with proper boundary conditions is used to show that Klein's paradox does not manifest in the case of a nonminimal vector coupling

Electronic compressibility of a graphene bilayer

We calculate the electronic compressibility arising from electron-electron interactions for a graphene bilayer within the Hartree-Fock approximation. We show that, due to the chiral nature of the particles in this system, the compressibility is rather different from those of either the two-dimensional electron gas or ordinary semiconductors. We find that an inherent competition between the contributions coming from intra-band exchange interactions (dominant at low densities) and inter-band interactions (dominant at moderate densities) leads to a non-monotonic behavior of the compressibility as a function of carrier density.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures. Final versio

Tailoring Graphene with Metals on Top

We study the effects of metallic doping on the electronic properties of graphene using density functional theory in the local density approximation in the presence of a local charging energy (LDA+U). The electronic properties are sensitive to whether graphene is doped with alkali or transition metals. We estimate the the charge transfer from a single layer of Potassium on top of graphene in terms of the local charging energy of the graphene sheet. The coating of graphene with a non-magnetic layer of Palladium, on the other hand, can lead to a magnetic instability in coated graphene due to the hybridization between the transition-metal and the carbon orbitals.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

On the regular-geometric-figure solution to the N-body problem

The regular-geometric-figure solution to the $N$-body problem is presented in a very simple way. The Newtonian formalism is used without resorting to a more involved rotating coordinate system. Those configurations occur for other kinds of interactions beyond the gravitational ones for some special values of the parameters of the forces. For the harmonic oscillator, in particular, it is shown that the $N$-body problem is reduced to $N$ one-body problems.Comment: To appear in Eur. J. Phys. (5 pages

Spin and Pseudospin symmetries in the Dirac equation with central Coulomb potentials

We analyze in detail the analytical solutions of the Dirac equation with scalar S and vector V Coulomb radial potentials near the limit of spin and pseudospin symmetries, i.e., when those potentials have the same magnitude and either the same sign or opposite signs, respectively. By performing an expansion of the relevant coefficients we also assess the perturbative nature of both symmetries and their relations the (pseudo)spin-orbit coupling. The former analysis is made for both positive and negative energy solutions and we reproduce the relations between spin and pseudospin symmetries found before for nuclear mean-field potentials. We discuss the node structure of the radial functions and the quantum numbers of the solutions when there is spin or pseudospin symmetry, which we find to be similar to the well-known solutions of hydrogenic atoms.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures, uses revte

Tensor mesons produced in tau lepton decays

Light tensor mesons (T = a_2, f_2 and K_2^*) can be produced in decays of tau leptons. In this paper we compute the branching ratios of tau --> T pi nu decays by assuming the dominance of intermediate virtual states to model the form factors involved in the relevant hadronic matrix element. The exclusive f_2(1270) pi^- decay mode turns out to have the largest branching ratio, of O(10^-4) . Our results indicate that the contributions of tensor meson intermediate states to the three-pseudoscalar channels of tau decays are rather small.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figure. Version accepted for publication in PRD, some typos are corrected and comments are added in section 4. Conclusions remain unchange