222 research outputs found
Comment on: Nonmonotonic Superconducting Order Parameter in NdCeCuO
In a recent letter Blumberg and collaborators claim that a non-monotonic
form for the superconducting order parameter is required to
explain their Raman scattering measurements in NdCeCuO . In
this comment we show with a simple model calculation that the basis for this
conclusion is insufficient. The proposed functional dependence of the gap is
neither consistent with their measured spectra nor compatible with other
experimental results. Therefore the issue of the superconduing gap in
electron-doped systems cannot be considered solved by now.Comment: Comment to the paper by Blumberg et al., Phys. Rev. Lett., 88, 107002
(2002
Real Time Evolution in Quantum Many-Body Systems With Unitary Perturbation Theory
We develop a new analytical method for solving real time evolution problems
of quantum many-body systems. Our approach is a direct generalization of the
well-known canonical perturbation theory for classical systems. Similar to
canonical perturbation theory, secular terms are avoided in a systematic
expansion and one obtains stable long-time behavior. These general ideas are
illustrated by applying them to the spin-boson model and studying its
non-equilibrium spin dynamics.Comment: Final version as accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. B (4 pages, 3
figures
Nonequilibrium Spin Dynamics in the Ferromagnetic Kondo Model
Motivated by recent experiments on molecular quantum dots we investigate the
relaxation of pure spin states when coupled to metallic leads. Under suitable
conditions these systems are well described by a ferromagnetic Kondo model.
Using two recently developed theoretical approaches, the time-dependent
numerical renormalization group and an extended ow equation method, we
calculate the real-time evolution of a Kondo spin into its partially screened
steady state. We obtain exact analytical results which agree well with
numerical implementations of both methods. Analytical expressions for the
steady state magnetization and the dependence of the long-time relaxation on
microscopic parameters are established. We find the long-time relaxation
process to be much faster in the regime of anisotropic Kondo couplings. The
steady state magnetization is found to deviate significantly from its thermal
equilibrium value.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, final version as accepted by Physical Review
Letter
Nernst Effect of stripe ordering LaEuSrCuO
We investigate the transport properties of
LaEuSrCuO (, 0.08, 0.125, 0.15, 0.2) with a
special focus on the Nernst effect in the normal state. Various anomalous
features are present in the data. For and 0.15 a kink-like anomaly is
present in the vicinity of the onset of charge stripe order in the LTT phase,
suggestive of enhanced positive quasiparticle Nernst response in the stripe
ordered phase. At higher temperature, all doping levels except exhibit
a further kink anomaly in the LTO phase which cannot unambiguously be related
to stripe order. Moreover, a direct comparison between the Nernst coefficients
of stripe ordering LaEuSrCuO and superconducting
LaSrCuO at the doping levels and reveals
only weak differences. Our findings make high demands on any scenario
interpreting the Nernst response in hole-doped cuprates
Stripe order and quasiparticle Nernst effect in cuprate superconductors
After a brief review of current ideas on stripe order in cuprate
high-temperature superconductors, we discuss the quasiparticle Nernst effect in
the cuprates, with focus on its evolution in non-superconducting stripe and
related nematic states. In general, we find the Nernst signal to be strongly
enhanced by nearby van-Hove singularities and Lifshitz transitions in the band
structure, implying that phases with translation symmetry breaking often lead
to a large quasiparticle Nernst effect due to the presence of multiple small
Fermi pockets. Open orbits may contribute to the Nernst signal as well, but do
so in a strongly anisotropic fashion. We discuss our results in the light of
recent proposals for a specific Lifshitz transition in underdoped YBCO and make
predictions for the doping dependence of the Nernst signal.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figs, article prepared for a special issue of New J Phy
Interactions between proteins bound to biomembranes
We study a physical model for the interaction between general inclusions
bound to fluid membranes that possess finite tension, as well as the usual
bending rigidity. We are motivated by an interest in proteins bound to cell
membranes that apply forces to these membranes, due to either entropic or
direct chemical interactions. We find an exact analytic solution for the
repulsive interaction between two similar circularly symmetric inclusions. This
repulsion extends over length scales of order tens of nanometers, and contrasts
with the membrane-mediated contact attraction for similar inclusions on
tensionless membranes. For non circularly symmetric inclusions we study the
small, algebraically long-ranged, attractive contribution to the force that
arises. We discuss the relevance of our results to biological phenomena, such
as the budding of caveolae from cell membranes and the striations that are
observed on their coats.Comment: 22 pages, 2 figure
Quantum quenches in the anisotropic spin-1/2 Heisenberg chain: different approaches to many-body dynamics far from equilibrium
Recent experimental achievements in controlling ultracold gases in optical
lattices open a new perspective on quantum many-body physics. In these
experimental setups it is possible to study coherent time evolution of isolated
quantum systems. These dynamics reveal new physics beyond the low-energy
properties usually relevant in solid-state many-body systems. In this paper we
study the time evolution of antiferromagnetic order in the Heisenberg chain
after a sudden change of the anisotropy parameter, using various numerical and
analytical methods. As a generic result we find that the order parameter, which
can show oscillatory or non-oscillatory dynamics, decays exponentially except
for the effectively non-interacting case of the XX limit. For weakly ordered
initial states we also find evidence for an algebraic correction to the
exponential law. The study is based on numerical simulations using a numerical
matrix product method for infinite system sizes (iMPS), for which we provide a
detailed description and an error analysis. Additionally, we investigate in
detail the exactly solvable XX limit. These results are compared to
approximative analytical approaches including an effective description by the
XZ-model as well as by mean-field, Luttinger-liquid and sine-Gordon theories.
This reveals which aspects of non-equilibrium dynamics can as in equilibrium be
described by low-energy theories and which are the novel phenomena specific to
quantum quench dynamics. The relevance of the energetically high part of the
spectrum is illustrated by means of a full numerical diagonalization of the
Hamiltonian.Comment: 28 page
Urinary MicroRNA Profiling in the Nephropathy of Type 1 Diabetes
Background: Patients with Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) are particularly vulnerable to development of Diabetic nephropathy (DN) leading to End Stage Renal Disease. Hence a better understanding of the factors affecting kidney disease progression in T1D is urgently needed. In recent years microRNAs have emerged as important post-transcriptional regulators of gene expression in many different health conditions. We hypothesized that urinary microRNA profile of patients will differ in the different stages of diabetic renal disease. Methods and Findings: We studied urine microRNA profiles with qPCR in 40 T1D with >20 year follow up 10 who never developed renal disease (N) matched against 10 patients who went on to develop overt nephropathy (DN), 10 patients with intermittent microalbuminuria (IMA) matched against 10 patients with persistent (PMA) microalbuminuria. A Bayesian procedure was used to normalize and convert raw signals to expression ratios. We applied formal statistical techniques to translate fold changes to profiles of microRNA targets which were then used to make inferences about biological pathways in the Gene Ontology and REACTOME structured vocabularies. A total of 27 microRNAs were found to be present at significantly different levels in different stages of untreated nephropathy. These microRNAs mapped to overlapping pathways pertaining to growth factor signaling and renal fibrosis known to be targeted in diabetic kidney disease. Conclusions: Urinary microRNA profiles differ across the different stages of diabetic nephropathy. Previous work using experimental, clinical chemistry or biopsy samples has demonstrated differential expression of many of these microRNAs in a variety of chronic renal conditions and diabetes. Combining expression ratios of microRNAs with formal inferences about their predicted mRNA targets and associated biological pathways may yield useful markers for early diagnosis and risk stratification of DN in T1D by inferring the alteration of renal molecular processes. © 2013 Argyropoulos et al
Theory of de Haas-van Alphen Effect in Type-II Superconductors
Theory of quasiparticle spectra and the de Haas-van Alphen (dHvA) oscillation
in type-II superconductors are developed based on the Bogoliubov-de Gennes
equations for vortex-lattice states. As the pair potential grows through the
superconducting transition, each degenerate Landau level in the normal state
splits into quasiparticle bands in the magnetic Brillouin zone. This brings
Landau-level broadening, which in turn leads to the extra dHvA oscillation
damping in the vortex state. We perform extensive numerical calculations for
three-dimensional systems with various gap structures. It is thereby shown that
(i) this Landau-level broadening is directly connected with the average gap at
H=0 along each Fermi-surface orbit perpendicular to the field H; (ii) the extra
dHvA oscillation attenuation is caused by the broadening around each extremal
orbit. These results imply that the dHvA experiment can be a unique probe to
detect band- and/or angle-dependent gap amplitudes. We derive an analytic
expression for the extra damping based on the second-order perturbation with
respect to the pair potential for the Luttinger-Ward thermodynamic potential.
This formula reproduces all our numerical results excellently, and is used to
estimate band-specific gap amplitudes from available data on NbSe_2, Nb_3Sn,
and YNi_2B_2C. The obtained value for YNi_2B_2C is fairly different from the
one through a specific-heat measurement, indicating presence of gap anisotropy
in this material. C programs to solve the two-dimensional Bogoliubov-de Gennes
equations are available at http://phys.sci.hokudai.ac.jp/~kita/index-e.html .Comment: 16 pages, 11 figure
Appearance of fluctuating stripes at the onset of the pseudogap in the high-Tc Superconductor Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x
Doped Mott insulators have been shown to have a strong propensity to form
patterns of holes and spins often referred to as stripes. In copper-oxides,
doping also gives rise to the pseudogap state, which transforms into a high
temperature superconductor with sufficient doping or by reducing the
temperature. A long standing question has been the interplay between pseudogap,
which is generic to all hole-doped cuprates, and stripes, whose static form
occurs in only one family of cuprates over a narrow range of the phase diagram.
Here we examine the spatial reorganization of electronic states with the onset
of the pseudogap state at T* in the high-temperature superconductor
Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x using spectroscopic mapping with the scanning tunneling
microscope (STM). We find that the onset of the pseudogap phase coincides with
the appearance of electronic patterns that have the predicted characteristics
of fluctuating stripes. As expected, the stripe patterns are strongest when the
hole concentration in the CuO2 planes is close to 1/8 (per Cu). While
demonstrating that the fluctuating stripes emerge with the onset of the
pseudogap state and occur over a large part of the cuprate phase diagram, our
experiments indicate that they are a consequence of pseudogap behavior rather
than its cause.Comment: preprint version, 25 pages including supplementary informatio
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