Crossover from commensurate to incommensurate antiferromagnetism in stoichiometric NaFeAs revealed by single-crystal 23Na,75As-NMR experiments

We report results of 23Na and 75As nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) experiments on a self-flux grown high-quality single crystal of stoichiometric NaFeAs. The NMR spectra revealed a tetragonal to twinned-orthorhombic structural phase transition at T_O = 57 K and an antiferromagnetic (AF) transition at T_AF = 45 K. The divergent behavior of nuclear relaxation rate near T_AF shows significant anisotropy, indicating that the critical slowing down of stripe-type AF fluctuations are strongly anisotropic in spin space. The NMR spectra at low enough temperatures consist of sharp peaks showing a commensurate stripe AF order with a small moment \sim 0.3 muB. However, the spectra just below T_AF exhibits highly asymmetric broadening pointing to an incommensurate modulation. The commensurate-incommensurate crossover in NaFeAs shows a certain similarity to the behavior of SrFe2As2 under high pressure.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, revised version to appear in J. Phys. Soc. Jp

Numerical Analysis of Boosting Scheme for Scalable NMR Quantum Computation

Among initialization schemes for ensemble quantum computation beginning at thermal equilibrium, the scheme proposed by Schulman and Vazirani [L. J. Schulman and U. V. Vazirani, in Proceedings of the 31st ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing (STOC'99) (ACM Press, New York, 1999), pp. 322-329] is known for the simple quantum circuit to redistribute the biases (polarizations) of qubits and small time complexity. However, our numerical simulation shows that the number of qubits initialized by the scheme is rather smaller than expected from the von Neumann entropy because of an increase in the sum of the binary entropies of individual qubits, which indicates a growth in the total classical correlation. This result--namely, that there is such a significant growth in the total binary entropy--disagrees with that of their analysis.Comment: 14 pages, 18 figures, RevTeX4, v2,v3: typos corrected, v4: minor changes in PROGRAM 1, conforming it to the actual programs used in the simulation, v5: correction of a typographical error in the inequality sign in PROGRAM 1, v6: this version contains a new section on classical correlations, v7: correction of a wrong use of terminology, v8: Appendix A has been added, v9: published in PR

Magnetotransport in Sr3PbO antiperovskite with three-dimensional massive Dirac electrons

Novel topological phenomena are anticipated for three-dimensional (3D) Dirac electrons. The magnetotransport properties of cubic ${\rm Sr_{3}PbO}$ antiperovskite, theoretically proposed to be a 3D massive Dirac electron system, are studied. The measurements of Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations and Hall resistivity indicate the presence of a low density ($\sim 1 \times 10^{18}$ ${\rm cm^{-3}}$) of holes with an extremely small cyclotron mass of 0.01-0.06$m_{e}$. The magnetoresistance $\Delta\rho_{xx}(B)$ is linear in magnetic field $B$ with the magnitude independent of temperature. These results are fully consistent with the presence of 3D massive Dirac electrons in ${\rm Sr_{3}PbO}$. The chemical flexibility of the antiperovskites and our findings in the family member, ${\rm Sr_{3}PbO}$, point to their potential as a model system in which to explore exotic topological phases

Posterior Distribution of Nondifferentiable Functions

This paper examines the asymptotic behavior of the posterior distribution of a possibly nondifferentiable function g(theta), where theta is a finite dimensional parameter. The main assumption is that the distribution of the maximum likelihood estimator theta_n, its bootstrap approximation, and the Bayesian posterior for theta all agree asymptotically. It is shown that whenever g is Lipschitz, though not necessarily differentiable, the posterior distribution of g(theta) and the bootstrap distribution of g(theta_n) coincide asymptotically. One implication is that Bayesians can interpret bootstrap inference for g(theta) as approximately valid posterior inference in a large sample. Another implication—built on known results about bootstrap inconsistency—is that the posterior distribution of g(theta) does not coincide with the asymptotic distribution of g(theta_n) at points of nondifferentiability. Consequently, frequentists cannot presume that credible sets for a nondifferentiable parameter g(theta) can be interpreted as approximately valid confidence sets (even when this relation holds true for theta)

Preparing for disaster: a comparative analysis of education for critical infrastructure collapse

This article explores policy approaches to educating populations for potential critical infrastructure collapse in five different countries: the UK, the US, Germany, Japan and New Zealand. ‘Critical infrastructure’ is not always easy to define, and indeed is defined slightly differently across countries – it includes entities vital to life, such as utilities (water, energy), transportation systems and communications, and may also include social and cultural infrastructure. The article is a mapping exercise of different approaches to critical infrastructure protection and preparedness education by the five countries. The exercise facilitates a comparison of the countries and enables us to identify distinctive characteristics of each country’s approach. We argue that contrary to what most scholars of security have argued, these national approaches diverge greatly, suggesting that they are shaped more by internal politics and culture than by global approaches

Atmospheric radiocarbon calibration to 45,000 yr BP: Late glacial fluctuations and cosmogenic isotope production

More than 250 carbon-14 accelerator mass spectrometry dates of terrestrial macrofossils from annually laminated sediments from Lake Suigetsu (Japan) provide a first atmospheric calibration for almost the total range of the radiocarbon method (45,000 years before the present), The results confirm the (recently revised) floating German pine chronology and are consistent with data from European and marine varved sediments, and combined uranium-thorium and carbon-14 dating of corals up to the Last Glacial Maximum, The data during the Glacial show large fluctuations in the atmospheric carbon-14 content, related to changes in global environment and in cosmogenic isotope production

Measurement error and rank correlations

This paper characterizes and proposes a method to correct for errors-in-variables biases in the estimation of rank correlation coefficients (Spearman’s ρ and Kendall’s τ ). We first investigate a set of sufficient conditions under which measurement errors bias the sample rank correlations toward zero. We then provide a feasible nonparametric bias-corrected estimator based on the technique of small error variance approximation. We assess its performance in simulations and an empirical application, using rich Swedish data to estimate intergenerational rank correlations in income. The method performs well in both cases, lowering the mean squared error by 50-85 percent already in moderately sized samples (n = 1, 000)

Observation of Jonscher Law in AC Hopping Conduction of Electron-Doped Nanoporous Crystal 12CaO7Al2O3 in THz Frequency Range

We have performed terahertz time-domain spectroscopy of carrier-doped nanoporous crystal 12CaO7Al2O3 showing the Mott variable range hopping at room temperature. The real part of the dielectric constant clearly demonstrates the nature of localized carriers. The frequency dependence of both the real and imaginary parts of the dielectric constant can be simply explained by assuming two contributions: a dielectric response by the parent compound with no carriers and an AC hopping conduction with the Jonscher law generally reported up to GHz range. The possible obedience to the Jonscher law in the THz range suggests a relaxation time of the hopping carriers much faster than 1ps in the carrier-doped 12CaO7Al2O3.Comment: 4pages 3figures. to be published in Phys. Rev.

Competing Ground States of a Peierls-Hubbard Nanotube

Motivated by iodo platinum complexes assembled within a quadratic-prism lattice, [Pt(C$_2$H$_8$N$_2$)(C$_{10}$H$_8$N$_2$)I]$_4$(NO$_3$)$_8$, we investigate the ground-state properties of a Peierls-Hubbard four-legged tube. Making a group-theoretical analysis, we systematically reveal a variety of valence arrangements, including half-metallic charge-density-wave states. Quantum and thermal phase competition is numerically demonstrated with particular emphasis on doping-induced successive insulator-to-metal transitions with conductivity increasing stepwise.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures. to be published in Europhys. Lett. 87 (2009) 1700