Phase control of La2CuO4 in thin-film synthesis

The lanthanum copper oxide, La2CuO4, which is an end member of the prototype high-Tc superconductors (La,Sr)2CuO4 and (La,Ba)2CuO4, crystallizes in the "K2NiF4" structure in high-temperature bulk synthesis. The crystal chemistry, however, predicts that La2CuO4 is at the borderline of the K2NiF4 stability and that it can crystallize in the Nd2CuO4 structure at low synthesis temperatures. In this article we demonstrate that low-temperature thin-film synthesis actually crystallizes La2CuO4 in the Nd2CuO4 structure. We also show that the phase control of "K2NiF4"-type La2CuO4 versus "Nd2CuO4"-type La2CuO4 can be achieved by varying the synthesis temperature and using different substrates.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, submitted to PRB, revte

Two mechanisms for the elimination of pinch singularities in out of equilibrium thermal field theories

We analyze ill-defined pinch singularities characteristic of out of equilibrium thermal field theories. We identify two mechanisms that eliminate pinching even at the single self-energy insertion approximation to the propagator: the first is based on the vanishing of phase space at the singular point (threshold effect). It is effective in QED with a massive electron and a massless photon. In massless QCD, this mechanism fails, but the pinches cancel owing to the second mechanism, i.e., owing to the spinor/tensor structure of the single self-energy insertion contribution to the propagator. The constraints imposed on distribution functions are very reasonable.Comment: 24 pages, Latex, no figures, revised version, many minor changes and correction

Isolation and analysis of genes specifically expressed during basidiomatal development in Antrodia cinnamomea by subtractive PCR and cDNA microarray

cDNAs specifically expressed at the basidiome stage were isolated by using PCR-selected cDNA subtraction in order to study gene regulation during porous-hymenium basidiomatal formation in Antrodia cinnamomea. BLASTX results suggested that most of the expressed sequence tags (52.4-69.5%) had no significant protein homology to genes from other published living things. cDNAs particularly expressed at different growing conditions were identified using cDNA microarray analysis. Reverse transcriptase PCR analyses confirmed that the clone putative to P-type ATPase, various cytochrome P450s and some unknown genes were abundant at natural basidiomes while endoglucanase was abundant at the tissue from artificial medium

Final State Rescattering and Color-suppressed \bar B^0-> D^{(*)0} h^0 Decays

The color-suppressed \bar B^0-> D^{(*)0}\pi^0, D^{(*)0}\eta, D^0\omega decay modes have just been observed for the first time. The rates are all larger than expected, hinting at the presence of final state interactions. Considering \bar B^0-> D^{(*)0}\pi^0 mode alone, an elastic D^{(*)}\pi -> D^{(*)}\pi rescattering phase difference \delta \equiv \delta_{1/2} - \delta_{3/2} \sim 30^\circ would suffice, but the \bar B^0-> D^{(*)0}\eta, D^0\omega modes compel one to extend the elastic formalism to SU(3) symmetry. We find that a universal a_2/a_1=0.25 and two strong phase differences 20^\circ \sim \theta < \delta < \delta^\prime \sim 50^\circ can describe both DP and D^*P modes rather well; the large phase of order 50^\circ is needed to account for the strength of {\it both} the D^{(*)0}\pi^0 and D^{(*)0}\eta modes. For DV modes, the nonet symmetry reduces the number of physical phases to just one, giving better predictive power. Two solutions are found. We predict the rates of the \bar B^0-> D^{+}_s K^-, D^{*+}_s K^-, D^0\rho^0, D^+_s K^{*-} and D^0\phi modes, as well as \bar B^0-> D^{0}\bar K^0, D^{*0}\bar K^0, D^{0}\bar K^{*0} modes. The formalism may have implications for rates and CP asymmetries of charmless modes.Comment: REVTeX4, 18 pages, 5 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.

S4 Flavor Symmetry and Fermion Masses: Towards a Grand Unified theory of Flavor

Pursuing a bottom-up approach to explore which flavor symmetry could serve as an explanation of the observed fermion masses and mixings, we discuss an extension of the standard model (SM) where the flavor structure for both quarks and leptons is determined by a spontaneously broken S4 and the requirement that its particle content is embeddable simultaneously into the conventional SO(10) grand unified theory (GUT) and a continuous flavor symmetry G_f like SO(3)_f or SU(3)_f. We explicitly provide the Yukawa and the Higgs sector of the model and show its viability in two numerical examples which arise as small deviations from rank one matrices. In the first case, the corresponding mass matrix is democratic and in the second one only its 2-3 block is non-vanishing. We demonstrate that the Higgs potential allows for the appropriate vacuum expectation value (VEV) configurations in both cases, if CP is conserved. For the first case, the chosen Yukawa couplings can be made natural by invoking an auxiliary Z2 symmetry. The numerical study we perform shows that the best-fit values for the lepton mixing angles theta_12 and theta_23 can be accommodated for normal neutrino mass hierarchy. The results for the quark mixing angles turn out to be too small. Furthermore the CP-violating phase delta can only be reproduced correctly in one of the examples. The small mixing angle values are likely to be brought into the experimentally allowed ranges by including radiative corrections. Interestingly, due to the S4 symmetry the mass matrix of the right-handed neutrinos is proportional to the unit matrix.Comment: 27 pages, published version with minor change

Review and assessment of latent and sensible heat flux accuracy over the global oceans

For over a decade, several research groups have been developing air-sea heat flux information over the global ocean, including latent (LHF) and sensible (SHF) heat fluxes over the global ocean. This paper aims to provide new insight into the quality and error characteristics of turbulent heat flux estimates at various spatial and temporal scales (from daily upwards). The study is performed within the European Space Agency (ESA) Ocean Heat Flux (OHF) project. One of the main objectives of the OHF project is to meet the recommendations and requirements expressed by various international programs such as the World Research Climate Program (WCRP) and Climate and Ocean Variability, Predictability, and Change (CLIVAR), recognizing the need for better characterization of existing flux errors with respect to the input bulk variables (e.g. surface wind, air and sea surface temperatures, air and surface specific humidities), and to the atmospheric and oceanic conditions (e.g. wind conditions and sea state). The analysis is based on the use of daily averaged LHF and SHF and the asso- ciated bulk variables derived from major satellite-based and atmospheric reanalysis products. Inter-comparisons of heat flux products indicate that all of them exhibit similar space and time patterns. However, they also reveal significant differences in magnitude in some specific regions such as the western ocean boundaries during the Northern Hemisphere winter season, and the high southern latitudes. The differences tend to be closely related to large differences in surface wind speed and/or specific air humidity (for LHF) and to air and sea temperature differences (for SHF). Further quality investigations are performed through comprehensive comparisons with daily-averaged LHF and SHF estimated from moorings. The resulting statistics are used to assess the error of each OHF product. Consideration of error correlation between products and observations (e.g., by their assimilation) is also given. This reveals generally high noise variance in all products and a weak signal in common with in situ observations, with some products only slightly better than others. The OHF LHF and SHF products, and their associated error characteristics, are used to compute daily OHF multiproduct-ensemble (OHF/MPE) estimates of LHF and SHF over the ice-free global ocean on a 0.25° × 0.25° grid. The accuracy of this heat multiproduct, determined from comparisons with mooring data, is greater than for any individual product. It is used as a reference for the anomaly characterization of each individual OHF product

Discrete kink dynamics in hydrogen-bonded chains I: The one-component model

We study topological solitary waves (kinks and antikinks) in a nonlinear one-dimensional Klein-Gordon chain with the on-site potential of a double-Morse type. This chain is used to describe the collective proton dynamics in quasi-one-dimensional networks of hydrogen bonds, where the on-site potential plays role of the proton potential in the hydrogen bond. The system supports a rich variety of stationary kink solutions with different symmetry properties. We study the stability and bifurcation structure of all these stationary kink states. An exactly solvable model with a piecewise ``parabola-constant'' approximation of the double-Morse potential is suggested and studied analytically. The dependence of the Peierls-Nabarro potential on the system parameters is studied. Discrete travelling-wave solutions of a narrow permanent profile are shown to exist, depending on the anharmonicity of the Morse potential and the cooperativity of the hydrogen bond (the coupling constant of the interaction between nearest-neighbor protons).Comment: 12 pages, 20 figure

Chiral symmetry breaking in hot matter

This series of three lectures covers (a) a basic introduction to symmetry breaking in general and chiral symmetry breaking in QCD, (b) an overview of the present status of lattice data and the knowlegde that we have at finite temperature from chiral perturbation theory. (c) Results obtained from the Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model describing static mesonic properties are discussed as well as the bulk thermodynamic quantities. Divergences that are observed in the elastic quark-antiquark scattering cross-section, reminiscent of the phenomenon of critical opalescence in light scattering, is also discussed. (d) Finally, we deal with the realm of systems out of equilibrium, and examine the effects of a medium dependent condensate in a system of interacting quarks.Comment: 62 LaTex pages, incorporating 23 figures. Lectures given at the eleventh Chris-Engelbrecht Summer School in Theoretical Physics, 4-13 February, 1998, to be published by Springer Verla

Annihilation vs. Decay: Constraining dark matter properties from a gamma-ray detection

Most proposed dark matter candidates are stable and are produced thermally in the early Universe. However, there is also the possibility of unstable (but long-lived) dark matter, produced thermally or otherwise. We propose a strategy to distinguish between dark matter annihilation and/or decay in the case that a clear signal is detected in gamma-ray observations of Milky Way dwarf spheroidal galaxies with gamma-ray experiments. The sole measurement of the energy spectrum of an indirect signal would render the discrimination between these cases impossible. We show that by examining the dependence of the intensity and energy spectrum on the angular distribution of the emission, the origin could be identified as decay, annihilation, or both. In addition, once the type of signal is established, we show how these measurements could help to extract information about the dark matter properties, including mass, annihilation cross section, lifetime, dominant annihilation and decay channels, and the presence of substructure. Although an application of the approach presented here would likely be feasible with current experiments only for very optimistic dark matter scenarios, the improved sensitivity of upcoming experiments could enable this technique to be used to study a wider range of dark matter models.Comment: 29 pp, 8 figs; replaced to match published version (minor changes and some new references