Edge-induced spin polarization in two-dimensional electron gas

We characterize the role of the spin-orbit coupling between electrons and the confining potential of the edge in nonequilibrium two-dimensional homogeneous electronic gas. We derive a simple analytical result for the magnitude of the current-induced spin polarization at the edge and prove that it is independent of the details of the confinement edge potential and the electronic density within realistic values of the parameters of the considered models. While the amplitude of the spin accumulation is comparable to the experimental values of extrinsic spin-Hall effect in similar samples, the spatial extent of edge-induced effect is restricted to the distances on the order of Fermi wavelength (similar to 10 nm)

Cosmological Brightness Distribution Fits of Gamma Ray Burst Sources

We discuss detailed fits of the BATSE and PVO gamma-ray burst peak-flux distributions with Friedman models taking into account possible density evolution and standard candle or power law luminosity functions. A chi-square analysis is used to estimate the goodness of the fits and we derive the significance level of limits on the density evolution and luminosity function parameters. Cosmological models provide a good fit over a range of parameter space which is physically reasonable.Comment: Ap.J. in press, uuencoded .ps file, 9 pages manuscript plus 5 figure

An assessment of the newest magnetar-SNR associations

Anomalous X-ray Pulsars and Soft-Gamma Repeaters groups are magnetar candidates featuring low characteristic ages ($\tau = {P\over{2 {\dot P}}}$). At least some of them they should still be associated with the remnants of the explosive events in which they were born, giving clues to the type of events leading to their birth and the physics behind the apparent high value of the magnetar magnetic fields. To explain the high values of $B$, a self-consistent picture of field growth also suggests that energy injection into the SNR is large and unavoidable, in contrast with the evolution of {\it conventional} SNR. This modified dynamics, in turn, has important implications for the proposed associations. We show that this scenario yields low ages for the new candidates CXOU J171405.7-381031/CTB 37B and XMMU J173203.3-344518/G353.6-0.7, and predicted values agree with recently found ${\dot P}$, giving support to the overall picture.Comment: Contributed talk to the ASTRONS 2010 Conference, Cesme, Turkey, Aug. 2-6 201

Analysis of the BATSE Continuous MER data

The CGRO/BATSE database includes many types of data such as the 16-channel continuous background or medium energy resolution burst data (CONT and MER data types). We have calculated some four hundred burst's medium energy resolution spectra and Principal Component Analysis has been applied. We found five components can describe GRBs' spectra.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, accepted in Nuovo Ciment

Strings in plane-fronted gravitational waves

Brinkmann's plane-fronted gravitational waves with parallel rays --~shortly pp-waves~-- are shown to provide, under suitable conditions, exact string vacua at all orders of the sigma-model perturbation expansion.Comment: 7 pages, no figure

Berry phase correction to electron density in solids and "exotic" dynamics

Recent results on the semiclassical dynamics of an electron in a solid are explained using techniques developed for ``exotic'' Galilean dynamics. The system is indeed Hamiltonian and Liouville's theorem holds for the symplectic volume form. Suitably defined quantities satisfy hydrodynamic equations.Comment: Affiliation of the first Author expanded. One more reference added. To appear in Mod. Phys. Lett. B. 5 page