Thermal photon production in heavy ion collisions

Using a three-dimensional hydrodynamic simulation of the collision and an equation of state containing a first order phase transition to the quark-gluon plasma, we study thermal photon production for $Au+Au$ collisions at $E_{lab}=11.5$ AGeV and for $Pb+Pb$ collisions at $160$ AGeV. We obtain surprisingly high rates of thermal photons even at the lower energy, suggesting that, contrary to what was expected so far, photon production may be an interesting topic for experimental search also at the Alternating Gradient Synchrotron. When applied to the reaction $S+Au$ at $200$ AGeV, our model can reproduce preliminary data obtained by the WA80 Collaboration without having to postulate the existence of an extremely long-lived mixed phase as was recently proposed.Comment: 9 pages, figures are uudecoded compressed and tare

Raman Response of Magnetic Excitations in Cuprate Ladders and Planes

An unified picture for the Raman response of magnetic excitations in cuprate spin-ladder compounds is obtained by comparing calculated two-triplon Raman line-shapes with those of the prototypical compounds SrCu2O3 (Sr123), Sr14Cu24O41 (Sr14), and La6Ca8Cu24O41 (La6Ca8). The theoretical model for the two-leg ladder contains Heisenberg exchange couplings J_parallel and J_perp plus an additional four-spin interaction J_cyc. Within this model Sr123 and Sr14 can be described by x:=J_parallel/J_perp=1.5, x_cyc:=J_cyc/J_perp=0.2, J_perp^Sr123=1130 cm^-1 and J_perp^Sr14=1080 cm^-1. The couplings found for La6Ca8 are x=1.2, x_cyc=0.2, and J_perp^La6Ca8=1130 cm^-1. The unexpected sharp two-triplon peak in the ladder materials compared to the undoped two-dimensional cuprates can be traced back to the anisotropy of the magnetic exchange in rung and leg direction. With the results obtained for the isotropic ladder we calculate the Raman line-shape of a two-dimensional square lattice using a toy model consisting of a vertical and a horizontal ladder. A direct comparison of these results with Raman experiments for the two-dimensional cuprates R2CuO4 (R=La,Nd), Sr2CuO2Cl2, and YBa2Cu3O(6+delta) yields a good agreement for the dominating two-triplon peak. We conclude that short range quantum fluctuations are dominating the magnetic Raman response in both, ladders and planes. We discuss possible scenarios responsible for the high-energy spectral weight of the Raman line-shape, i.e. phonons, the triple-resonance and multi-particle contributions.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figure

Modulated Phases in Spin-Peierls Systems

Lattice modulations in the high magnetic field phase and close to impurities in spin-Peierls systems are considered and compared to experiment. Necessary extensions of existing theories are proposed. The influence of zero-point fluctuations on magnetic amplitudes is shown.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures included, to appear in Advances in Solid State Physics/Festkoerperprobleme Spring Conference 1999 of the DP

Isolation and fine mapping of Rps6: An intermediate host resistance gene in barley to wheat stripe rust

A plant may be considered a nonhost of a pathogen if all known genotypes of a plant species are resistant to all known isolates of a pathogen species. However, if a small number of genotypes are susceptible to some known isolates of a pathogen species this plant maybe considered an intermediate host. Barley (Hordeum vulgare) is an intermediate host for Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici (Pst), the causal agent of wheat stripe rust. We wanted to understand the genetic architecture underlying resistance to Pst and to determine whether any overlap exists with resistance to the host pathogen, Puccinia striiformis f. sp. hordei (Psh). We mapped Pst resistance to chromosome 7H and show that host and intermediate host resistance is genetically uncoupled. Therefore, we designate this resistance locus Rps6. We used phenotypic and genotypic selection on F2:3 families to isolate Rps6 and fine mapped the locus to a 0.1 cM region. Anchoring of the Rps6 locus to the barley physical map placed the region on two adjacent fingerprinted contigs. Efforts are now underway to sequence the minimal tiling path and to delimit the physical region harbouring Rps6. This will facilitate additional marker development and permit identification of candidate genes in the region

Density-Matrix Renormalization-Group Analysis of Quantum Critical Points: I. Quantum Spin Chains

We present a simple method, combining the density-matrix renormalization-group (DMRG) algorithm with finite-size scaling, which permits the study of critical behavior in quantum spin chains. Spin moments and dimerization are induced by boundary conditions at the chain ends and these exhibit power-law decay at critical points. Results are presented for the spin-1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet; an analytic calculation shows that logarithmic corrections to scaling can sometimes be avoided. We also examine the spin-1 chain at the critical point separating the Haldane gap and dimerized phases. Exponents for the dimer-dimer and the spin-spin correlation functions are consistent with results obtained from bosonization.Comment: 21 pages, 12 figures, new results and added references, to appear in PR

Space-time evolution and HBT analysis of relativistic heavy ion collisions in a chiral SU(3) x SU(3) model

The space-time dynamics and pion-HBT radii in central heavy ion-collisions at CERN-SPS and BNL-RHIC are investigated within a hydrodynamic simulation. The dependence of the dynamics and the HBT-parameters on the EoS is studied with different parametrisations of a chiral SU(3) sigma-omega model. The selfconsistent collective expansion includes the effects of effective hadron masses, generated by the nonstrange and strange scalar condensates. Different chiral EoS show different types of phase transitions and even a crossover. The influence of the order of the phase transition and of the difference in the latent heat on the space-time dynamics and pion-HBT radii is studied. A small latent heat, i.e. a weak first-order chiral phase transition, or even a smooth crossover leads to distinctly different HBT predictions than a strong first order phase transition. A quantitative description of the data, both at SPS energies as well as at RHIC energies, appears difficult to achieve within the ideal hydrodynamical approach using the SU(3) chiral EoS. A strong first-order quasi-adiabatic chiral phase transition seems to be disfavored by the pion-HBT data from CERN-SPS and BNL-RHIC