Evidence of Skyrmion excitations about ν=1\nu =1 in n-Modulation Doped Single Quantum Wells by Inter-band Optical Transmission

We observe a dramatic reduction in the degree of spin-polarization of a two-dimensional electron gas in a magnetic field when the Fermi energy moves off the mid-point of the spin-gap of the lowest Landau level, $\nu=1$. This rapid decay of spin alignment to an unpolarized state occurs over small changes to both higher and lower magnetic field. The degree of electron spin polarization as a function of $\nu$ is measured through the magneto-absorption spectra which distinguish the occupancy of the two electron spin states. The data provide experimental evidence for the presence of Skyrmion excitations where exchange energy dominates Zeeman energy in the integer quantum Hall regime at $\nu=1$

Dependency structure matrix, genetic algorithms, and effective recombination

In many different fields, researchers are often confronted by problems arising from complex systems. Simple heuristics or even enumeration works quite well on small and easy problems; however, to efficiently solve large and difficult problems, proper decomposition is the key. In this paper, investigating and analyzing interactions between components of complex systems shed some light on problem decomposition. By recognizing three bare-bones interactions-modularity, hierarchy, and overlap, facet-wise models arc developed to dissect and inspect problem decomposition in the context of genetic algorithms. The proposed genetic algorithm design utilizes a matrix representation of an interaction graph to analyze and explicitly decompose the problem. The results from this paper should benefit research both technically and scientifically. Technically, this paper develops an automated dependency structure matrix clustering technique and utilizes it to design a model-building genetic algorithm that learns and delivers the problem structure. Scientifically, the explicit interaction model describes the problem structure very well and helps researchers gain important insights through the explicitness of the procedure.This work was sponsored by Taiwan National Science Council under grant NSC97- 2218-E-002-020-MY3, U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Air Force Material Command, USAF, under grants FA9550-06-1-0370 and FA9550-06-1-0096, U.S. National Science Foundation under CAREER grant ECS-0547013, ITR grant DMR-03-25939 at Materials Computation Center, grant ISS-02-09199 at US National Center for Supercomputing Applications, UIUC, and the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology under grants SFRH/BD/16980/2004 and PTDC/EIA/67776/2006

Color Stability of Elastomers for Maxillofacial Appliances

The color stability of polyvinyl chloride, polyurethane, and silicone polymers for maxillofacial applications was determined after accelerated aging using reflectance spectrophotometry. On the basis of color stability after accelerated aging, and ease of processing, several silicone materials were the most promising.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/67056/2/10.1177_00220345780570090401.pd

Spin Polarizations at and about the Lowest Filled Landau Level

The spin polarization versus temperature at or near a fully filled lowest Landau level is explored for finite-size systems in a periodic rectangular geometry. Our results at $\nu=1$ which also include the finite-thickness correction are in good agreement with the experimental results. We also find that the interacting electron system results are in complete agreement with the results of the sigma model, i.e., skyrmions on a torus have a topological charge of $Q \ge 2$ and the Q=1 solution is like a single spin-flip excitation. Our results therefore provide direct evidence for the skyrmionic nature of the excitations at this filling factor.Comment: 4 pages, REVTEX, and 4 .ps files, To be published in Europhysics Letter

Speckle Interferometry of Metal-Poor Stars in the Solar Neighborhood. I

We report the results of speckle-interferometric observations of 109 high proper-motion metal-poor stars made with the 6-m telescope of the Special Astrophysical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences. We resolve eight objects -- G102-20, G191-55, BD+19$^\circ$~1185A, G89-14, G87-45, G87-47, G111-38, and G114-25 -- into individual components and we are the first to astrometrically resolve seven of these stars. New resolved systems included two triple (G111-38, G87-47) and one quadruple (G89-14) star. The ratio of single-to-binary-to-triple-to-quadruple systems among the stars of our sample is equal to 71:28:6:1.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, accepted to Astrophysical Bulleti

Bound, virtual and resonance SS-matrix poles from the Schr\"odinger equation

A general method, which we call the potential $S$-matrix pole method, is developed for obtaining the $S$-matrix pole parameters for bound, virtual and resonant states based on numerical solutions of the Schr\"odinger equation. This method is well-known for bound states. In this work we generalize it for resonant and virtual states, although the corresponding solutions increase exponentially when $r\to\infty$. Concrete calculations are performed for the $1^+$ ground and the $0^+$ first excited states of $^{14}\rm{N}$, the resonance $^{15}\rm{F}$ states ($1/2^+$, $5/2^+$), low-lying states of $^{11}\rm{Be}$ and $^{11}\rm{N}$, and the subthreshold resonances in the proton-proton system. We also demonstrate that in the case the broad resonances their energy and width can be found from the fitting of the experimental phase shifts using the analytical expression for the elastic scattering $S$-matrix. We compare the $S$-matrix pole and the $R$-matrix for broad $s_{1/2}$ resonance in ${}^{15}{\rm F}$Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures (figures 3 and 4 consist of two figures each) and 4 table

Search for Millicharged Particles at SLAC

Particles with electric charge q < 10^(-3)e and masses in the range 1--100 MeV/c^2 are not excluded by present experiments. An experiment uniquely suited to the production and detection of such "millicharged" particles has been carried out at SLAC. This experiment is sensitive to the infrequent excitation and ionization of matter expected from the passage of such a particle. Analysis of the data rules out a region of mass and charge, establishing, for example, a 95%-confidence upper limit on electric charge of 4.1X10^(-5)e for millicharged particles of mass 1 MeV/c^2 and 5.8X10^(-4)e for mass 100 MeV/c^2.Comment: 4 pages, REVTeX, multicol, 3 figures. Minor typo corrected. Submitted to Physical Review Letter