Generation of 3rd and 5th harmonics in a thin superconducting film by temperature oscillations and isothermal nonlinear current response

The generation of harmonics of the voltage response is considered when an AC current is applied through a superconducting film above T_c. It is shown that almost at all temperatures the mechanism of the temperature oscillations created by the AC current and the temperature dependence of the resistance dominates over the isothermal nonlinear electric conductivity. Only in a narrow critical region close to T_c the latter is essential for the generation of the harmonics. A detailed investigation of harmonics generation provides an accurate method for measuring the thermal boundary conductance between the film and the insulating substrate. The critical behaviour of the third harmonic will give a new method for the determination of the lifetime of metastable Cooper pairs above T_c. The comparison of the calculated fifth harmonics of the voltage with the experiment is proposed as an important test for the applicability of the employed theoretical models. Received 8 September 2001     

Phase Transition in Vertex-Reinforced Random Walks on {\mathbb{Z}} with Non-linear Reinforcement

Vertex-reinforced random walk is a random process which visits a site with probability proportional to the weight w _k of the number k of previous visits. We show that if w _k ∼ k ^α, then there is a large time T ₀ such that after T ₀ the walk visits 2, 5, or ∞ sites when α < 1, = 1, or > 1, respectively. More general results are also proven.      

Critical phenomena in FINEMET alloy

The Fe_73.5Cu₁Nb₃Si_13.5B₉ FINEMET alloy has been prepared by the rapid solidification technique. The critical behaviour of this alloy in the amorphous as well as in its nanocrystalline states has been studied near their respective Curie temperatures. From the values of the critical exponents one can conclude that the alloy behaves like a 3D Heisenberg ferromagnet in the amorphous and nanocrystalline states. But there exists a slight increase in the value of β for the alloy annealed at 823 K (the nanocrystalline state) as observed in most of the amorphous alloys.     

Necessary and sufficient conditions in constrained optimization

Additional conditions are attached to the Kuhn-Tucker conditions giving a set of conditions which are both necessary and sufficient for optimality in constrained optimization, under appropriate constraint qualifications. Necessary and sufficient conditions are also given for optimality of the dual problem. Duality and converse duality are treated accordingly.     

Comparison of the boundary theory with the contact rule of phase regions and Gupta’s method

The phase boundary theory and the contact rule of phase regions are compared, and some weaknesses of the latter are manifested. The comparison between the Gupta’s method and the boundary theory method for constructing multicomponent isobaric sections is also presented.     

A Joint Integral Test for the Locations of Extrema for Brownian Motion

Let μ⁺(t) and μ⁻(t) be the locations of the maximum and minimum, respectively, of a standard Brownian motion in the interval [0,t]. We establish a joint integral test for the lower functions of μ⁺(t) and μ⁻(t), in the sense of Paul Lévy. In particular, it yields the law of the iterated logarithm for max(μ⁺(t),μ⁻(t)) as a straightforward consequence. Our result is in agreement with well-known theorems of Chung and Erdős [(1952) Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 72, 179–186.], and Csáki, F?ldes and Révész [(1987) Prob. Theory Relat. Fields 76, 477–497].      

A Characterization of Graphs without Even Factors

In this paper, we first reduce the problem of finding a minimum parity (g,f)-factor of a graph G into the problem of finding a minimum perfect matching in a weighted simple graph G*. Using the structure of G*, a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of an even factor is derived. This paper was accomplished while the second author was visiting the Center for Combinatorics, Nankai University. The research is supported by NSFC     

Surface morphologies of anthracene single crystals grown from vapor phase

The morphologies and lattice structures of anthracene single crystals grown from the vapor phase were investigated using optical microscopy, phase contrast microscopy, atomic force microscopy (AFM), and X-ray diffraction analysis. Common morphologies with hexagonal large planes were observed irrespective of crystal size. The observation of certain surface morphologies with a phase contrast microscopy revealed that the spiral steps originated from screw dislocations present on the (0 0 1) planes. Moreover, the center and edge of the (0 0 1) planes had large curvatures, similar to hills. Resultantly, quarter-monolayer (ML) steps were observed on the large and flat planes between both hills.     

Jensen’s Inequality for Backward Stochastic Differential Equations

Abstract Under the Lipschitz assumption and square integrable assumption on g, the author proves that Jensen’s inequality holds for backward stochastic differential equations with generator g if and only if g is independent of y, g(t, 0) ≡ 0 and g is super homogeneous with respect to z. This result generalizes the known results on Jensen’s inequality for g- expectation in [4, 7–9]. *Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.10325101) and the Science Foundation of China University of Mining and Technology.     

An implicit method for linear ill‐posed problems with perturbed operators

An implicit iterative method is applied to solving linear ill‐posed problems with perturbed operators. It is proved that the optimal convergence rate can be obtained after choosing suitable number of iterations. A generalized Morozov's discrepancy principle is proposed for the problems, and then the optimal convergence rate can also be obtained by an a posteriori strategy. The convergence results show that the algorithm is a robust regularization method. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.