HTSC grain boundary weak links employing high-quality ICM sputtered YBCO films

Summary Bicrystal grain boundary junctions of YBCO have been fabricated by using the Inverted Cylindrical Magnetron d.c. sputtering technique. The main characteristics of the junction behaviour are reported. Some aspects of the experimental results are discussed in the framework of existing models developed for describing weak-link structures. Paper presented at the ?VII Congresso SATT?, Torino, 4–7 October 1994.     

Optimal coupled-cluster approximation for the ground-state properties of a spin-boson model

In the present work we have developed an optimal coupled-cluster approximation, which can take care of both the accuracies of the ground-state energy and the wavefunction estimates, for the ground state of a two-state system coupled to a dispersionless boson bath. This new approach is also able to give a tight upper bound to the ground-state energy of the system. Up to the fourth level of this approximation our results show excellent agreement with the numerical exact diagonalization results. In particular, our results suggest no discontinuous localization-delocalization transition of the two-state system. This is consistent with the exact result. Received: 11 March 1998 / Accepted: 23 June 1998     

Resonances in the current-voltage characteristics of a dissipative Josephson junction

The I-V characteristics of a Josephson junction shunted by an Ohmic resistor shows sharp peaks when levels in neighbouring wells are crossing. We consider the shape and size of these peaks using a double-well model where the wells are given in parabolic approximation. The friction of arbitrary strength is included by the help of a bath of infinitely many degrees of freedom. 74.50.+z.     

Comments on an experiment of resonant tunnelling between macroscopically distinct quantum levels

Summary In an important experiment performed on a SQUID system, Rouse, Han and Lukens report the first observation of resonant tunnelling between macroscopically distinct quantum levels. We support the experiment with the first theoretical approach for the phenomenon.     

Formation of a vortex lattice in a rotating BCS Fermi gas

We investigate theoretically the formation of a vortex lattice in a superfluid two-spin component Fermi gas in a rotating harmonic trap, in a BCS-type regime of condensed non-bosonic pairs. Our analytical solution of the superfluid hydrodynamic equations, both for the 2D BCS equation of state and for the 3D unitary quantum gas, predicts that the vortex free gas is subject to a dynamic instability for fast enough rotation. With a numerical solution of the full time dependent BCS equations in a 2D model, we confirm the existence of this dynamic instability and we show that it leads to the formation of a regular pattern of quantum vortices in the gas.     

Thermodynamics of adiabatically loaded cold bosons in the Mott insulating phase of one-dimensional optical lattices

In this work we give a consistent picture of the thermodynamic properties of bosons in the Mott insulating phase when loaded adiabatically into one-dimensional optical lattices. We find a crucial dependence of the temperature in the optical lattice on the doping level of the Mott insulator. In the undoped case, the temperature is of the order of the large onsite Hubbard interaction. In contrast, at a finite doping level the temperature jumps almost immediately to the order of the small hopping parameter. These two situations are investigated on the one hand by considering limiting cases like the atomic limit and the case of free fermions. On the other hand, they are examined using a quasi-particle conserving continuous unitary transformation extended by an approximate thermodynamics for hardcore particles.     

Mott transition in anharmonic confinement

Two effects are identified that affect the visibility of the Mott transition in an atomic gas in an optical lattice confined in a power-law potential. The transition can be made more pronounced by increasing the power law, but at the same time, experimental uncertainty in the number of particles will induce corresponding fluctuations in the measured condensate fraction. Calculations in two dimensions indicate that a potential slightly more flat-bottomed than a quadratic one is to be preferred for a wide range of particle number fluctuation size.     

约瑟夫森效应的一种初等阐述

用初等方法导出了约瑟夫森公式，阐述了约瑟夫森效应及其简单应用．     

Man-made materials—an exciting area for hyperfine-interaction investigations

Summary Man-made low-dimensional magnetic systems including surfaces, interfaces and multilayers, have attracted a great amount of attention in the past decade because, as expected, the lowered symmetry and coordination number offer a variety of opportunities for inducing new and exotic phenomena and so hold out the promise of new device applications. Local spin density functional (LSDF)ab initio electronic-structure calculations employing the full-potential-linearized augmented-plane-wave (FLAPW) method have played a key role in the development of this exciting field by not only providing a clearer understanding of the experimental observations but also predicting new systems with desired properties. One of the striking successes of theory in the last decade has been the calculation of hyperfine fields at surfaces and interfaces. Concurrently, several groups have followed the pioneering work of Korecki and Gradmann and have measured hyperfine fields at surfaces and interfaces. In this paper, we review new features of hyperfine-interaction investigations in man-made materials which emphasizes how the close interplay of theoretical determinations and experiment are essential because the hyperfine field is not proportional to the magnetization and so interpretations of experiment are totally dependent on theory. Paper presented at ICAME-95, Rimini, 10–16 September 1995.     

Aspects of macroscopic quantum tunnelling in small Josephson junctions

Summary We study the effect of temperature on the lifetime of the resonant macroscopic quantum tunnelling voltage state. In view of experiments we consider a merit factor in order to balance between measuring extremely small signals of longer duration or larger signals of shorter duration.