Positive magnetoconductance and dephasing in strongly localized black phosphorus

We study the magnetoconductance and dephasing in a strongly localized regime in black phosphorus (BP) devices. The phase coherence length, l_φ obtained from the magnetoconductance follows a temperature dependence of T^–1/3 in the strongly localized regime with k_Fl_e < 1 (ξ < l_φ) based on the Ioffe–Regel criterion. Here k_F, l_e and ξ are the Fermi wave vector, mean free path and localization length, respectively. The conductance behavior as a function of temperature confirms that the transport regime of our BP is in a variable‐range‐hopping regime, which results in the strongly localized regime.     

Magnetoconductivity of thin epitaxial silver films

The magnetoconductance (MC) of thin epitaxial Ag films on Si(111) surfaces is studied as a function of film thickness (1–125 monolayers (ML)) at 20 K under ultra high vacuum (UHV) conditions. Three different regimes of magnetoconductance are observed depending on the degree of disorder in the films which is controlled by film thickness and annealing procedures. Thick films (d>3 ML) with diffuse electron transport show in the case of large elastic scattering times ₀ a classical, negative MC B ² and in the case of small ₀ a positive MC due to weak localization effects. The MC of thin films (d<2 ML) which have a conductance smaller than e ²/h, i.e. localized electron states, is negative again.     

Magnetotransport spectroscopy of a quantum dot: effects of lead opening and phase coherence

We compare open quantum dot magnetoconductance spectra from experiment and theory in the presence of environmental coupling and attributed broadening. Estimates of the phase-breaking time in experiment, and effective broadening in simulation, are determined independently. In a larger, more open dot, with a significantly shorter phase-breaking time, the observed spectrum is broadened, most noticeably about B=0. The required broadening in simulation is characterized by effective temperatures higher than estimates from experiment; however, without accounting for disorder, which will further broaden the spectrum, the agreement is reasonable.     

Isospin breaking in nuclear physics: The Nolen-Schiffer effect

Using the QCD sum rules we calculate the neutron-proton mass difference at zero density as a function of the difference in bare quark massm _d—m _u. We confirm results of Hatsuda, Høgaasen and Prakash that the largest term results from the difference in up and down quark condensates, the explicitC(m _d—m _u) entering with the opposite sign. The quark condensates are then extended to finite density to estimate the Nolen-Schiffer effect. The neutron-proton mass difference is extremely density dependent, going to zero at roughly nuclear matter density.The Ioffe formula for the nucleon mass is interpreted as a derivation, within the QCD sum rule approach, of the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio formula. This clarifies theN _c counting and furthermore provides an alternative interpretation of the Borel mass.     

Computing multi-valued physical observables for the high frequency limit of symmetric hyperbolic systems

We develop a level set method for the computation of multi-valued physical observables (density, velocity, energy, etc.) for the high frequency limit of symmetric hyperbolic systems in any number of space dimensions. We take two approaches to derive the method.The first one starts with a weakly coupled system of an eikonal equation for phase S and a transport equation for density ρ:

The main idea is to evolve the density near the n-dimensional bi-characteristic manifold of the eikonal (Hamiltonian–Jacobi) equation, which is identified as the common zeros of n level set functions in phase space . These level set functions are generated from solving the Liouville equation with initial data chosen to embed the phase gradient. Simultaneously, we track a new quantity f = ρ(t,x,k)|det(_k)| by solving again the Liouville equation near the obtained zero level set = 0 but with initial density as initial data. The multi-valued density and higher moments are thus resolved by integrating f along the bi-characteristic manifold in the phase directions.The second one uses the high frequency limit of symmetric hyperbolic systems derived by the Wigner transform. This gives rise to Liouville equations in the phase space with measure-valued solution in its initial data. Due to the linearity of the Liouville equation we can decompose the density distribution into products of function, each of which solves the Liouville equation with L^∞ initial data on any bounded domain. It yields higher order moments such as energy and energy flux.The main advantages of these new approaches, in contrast to the standard kinetic equation approach using the Liouville equation with a Dirac measure initial data, include: (1) the Liouville equations are solved with L^∞ initial data, and a singular integral involving the Dirac-δ function is evaluated only in the post-processing step, thus avoiding oscillations and excessive numerical smearing; (2) a local level set method can be utilized to significantly reduce the computation in the phase space. These methods can be used to compute all physical observables for multi-dimensional problems.Our method applies to the wave fields corresponding to simple eigenvalues of the dispersion matrix. One such example is the wave equation, which will be studied numerically in this paper.     

Low temperature thermal magnetoconductance of metals

A low temperature transverse thermal magnetoconductance of metals and semimetals is treated theoretically. It is shown that its high magnetic field behavior is determined by the characteristic time τ_ɛ of jumps from one cyclotron circle to another due to electron-phonon collisions rather than by the transport time τ_tr that determines the conductance. The phonon-electron drag contribution to the magnetoconductance is also discussed.     

Chiral approach to nuclear matter: role of two-pion exchange with virtual delta-isobar excitation

We extend a recent three-loop calculation of nuclear matter by including the effects from two-pion exchange with single and double virtual Δ(1232)-isobar excitation. Regularization dependent short-range contributions from pion-loops are encoded in a few NN-contact coupling constants. The empirical saturation point of isospin-symmetric nuclear matter, , ρ₀=0.16 fm⁻³, can be well reproduced by adjusting the strength of a two-body term linear in density (and tuning an emerging three-body term quadratic in density). The nuclear matter compressibility comes out as K=304 MeV. The real single-particle potential U(p,k_f0) is substantially improved by the inclusion of the chiral πNΔ-dynamics: it grows now monotonically with the nucleon momentum p. The effective nucleon mass at the Fermi surface takes on a realistic value of M^*(k_f0)=0.88M. As a consequence of these features, the critical temperature of the liquid-gas phase transition gets lowered to the value T_c15 MeV. In this work we continue the complex-valued single-particle potential U(p,k_f)+iW(p,k_f) into the region above the Fermi surface p>k_f. The effects of 2π-exchange with virtual Δ-excitation on the nuclear energy density functional are also investigated. The effective nucleon mass associated with the kinetic energy density is . Furthermore, we find that the isospin properties of nuclear matter get significantly improved by including the chiral πNΔ-dynamics. Instead of bending downward above ρ₀ as in previous calculations, the energy per particle of pure neutron matter and the asymmetry energy A(k_f) now grow monotonically with density. In the density regime ρ=2ρ_n<0.2 fm⁻³ relevant for conventional nuclear physics our results agree well with sophisticated many-body calculations and (semi)-empirical values.     

Quantum Hall effect in back-gated InAs/GaSb heterostructures under a tilted magnetic field

We investigate the quantum Hall effect (QHE) in the InAs/GaSb hybridized electron–hole system grown on a conductive InAs substrate which act as a back-gate. In these samples, the electron density is constant and the hole density is controlled by the gate-voltage. Under a magnetic field perpendicular to the sample plane, the QHE appears along integer Landau-level (LL) filling factors of the net-carriers, where the net-carrier density is the difference between the electron and hole densities. In addition, longitudinal resistance maxima corresponding to the crossing of the extended states of the original electron and hole LLs make the QHE regions along integer-ν_net discontinuous. Under tilted magnetic fields, these R_xx maxima disappear in the high magnetic field region. The results show that the in-plane magnetic field component enhances the electron–hole hybridization and the formation of minigaps at LL crossings.     

Flow overshooting in crossing flow of lattice gas

We study the lattice gas flow of two components of biased-random walkers at a crossing under a periodic boundary. The lattice gas mixture consists of two components of particles (walkers) in which one component of particles moves north and the other component of particles moves east. The current (flow) increases with ρ_x (density of the east-bound particles) at low density and displays overshooting at an intermediate density. The flow overshooting occurs only for a certain range of ρ_y (density of the north-bound particles). Then clogging occurs and the current saturates. Furthermore, when the density is high, the current decreases with increasing density. The overshooting shown in the current-density (fundamental) diagram is due to the formation of an unstable oscillating jam just before clogging occurs. It is shown that flow overshooting does not occur in unidirectional flow through a porous medium but occurs in unidirectional flow through a group of Brownian particles.     

The enigma of the quantum Hall effect in graphene

We apply Laughlin’s gauge argument to analyze the ν=0 quantum Hall effect observed in graphene when the Fermi energy lies near the Dirac point, and conclude that this necessarily leads to divergent bulk longitudinal resistivity in the zero temperature thermodynamic limit. We further predict that in a Corbino geometry measurement, where edge transport and other mesoscopic effects are unimportant, one should find the longitudinal conductivity vanishing in all graphene samples which have an underlying ν=0 quantized Hall effect. We argue that this ν=0 graphene quantum Hall state is qualitatively similar to the high field insulating phase (also known as the Hall insulator) in the lowest Landau level of ordinary semiconductor two-dimensional electron systems. We establish the necessity of having a high magnetic field and high mobility samples for the observation of the divergent resistivity as arising from the existence of disorder-induced density inhomogeneity at the graphene Dirac point.     

Angular Momentum Operator and Fermion-Pair Creation for Non-Abelian Fields

We study the extended structure of non-Abelian dyons, the generalized electromagnetic field and the resulting residual angular momentum in the interior as well as exterior regions of the dyon, and it has been demonstrated that at the dyonic centre there exists no well-defined U(1) charge symmetry and the density of residual angular momentum becomes infinity. The mechanism of creation of a fermionic pair at the dyonic core involving the extremely high density of residual angular momentum has been developed, which leads to baryon-number nonconservation in the presence of non-Abelian dyons. The fermion-number–breaking amplitudes in the presence of a non-Abelian dyon have been analyzed and are not suppressed by exp(– const/e ²). Further, the relevant properties of left-handed fermions in a non-Abelian field has been summarized and the zeroth-order approximation is described. Within this approximation the density of the fermion-number–breaking condensate is found to be O(1), i.e. to be independent of the coupling constant and of the vacuum expectation value of the Higgs field.     

Families of commuting transfer matrices and integrable models with disorder

A family of commuting transfer matrices is shown to be associated to each symmetry transformation of a given Yang-Baxter algebra. This applies in lattices models and field theory.The Yang-Baxter algebra remains unchanged when an arbitrary parameter μ_l is associated to each lattice site. We generate in this way integrable one-dimensional hamiltonians with long-range couplings and disorder given by the <{;μ₁<};. These operators are lattice versions of the non-local charges in sigma models. As a simple example we get a Dzialozhinski-Moriya interaction with an arbitrary coupling per site from the six-vertex model. A similar model with a disordered magnetic field follows too. Their exact solution by an algebraic Bethe ansatz is presented. We derive the excitations spectrum in terms of the density of parameters (μ).As another application, the total spin S² is computed for a XXZ Heisenberg chain (μ_l ≡ 0) as a function of the anisotropy Δ (− ∞ < Δ < + ∞).     

Effect of impurities scattering potential on NMR relaxation rate in impure d-wave superconductors

The purpose of our research is to study the nuclear spin lattice relaxation rate of impure d-wave superconductors. We use the Green’s function method to derive the approximation equation of density of states including the impurity scattering potential. We can get the analytic equation of the nuclear spin lattice relaxation rate that contained the impurity scattering potential in case of weak scattering potential and strong scattering potential in the simple form as the power series of Δ(T) and T. The numerical calculations show that there is coherence peak in the weak impurity scattering potential but there is no peak in the strong impurity scattering potential.     

Evidence of critical fluctuations from the magnetoconductivity data in Bi2Sr2Ca2Cu3O10+x phase

The fluctuation-induced magnetoconductivity of the Bi₂Sr₂Ca₂Cu₃O_10+x phase is studied above zero-field critical temperature Tc(0) and for moderate magnetic fields. It is found that the Gaussian approximation for superconducting fluctuations underestimates the negative fluctuation magnetoconductance drastically in the Tc(0) < T < Tc(0) + 20 K temperature range. Taking into account the critical fluctuation contribution on the base of self-consistent Hartree approximation makes it possible to explain the data quantitatively in terms of the only Aslamazov-Larkin contribution for different magnetic fields and temperatures, consistently with the zero field data. Received 14 April 2000 and Received in final form 13 July 2000     

On the Casimir energy for a massive quantum scalar field and the cosmological constant

We present a rigorous, regularization-independent local quantum field theoretic treatment of the Casimir effect for a quantum scalar field of mass μ≠0 which yields closed form expressions for the energy density and pressure. As an application we show that there exist special states of the quantum field in which the expectation value of the renormalized energy–momentum tensor is, for any fixed time, independent of the space coordinate and of the perfect fluid form g_μ,νρ with ρ>0, thus providing a concrete quantum field theoretic model of the cosmological constant. This ρ represents the energy density associated to a state consisting of the vacuum and a certain number of excitations of zero momentum, i.e., the constituents correspond to lowest energy and pressure p0.     

Electron and hole μτ-products in a-Si:H/a-SiNχ:H multilayers

In this work the influence of the interface defect density on the a-Si:H/a-SiN_χ:H multilayers is investigated through photoconductivity, ambipolar diffusion length, dark conductivity activation energy, and defect density measurements. The results show a strong asymmetric dependence of (μτ)_e and μτ)_h on the interface defect density: As the thickness of the well decreases, (μτ)_e decreases strongly, whereas (μτ)_h remains constant. The asymmetry is consistently explained by a simple model, in which recombination of free carriers occurs via midgap defect states (in the bulk and at interfaces) and via trapping of electrons (holes) into their respective deep tail states below (above) their respective demarcation levels. Since the samples are slightly n-type and due to the asymmetric density-of-state distribution we can show analytically that (μτ)_h is indeed insensitive to the midgap defect density. Finally, when fitting the measured mobility-lifetime products to an exponentially decaying defect density profile we can conclude that the interface region is about 5 Åwide.     

Statistics of ideal randomly branched polymers in a semi-space

We investigate the statistical properties of a randomly branched 3-functional N-link polymer chain without excluded volume, whose one point is fixed at the distance d from the impenetrable surface in a 3-dimensional space. Exactly solving the Dyson-type equation for the partition function Z(N, d )= N^-θe^γN in 3D, we find the “surface” critical exponent θ = , as well as the density profiles of 3-functional units and of dead ends. Our approach enables to compute also the pairwise correlation function of a randomly branched polymer in a 3D semi-space.     

Equilibrium concentration of point defects in crystalline4He at O K

We calculate the concentrations of vacancies and intersitials in the ground state of a Bose solid which models⁴He. Because ground-state boson wave functions are nodeless, their probability densities correspond to classical Boltzmann factors, and properties of Bose solids, such as the concentration of vacancies and interstitials, can be calculated using classical statistical mechanics. We model the ground-state wave function of⁴He with the product (Jastrow) form that corresponds to a classical 1/r ^b pair potential, and use a quasiharmonic approximation to calculate the concentrations of vacancies and interstitials in an fcc lattice with this potential. We find that the fractional concentration of vacancies at the melting point is 1.60×10^–5 for 1/r ⁹ and 6.36×10^–6 for 1/r ⁶, while the interstitial fractional concentrations are 1.32×10^–3 and 1.08×10^–5, respectively; the defect concentrations decrease by 7–16 orders of magnitude when the crystal density increases by 50%. At the same density, and with the same 1/r ⁹ potential, the concentration of vacancies in an hcp lattice is essentially the same as in an fcc lattice, but the interstitial concentration is much lower, apparently because the fcc lattice contains a more favorable split-interstitial site than does hcp. Therefore, our fcc vacancy results should be directly relevant for (hcp)⁴He, providing what we think is a lower bound on the vacancy concentration, while the interstitial concentration in⁴He is probably much lower than our results.     

Methyl and t-butyl reorientation in an organic molecular solid

We have determined the molecular and crystal structure of 4,5-dibromo-2,7-di-t-butyl-9,9-dimethylxanthene and measured the ¹H spin–lattice relaxation rate from 87 to 270 K at NMR frequencies of ω/2π=8.50, 22.5, and 53.0 MHz. All molecules in the crystal see the same intra and intermolecular environment and the repeating unit is half a molecule. We have extended models developed for ¹H spin–lattice relaxation resulting from the reorientation of a t-butyl group and its constituent methyl groups to include these rotors and the 9-methyl groups. The relaxation rate data is well-fitted assuming that the t-butyl groups and all three of their constituent methyl groups, as well as the 9-methyl groups all reorient with an NMR activation energy of 15.8±1.6 kJ mol⁻¹ corresponding to a barrier of 17.4±3.2 kJ mol⁻¹. Only intramethyl and intra-t-butyl intermethyl spin–spin interactions need be considered. A unique random-motion Debye (or BPP) spectral density will not fit the data for any reasonable choice of parameters. A distribution of activation energies is required.     

Bilayer counterflow transport at filling factor 1 in the strong interacting regime

We review magneto-transport properties of interacting GaAs bilayer hole systems, with very small inter-layer tunneling, in a geometry where equal currents are passed in opposite directions in the two, independently contacted layers (counterflow). In the quantum Hall state at total bilayer filling ν=1 both the longitudinal and Hall counterflow resistances tend to vanish in the limit of zero temperature, suggesting the existence of a superfluid transport mode in the counterflow geometry. As the density of the two layers is reduced, making the bilayer more interacting, the counterflow Hall resistivity (ρ_xy) decreases at a given temperature while the counterflow longitudinal resistivity (ρ_xx), which is much larger than ρ_xy, hardly depends on density. Our data suggest that the counterflow dissipation present at any finite temperature is a result of mobile vortices in the superfluid created by the ubiquitous disorder in this system.