Dimensional crossover of quantum interference effects in thin quasicrystalline Al-Cu-Fe films

We present a study of the electrical transport properties of thin i-Al-Cu-Fe films. We observe clear signatures of a dimensional crossover in the temperature and magnetic field dependence of the conductivity for films thinner that ≃ 10³?. In particular for the thinnest sample the magnetoconductivity is strongly anisotropic, as is expected for the weak localisation contribution in two dimensions. These experiments show direct qualitative manifestations of the disorder induced quantum interference effects occurring in quasicrystals. Estimates of the electronic microscopic parameters are in accordance with those obtained in bulk samples. Their values and significance are discussed. Received 16 February 2001 and Received in final form 20 June 2001     

Self-organized branching process for a one-dimensional rice-pile model

A self-organized branching process is introduced to describe one-dimensional rice-pile model with stochastic topplings. Although the branching processes are generally expected to describe well high-dimensional systems, our modification highlights some of the peculiarities present in one dimension. We find analytically that the crossover behavior from the trivial one-dimensional BTW behaviour to self-organized criticality is characterised by a power-law distribution of avalanches. The finite-size effects, which are crucial to the crossover, are calculated. Received 21 June 2001 and Received in final form 14 November 2001     

Coherent transport in disordered metals out of equilibrium

We derive a formula for the quantum corrections to the electrical current for a metal out of equilibrium. In the limit of linear current-voltage characteristics our formula reproduces the well known Altshuler-Aronov correction to the conductivity of a disordered metal. The current formula is obtained by a direct diagrammatic approach, and is shown to agree with what is obtained within the Keldysh formulation of the non-linear sigma model. As an application we calculate the current of a mesoscopic wire. We find a current-voltage characteristics that scales with eV/kT, and calculate the different scaling curves for a wire in the hot-electron regime and in the regime of full non-equilibrium. Received 13 June 2001     

Photofission for the production of radioactive beams: Experimental data from an on-line measurement

A PARRNe 1 experiment (Production d'Atomes Radioactifs Riches en Neutrons) aimed at the production of neutron-rich radioactive noble gases produced by photofission has been performed at CERN. The LEP Pre-Injector (LPI) has been used to deliver a 50 MeV electron beam. The results obtained show clearly that the use of an electron beam to produce neutron-rich fission fragments for futur RNB facilities is an option that should not be neglected. Received: 20 July 2001 / Accepted: 5 June 2002 / Published online: 19 November 2002 RID="a" ID="a"e-mail: ibrahim@ipno.in2p3.fr Communicated by D. Guerreau     

Delocalization of two-particle ring near the Fermi level of 2d Anderson model

We study analytically and numerically the problem of two particles with a long range attractive interaction on a two-dimensional (2d) lattice with disorder. It is shown that below some critical disorder the interaction creates delocalized coupled states near the Fermi level. These states appear inside well localized noninteracting phase and have a form of two-particle ring which diffusively propagates over the lattice. Received 29 September 2000 and Received in final form 15 January 2001     

Delocalization in disordered chains with random symmetrical impurities

We study in this paper, with the context of a tight-binding on-side model, the electronic properties of one-dimensional random lattices with correlated impurities. We show that, when symmetrical impurities are inserted in a host chain of site energy and a constant hopping interaction V, diffusion will occur even when is random. We provide analytic expressions for the transmittance and confirm the theoretical results by a great deal of numerical calculations. When = V, we find that the mean-square displacement (MSD) follows the law m ² ∝t ^β with β = 2.0 for = constant and β = 1.0 for = = random, respectively. Received 15 January 2001 and Received in final form 30 April 2001     

Renormalized tricritical behaviour for wetting transitions

In this paper we study tricritical wetting behaviour in three dimensions. In particular we concentrate on systems with short-ranged forces and apply linear functional renormalization group techniques to elucidate the effect of fluctuations upon tricriticality. In comparison with studies of critical wetting we identify an additional fluctuation regime which is relevant for values of the capillary parameter between 2/9 and 1/2. We demonstrate that this regime essentially provides a crossover from mean-field like behaviour, in which tricritical exponents are always distinct from their critical counterparts, from intermediate- and strong-fluctuation behaviour where the critical exponents for tricritical and critical wetting are found to always coincide. We conclude by discussing briefly the possible relevance of these results for experimental studies of wetting. Received 4 January 2001 and Received in final form 11 May 2001     

Micromagnetic structure in multilayer films with moderate perpendicular anisotropy

Micromagnetic simulations have been performed in order to obtain deeper insight into the domain structures within multilayer films, as they are expected to differ from those of single films. These 2D calculations have been done in the case of multilayers exhibiting a moderate perpendicular anisotropy, with no indirect exchange coupling between the magnetic layers, where a “weak stripe" domain structure develops. First, these results are compared quantitatively to the very detailed experimental data available in the literature on the (Co/Au)_N system. More generally, the nucleation of a stripe pattern in multilayers is discussed as a function of the magnetic parameters and the number of magnetic layers in the stack. Compared to a single film, two main differences appear in the equilibrium domain period and the magnetization profiles. The physical origin of these effects is discussed. Received 12 January 2001 and Received in final form 15 May 2001     

Constrained order in frustrated 2D optical patterns

In 2D optical patterns obtained in a Liquid Crystal Light Valve with optical feedback, we show a new kind of geometrical frustration which comes from the imposed form of the boundaries. The circular section of the incoming laser beam presents a symmetry which belongs to the O(2) group, whereas the optical feedback selects patterns with a symmetry restrained to a dihedral subgroup of O(2). By imposing boundaries which respect the symmetry of the dihedral group, we lift the frustration and obtain perfectly ordered patterns. Received 19 January 2001 and Received in final form 2 June 2001     

Pionisation, relativistic lead-lead collisions, and the nature of average phase space density

The average phase space density (APSD) of the particles produced in high energy nuclear collisions at ultrarelativistic energies has here been theoretically estimated on the basis of some particular models for particle production spectra. The model-based values so obtained have been compared with the very recent experimental results in the field on the relevant observable and also with the calculated results obtained by some other models. Based on such comparisons, the present work indicates very strongly that Hagedorn's model has a sound potentiality to achieve a competitive status in its capability to deal with the data on the APSD factor in heavy-ion collisions. The impact and implications of all this have also been emphasised here in the end. Received: 14 November 2000 / Accepted: 19 April 2001     

Threshold enhancement in η photoproduction from 2H and 4He

The photoproduction of η-mesons from ²H and ⁴He has been studied for energies close to the production thresholds. The experiments were carried out with the tagged photon beam of the Mainz MAMI accelerator. The η-mesons were detected via their two photon decays with the electromagnetic calorimeter TAPS. Total cross-sections, angular and momentum distributions of the η-mesons have been determined for both reactions. The total cross-sections in the threshold region show a large enhancement over the predictions of a participant-spectator model, indicating significant final-state interaction effects. The results are compared to recent model calculations taking into account nucleon-nucleon and nucleon-η final-state interaction effects on different levels of sophistication. Received: 23 November 2001 / Accepted: 11 February 2002     

Finite-size scaling of the level compressibility at the Anderson transition

We compute the number level variance Σ ₂ and the level compressibility χ from high precision data for the Anderson model of localization and show that they can be used in order to estimate the critical properties at the metal-insulator transition by means of finite-size scaling. With N, W, and L denoting, respectively, linear system size, disorder strength, and the average number of levels in units of the mean level spacing, we find that both χ(N, W) and the integrated Σ ₂ obey finite-size scaling. The high precision data was obtained for an anisotropic three-dimensional Anderson model with disorder given by a box distribution of width W/2. We compute the critical exponent as ν≈ 1.45±0.12 and the critical disorder as W _c≈ 8.59±0.05 in agreement with previous transfer-matrix studies in the anisotropic model. Furthermore, we find χ≈ 0.28±0.06 at the metal-insulator transition in very close agreement with previous results. Received 1st November 2001 and Received in final form 8 March 2002 Published online 6 June 2002     

Undulating membrane structure under mixed extensional-shear flow

We report on studies using a new X-ray extensional flow cell to examine, for the first time, the structure of undulating lamellar lyotropic liquid crystal systems under extensional flow. The extensional component of the flow profile produced within this cell causes the lamellae to orient. We find that, although the intermembrane spacing does not change at low flow rates, it suddenly decreases after a critical flow rate has been attained due to the stretching and straightening of the lamellae. The effects of the shear component of flow on this oriented system have been examined in the context of a theoretical model developed by Ramaswamy. Received 29 May 2001 and Received in final form 20 July 2001     

Polarized infrared reflectivity study of an oriented ceramic of Bi 2 Sr 2 Ca 2 Cu 3 O 10 + δ (Bi-2223)

The reflectivity spectra of an oriented ceramic of Bi-2223 has been investigated by polarized infrared reflectivity spectroscopy in the energy range 0.005-2.2 eV. It is shown that the data for the polarization parallel to the c axis cannot be fitted with a one-component Drude or extended-Drude model. The conductivity spectrum is then obtained from the best fit of a “double-damping Drude” model to reflectivity spectra, itself derived from the factorized form of the dielectric function, and by a Kramers-Kronig inversion as well. The data and their analysis give a new insight of the 2D character of the system. Received 26 April 2001 and Received in final form 28 August 2001     

Analysis of optical spectra of CdS and CdSe films deposited on a sapphire substrate by laser ablation technique

CdSe and CdS films, deposited on a sapphire substrate by means of pulsed laser ablation technique, have been investigated by means of reflectivity and photoluminescence measurements in order to study the effect of such a transparent substrate on the optical properties of the deposited epilayers. The reflectivity spectra at low temperature have been studied by means of an analytical model which permits one to obtain the energies of the excitonic resonances. The photoluminescence spectra show that our CdSe and CdS films present excitonic emission at low temperature, differently from the same films deposited on quartz. The temperature dependence of the excitonic energy has been analysed by taking into account the contribution of both the thermal expansion and electron-phonon interaction. The exciton linewidth has been analysed according to well known phenomenological models. Received 21 June 2001 and Received in final form 18 November 2001     

The DLCA-RLCA transition arising in 2D-aggregation: simulations and mean field theory

A sticking probability model based on the average cluster lifetime is employed for deducing a kernel capable to describe the kinetics of computer simulated irreversible aggregation processes in two dimensions. The deduced kernel describes not only the time evolution of the cluster size distribution for diffusion limited aggregation (DLCA) and reaction limited aggregation (RLCA) but also for the entire transition region between both regimes. The model predicts a crossover to diffusion limited cluster aggregation for all sticking probabilities at long aggregation times. The time needed for reaching the DLCA limit increases for decreasing sticking probability. Received 16 April 2001 and Received in final form 24 May 2001     

Painlevé integrability and multi-dromion solutions of the 2+1 dimensional AKNS system

The Painlevé integrability of the 2+1 dimensional AKNS system is proved. Using the standard truncated Painlevé expansion which corresponds to a special B?cklund transformation, some special types of the localized excitations like the solitoff solutions, multi-dromion solutions and multi-ring soliton solutions are obtained. Received 31 January 2001 and Received in final form 15 May 2001     

First-principles calculation of electric field gradients and hyperfine couplings in YBa2Cu3O7

The local electronic structure of YBa₂Cu₃O₇ has been calculated using first-principles cluster methods. Several clusters embedded in an appropriate background potential have been investigated. The electric field gradients at the copper and oxygen sites are determined and compared to previous theoretical calculations and experiments. Spin polarized calculations with different spin multiplicities have enabled a detailed study of the spin density distribution to be made and a simultaneous determination of magnetic hyperfine coupling parameters. The contributions from on-site and transferred hyperfine fields have been disentangled with the conclusion that the transferred spin densities essentially are due to nearest neighbour copper ions only with marginal influence of ions further away. This implies that the variant temperature dependencies of the planar copper and oxygen NMR spin-lattice relaxation rates are only compatible with commensurate antiferromagnetic correlations. The theoretical hyperfine parameters are compared with those derived from experimental data. Received 10 April 2001 and Received in final form 19 June 2001     

Zero bias anomaly in the density of states of low-dimensional metals

We consider the effect of Coulomb interactions on the average density of states (DOS) of disordered low-dimensional metals for temperatures T and frequencies ω smaller than the inverse elastic life-time 1/τ. Using the fact that long-range Coulomb interactions in two dimensions (2d) generate ln²-singularities in the DOS ν(ω) but only ln-singularities in the conductivity σ(ω), we can re-sum the most singular contributions to the average DOS via a simple gauge-transformation. If σ(ω) > 0, then a metallic Coulomb gapν(ω) ∝ |ω|/e ⁴ appears in the DOS at T = 0 for frequencies below a certain crossover frequency Ω ₂ which depends on the value of the DC conductivity σ(0). Here, - e is the charge of the electron. Naively adopting the same procedure to calculate the DOS in quasi 1d metals, we find ν(ω) ∝ (|ω|/Ω ₁)^1/2exp(- Ω ₁/|ω|) at T = 0, where Ω ₁ is some interaction-dependent frequency scale. However, we argue that in quasi 1d the above gauge-transformation method is on less firm grounds than in 2d. We also discuss the behavior of the DOS at finite temperatures and give numerical results for the expected tunneling conductance that can be compared with experiments. Received 28 August 2001 / Received in final form 28 January 2002 Published online 9 July 2002