Oxides,Oxides, and More Oxides: High-κ Oxides,Ferroelectrics, Ferromagnetics,and Multiferroics

We review and critique the recent developments on multifunctional oxide materials, which are gaining a good deal of interest. Recongnizing that this is a vast area, the focus of this treatment is mainly on high-κ dielectric, ferroelectric, magnetic, and multiferroic materials. Also, we consider ferrimagnetic oxides in the context of the new, rapidly developing field of negative-index metamaterials. This review is motivated by the recent resurgence of interest in complex oxides owing to their coupling of electrical, magnetic, thermal, mechanical, and optical properties, which make them suitable for a wide variety of applications, including heat, motion, electric, and magnetic sensors; tunable and compact microwave passive components; surface acoustic wave devices; nonlinear optics; and nonvolatile memory, and pave the way for designing multifunctional devices and unique applications in spintronics and negative refraction-index media. For most of the materials treated here, structural and physical properties, preparation methods accompanied by particulars of synthesis of thin films, devices based on them, and some projections into their future applications are discussed.     

Effects of pressure on structural,electronic, and mechanical properties of α,β,and γ uranium

The first-principles methods have been employed to calculate the structural, electronic, and mechanical properties of the α, β, and γ phases of uranium under pressure up to 100 GPa. The electronic structure has been viewed in forms of density of states and band structure. The mechanical stability of metal U in the α, β, and γ phases have been examined.The independent elastic constants, polycrystalline elastic moduli, as well as Poisson's ratio have been obtained. Upon compression, the elastic constants, elastic moduli, elastic wave velocities, and Debye temperature of α phase are enhanced pronouncedly. The value of B/G illustrates that α and γ phases are brittle in ground state.     

Helmholtz, Riemann, and the Sirens: Sound, Color, and the “Problem of Space”

Emerging from music and the visual arts, questions about hearing and seeing deeply affected Hermann Helmholtz’s and Bernhard Riemann’s contributions to what became called the “problem of space [Raumproblem],” which in turn influenced Albert Einstein’s approach to general relativity. Helmholtz’s physiological investigations measured the time dependence of nerve conduction and mapped the three-dimensional manifold of color sensation. His concurrent studies on hearing illuminated musical evidence through experiments with mechanical sirens that connect audible with visible phenomena, especially how the concept of frequency unifies motion, velocity, and pitch. Riemann’s critique of Helmholtz’s work on hearing led Helmholtz to respond and study Riemann’s then-unpublished lecture on the foundations of geometry. During 1862–1870, Helmholtz applied his findings on the manifolds of hearing and seeing to the Raumproblem by supporting the quadratic distance relation Riemann had assumed as his fundamental hypothesis about geometrical space. Helmholtz also drew a “close analogy … in all essential relations between the musical scale and space.” These intersecting studies of hearing and seeing thus led to reconsideration and generalization of the very concept of “space,” which Einstein shaped into the general manifold of relativistic space-time.     

Preparation,characterization, and conductivity of YLnTiZrO7 (Ln = La,Nd, Sm,and Eu)

The pyrochlore oxide of composition YLnTiZrO₇ (Ln?=?La, Nd, Sm, and Eu) was prepared by sol–gel method. All the samples were characterized by powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), diffused reflectance spectroscopy, and impedance spectroscopy. The powder XRD and Raman studies reveal that these samples were crystallized in cubic lattice with pyrochlore structure. The Rietveld analysis of the samples was carried out to obtain the unit cell parameters and reliability factors. The broad Raman bands observed for all the samples are due to cation/anion disorder in the lattice and nanosize. The XPS analysis of the samples shows the characteristic peaks belonging to Y³⁺, Ln³⁺ (Ln?=?La, Nd, Sm, and Eu), Ti⁴⁺, and Zr⁴⁺. Electrical conductivity of YLaTiZrO₇ (YLTZ) and YEuTiZrO₇ (YETZ) samples was calculated from the impedance as a function of frequency and temperature. These samples have shown conductivity of the order of 10^?5 scm^?1 at 500 °C.     

Densities and mixing volumes of mixtures of fluorobenzene, α,α,α-trifluorotoluene, tert-butylmethyl ether, and ethanol at temperature 298.15 K and pressure 0.1 MPa

The volumetric properties were evaluated from density data for the binary mixtures of (fluorobenzene + tert-butylmethyl ether), (α,α,α-trifluorotoluene + tert-butylmethyl ether), (tert-butylmethyl ether + ethanol), and the ternary mixtures of (fluorobenzene + tert-butylmethyl ether + ethanol) and (α,α,α-trifluorotoluene + tert-butylmethyl ether + ethanol). The observed densities were obtained by means of a vibrating-tube densimeter at the temperature 298.15 K and the pressure 101 kPa.The excess molar volumes of the ternary mixtures were estimated from binary solution data using several empirical equations with mean standard deviation less than 0.03 cm³·mol^-1. Stable chemical cross-associations among the molecules forming the mixtures were revealed.     

Eigenvalues, Peres＇ Separability Condition, and Entanglement

The general expression with the physical significance and positive-definite condition of the eigenvalues of 4×4 Hermitian and trace-one matrix are obtained. The obvious expression of Peres' separability condition for an arbitrary state of two qubits is then given and its operational feature is enhanced. Furthermore, we discuss some applications to the calculation of the entanglement, the upper bound of the entanglement, and a model of the transfer of entanglement in a qubit chain with noise.     

Lorentz violation,quantum tunneling,and information conservation

In this paper, by introducing the Lorentz-invariance-violation(LIV) class of dispersion relations(DR)suppressed by the second power(E/EQG)2, we investigated the effect of the LIV on the Hawking radiation of a charged Dirac particle based on tunneling from a Reissner-Nordstrom(RN) black hole. It was determined that the LIV speeds up black hole evaporation. As a result, the induced Hawking temperature was very sensitive to changes in the energy of the radiation particle. However, at the same energy level, it was insensitive to changes in the charge of the radiation particle. This is phenomenological evidence in support of the LIV-DR as a candidate for describing the effect of quantum gravity. Moreover, when the effect of the LIV was included, we discovered that the statistical correlations with the Planck-scale corrections between successive emissions could leak out information via radiation.We also determined that black hole radiation via tunneling is an entropy conservation process, and no information loss occurred during radiation, where the interpretation of the entropy of a black hole is addressed. Finally, we concluded that black hole evaporation is still a unitary process in the context of quantum gravity.     

Inflation, Extra Dimensions, and ΩΛ ≈ 1

An (N + 1)-dimensional quantum mechanical model for the origin of the universeresults in a 58e-fold inflation and a cosmological constant/vacuum energy densitywith 1.     

Nanomagnetism:Principles,nanostructures,and biomedical applications

Nanomagnetism is the origin of many unique properties in magnetic nanomaterials that can be used as building blocks in information technology, spintronics, and biomedicine. Progresses in nanomagnetic principles, distinct magnetic nanostructures, and the biomedical applications of nanomagnetism are summarized.     

Hitchin–Kobayashi Correspondence, Quivers, and Vortices

 A twisted quiver bundle is a set of holomorphic vector bundles over a complex manifold, labelled by the vertices of a quiver, linked by a set of morphisms twisted by a fixed collection of holomorphic vector bundles, labelled by the arrows. When the manifold is K?hler, quiver bundles admit natural gauge-theoretic equations, which unify many known equations for bundles with extra structure. In this paper we prove a Hitchin–Kobayashi correspondence for twisted quiver bundles over a compact K?hler manifold, relating the existence of solutions to the gauge equations to a stability criterion, and consider its application to a number of situations related to Higgs bundles and dimensional reductions of the Hermitian–Einstein equations. Received: 10 December 2001 / Accepted: 10 November 2002 Published online: 28 May 2003 RID="⋆" ID="⋆" Current address: Mathematical Sciences, University of Bath, Bath, BA2 7AY, UK. E-mail:L.Alvarez-Consul@maths.bath.ac.uk RID="⋆⋆" ID="⋆⋆" Current address: Instituto de Matemáticas y Física Fundamental, CSIC, Serrano 113 bis, 28006 Madrid, Spain. E-mail:oscar.garcia-prada@uam.es Communicated by R.H. Dijkgraaf