Colossal magnetoresistance manganites: A new approach

Manganites of the LA_1−x Ca _x MnO₃ family show a variety of new and poorly understood electronic, magnetic and structural effects. Here we outline a new approach recently proposed by us, where we argue that due to strong Jahn-Teller (JT) coupling with phonons the twofold degeneratee _g states at the Mn sites dynamically reorganize themselves into localised, JT polaronsl with exponentially small inter-site hopping, and band-like, nonpolaronic statesb, leading to anew 2-band model for manganites which includes strong Coulomb and Hund’s couplings. We also discuss some results from a dynamical mean-field theory treatment of the model which explains quantitatively a wide variety of experimental results, including insulator-metal transitions and CMR, in terms of the influence of physical conditions on the relative energies and occupation of thel andb states. We argue that this microscopic coexistence of the two types of electronic states, and their relative occupation and spatial correlation is the key to manganite physics. Dedicated to Professor C N R Rao on his 70th birthday     

Kinetics of cooperative conformational transitions of lineal biopolymers

Cooperative conformational transitions of proteins and nucleic acids are of decisive importance to many processes of molecular biology, and particularly to their regulation. They proceed via numerous interdependent elementary processes, and their kinetics are therefore often complicated. They are frequently also very fast. However, kinetic analyses can be carried out by chemical relaxation methods. The theoretical interpretation is comparatively simple in the case of linear biopolymers. When the linear Ising model extended for kinetics was applied to model peptides and polynucleotides, it provided an insight into the fundamental principles of cooperative transformations.     

High pressure phase transitions in organic solids II: X-ray diffraction study ofp-dichlorobenzene at high pressures

X-ray diffraction experiments onp-dichlorobenzene at high pressures show a transition at ～ 0.3 GPa, to a new phase, the diffraction pattern of which cannot be indexed on the anticipated low temperature monoclinic crystal structure. We have instead found an orthorhombic cell, very closely related to the low temperature monoclinic cell, for this new phase. This structure, which also occurs inp-diiodobenzene at ambient conditions, has cell constantsa =14.02,b = 6.06,c = 7.41Å andZ = 4. The space group is Pbca. This new phase has a non-β herring-bone structure, in contrast with the initialα phase which has aβ-structure with ribbon-like arrangement of molecules, with Cl-Cl contacts of ～ 4A between adjacent molecules. This implies that with pressure the halogen-halogen interaction in this compound plays a less dominant role in crystal engineering.     

Partition function zeros and the three-dimensional Ising spin glass

We have computed the exact partition function of the 3D Ising spin glass on lattices of effective size 3×3×L_z, 4×4×L_z, and 5×5×L_z forL _z up to 9, and several random bond configurations. Studying the distribution of zeros of the associated partition functions, we find further evidence that these systems have a singularity in the thermodynamic limit.     

Comparative electroabsorption studies of organic and inorganic solids

Spectral changes induced by moderate electric fields provide detailed insight into the electronic states of organic and inorganic solids. Although the basic effects, Stark effect and Franz–Keldysh effect, are the same in both types of material, the electroabsorption spectra vary strongly in size and spectral lineshape due to competing interactions. The large variance of the effects is demonstrated by representative examples of high mobility semiconductors, quantum wells, π-conjugated polymers, and charge transfer transitions in single crystals, disordered films and a double-quantum well. It is shown that only high-quality samples reveal the quantum mechanics of field-induced effects which are very sensitive to disorder.     

Solid-state structure of polypeptide-based rod-coil block copolymers: Folding of helices

This work compares the solid-state structures of films made from a polystyrene-poly(Z-L-lysine) (1) and a polystyrene-poly(-benzyl-L-glutamate) (2) block copolymer, both having virtually the same numbers of repeating units and block length ratios. Small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) revealed a hexagonal-in-undulated lamellar morphology for both films. The long-period and the thickness of layers obtained for 2 were by a factor of three smaller as compared to 1, indicating that PBLGlu helices were folded twice, whereas PZLLys helices were fully stretched. Another difference shows up in the packing of helices, the level of ordering being considerably lower in 2. This might be due to spatial restrictions in the proper alignment of back-folded helical segments.     

Generalized Bethe ansatz solution of a one-dimensional asymmetric exclusion process on a ring with blockage

We present a model for a one-dimensional anisotropic exclusion process describing particles moving deterministically on a ring of lengthL with a single defect, across which they move with probability 0 p 1. This model is equivalent to a two-dimensional, six-vertex model in an extreme anisotropic limit with a defect line interpolating between open and periodic boundary conditions. We solve this model with a Bethe ansatz generalized to this kind of boundary condition. We discuss in detail the steady state and derive exact expressions for the currentj, the density profilen(x), and the two-point density correlation function. In the thermodynamic limitL the phase diagram shows three phases, a low-density phase, a coexistence phase, and a high-density phase related to the low-density phase by a particle-hole symmetry. In the low-density phase the density profile decays exponentially with the distance from the boundary to its bulk value on a length scale . On the phase transition line diverges and the currentj approaches its critical valuej _c = p as a power law,j _c – j ^–1/2. In the coexistence phase the width of the interface between the high-density region and the low-density region is proportional toL ^1/2 if the density f 1/2 and=0 independent ofL if = 1/2. The (connected) two-point correlation function turns out to be of a scaling form with a space-dependent amplitude n(x₁, x₂) =A(x₂)A ^Ke^–r/ withr = x ₂ –x ₁ and a critical exponent = 0.     

Optical-Oscillator strengths for Ca X,Sc XI,Ti XII,Cu XIX,Zn XX,Br XXV and Kr XXVI

Summary We have applied the Tiwary approach to calculate the opticaloscillator strengths, of both the length and velocity forms, for the inner-shell excitation1s ² 2s ² 2p ⁶ 3s ² S ^e →1s ² 2s ² 2p ⁵ 3s ^{2 2} P ⁰ transition in Ca X, Sc XI, Ti XII, Cu XIX, Zn XX, Br XXV and Kr XXVI ions of the sodium isoelectronic sequence employing Hartree-Fock (HF) and configuration interaction (CI) wave functions of both the initial and final states involved in the transition. Our present calculated results demonstrate that the Tiwary approach is capable of yielding encouraging results. A part of this work was done while the author was Research Director and Professor, CNRS Laboratory, University of Paris-Sud and Observatoire de Paris, Meudon, Paris, France.