Competing tunneling and capacitive paths in Co-ZrO2 granular thin films

The ac electrical response is studied in thin films composed of well-defined nanometric Co particles embedded in an insulating ZrO2 matrix which tends to coat them, preventing the formation of aggregates. In the dielectric regime, ac transport originates from the competition between interparticle capacitive Cp and tunneling Rt channels, the latter being thermally assisted. This competition yields an absorption phenomenon at a characteristic frequency 1/(RtCp), which is observed in the range 1010 000 Hz. In this way, the effective ac properties mimic the universal response of disordered dielectric materials. Temperature and frequency determine the complexity and nature of the ac electrical paths, which have been successfully modeled by an Rt-Cp network.

Parity violation in Aharonov-Bohm systems: The spontaneous Hall effect

We show how macroscopic manifestations of P (and T) symmetry breaking can arise in a simple system subject to Aharonov-Bohm interactions. Specifically, we study the conductivity of a gas of charged particles moving through a dilute array of flux tubes. The interaction of the electrons with the flux tubes is taken to be of a purely Aharonov-Bohm type. We find that the system exhibits a nonzero transverse conductivity, i.e., a spontaneous Hall effect. This is in contrast to the fact that the cross sections for both scattering and bremsstrahlung (soft-photon emission) of a single electron from a flux tube are invariant under reflections. We argue that the asymmetry in the conductivity coefficients arises from many-body effects. On the other hand, the transverse conductivity has the same dependence on universal constants that appears in the quantum Hall effect, a result that we relate to the validity of the mean-field approximation.

Density matrix functional theory that includes pairing correlations

The extension of density functional theory (DFT) to include pairing correlations without formal violation of the particle-number conservation condition is described. This version of the theory can be considered as a foundation of the application of existing DFT plus pairing approaches to atoms, molecules, ultracooled and magnetically trapped atomic Fermi gases, and atomic nuclei where the number of particles is conserved exactly. The connection with Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov (HFB) theory is discussed, and the method of quasilocal reduction of the nonlocal theory is also described. This quasilocal reduction allows equations of motion to be obtained which are much simpler for numerical solution than the equations corresponding to the nonlocal case. Our theory is applied to the study of some even Sn isotopes, and the results are compared with those obtained in the standard HFB theory and with the experimental ones.