Nanoherding : plasma-chemical synthesis and electric-charge-driven self organization of SiO2 nanodots

We report on the chemical synthesis of the arrays of silicon oxide nanodots and their self-organization on the surface via physical processes triggered by surface charges. The method based on chemically active oxygen plasma leads to the rearrangement of nanostructures and eventually to the formation of groups of nanodots. This behavior is explained in terms of the effect of electric field on the kinetics of surface processes. The direct measurements of the electric charges on the surface demonstrate that the charge correlates with the density and arrangement of nanodots within the array. Extensive numerical simulations support the proposed mechanism and prove a critical role of the electric charges in the self-organization. This simple and environment-friendly self-guided process could be used in the chemical synthesis of large arrays of nanodots on semiconducting surfaces for a variety of applications in catalysis, energy conversion and storage, photochemistry, environmental and biosensing, and several others.

Exclusion of an Exotic Top Quark with -4/3 Electric Charge Using Soft Lepton Tagging

We present a measurement of the electric charge of the top quark using $\ppbar$ collisions corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 2.7~fb$^{-1}$ at the CDF II detector. We reconstruct $\ttbar$ events in the lepton+jets final state and use kinematic information to determine which $b$-jet is associated with the leptonically- or hadronically-decaying $t$-quark. Soft lepton taggers are used to determine the $b$-jet flavor. Along with the charge of the $W$ boson decay lepton, this information permits the reconstruction of the top quark's electric charge. Out of 45 reconstructed events with $2.4\pm0.8$ expected background events, 29 are reconstructed as $\ttbar$ with the standard model $+$2/3 charge, whereas 16 are reconstructed as $\ttbar$ with an exotic $-4/3$ charge. This is consistent with the standard model and excludes the exotic scenario at 95\% confidence level. This is the strongest exclusion of the exotic charge scenario and the first to use soft leptons for this purpose.

Electric charge quantization and the muon anomalous magnetic moment

We investigate some proposals to solve the electric charge quantization puzzle that simultaneously explain the recent measured deviation on the muon anomalous magnetic moment. For this we assess extensions of the electro-weak standard model spanning modifications on the scalar sector only. It is interesting to verify that one can have modest extensions which easily account for the solution for both problems.

Electric charge rotating around a black hole

We consider an electric charge rotating around a Schwarzschild black hole. We compute, using quantum field theory in curved spacetime at the tree level, the power emitted by the rotating charge minimally coupled to the Maxwell field. We also compute how much of the radiation emitted by the swirling charge is absorbed by the black hole.

Electric charge quantization in a chiral bilepton gauge model

In the context of the standard model the quantization of the electric charge occurs only family by family. When we consider the three families together with massless neutrinos the electric charge is not quantized any more. Here we show that a chiral bilepton gauge model based on the gauge group SU(3)C ⊗ SU(3)L ⊗ U(1)N explains the quantization of the electric charge when we take into account the three families of fermions. This result does not depend on the neutrino masses. Charge quantization occurs whether the neutrinos are massless or Dirac or Majorana massive fields.

Interaction of Hawking radiation and a static electric charge

We investigate whether the equality found for the response of static scalar sources interacting (i) with Hawking radiation in Schwarzschild spacetime and (ii) with the Fulling-Davies-Unruh thermal bath in the Rindler wedge is maintained in the case of electric charges. We find a finite result in the Schwarzschild case, which is computed exactly, in contrast with the divergent result associated with the infrared catastrophe in the Rindler case, i.e., in the case of uniformly accelerated charges in Minkowski spacetime. Thus the equality found for scalar sources does not hold for electric charges.

Remark on the vectorlike nature of electromagnetism and electric charge quantization

In this work we study the structure of electromagnetic interactions and electric charge quantization in gauge theories of electroweak interactions based on semisimple groups. We show that in the standard model of electroweak interactions the structure of electromagnetic interactions is strongly correlated to the quantization pattern of electric charges. We examine these two questions also in all possible chiral bilepton gauge models of electroweak interactions. In all, we can explain the vectorlike nature of electromagnetic interactions and electric charge quantization together demanding nonvanishing fermion masses and anomaly cancellations. ©1999 The American Physical Society.

Electric charge rotating around a black hole

We consider an electric charge rotating around a Schwarzschild black hole. We compute, using quantum field theory in curved spacetime at the tree level, the power emitted by the rotating charge minimally coupled to the Maxwell field. We also compute how much of the radiation emitted by the swirling charge is absorbed by the black hole.

Hopping-tunneling model to describe electric charge injection at metal/organic semiconductor heterojunctions

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Osmotic flow in porous membranes:effects of electric charge

The electrostatic model for osmotic flow across a porous membrane in our previous study (Akinaga et al. 2008)" was extended to include the streaming potential, for solutes and pores of like charge and fixed surface charge densities. The magnitude of the streaming potential was determined to satisfy zero current condition along the pore axis. It was found that the streaming potential affects the velocity profiles of the pressure driven flow as well as the osmotic flow through the pore, and decreases their flow rates, particularly in the case of large Debye length relative to the pore radius, whereas it has little effect on the reflection coefficients of spherical solutes through cylindrical pores.