Dynamical Monte Carlo investigation of spin reversals and nonequilibrium magnetization of single-molecule magnets

In this paper, we combine thermal effects with Landau-Zener (LZ) quantum tunneling effects in a dynamical Monte Carlo (DMC) framework to produce satisfactory magnetization curves of single-molecule magnet (SMM) systems. We use the giant spin approximation for SMM spins and consider regular lattices of SMMs with magnetic dipolar interactions (MDI). We calculate spin reversal probabilities from thermal-activated barrier hurdling, direct LZ tunneling, and thermal-assisted LZ tunnelings in the presence of sweeping magnetic fields. We do systematical DMC simulations for Mn$_{12}$ systems with various temperatures and sweeping rates. Our simulations produce clear step structures in low-temperature magnetization curves, and our results show that the thermally activated barrier hurdling becomes dominating at high temperature near 3K and the thermal-assisted tunnelings play important roles at intermediate temperature. These are consistent with corresponding experimental results on good Mn$_{12}$ samples (with less disorders) in the presence of little misalignments between the easy axis and applied magnetic fields, and therefore our magnetization curves are satisfactory. Furthermore, our DMC results show that the MDI, with the thermal effects, have important effects on the LZ tunneling processes, but both the MDI and the LZ tunneling give place to the thermal-activated barrier hurdling effect in determining the magnetization curves when the temperature is near 3K. This DMC approach can be applicable to other SMM systems, and could be used to study other properties of SMM systems.Comment: Phys Rev B, accepted; 10 pages, 6 figure

Effective potential for composite operators and for an auxiliary scalar field in a Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model

We derive the effective potentials for composite operators in a Nambu-Jona-Lasinio (NJL) model at zero and finite temperature and show that in each case they are equivalent to the corresponding effective potentials based on an auxiliary scalar field. The both effective potentials could lead to the same possible spontaneous breaking and restoration of symmetries including chiral symmetry if the momentum cutoff in the loop integrals is large enough, and can be transformed to each other when the Schwinger-Dyson (SD) equation of the dynamical fermion mass from the fermion-antifermion vacuum (or thermal) condensates is used. The results also generally indicate that two effective potentials with the same single order parameter but rather different mathematical expressions can still be considered physically equivalent if the SD equation corresponding to the extreme value conditions of the two potentials have the same form.Comment: 7 pages, no figur

Directional supercontinuum generation: the role of the soliton

In this paper we numerically study supercontinuum generation by pumping a silicon nitride waveguide, with two zero-dispersion wavelengths, with femtosecond pulses. The waveguide dispersion is designed so that the pump pulse is in the normal-dispersion regime. We show that because of self-phase modulation, the initial pulse broadens into the anomalous-dispersion regime, which is sandwiched between the two normal-dispersion regimes, and here a soliton is formed. The interaction of the soliton and the broadened pulse in the normal-dispersion regime causes additional spectral broadening through formation of dispersive waves by non-degenerate four-wave mixing and cross-phase modulation. This broadening occurs mainly towards the second normal-dispersion regime. We show that pumping in either normal-dispersion regime allows broadening towards the other normal-dispersion regime. This ability to steer the continuum extension towards the direction of the other normal-dispersion regime beyond the sandwiched anomalous-dispersion regime underlies the directional supercontinuum notation. We numerically confirm the approach in a standard silica microstructured fiber geometry with two zero-dispersion wavelengths

Ultra-low-noise supercontinuum generation with a flat near-zero normal dispersion fiber

A pure silica photonic crystal fiber with a group velocity dispersion ($\beta_2$) of 4 ps$^2$/km at 1.55 $\mu$m and less than 7 ps$^2$/km from 1.32 $\mu$m to the zero dispersion wavelength (ZDW) 1.80 $\mu$m was designed and fabricated. The dispersion of the fiber was measured experimentally and found to agree with the fiber design, which also provides low loss below 1.83 $\mu$m due to eight outer rings with increased hole diameter. The fiber was pumped with a 1.55 $\mu$m, 125 fs laser and, at the maximum in-coupled peak power (P$_0$) of 9 kW, a 1.34$-$1.82 $\mu$m low-noise spectrum with a relative intensity noise below 2.2\% was measured. The numerical modeling agreed very well with the experiments and showed that P$_0$ could be increased to 26 kW before noise from solitons above the ZDW started to influence the spectrum by pushing high-noise dispersive waves through the spectrum

Collapse arrest and soliton stabilization in nonlocal nonlinear media

We investigate the properties of localized waves in systems governed by nonlocal nonlinear Schrodinger type equations. We prove rigorously by bounding the Hamiltonian that nonlocality of the nonlinearity prevents collapse in, e.g., Bose-Einstein condensates and optical Kerr media in all physical dimensions. The nonlocal nonlinear response must be symmetric, but can be of completely arbitrary shape. We use variational techniques to find the soliton solutions and illustrate the stabilizing effect of nonlocality.Comment: 4 pages with 3 figure

Phase-field-crystal modeling of the (2x1)-(1x1) phase-transitions of Si(001) and Ge(001) surfaces

We propose a two-dimensional phase-field-crystal model for the (2$\times$1)-(1$\times$1) phase transitions of Si(001) and Ge(001) surfaces. The dimerization in the 2$\times$1 phase is described with a phase-field-crystal variable which is determined by solving an evolution equation derived from the free energy. Simulated periodic arrays of dimerization variable is consistent with scanning-tunnelling-microscopy images of the two dimerized surfaces. Calculated temperature dependence of the dimerization parameter indicates that normal dimers and broken ones coexist between the temperatures describing the charactristic temperature width of the phase-transition, $T_L$ and $T_H$, and a first-order phase transition takes place at a temperature between them. The dimerization over the whole temperature is determined. These results are in agreement with experiment. This phase-field-crystal approach is applicable to phase-transitions of other reconstructed surface phases, especially semiconductor $n\times$1 reconstructed surface phases.Comment: 10 pages with 4 figures include

Direct imaging of long-range ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic order in a dipolar metamaterial

Magnetic metamaterials such as artificial spin ice offer a route to tailor magnetic properties. Such materials can be fabricated by lithographically defining arrays of nanoscale magnetic islands. The magnetostatic interactions between the elements are influenced by their shape and geometric arrangement and can lead to long-range ordering. We demonstrate how the magnetic order in a two-dimensional periodic array of circular disks is controlled by the lattice symmetry. Antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic order extending through the entire array is observed for the square and hexagonal lattice, respectively. Furthermore, we show that a minute deviation from perfect circularity of the elements along a preferred direction results in room-temperature blocking and favors collinear spin textures