Effective action and density functional theory

The effective action for the charge density and the photon field is proposed as a generalization of the density functional. A simple definition is given for the density functional, as the functional Legendre transform of the generator functional of connected Green functions for the density and the photon field, offering systematic approximation schemes. The leading order of the perturbation expansion reproduces the Hartree-Fock equation. A renormalization group motivated method is introduced to turn on the Coulomb interaction gradually and to find corrections to the Hartree-Fock and the Kohn-Sham schemes.Comment: New references and a numerical algorithm added, to appear in Phys. Rev. B. 30 pages, no figure

Twentieth Annual Convention of the College Theology Society

News release announces that the twentieth annual convention of the College Theology Society will be held at the University of Dayton

The nuclear energy density functional formalism

The present document focuses on the theoretical foundations of the nuclear energy density functional (EDF) method. As such, it does not aim at reviewing the status of the field, at covering all possible ramifications of the approach or at presenting recent achievements and applications. The objective is to provide a modern account of the nuclear EDF formalism that is at variance with traditional presentations that rely, at one point or another, on a {\it Hamiltonian-based} picture. The latter is not general enough to encompass what the nuclear EDF method represents as of today. Specifically, the traditional Hamiltonian-based picture does not allow one to grasp the difficulties associated with the fact that currently available parametrizations of the energy kernel $E[g',g]$ at play in the method do not derive from a genuine Hamilton operator, would the latter be effective. The method is formulated from the outset through the most general multi-reference, i.e. beyond mean-field, implementation such that the single-reference, i.e. "mean-field", derives as a particular case. As such, a key point of the presentation provided here is to demonstrate that the multi-reference EDF method can indeed be formulated in a {\it mathematically} meaningful fashion even if $E[g',g]$ does {\it not} derive from a genuine Hamilton operator. In particular, the restoration of symmetries can be entirely formulated without making {\it any} reference to a projected state, i.e. within a genuine EDF framework. However, and as is illustrated in the present document, a mathematically meaningful formulation does not guarantee that the formalism is sound from a {\it physical} standpoint. The price at which the latter can be enforced as well in the future is eventually alluded to.Comment: 64 pages, 8 figures, submitted to Euroschool Lecture Notes in Physics Vol.IV, Christoph Scheidenberger and Marek Pfutzner editor

Adiabatic demagnetization apparatus for nuclear orientation

A cryostat has been built for cooling specimens to temperatures of the order of a hundredth of a Kelvin by thermal contact with an adiabatically demagnetized paramagnetic salt pill. The apparatus was designed for performing nuclear orientation experiments. This thesis describes the construction of the apparatus and experimental tests studying the nuclear orientation of (60)Co in an iron plate. The paramagnetic salt used was chromium potassium alum in an alum-glycerine slurry. In addition to the chrome alum pill a guard pill of manganous ammonium sulphate was used between the alum pill and the 1K helium bath. The pills were supported and thermally isolated by German silver spacers. A copper heat link was embedded in the alum-glycerine slurry and soldered to the specimen to provide thermal contact. Several heat links were used ranging from a bundle of five thousand copper wires to a copper foil "concertina" arrangement. A Ventron niobium-titanium superconducting solenoid which produced fields up to 48 kilogauss was used for the magnetic cooling. A superconducting polarizing solenoid was used to magnetically saturate the polycrystalline iron plate. Anisotropies in the gamma radiation intensity from (60)Co of 7 to 11 per cent corresponding to temperatures of 37 to 45 m K were observed.Science, Faculty ofPhysics and Astronomy, Department ofGraduat

Ordered magnetic systems studied by nuclear orientation

The antiferromagnetic and spin-flop phases of MnCl‧4H₂O have been investigated by observing the nuclear orxentatxon of ⁵⁴Mn in that material. The sublattice magnetizations in the absence of an external field were found to lie in a direction between the a and c crystal axes at an angle of 11.5° ± 3.5° to the c axis. The field dependence of the spin configuration in the spin-flop state indicates that second order anisotropy is significant in this system. The molecular fields were determined by combining the results of this work with other measurements of the-critical fields (Rives and Benedict, 1975). The results are: the exchange field is 11.05 ± 0.21 KOe; the biaxial single ion anisotropy fields are 0.75 ± 0.22 KOe and 2.35 ± 0.23 KOe along the a* and b axes respectively; the second order anisotropy field is 1.45 ± 0.19 KOe and the anisotropic exchange field is 0.1 ± 0.3 KOe. The spin-flop transition region was found to be adequately described by a 'domain' structure in which regions of antiferromagnetic phase and regions of spin-flop phase co-exist in the crystal. Measurements were made of the temperature dependence of the spin-flop transition field and, contrary to the extrapolated results of Rives and Benedict (1975) , the spin-flop field was found to decrease with decreasing temperature from 0.3K to 0.15K. If there is a minimum in the transition field it must occur at lower temperatures. The cooling of the MnCl‧4H₂O crystal which was held in contact with a copper heat sink by Apiezon N grease was fitted to the relation Q = kA (T₁ⁿ-T₂ⁿ) where T₁ and T₂ are the temperatures of the crystal and copper heat sink respectively, and A is the contact area. For n = 4 the value obtained for the constant k is (8.2 ± 1.9) x 10³ ergK⁻⁴ sec⁻¹ cm⁻². Nuclear orientation experiments were also performed on the systems ¹⁰³Ru-Fe and ⁵⁹Fe-Fe. The gamma-ray anisotropies for these systems (at temperatures of 10 and 15 mK, respectively) were very small; however, it was possible to determine limits for the magnitudes of the nuclear magnetic moments of the active nuclei. The ¹⁰³Ru moment was found to be greater than 0.15uN and the ⁵⁹Fe moment was found to be less than 0.9uN. J.E. Rives and V. Benedict, Phys. Rev. B12, 1908 (1975).Science, Faculty ofPhysics and Astronomy, Department ofGraduat

Excitonic optical spectrum of semiconductors obtained by time-dependent density-functional theory with the exact-exchange kernel

Applying a novel exact-exchange (EXX) approach within time-dependent density-functional theory, we obtained the optical absorption spectrum of bulk silicon in good agreement with experiments including excitonic features. Analysis of the EXX kernel shows that inclusion of the Coulomb coupling of electron-hole pairs and the correct long-wavelength behavior in the kernel is crucial for the proper description of excitonic effects in semiconductors

Self-trapped exciton luminescence and repetition rate dependence of two-photon absorption in CaF2 at 193 nm

Repetition rate-dependent measurements of nonlinear absorptance and self-trapped exciton luminescence (pi-luminescence) of high-purity CaF2 crystals at 193 nm irradiation were performed in the range between 25 and 300 Hz. The CaF2 samples showed different (effective) two-photon absorption coefficients beta(eff), which are attributed to different impurity or defect concentrations inside the crystals. For samples with low beta(eff), no dependence on repetition rate could be observed, while samples with high values reveal a strong increase of beta(eff) for increasing repetition rates. In contrast, the intensity of self-trapped exciton luminescence is nearly the same for all samples and constant for all repetition rates. Different two-photon absorption mechanisms were derived from these results and a simple kinetic model for the absorption behaviour was developed, including the formation of transient absorbing states. In addition, laser induced bleaching of Ce3+ emission during irradiation with a total dose up to 900 mJ/cm(2-) could be observed in the luminescence spectra. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved