Static and dynamic properties of frictional phenomena in a one-dimensional system with randomness

Static and dynamic frictional phenomena at the interface with random impurities are investigated in a two-chain model with incommensurate structure. Static frictional force is caused by the impurity pinning and/or by the pinning due to the regular potential, which is responsible for the breaking of analyticity transition for impurity-free cases. It is confirmed that the static frictional force is always finite in the presence of impurities, in contrast to the impurity-free system. The nature of impurity pinning is discussed in connection with that in density waves. The kinetic frictional force of a steady sliding state is also investigated numerically. The relationship between the sliding velocity dependence of the kinetic frictional force and the strength of impurity potential is discussed.Comment: RevTex, 14 pages, 6 PostScript figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Dynamical frictional phenomena in an incommensurate two-chain model

Dynamical frictional phenomena are studied theoretically in a two-chain model with incommensurate structure. A perturbation theory with respect to the interchain interaction reveals the contributions from phonons excited in each chain to the kinetic frictional force. The validity of the theory is verified in the case of weak interaction by comparing with numerical simulation. The velocity and the interchain interaction dependences of the lattice structure are also investigated. It is shown that peculiar breaking of analyticity states appear, which is characteristic to the two-chain model. The range of the parameters in which the two-chain model is reduced to the Frenkel-Kontorova model is also discussed.Comment: RevTex, 9 pages, 7 PostScript figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Pressure-Driven Quantum Criticality and T/H Scaling in the Icosahedral Au-Al-Yb Approximant

We report on ac magnetic susceptibility measurements under pressure of the Au-Al-Yb alloy, a crystalline approximant to the icosahedral quasicrystal that shows unconventional quantum criticality. In describing the susceptibility as $\chi(T)^{-1} - \chi(0)^{-1} \propto T^{\gamma}$, we find that $\chi(0)^{-1}$ decreases with increasing pressure and vanishes to zero at the critical pressure $P_{\rm c} \simeq 2$ GPa, with $\gamma~ (\simeq 0.5)$ unchanged. We suggest that this quantum criticality emerges owing to critical valence fluctuations. Above $P_{\rm c}$, the approximant undergoes a magnetic transition at $T \simeq 100$ mK. These results are contrasted with the fact that, in the quasicrystal, the quantum criticality is robust against the application of pressure. The applicability of the so-called $T/H$ scaling to the approximant is also discussed.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure

Crossover from 2-dimensional to 1-dimensional collective pinning in NbSe3

We have fabricated NbSe$_3$ structures with widths comparable to the Fukuyama-Lee-Rice phase-coherence length. For samples already in the 2-dimensional pinning limit, we observe a crossover from 2-dimensional to 1-dimensional collective pinning when the crystal width is less than 1.6 $\mu$m, corresponding to the phase-coherence length in this direction. Our results show that surface pinning is negligible in our samples, and provide a means to probe the dynamics of single domains giving access to a new regime in charge-density wave physics.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, and 1 table. Accepted for publication in Physical Review

Friction, order, and transverse pinning of a two-dimensional elastic lattice under periodic and impurity potentials

Frictional phenomena of two-dimensional elastic lattices are studied numerically based on a two-dimensional Frenkel-Kontorova model with impurities. It is shown that impurities can assist the depinning. We also investigate anisotropic ordering and transverse pinning effects of sliding lattices, which are characteristic of the moving Bragg glass state and/or transverse glass state. Peculiar velocity dependence of the transverse pinning is observed in the presence of both periodic and random potentials and discussed in the relation with growing order and discommensurate structures.Comment: RevTeX, 4 pages, 5 figures. to appear in Phys. Rev. B Rapid Commu

Effect of suppression of local distortion on magnetic, electrical and thermal transport properties of Cr substituted bi-layer manganite LaSr2_{2}Mn2_{2}O7_{7}

We have investigated magnetic, electrical and thermal transport properties (Seebeck effect and thermal conductivity) of LaSr$_{2}$Mn$_{2-y}$Cr$_{y}$O$_{7}$ polycrystalline samples ($y$=0.1, 0.2, 0.4 and 0.6). The Cr$^{3+}$ substitution for Mn$^{3+}$ sites causes a removal of $d_{x^2-y^2}$ orbital of $e_g$-electron resulting in a volume shrinkage of lattice. Magnetic measurements reveal the appearance of a glassy behavior for Cr-doped samples, accompanied by both a collapse of the A-type antiferromagnetic structure and the growth of ferromagnetic clusters. Cr-doping effect on electrical transport strongly enhances an insulating behavior over a wide range of temperature, while it suppresses a local minimum of thermoelectric power at lower temperatures. The phonon thermal conduction gradually rises with increasing Cr content, which is contradictory to a typical impurity effect on thermal conductivity. We attribute this to a suppression of local lattice distortion through the introduction of Jahn-Teller inactive ions of Cr$^{3+}$.Comment: 8 pages, 9figure

Theoretical Study of Friction: A Case of One-Dimensional Clean Surfaces

A new method has been proposed to evaluate the frictional force in the stationary state. This method is applied to the 1-dimensional model of clean surfaces. The kinetic frictional force is seen to depend on velocity in general, but the dependence becomes weaker as the maximum static frictional force increases and in the limiting case the kinetic friction gets only weakly dependent on velocity as described by one of the laws of friction. It is also shown that there is a phase transition between state with vanishing maximum static frictional force and that with finite one. The role of randomness at the interface and the relation to the impurity pinning of the sliding Charge-Density-Wave are discussed. to appear in Phys.Rev.B. abstract only. Full text is available upon request. E-mail: [email protected]: 2 pages, Plain TEX, OUCMT-94-