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R. C. Johnson

Publications and source records attributed to R. C. Johnson.

33 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
arXiv2011

Superconductivity of Bi Confined in an Opal Host

Superconductivity is observed in a composite of rhombohedral crystalline bismuth nanoparticles imbedded in an insulating porous opal host via electrical transport and AC magnetic susceptibility. The onset of superconductivity in this system occurs in two steps, with upper critical temperature Tc,U = 4.1 K and lower transition temperature of Tc,L = 0.7 K, which we attribute to the granular nature of the composite. The transition at Tc,U is observed to split into two transitions with the application of a magnetic field, and has upper critical field extrapolated to T = 0 K of Hc2,1(0) = 0.7 T and Hc2,2(0) = 1.0 T, corresponding to coherence lengths of xi1(0) = 21 nm and xi2(0) = 18 nm, respectively. We suggest that because of the lack of bulk-like states in the Bi nanoparticles due to confinement effects, superconductivity originates from surface states arising from Rashba spin-orbit scattering at the interface. This prospect suggests that nanostructured Bi may be an interesting system to search for Majorana fermions.

cond-mat.supr-con↗
arXiv2011

Thermoelectric prospects of nanomaterials with spin-orbit surface bands

Nanostructured composites and nanowire arrays of traditional thermoelectrics like Bi, Bi(1-x)Sb(x) and Bi(2)Te(3) have metallic Rashba surface spin-orbit bands featuring high mobilities rivaling that of the bulk for which topological insulator behavior has been proposed. Nearly pure surface electronic transport has been observed at low temperatures in Bi nanowires with diameter around the critical diameter, 50 nm, for the semimetal-to semiconductor transition. The surface contributes strongly to the thermopower, actually dominating for temperatures T < 100 K in these nanowires. The surface thermopower was found to be -1 T microvolt/(K^2), a value that is consistent with theory. We show that surface electronic transport together with boundary phonon scattering leads to enhanced thermoelectric performance at low temperatures of Bi nanowire arrays. We compare with bulk n-BiSb alloys, optimized CsBi(4)Te(6) and optimized Bi(2)Te(3). Surface dominated electronic transport can be expected in nanomaterials of the other traditional thermoelectrics.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗
arXiv2011

Surface state band mobility and thermopower in semiconducting bismuth nanowires

Many thermoelectrics like Bi exhibit Rashba spin-orbit surface bands for which topological insulator behavior consisting of ultrahigh mobilities and enhanced thermopower has been predicted. Bi nanowires realize surface-only electronic transport since they become bulk insulators when they undergo the bulk semimetal-semiconductor transition as a result of quantum confinement for diameters close to 50 nm. We studied 20-, 30-, 50- and 200-nm trigonal Bi wires. Shubnikov-de Haas magnetoresistance oscillations caused by surface electrons and bulklike holes enable the determination of their densities and mobilities. Surface electrons have high mobilities exceeding 2(m^2)/(Vsec) and contribute strongly to the thermopower, dominating for temperatures T< 100 K. The surface thermopower is - 1.2 T microvolt/(K^2), a value that is consistent with theory, raising the prospect of developing nanoscale thermoelectrics based on surface bands.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗
arXiv2011

μSR Study of Spin Dynamics in LiY$_{1-x}$Ho$_{x}$F$_{4}$

We present zero-field μSR measurements for LiY$_{1-x}$Ho$_{x}$F$_{4}$ samples with x = 0.0017, 0.0085, 0.0406, and 0.0855. We characterize the dynamics associated with the formation of the (F-μ-F)$^{-1}$ complex by comparing our data to Monte Carlo simulations to determine the concentration range over which the spin dynamics are determined primarily by the Ho$^{3+}$-μ interaction rather than the F-μ interaction. Simulations show that F-μ-F oscillations should evolve into a Lorentzian Kubo-Toyabe decay for an increasing static magnetic field distribution Γ (i.e., increasing x), but the data do not show this behavior, consistent with the recently reported existence of strong magnetic fluctuations in this system at low temperatures. Anisotropy in the field distribution is shown to cause small errors of order 10% from behavior predicted for an isotropic distribution. Finally, numerical calculations show that values of Γ calculated in the single ion limit greatly exceed the values extracted from curve fits, suggesting that strong correlations play an important role in this system.

cond-mat.str-el↗
arXiv2010

Finite-range effects in (d,p) reactions

With the increasing interest in using (d,p) transfer reactions to extract structure and astrophysical information, it is important to evaluate the accuracy of common approximations in reaction theory. Starting from the zero-range adiabatic wave model, which takes into account deuteron breakup in the transfer process, we evaluate the importance of the finite range of the n-p interaction in calculating the adiabatic deuteron wave (as in Johnson and Tandy) as well as in evaluating the transfer amplitude. Our study covers a wide variety of targets, as well as a large range of beam energies. Whereas at low beam energies finite-range effects are small (below 10%), we find these effects to become important at intermediate energies (20 MeV/u) calling for an exact treatment of finite range in the analysis of (d,p) reactions measured at fragmentation facilities.

nucl-th↗
arXiv2008

Four-body continuum-discretized coupled-channels calculations using a transformed harmonic oscillator basis

The scattering of a weakly bound three-body system by a target is discussed. A transformed harmonic oscillator basis is used to provide an appropriate discrete and finite basis for treating the continuum part of the spectrum of the projectile. The continuum-discretized coupled channels framework is used for the scattering calculations. The formalism is applied to different reactions, 6He+12C at 229.8 MeV, 6He+64Zn at 10 and 13.6 MeV, and 6He+208Pb at 22 MeV, induced by the Borromean nucleus 6He. Both the Coulomb and nuclear interactions with a target are taken into account.

nucl-th↗
arXiv2006

Isospin symmetry in mirror $α$-decays

We show that a consequence of isospin symmetry, recently discovered in mirror conjugated one-nucleon decays, can be extended to mirror-conjugated $α$-particles decays, both virtual and real. For virtual $α$-decays of bound mirror pairs this symmetry manifests itself as a relation between the Asymptotic Normalization Coefficients (ANCs) of $α$-particle overlap integrals. This relation is given by a simple analytical formula which involves $α$-particle separation energies and charges of residual nuclei. For bound-unbound mirror pairs, the ANC of a bound nucleus is related to the $α$-width of the mirror unbound level. For unbound mirror pairs we get a new analytical formula that relates the widths of mirror resonances. We test the validity of these analytical formuli against the predictions of a two-body potential and of a many-body microscopic cluster model for several mirror states in $^7$Li-$^7$Be, $^{11}$B-$^{11}$C and $^{19}$F-$^{19}$Ne isotopes. We show that these analytical formulae are valid in many cases but that some deviations can be expected for isotopes with strongly deformed and easily excited cores. In general, the results from microscopic model are not very sensitive to model assumptions and can be used to predict unknown astrophysically relevant cross sections using known information about mirror systems.

nucl-th↗
arXiv2004

Inclusion of non-spherical components of the Pauli blocking operator in (p,p') reactions

We present the first calculations of proton elastic and inelastic scattering in which the Pauli blocking operator contains the leading non-spherical components as well as the usual spherical (angle-averaged) part. We develop a formalism for including the contributions to the effective nucleon-nucleon interaction from the resulting new G-matrix elements that extend the usual two-nucleon spin structure and may not conserve angular momentum. We explore the consequences of parity conservation, time reversal invariance, and nucleon-nucleon antisymmetrization for the new effective interaction. Changes to the calculated cross section and spin observables are small in the energy range from 100 to 200 MeV.

nucl-th↗
arXiv2004

A quark model framework for the study of nuclear medium effects

A quark-model framework for studying nuclear medium effects on nucleon resonances is described and applied here to pion photoproduction on the deuteron, which is the simplest composite nucleon system and serves as a first test case. Pion photoproduction on nuclei is discussed within a chiral constituent quark model in which the quark degrees of freedom are explicitly introduced through an effective chiral Lagrangian for the quark-pseudoscalar-meson coupling. The advantage of this model is that a complete set of nucleon resonances can be systematically included with a limited number of parameters. Also, the systematic description of the nucleon and its resonances at quark level allows us to self-consistently relate the nuclear medium's influence on the baryon properties to the intrinsic dynamic aspects of the baryons. As the simplest composite nucleus, the deuteron represents the first application of this effective theory for meson photoproduction on light nuclei. The influence of the medium on the transition operators for a free nucleon is investigated in the Delta resonance region. No evidence is found for a change of the Delta properties in the pion photoproduction reaction on the deuteron since the nuclear medium here involves just one other nucleon and the low binding energy implies low nuclear density. However, we show that the reaction mechanism is in principle sensitive to changes of Delta properties that would be produced by the denser nuclear medium of heavier nuclei through the modification of the quark model parameters.

nucl-th↗
arXiv2003

A relation between proton and neutron asymptotic normalization coefficients for light mirror nuclei and its relevance to nuclear astrophysics

We show how the charge symmetry of strong interactions can be used to relate the proton and neutron asymptotic normalization coefficients (ANCs) of the one nucleon overlap integrals for light mirror nuclei. This relation extends to the case of real proton decay where the mirror analog is a virtual neutron decay of a loosely bound state. In this case, a link is obtained between the proton width and the squared ANC of the mirror neutron state. The relation between mirror overlaps can be used to study astrophysically relevant proton capture reactions based on information obtained from transfer reactions with stable beams.

nucl-th↗
arXiv2003

Exact treatment of Pauli exclusion effects in (p,p') reactions

This paper presents the first calculations of proton inelastic scattering in which the medium effect of Pauli blocking is included through an exact, rather than angle averaged, operator. This improvement is important in the isoscalar channel at proton energies near 100 MeV and fades as the energy rises. However, processes that emphasize finite-range exchange (such as $0^+\to 0^-$ reactions) still see significant effects at 200 MeV. The results depend on the directions of the incident and struck nucleon momenta that produce the most important contributions to the DWBA integral at each scattering angle.

nucl-th↗
arXiv2002

Non-adiabatic corrections to elastic scattering of halo nuclei

We derive the formalism for the leading order corrections to the adiabatic approximation to the scattering of composite projectiles. Assuming a two-body projectile of core plus loosely-bound valence particle and a model (the core recoil model) in which the interaction of the valence particle and the target can be neglected, we derive the non-adiabatic correction terms both exactly, using a partial wave analysis, and using the eikonal approximation. Along with the expected energy dependence of the corrections, there is also a strong dependence on the valence-to-core mass ratio and on the strength of the imaginary potential for the core-target interaction, which relates to absorption of the core in its scattering by the target. The strength and diffuseness of the core-target potential also determine the size of the corrections. The first order non-adiabatic corrections were found to be smaller than qualitative estimates would expect. The large absorption associated with the core-target interaction in such halo nuclei as Be11 kills off most of the non-adiabatic corrections. We give an improved estimate for the range of validity of the adiabatic approximation when the valence-target interaction is neglected, which includes the effect of core absorption. Some consideration was given to the validity of the eikonal approximation in our calculations.

nucl-th↗
arXiv2001

Two-proton events in the 17F(p,2p)16O reaction

In a recent experimental study (Gomez del Campo et al, PRL 86, 43 (2001)) of the reaction 17F(p,2p)16O, two-proton events were measured from excitations near a 1-, E*=6.15 MeV state in 18Ne. We calculate by means of R-matrix theory the resonant two-proton production cross section and branching ratios. We conclude that it is unlikely that two-proton production via population of the 1- state is sufficient to explain the observed two-proton events. Alternative sources of such events are discussed.

nucl-th↗
arXiv1999

Probing halo nucleus structure through intermediate energy elastic scattering

This work addresses the question of precisely what features of few body models of halo nuclei are probed by elastic scattering on protons at high centre-of-mass energies. Our treatment is based on a multiple scattering expansion of the proton-projectile transition amplitude in a form which is well adapted to the weakly bound cluster picture of halo nuclei. In the specific case of $^{11}$Li scattering from protons at 800 MeV/u we show that because core recoil effects are significant, scattering crosssections can not, in general, be deduced from knowledge of the total matter density alone. We advocate that the optical potential concept for the scattering of halo nuclei on protons should be avoided and that the multiple scattering series for the full transition amplitude should be used instead.

nucl-th↗