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J D Thompson

Publications and source records attributed to J D Thompson.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
PubMed2004

Direct observation of itinerant magnetism in the 5f-electron system UTe.

Our electron photoemission experiments demonstrate that the magnetization of the ferromagnetic state of UTe is proportional to the binding energy of the hybridized band centered around 50 meV below EF. This proportionality is direct evidence that the ferromagnetism of UTe is itinerant; i.e., the 5f electrons are not fully localized close to the atomic core. This mechanism of itinerant ferromagnetism differs from the traditional picture for 5f-electron magnetism in an essential and a novel way. We propose a simple model for the observed proportionality between the temperature dependence of the magnetization and the binding energy of the hybridized band near EF. This model allows us to estimate the effective magnetic interaction and to identify signatures of itinerant ferromagnetism in other materials.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2004

Rare beryllium icosahedra in the intermediate valence compound CeBe13.

Single-crystal X-ray diffraction experiments show that the Be atoms in CeBe13 form a Be12 icosahedra, which is a very unusual structural feature due, in part, to the remarkably low valence electron count of Be. Magnetization studies show that CeBe13 displays intermediate valence behavior, in which valence fluctuations between the Ce 4f0 and 4f1 states give rise to enhanced electronic specific heat and magnetic susceptibility. Calculations using ab initio theory were used to determine the electronic structure and bonding and to give insight into the relationship between the crystal structure, the bonding, and the intermediate valence behavior of CeBe13. The hybridization between the localized f electrons and the conduction electrons is responsible for the large values of the electronic specific heat coefficient (gamma approximately 100 mJ/mol K2) and magnetic susceptibility (chi approximately 1 x 10-3 emu/mol), which is in marked contrast to those of ordinary metals that have gamma approximately 1 mJ/mol K2 and chi approximately 1 x 10-5 emu/mol values. The magnetic susceptibility, chi = M/H versus T, of a single crystal of CeBe13 exhibits a broad maximum at Tmax approximately 130 K and is typical of intermediate valence systems with an unusually large energy scale (Kondo), TK approximately 500 K.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2004

Structural tuning of unconventional superconductivity in PuMGa5 (M=Co,Rh).

The superconducting properties of the recently discovered PuMGa5 (M=Co,Rh) superconductors, including the power law behavior of the specific heat, the evolution of the superconducting transition T(c) temperature with pressure, and the linear relation between T(c) and ratio of tetragonal lattice parameters c/a, are compared to those of the heavy fermion CeMIn5 (M=Co,Rh,Ir) unconventional superconductors. The striking similarity of the properties between the two families of superconductors suggests a common physics and a common (magnetically mediated) mechanism of superconductivity.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2004

Evidence for the coexistence of an anisotropic superconducting gap and nonlocal effects in the nonmagnetic superconductor LuNi2B2C.

A study of the dependence of the heat capacity C(p)(alpha) on the field angle in LuNi2B2C reveals an anomalous disorder effect. For pure samples, C(p)(alpha) exhibits a fourfold variation as the field H (alpha=0). A slightly disordered sample, however, develops anomalous secondary minima along <110> for mu(0)H>1 T, leading to an eightfold pattern at 2 K and 1.5 T. The anomalous pattern is discussed in terms of coexisting superconducting gap anisotropy and nonlocal effects.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2004

Superconductivity in diamond.

Diamond is an electrical insulator well known for its exceptional hardness. It also conducts heat even more effectively than copper, and can withstand very high electric fields. With these physical properties, diamond is attractive for electronic applications, particularly when charge carriers are introduced (by chemical doping) into the system. Boron has one less electron than carbon and, because of its small atomic radius, boron is relatively easily incorporated into diamond; as boron acts as a charge acceptor, the resulting diamond is effectively hole-doped. Here we report the discovery of superconductivity in boron-doped diamond synthesized at high pressure (nearly 100,000 atmospheres) and temperature (2,500-2,800 K). Electrical resistivity, magnetic susceptibility, specific heat and field-dependent resistance measurements show that boron-doped diamond is a bulk, type-II superconductor below the superconducting transition temperature T(c) approximately 4 K; superconductivity survives in a magnetic field up to Hc2(0) > or = 3.5 T. The discovery of superconductivity in diamond-structured carbon suggests that Si and Ge, which also form in the diamond structure, may similarly exhibit superconductivity under the appropriate conditions.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2004

Phase inhomogeneity of the itinerant ferromagnet MnSi at high pressures.

The pressure induced quantum phase transition of the weakly ferromagnetic metal MnSi is studied using zero-field 29Si NMR spectroscopy and relaxation. Below P(*) approximately 1.2 GPa, the intensity of the signal and the nuclear spin-lattice relaxation are independent of pressure, even though the amplitude of the magnetization drops by 20% from the ambient-pressure amplitude. For P>P(*), the decreasing intensity within the experimentally detectable bandwidth signals the onset of an inhomogeneous phase that persists to the highest pressure measured, P>/=1.75 GPa, which is well beyond the known critical pressure P(c)=1.46 GPa. Implications for the non-Fermi liquid behavior observed for P>P(c) are discussed.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2004

An experimental evaluation of self-interference in Narcissus assoanus: functional and evolutionary implications.

Floral traits that reduce self-pollination in hermaphroditic plants have usually been interpreted as mechanisms that limit the genetic consequences of self-fertilization. However, the avoidance of sexual conflict between female and male function (self-interference) may also represent an important selection pressure for the evolution of floral traits, particularly in self-incompatible species. Here, we use experimental manipulations to investigate self-interference in Narcissus assoanus, a self-incompatible species with a stigma-height dimorphism in which the degree of spatial separation between sex organs (herkogamy) differs strikingly between the long- and short-styled morphs (hereafter L- and S-morphs). We predicted that weak herkogamy in the L-morph would cause greater self-pollination and hence self-interference. Experimental self-pollination reduced seed set when it occurred prior to, or simultaneously with, cross-pollination in the L-morph, but only if it occurred prior to cross-pollination in the S-morph. In the field, autonomous self-pollination was greater in the L-morph than the S-morph, but we found no evidence that self-interference reduced maternal or paternal fitness in either morph. One-day-old flowers of the L-morph have reduced stigma receptivity and hence exhibit protandry, whereas stigma receptivity and anther dehiscence are concurrent in the S-morph. This suggests that the two style morphs have alternative strategies for reducing self-interference: dichogamy in the L-morph and herkogamy in the S-morph. These results provide insight into the mechanisms that reduce sexual conflict in hermaphrodite plants and are of significance for understanding the evolution and maintenance of sexual polymorphisms.

Analysis of Variance↗
PubMed2003

Uniaxial pressure effects on CeIrIn5 and CeCoIn5 studied by low-temperature thermal expansion.

We report low-temperature thermal expansion measurements on the tetragonal heavy-fermion superconductors CeMIn5 (M=Ir,Co) in magnetic fields up to 8 T which allow for the analysis of the uniaxial pressure effects on both normal-state and superconducting properties. Our study reveals that T(c) is strongly affected by at least two factors, the lattice anisotropy and the 4f-conduction-electron hybridization strength which is most sensitive to c-axis lattice distortions. Non-Fermi-liquid behavior caused by quantum-critical fluctuations is observed for both systems, most pronounced for CeCoIn5.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2003

RASCAL: rapid scanning and correction of multiple sequence alignments.

MOTIVATION: Most multiple sequence alignment programs use heuristics that sometimes introduce errors into the alignment. The most commonly used methods to correct these errors use iterative techniques to maximize an objective function. We present here an alternative, knowledge-based approach that combines a number of recently developed methods into a two-step refinement process. The alignment is divided horizontally and vertically to form a 'lattice' in which well aligned regions can be differentiated. Alignment correction is then restricted to the less reliable regions, leading to a more reliable and efficient refinement strategy. RESULTS: The accuracy and reliability of RASCAL is demonstrated using: (i) alignments from the BAliBASE benchmark database, where significant improvements were often observed, with no deterioration of the existing high-quality regions, (ii) a large scale study involving 946 alignments from the ProDom protein domain database, where alignment quality was increased in 68% of the cases; and (iii) an automatic pipeline to obtain a high-quality alignment of 695 full-length nuclear receptor proteins, which took 11 min on a DEC Alpha 6100 computer AVAILABILITY: RASCAL is available at ftp://ftp-igbmc.u-strasbg.fr/pub/RASCAL. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: http://bioinfo-igbmc.u-strasbourg.fr/BioInfo/RASCAL/paper/rascal_supp.html

Algorithms↗
PubMed2003

Low-frequency spin dynamics in the CeMIn5 materials.

We measure the spin lattice relaxation of the planar In(1) nuclei in the CeMIn5 materials, extract quantitative information about the low energy spin dynamics of the lattice of Ce moments in both CeRhIn5 and CeCoIn5, and identify a crossover in the normal state. Above a temperature T(*) the Ce lattice exhibits "Kondo gas" behavior characterized by local fluctuations of independently screened moments; below T(*) both systems exhibit a "Kondo liquid" regime in which interactions between the local moments contribute to the spin dynamics. Both the antiferromagnetic and superconducting ground states in these systems emerge from the Kondo liquid regime. Our analysis provides strong evidence for quantum criticality in CeCoIn5.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2003

Dependence of the effective masses in YbAl3 on magnetic field and disorder.

The susceptibility and specific heat--and hence the effective mass--of the intermediate valence compound YbAl3 show anomalous enhancement below the Fermi liquid temperature T(coh) approximately 40 K. We show that these anomalies are suppressed by alloying in Yb1-xLuxAl3 indicating high sensitivity to lattice coherence. The de Haas-van Alphen effective masses for key branches of the Fermi surface are reduced by magnetic fields B>40 T. We argue that this reduction does not arise from 4f polarization but reflects renormalization of the quasiparticle states by the field.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2002

Plutonium-based superconductivity with a transition temperature above 18 K.

Plutonium is a metal of both technological relevance and fundamental scientific interest. Nevertheless, the electronic structure of plutonium, which directly influences its metallurgical properties, is poorly understood. For example, plutonium's 5f electrons are poised on the border between localized and itinerant, and their theoretical treatment pushes the limits of current electronic structure calculations. Here we extend the range of complexity exhibited by plutonium with the discovery of superconductivity in PuCoGa5. We argue that the observed superconductivity results directly from plutonium's anomalous electronic properties and as such serves as a bridge between two classes of spin-fluctuation-mediated superconductors: the known heavy-fermion superconductors and the high-T(c) copper oxides. We suggest that the mechanism of superconductivity is unconventional; seen in that context, the fact that the transition temperature, T(c) approximately 18.5 K, is an order of magnitude greater than the maximum seen in the U- and Ce-based heavy-fermion systems may be natural. The large critical current displayed by PuCoGa5, which comes from radiation-induced self damage that creates pinning centres, would be of technological importance for applied superconductivity if the hazardous material plutonium were not a constituent.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2002

Superconductivity and quantum criticality in CeCoIn5.

Electrical resistivity measurements on a single crystal of the heavy-fermion superconductor CeCoIn5 at pressures to 4.2 GPa reveal a strong crossover in transport properties near P(*) approximately 1.6 GPa, where T(c) is a maximum. The temperature-pressure phase diagram constructed from these data provides a natural connection to cuprate physics, including the possible existence of a pseudogap.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2002

First-order superconducting phase transition in CeCoIn5.

The superconducting phase transition in heavy fermion CeCoIn5 (T(c)=2.3 K in zero field) becomes first order when the magnetic field H parallel [001] is greater than 4.7 T, and the transition temperature is below T0 approximately 0.31T(c). The change from second order at lower fields is reflected in strong sharpening of both specific heat and thermal expansion anomalies associated with the phase transition, a strong magnetocaloric effect, and a steplike change in the sample volume. This effect is due to Pauli limiting in a type-II superconductor, and was predicted theoretically in the mid-1960s.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2002

Intersite coupling effects in a kondo lattice.

The La dilution of the Kondo lattice CeCoIn5 is studied. The scaling laws found for the magnetic susceptibility and the specific heat reveal two well-separated energy scales, corresponding to the single-impurity Kondo temperature T(K) and an intersite spin-liquid temperature T(*). The Ce-dilute alloy has the expected Fermi liquid ground state, while the specific heat and resistivity in the dense Kondo regime exhibit non-Fermi-liquid behavior, which scales with T(*). These observations indicate that the screening of the magnetic moments in the lattice involves antiferromagnetic intersite correlations with a larger energy scale in comparison with the Kondo impurity case.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2002

Two energy scales and slow crossover in YbAl3.

Experimental results for the susceptibility, magnetization, specific heat, 4f occupation number, Hall effect, and magnetoresistance for single crystals of the intermediate valence (IV) compound YbAl3 show that, in addition to the Kondo temperature scale T(K) approximately 670 K, there is a low temperature scale T(coh) approximately 30-40 K for the onset of Fermi liquid coherence. Furthermore, the crossover from the low temperature Fermi liquid regime to the high temperature local moment regime is slower than predicted by the Anderson impurity model. We suggest that these effects are generic for IV compounds and we discuss them in terms of the theory of the Anderson lattice.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2001

Towards a reliable objective function for multiple sequence alignments.

Multiple sequence alignment is a fundamental tool in a number of different domains in modern molecular biology, including functional and evolutionary studies of a protein family. Multiple alignments also play an essential role in the new integrated systems for genome annotation and analysis. Thus, the development of new multiple alignment scores and statistics is essential, in the spirit of the work dedicated to the evaluation of pairwise sequence alignments for database searching techniques. We present here norMD, a new objective scoring function for multiple sequence alignments. NorMD combines the advantages of the column-scoring techniques with the sensitivity of methods incorporating residue similarity scores. In addition, norMD incorporates ab initio sequence information, such as the number, length and similarity of the sequences to be aligned. The sensitivity and reliability of the norMD objective function is demonstrated using structural alignments in the SCOP and BAliBASE databases. The norMD scores are then applied to the multiple alignments of the complete sequences (MACS) detected by BlastP with E-value<10, for a set of 734 hypothetical proteins encoded by the Vibrio cholerae genome. Unrelated or badly aligned sequences were automatically removed from the MACS, leaving a high-quality multiple alignment which could be reliably exploited in a subsequent functional and/or structural annotation process. After removal of unreliable sequences, 176 (24 %) of the alignments contained at least one sequence with a functional annotation. 103 of these new matches were supported by significant hits to the Interpro domain and motif database.

Amino Acid Motifs↗