The question concerning the possibility of a first order surface transition in a semi–infinite Blume–Capel model is addressed by means of low temperature expansions. It is found that such a transition can exist, according to mean field and cluster variation approximations, and contrarily to renormalization group results.

If weakly interacting massive.particles (WIMPS) are the dark matter in the galactic halo, they may be detected in low background ionization detectors now operating or with low temperature devices under development. In detecting WIMPS of low msss or WIMPS with spin-dependent nuclear interactions (e.g., photinos), a principal technical difficulty appears to be achieving very low thresholds (5 O(k...

Low-temperature specific heat measurements on the Heusler-type compounds Fe2VGa have been performed. We observed the sample-dependent upturn in C/T at low temperatures which is attributed to the effect of magnetic impurities and/or clusters. After subtracting this extrinsic effect, the resulting γ still indicated heavy fermion behavior with an effective mass of about 20 times larger than the va...

The first observation of the X-ray multiple-wave interaction in an incommensurate charge-density-wave (CDW) modulated structure at low temperatures is reported for an example of a quasi-two-dimensional material, NbSe(2)-2H. Via the coherent interaction between the X-ray waves propagating in the CDW-modulated structure and the host structure, the phase-dependent intensity variations of a CDW ref...

An unusual atomic cluster structure corresponding to the global minimum of the 98-atom Lennard-Jones cluster has been found using a variant of the basin-hopping global optimization algorithm. The structure has tetrahedral symmetry and an energy of -543.665 361 epsilon, which is 0.022 404 epsilon lower than the previous lowest-energy minimum. The LJ(98) structure is of particular interest becaus...

Phase separation of the ultrasoft restricted primitive model (URPM) with gaussian charges is re-investigated in the random phase approximation (RPA)--the "Level A" approximation discussed by Nikoubashman, Hansen, and Kahl [J. Chem. Phys. 137, 094905 (2012)]. We find that the RPA predicts a region of low temperature vapour-liquid coexistence, with a critical density much lower than that observed...

Flowering phenology is an important and poorly understood plant trait that may possibly be related to the invasiveness potential of alien species. The present work evaluates whether flowering time of invasive alien species is a key trait to overcome the climatic filters operating in continental Mediterranean ecosystems of Spain (characterised by summer drought and low temperatures in winter). W...

We study the dynamical behavior of a square lattice Ising model with exchange and dipolar interactions by means of Monte Carlo simulations. After a sudden quench to low temperatures, we find that the system may undergo a coarsening process where stripe phases with different orientations compete, or alternatively it can relax initially to a metastable nematic phase and then decay to the equilibr...