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In quantum physics, a bound state is a quantum state of a particle subject to a potential such that the particle has a tendency to remain localized in one or more regions of space. The potential may be external or it may be the result of the presence of another particle; in the latter case, one can equivalently define a bound state as a state representing two or more particles whose interaction energy exceeds the total energy of each separate particle. One consequence is that, given a potential vanishing at infinity, negative-energy states must be bound. In general, the energy spectrum of the set of bound states is discrete, unlike free particles, which have a continuous spectrum. Although not bound states in the strict sense, metastable states with a net positive interaction energy, but long decay time, are often considered unstable bound states as well and are called "quasi-bound states". Examples include certain radionuclides and electrets. In relativistic quantum field theory,

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ACACIA: a new method to produce on-the-fly merger trees in the RAMSES code

Mladen Ivkovic

The implementation of ACACIA, a new algorithm to generate dark matter halo merger trees with the Adaptive Mesh Refinement code RAMSES, is presented. The algorithm is fully parallel and based on the Message Passing Interface. As opposed to most available merger tree tools, it works on the fly during the course of the N-body simulation. It can track dark matter substructures individually using the index of the most bound particle in the clump. Once a halo (or a sub-halo) merges into another one, the algorithm still tracks it through the last identified most bound particle in the clump, allowing to check at later snapshots whether the merging event was definitive, or whether it was only temporary, with the clump only traversing another one. The same technique can be used to track orphan galaxies that are not assigned to a parent clump anymore because the clump dissolved due to numerical overmerging. We study in detail the impact of various parameters on the resulting halo catalogues and corresponding merger histories. We then compare the performance of our method using standard validation diagnostics, demonstrating that we reach a quality similar to the best available and commonly used merger tree tools. As a proof of concept, we use our merger tree algorithm together with a parametrized stellar-mass-to-halo-mass relation and generate a mock galaxy catalogue that shows good agreement with observational data.

OXFORD UNIV PRESS2022

Possibility to detect the bound state of the Heisenberg ferromagnetic chain at intermediate temperature

Frédéric Mila, Mithilesh Nayak

Motivated by the lack of direct evidence with inelastic neutron scattering of the well documented bound state of Heisenberg ferromagnets, we use the time-dependent thermal density matrix renormalization group algorithm to study the temperature dependence of the dynamical spin structure factor of Heisenberg ferromagnetic spin chains. For spin 1/2, we show that the bound state appears as a well defined excitation with significant spectral weight in the temperature range J/12 less than or similar to T less than or similar to J/3, pointing to the possibility of detecting it with inelastic neutron scattering near k = pi provided the temperature is neither too low nor too high-at low temperature, the spectral weight only grows as T-3/2 and, at high temperature, the bound state peak merges with the two-magnon continuum. For spin 1, the situation is more subtle because the bound state with two neighboring spin flips competes with an antibound state with two spin flips on the same site. As a consequence, the relative spectral weight of the bound state is smaller than for spin 1/2 and a weak resonance due to the antibound state appears in the continuum. A clearer signature of the bound state (antibound state) can be obtained if a negative (positive) biquadratic interaction is present.

AMER PHYSICAL SOC2022

Ultra-thin dielectric layers on metal substrates studied by scanning tunneling microscopy and scanning tunneling spectroscopy

In this thesis, ultra-thin dielectric layers on metal substrates are studied mainly by scanning tunneling microscopy and scanning tunneling spectroscopy. In chapter 2, field emission resonances, i.e. bound states in the potential well between sample and tip with an applied voltage, are used to determine the local work function on a sample with patches of different structural composition. To do so, a simple theoretical model is developed and used to simulate the peak positions of the measured dI/dV spectra. In the present case the sample is a Ag(100) surface covered by up to three monolayers of NaCl. The presented method is also applicable to other systems suitable for STM measurements. Additionally, the surface potential is locally probed in the dipole layer region between domains of different work function. In chapter 3, new molecular structures on silver surfaces are presented, that are formed by a mixture of gases. This mixture contains the small molecules H2, H2O, CO, CO2, and N2. No final conclusion can be drawn on the chemical nature of these structures due to the impossibility of the scanning tunneling microscope to determine chemical species. But already the presence of these structures indicates that there is a multitude of unknown interactions, that are possible between a transition metal surface and even smallest molecules. In chapter 4, the moiré pattern is described that a BC3 film creates on a NbB2(0001) surface. As the growth of the BC3 sheet is incommensurate, a moiré pattern is formed that modulates the apparent height of the atoms on the STM images, i.e. the local density of states. The BC3 layer exhibits a completely different behavior than the closely related graphite layer, because it is transparent for the tunnel current. In the present case, the BC3 layer is visible on the STM images only by its moiré effect.

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