<p> The Mott metal-insulator transition (MIT) in transition-metal complex oxides results from strong electron-electron interactions and is accompanied by a rich spectrum of phenomena, including magnetic, charge, and orbital ordering, superconductivity, structural distortions, polarons, and very high-density 2-dimensional interface electron liquids. Recent advances in oxide heteroepitaxy allow interface control as a promising new approach to tuning the exotic properties of materials near the quantum critical point, with potential application to technologies including phase-change electronics, high power transistors, and sensors. The dynamical conductivity of oxide heterostructures is measured using a combination of terahertz time-domain spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and dc magnetotransport. The rare-earth nickelates <i> R</i>NiO₃ (<i>R</i> = La, Nd...) exhibit a temperature and bandwidth controlled MIT in bulk. Measurements of the Drude response in epitaxial thin films provide quantification of the strain-dependent mass enhancement in the metallic phase due to strong correlations. Reduction of LaNiO₃ film thickness leads to additional mass renormalization attributed to structural distortions at the heteroepitaxial interface, and an MIT is observed depending on the interfacing materials in coherent perovskite heterostructures. The rare-earth titanates <i>R</i>TiO₃ exhibit a bandwidth and band filling controlled Mott MIT. Furthermore, the heterointerface between Mott insulating GdTiO₃ and band insulating SrTiO₃ exhibits a 2-dimensional itinerant electron liquid, with extremely high sheet densities of 3 &times; 10¹⁴ cm^-2. The dynamical conductivity of the interface electrons is analyzed in terms of subband-dependent electron mobility and the established large polaron dynamics in bulk SrTiO₃. Additional confinement of the electron liquids is achieved by decreasing the SrTiO₃ layer thickness, with attendant increase in the dynamical mass. Taking the confinement to its extreme limit, a single (GdO)⁺ plane in Mott insulating GdTiO₃ is replaced with a (SrO)⁰ plane. This is equivalent to "delta-doping" the Mott insulator with an extremely high density sheet of holes. The transport and absorption in the resulting two-dimensional insulator are consistent with a simple model of small polaron hopping. A comparison is made to similar features in the conductivity of randomly doped Sr_1-xGd_xTiO₃ films.</p>

<p> The present sociophonetic study examines the English variety in Michigan's Upper Peninsula (UP) based upon a 130-speaker sample from Marquette County. The linguistic variables of interest include seven monophthongs and four diphthongs: 1) front lax, 2) low back, and 3) high back monophthongs and 4) short and 5) long diphthongs. The sample is stratified by the predictor variables of heritage-location, bilingualism, age, sex and class. The aim of the thesis is two fold: 1) to determine the extent of potential substrate effects on a 71-speaker older-aged bilingual and monolingual subset of these UP English speakers focusing on the predictor variables of heritage-location and bilingualism, and 2) to determine the extent of potential exogenous influences on an 85-speaker subset of UP English monolingual speakers by focusing on the predictor variables of heritage-location, age, sex and class. All data were extracted from a reading passage task collected during a sociolinguistic interview and measured instrumentally. The findings of this apparent-time data reveal the presence of lingering effects from substrate sources and developing effects from exogenous sources based upon American and Canadian models of diffusion. The linguistic changes-in-progress from above, led by middle-class females, are taking shape in the speech of UP residents of whom are propagating linguistic phenomena typically associated with varieties of Canadian English (i.e., low-back merger, Canadian shift, and Canadian raising); however, the findings also report resistance of such norms by working-class females. Finally, the data also reveal substrate effects demonstrating cases of dialect leveling and maintenance. As a result, the speech spoken in Michigan's Upper Peninsula can presently be described as a unique variety of English comprised of lingering substrate effects as well as exogenous effects modeled from both American and Canadian English linguistic norms.</p>

<p> The physics of the atomic nucleus and supernovas are fundamental to our very being. Indeed, supernovas provide the wind that disperses the nuclei of which we are composed, and the physics of nuclei is pivotal in supernova dynamics. During supernova core collapse, the extremely high temperatures and densities and low entropy favor large, neutron-rich nuclei at high excitation energy. My collaborators and I examine two weak interactions that occur in nuclei under these conditions. First, we study the production of neutrino pairs via de-excitation of hot nuclei. In de-exciting, the nucleus can emit a virtual Z⁰ boson that decays into a neutrino-antineutrino pair. We find this to be the dominant source of neutrino pairs of all flavors during collapse. Second, we use modern shell model computation techniques to revise the Brink-Axel hypothesis method of computing electron capture rates that was pioneered by Fuller, Fowler, and Newman. Our results show that the Brink-Axel hypothesis (which posits that the bulk of nuclear transition strength is distributed among transition energies independently of initial excitation energy) fails at low and moderate excitation, but that at high initial energies, the strength is largely independent of excitation. The failure of the Brink-Axel hypothesis manifests as the redistribution of strength to low and negative transition energies, which can have the effect of increasing the overall electron capture rate in the core.</p>

<p> The Lithium Tokamak Experiment (LTX) is a spherical tokamak designed to study the lowrecycling regime through the use of lithium-coated shells conformal to the last closed flux surface (LCFS). A lowered recycling rate is expected to flatten core <i>T</i>_e profiles, raise edge <i>T</i>_e, strongly affect <i>n</i>_e profiles, and enhance confinement.</p><p> To study these unique plasmas, a Thomson scattering diagnostic uses a &le; 20 J, 30 ns FWHM pulsed ruby laser to measure <i>T</i>_e and <i>n</i>_e at 11 radial points on the horizontal midplane, spaced from the magnetic axis to the outer edge at a single temporal point for each discharge. Scattered light is imaged through a spectrometer onto an intensified CCD. The diagnostic is absolutely calibrated using a precision light source and Raman scattering. Measurements of <i>n</i>_e are compared with line integrated density measurements from a microwave interferometer. Adequate signal to noise is obtained with ne &ge; 2 &times;10¹⁸ m^&ndash;3.</p><p> Thomson profiles of plasmas following evaporation of lithium onto room-temperature plasmafacing components (PFCs) are used in conjunction with magnetic equilibria as input for TRANSP modeling runs. Neoclassical calculations are used to determine <i> T</i>_i profiles, which have levels that agree with passive charge exchange recombination spectroscopy (CHERS) measurements. TRANSP results for confinement times and stored energies agree with diamagnetic loop measurements. Results of &chi;_e result in values as low as 7 m²/s near the core, which rise to around 100 m²/s near the edge. These are the first measurements of &chi;e in LTX, or its predecessor, the Current Drive Experiment-Upgrade (CDX-U), with lithium PFCs.</p>

<p> It is the goal of this dissertation to demonstrate that beyond the standard model, certain theories exist which solve conflicts between observation and theory -- conflicts such as massive neutrinos, dark matter, unstable Higgs vacuum, and recent Planck observations of excess relativistic degrees of freedom in the early universe. Theories explored include a D-brane inspired construct of U(3) &times; Sp(1) &times; U(1) &times; U(1) extension of the standard model, in which we demonstrate several possible observables that may be detected at the LHC, and an ability to stabilize the Higgs mechanism. The extended model can also explain recent Planck data which, when added to HST data gives an excess of relativistic degrees of freedom of &Delta; N = 0.574 &plusmn; 0.25 above the standard result. Also explored is a possible non-thermal dark matter model for explanation of this result. Recent observations of <i> Fermi</i> bubble results indicate a signal of a 50 GeV dark matter particle annihilating into b b-bar, with a thermally averaged annihilation cross section corresponding to &lt;&sigma; v> = 8 &times; 10</p><p>(-27) cm</p><p>3/s, spurs interestin a Higgs portal model suggested by Steven Weinberg. Other implications of this model are also explored such as its ability to explain dark matter direct detection results along with LHC Higgs data, and Planck data. Particle physics is complimented by possible stochastic gravitational wave searches for which a model of second order global phase transitions is explored. These transitions generate gravitational wave spectra with amplitudes of order &Omega;(gw) h</p><p>2 = 10</p><p>(-24) - 10</p><p>(-15). Furthermore, techniques into such calculationsare investigated in hopes to improve the stability required in such lattice simulations.</p>

No description available.

<p> The NPDGamma Experiment is measuring the parity-violating correlation A_&gamma; between neutron spin and gamma momentum in the radiative capture of a polarized cold neutron beam on a cryogenic liquid parahydrogen target. This measurement is expected to give insight into theories that incorporate the weak interaction into what is primarily a strongly interacting system. This dissertation discusses the operation and characterization of the liquid hydrogen target, including the calibration of the instrumentation that monitors the state of the hydrogen. An important consideration is the fact that for safety reasons the instrumentation in direct contact with the hydrogen is limited, and so a detailed understanding of the target design and of the properties of hydrogen is required in order to interpret the state of the system. For this experiment, it is essential that the hydrogen be kept mostly in the para state in order to prevent the beam from being significantly depolarized before capture. Since the uncatalyzed conversion rate is slow, an ortho-para conversion loop is used to promote conversion from the room temperature orthohydrogen fraction to the fraction associated with the temperatures of the cryogenic vessel. In addition to the calibration and characterization studies, a method is introduced for placing an empirical limit on the deviation of the orthohydrogen fraction inside the vessel from the desired level associated with the temperature of the ortho-para conversion catalyst and vessel. This method, which does not require precise knowledge of the parahydrogen cross section, involves observing the transmission of the beam through the target while the rate of flow of hydrogen through the ortho-para conversion loop is changed. In addition to the studies of the hydrogen target, this dissertation discusses a calibration of some ³He ion chambers that monitor the flux of the neutron beam and that are used to perform beam transmission measurements. This calibration, which involves a study of the noise inherent in the signal due to neutron capture, does not involve comparison to a separate calibrated detector.</p>

<p> Laser cooling and trapping are central to modern atomic physics. It has been roughly three decades since laser cooling techniques produced ultracold atoms, leading to rapid advances in a vast array of fields and a number of Nobel prizes. Prior to the work presented in this thesis, laser cooling had not yet been extended to molecules because of their complex internal structure. However, this complexity makes molecules potentially useful for a wide range of applications. The first direct laser cooling of a molecule and further results we present here provide a new route to ultracold temperatures for molecules. In particular, these methods bridge the gap between ultracold temperatures and the approximately 1 kelvin temperatures attainable with directly cooled molecules (e.g. with cryogenic buffer gas cooling or decelerated supersonic beams). Using the carefully chosen molecule strontium monofluoride (SrF), decays to unwanted vibrational states are suppressed. Driving a transition with rotational quantum number <i>R</i>=1 to an excited state with <i> R'</i>=0 eliminates decays to unwanted rotational states. The dark ground-state Zeeman sublevels present in this specific scheme are remixed via a static magnetic field. Using three lasers for this scheme, a given molecule should undergo an average of approximately 100,000 photon absorption/emission cycles before being lost via unwanted decays. This number of cycles should be sufficient to load a magneto-optical trap (MOT) of molecules. In this thesis, we demonstrate transverse cooling of an SrF beam, in both Doppler and a Sisyphus-type cooling regimes. We also realize longitudinal slowing of an SrF beam. Finally, we detail current progress towards trapping SrF in a MOT. Ultimately, this technique should enable the production of large samples of molecules at ultracold temperatures for molecules chemically distinct from competing methods.</p>

<p> Superconducting qubits and resonators with quality factors exceeding 10⁷ are of great interest for quantum information processing applications. The improvement of present devices necessarily involves the consideration of participation ratios, which budget the influence of each physical component in the total energy decay rate. Experiments on compact resonators in which participation ratios were varied has demonstrated the validity of this method, yielding a two-fold improvement in quality factor. Similar experiments on compact transmon qubit devices led to a three-fold improvement over previous transmons, validating the method of participation ratios for qubits as well. Through the use of a 3D cavity, a further minimization of the participation of surface components combined with the removal of unnecessary components, produced an additional ten-fold increase in coherence times. Finally, the fluxonium qubit was redesigned in a similar minimalist environment with an improved superinductance, thus combining the advantages of the 3D architecture with the natural insensitivity to dissipation of the fluxonium, resulting in <i>another</i> tenfold increase in relaxation times. This large increase in relaxation and coherence times enables experiments that were previously impossible, thus preparing the field of quantum information to advance on other fronts.</p>

<p>Quantum chromodynamics (QCD) is the theory that concerns how the strong force interacts with subatomic particles. Topological configurations that interpolate between vacuum states have been shown to play an important role in the quark-gluon plasma (QGP), believed to be created in heavy ion collisions. The possible existence of [special characters omitted]-odd domains in the QGP combined with an external magnetic field that is produced in mid-central collisions may be the ingredients necessary for the so-called chiral magnetic effect (CME). The CME is the consequence of topological features called sphalerons (that are created in the hot QCD matter) in the presence of a strong magnetic field, and it induces a separation of negatively and positively charged particles along the direction of the field. This separation varies its orientation from event to event, resulting in the expectation value of any [special characters omitted]-odd observable to vanish, making it necessary to measure the variation in fluctuations. Any indication of a real charge dipole moment could be evidence for local parity violation (LPV), which would have profound implications on our understanding of the natural world.</p><p> In this dissertation, charge dependent azimuthal correlations are used to measure the charge separation fluctuations in gold ion collisions at STAR. There are three primary analyses: measuring charge distributions as a function of beam energy, by selecting specific hadron species to filter background effects, and for uranium ion collisions. The beam energy analysis shows that a small charge separation shrinks with diminishing beam energy, eventually vanishing at the lowest energies. The kaon-pion correlations are performed to eliminate specific background effects unrelated to the CME, and behave consistently with results using all types of hadrons. The uranium analysis attempts to distinguish how much of the azimuthal correlations are influenced by elliptic anisotropy, suggesting the signal is coming from a mixture of CME and strong interaction backgrounds. From the evidence gathered from these analyses, we conclude that there are signs of small charge separations congruous to predictions from the CME, however, much of the signal is obscured by other strong interaction backgrounds. The effective contribution strengths are calculated and suggestions for improvements are made in the conclusion.</p>