Doubling the Critical Current Density of High Temperature Superconducting Coated Conductors through Proton Irradiation

The in-field critical current of commercial YBa2Cu3O7 coated conductors can be substantially enhanced by post-fabrication irradiation with 4 MeV protons. Irradiation to a fluence of 8x10^16 p/cm^2 induces a near doubling of the critical current in fields of 6 T || c at a temperature of 27 K, a field and temperature range of interest for applications such as rotating machinery. A mixed pinning landscape of preexisting precipitates and twin boundaries and small, finely dispersed irradiation induced defects may account for the improved vortex pinning in high magnetic fields. Our data indicate that there is significant head-room for further enhancements.

Catalyst-Free Growth of Millimeter-Long Topological Insulator Bi2Se3 Nanoribbons and the Observation of pi Berry Phase

We report the growth of single-crystalline Bi2Se3 nanoribbons with lengths up to several millimeters via a catalyst-free physical vapor deposition method. Scanning transmission electron microscopy analysis reveals that the nanoribbons grow along the (1120) direction. We obtain a detailed characterization of the electronic structure of the Bi2Se3 nanoribbons from measurements of Shubnikov-de Haas (SdH) quantum oscillations. Angular dependent magneto-transport measurements reveal a dominant two-dimensional contribution originating from surface states and weak contribution from the bulk states. The catalyst-free synthesis yields high-purity nanocrystals enabling the observation of a large number of SdH oscillation periods and allowing for an accurate determination of the pi-Berry phase, one of the key features of Dirac fermions in topological insulators. The long-length nanoribbons can empower the potential for fabricating multiple nanoelectronic devices on a single nanoribbon.

The Constrained Exceptional Supersymmetric Standard Model

We propose and study a constrained version of the Exceptional Supersymmetric Standard Model (E6SSM), which we call the cE6SSM, based on a universal high energy scalar mass m_0, trilinear scalar coupling A_0 and gaugino mass M_{1/2}. We derive the Renormalisation Group (RG) Equations for the cE6SSM, including the extra U(1)_{N} gauge factor and the low energy matter content involving three 27 representations of E6. We perform a numerical RG analysis for the cE6SSM, imposing the usual low energy experimental constraints and successful Electro-Weak Symmetry Breaking (EWSB). Our analysis reveals that the sparticle spectrum of the cE6SSM involves a light gluino, two light neutralinos and a light chargino. Furthermore, although the squarks, sleptons and Z boson are typically heavy, the exotic quarks and squarks can also be relatively light. We finally specify a set of benchmark points which correspond to particle spectra, production modes and decay patterns peculiar to the cE6SSM, altogether leading to spectacular new physics signals at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

Theoretical upper bound on the mass of the LSP in the MNSSM

We study the neutralino sector of the Minimal Non-minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MNSSM) where the $mu$ problem of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) is solved without accompanying problems related with the appearance of domain walls. In the MNSSM as in the MSSM the lightest neutralino can be the absolutely stable lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP) providing a good candidate for the cold dark matter component of the Universe. In contrast with the MSSM the allowed range of the mass of the lightest neutralino in the MNSSM is limited. We establish the theoretical upper bound on the lightest neutralino mass in the framework of this model and obtain an approximate solution for this mass.