Search

Recently, a new class of quantum magnets, the so-called breathing pyrochlore spin systems, have attracted much attention due to their potential to host exotic emergent phenomena. Here, we present magnetometry, heat capacity, thermal conductivity, muon-spin relaxation, and polarized inelastic neutron scattering measurements performed on high-quality single crystal samples of the breathing pyrochlore compound Ba3Yb2Zn5O11. We interpret these results using a simplified toy model and provide insight into the low-energy physics of this system beyond the single tetrahedron physics proposed previously.

Skyrmion-hosting multilayer stacks are promising avenues for applications, although little is known about the depth dependence of the magnetism. We address this by reporting the results of circular dichroic resonant elastic x-ray scattering (CD-REXS) and low-energy muon-spin relaxation (LE-{\mu}SR) measurements on a stack comprising Ta/[CoFeB/MgO/Ta]16 on a Si substrate. Energy dependent CD-REXS shows a continuous, monotonic evolution of the domain-wall helicity angle with incident energy, consistent with a three-dimensional hybrid domain-wall-like structure that changes from N\'eel-like near the surface to Bloch-like deeper within the sample. LE-{\mu}SR reveals that the magnetic field distribution in the first six layers of the stack is distinct from that in layers further from the surface, quantifying the depth at which the static and dynamic magnetic structure varies. By increasing the applied magnetic field, we find a reduction in the volume occupied by domain walls at all depths, consistent with a crossover into a region dominated by skyrmions above approximately 180 mT., Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures

Text generation tools, often presented as a form of generative artificial intelligence, have the potential to pose a threat to the integrity of the educational system. They can be misused to afford students marks and qualifications that they do not deserve. The emergence of recent tools, such as ChatGPT, appear to have left the educational community unprepared, despite the fact that the computer science community has been working to develop and improve such tools for years. This paper provides an introduction to text generation tools intended for a non-specialist audience, discussing the types of assessments that students can outsource, showing the type of prompts that can be used to generate text, and illustrating one possible watermarking technique that may allow generated text to be detected. A small-scale study into watermarking suggests that this technique is feasible and show technical promise but should not be relied on as a solution to widespread use of artificial intelligence based tools by students. Alternative solutions are needed, including encouraging the educational community to work with artificial intelligence rather than against it. As such, the paper concludes by discussing seven potential areas for further exploration.

We study magnetism in the κ-(ET)2X family of charge-transfer salts using implanted muon spectroscopy in conjunction with detailed ab initio electronic structure calculations using density functional theory (DFT). ET stands for the electron donor molecule bis(ethylendithio)tetrathiafulvalene and X is an anion. The DFT calculations are used to establish molecular spin distributions, muon stopping sites, and dipolar field parameters, that allow us to make a quantitative interpretation of the experimental results. Materials in the κ-(ET)2X family with X = Ag2(CN)3 and X = Cu2 (CN)3 have attracted particular interest, as they have the attributes of quantum spin liquids, showing no magnetic ordering down to 30 mK in zero field μSR and in NMR, despite having exchange couplings of order 200–250 K. In contrast, the material with X = Cu[N(CN)2]Cl has an antiferromagnetic (AF) ordering transition with TN in the region of 23–30 K. In order to better understand the muon spectroscopy signature of magnetism in this whole family of compounds at both low and high magnetic fields, we look in detail at the case X = Cu[N(CN)2]Cl. As the first step in our study, the spin density distribution for the ET dimer is calculated using DFT and used to simulate the 3.7 T 1 H-NMR spectrum of this salt, with the spectrum showing good agreement with that measured previously [K. Miyagawa, A. Kawamoto, Y. Nakazawa, and K. Kanoda, Phys. Rev. Lett. 75, 1174 (1995)]. Best match to the data is found for antiferromagnetic interlayer ordering and an ordered moment per dimer of 0.25 μB. DFT is also used to explore muon stopping sites for this salt, finding one set of sites resulting from muonium addition to C=C double bonds in the ET layer, with muons stopping in the anion layer forming another group of sites. The dipolar fields associated with each of the stopping sites is computed and these are compared with the precession frequencies observed in the ZF-μSR spectrum [M. Ito, T. Uehara, H. Taniguchi, K. Satoh, Y. Ishii, and I. Watanabe, J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. 84, 053703 (2015)]. Best match to the ZF-μSR spectrum is obtained with the mode of interlayer ordering having FM character and an ordered moment per dimer of 0.31 μB for muon sites in the anion layer and 0.36 μB for muonium sites in the ET layer. New measurements of TF-μSR spectra for fields up to 8 T are reported and analyzed to obtain the best estimate of the magnetic order parameter under different measurement conditions, allowing us to observe the variation of TN with applied field and the field-induced transverse canting of the moments.

Third-dose coronavirus disease 2019 vaccines are being deployed widely but their efficacy has not been assessed adequately in vulnerable older people who exhibit suboptimal responses after primary vaccination series. This observational study, which was carried out by the VIVALDI study based in England, looked at spike-specific immune responses in 341 staff and residents in long-term care facilities who received an mRNA vaccine following dual primary series vaccination with BNT162b2 or ChAdOx1. Third-dose vaccination strongly increased antibody responses with preferential relative enhancement in older people and was required to elicit neutralization of Omicron. Cellular immune responses were also enhanced with strong cross-reactive recognition of Omicron. However, antibody titers fell 21–78% within 100 d after vaccine and 27% of participants developed a breakthrough Omicron infection. These findings reveal strong immunogenicity of a third vaccine in one of the most vulnerable population groups and endorse an approach for widespread delivery across this population. Ongoing assessment will be required to determine the stability of immune protection.

Combined resistance noise and muon-spin relaxation (μSR) measurements of the ferromagnetic semiconductor HgCr2Se4 suggest a degree of magnetoelectric coupling and provide evidence for the existence of isolated magnetic polarons. These form at elevated temperatures and undergo a percolation transition with a drastic enhancement of the low-frequency 1/f-type charge fluctuations at the insulator-to-metal transition at ∼95-98K in the vicinity of the magnetic ordering temperature TC∼105-107K. Upon approaching the percolation threshold from above, the strikingly unusual dynamics of a distinct two-level fluctuator superimposed on the 1/f noise can be described by a slowing down of the dynamics of a nanoscale magnetic cluster, a magnetic polaron, when taking into account an effective radius of the polaron depending on the spin correlation length. Coinciding temperature scales found in μSR and noise measurements suggest changes in the magnetic dynamics over a wide range of frequencies and are consistent with the existence of large polarized and domain-wall-like regions at low temperatures, that result from the freezing of spin dynamics at the magnetic polaron percolation transition.

The helimagnets Cr1/3MS2 (M = Nb or Ta) have attracted renewed attention due to the discovery of a chiral soliton lattice (CSL) stabilized in an applied magnetic field, but reports of unusual low-temperature transport and magnetic properties in this system lack a unifying explanation. Here, we present electronic structure calculations that demonstrate the materials are half metals. There is also a gaplike feature (width in range 40–100 meV) in the density of states of one spin channel. This electronic structure explains the low-temperature electronic and magnetic properties of Cr1/3MS2 (M = Nb or Ta), with the gaplike feature particularly important for explaining the magnetic behavior. Our magnetometry measurements confirm the existence of this gap. Dynamic spin fluctuations driven by excitations across this gap are seen over a wide range of frequencies (0.1 Hz to MHz) with ac susceptibility and muon-spin relaxation (μ+SR) measurements. We show further how effects due to the CSL in Cr1/3NbS2, as detected with μ+SR, dominate over the gap driven magnetism when the CSL is stabilized as the majority phase.

The move to online teaching has brought with it fresh opportunities for students to violate academic integrity. This paper considers such violations from within the domain of online English language teaching, although many of the ideas presented are applicable to other disciplines. The paper reports on a two-part study conducted at a university in Turkey. In the first part, qualitative data collected from students and staff through an online survey form were used to identify a new way of categorizing academic integrity violations. This provided three such categories, namely; exam-related, assignment-related, and online session-related violations. In the second part of the study, 462 students completed a survey related to their attitudes towards both academic integrity violations and the associated threats that may lead to these violations. Although the results revealed students generally presenting a commitment to the fundamental values of academic integrity, many students showed willingness to engage with machine translation software to prepare answers at times when they were expected to be working unaided. The findings underline a need for further consideration about how students are taught and assessed with integrity in an online environment. They also suggest that nuanced discussions about academic integrity need to take place between students and English language teachers.

Muons implanted into ionic fluorides often lead to a so-called F-mu-F state, in which the time evolution of the muon spin contains information about the geometry and nature of the muon site. Nuclei more distant from the muon than the two nearest-neighbor fluorine ions result in decoherence of the F-mu-F system and this can yield additional quantitative information about the state of the muon. We demonstrate how this can be applied to the determination of muon sites within the ionic fluorides alpha-PbF2 and YF3 which contain fluoride ions in different crystallographic environments. Our results can be used to distinguish between different crystal phases and reveal the presence of anion Frenkel defects in alpha-PbF2., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures

The magnetic properties of the two isostructural molecule-based magnets, Ni(NCS)$_{2}$(thiourea)$_{2}$, $S$ = 1, [thiourea = SC(NH$_2$)$_2$] and Co(NCS)$_{2}$(thiourea)$_{2}$, $S$ = 3/2, are characterised using several techniques in order to rationalise their relationship with structural parameters and ascertain magnetic changes caused by substitution of the spin. Zero-field heat capacity and muon-spin relaxation measurements reveal low-temperature long-range ordering in both compounds, in addition to Ising-like ($D < 0$) single-ion anisotropy ($D_{\rm{Co}} \sim$ -100 K, $D_{\rm{Ni}} \sim$ -10 K). Crystal and electronic structure, combined with DC-field magnetometry, affirm highly quasi-one-dimensional behaviour, with ferromagnetic intrachain exchange interactions $J_{\rm{Co}}\approx+4$ K and $J_{\rm{Ni}}\sim+100$ K and weak antiferromagnetic interchain exchange, on the order of $J'$ $\sim-0.1$ K. Electron charge and spin-density mapping reveals through-space exchange as a mechanism to explain the large discrepancy in $J$-values despite, from a structural perspective, the highly similar exchange pathways in both materials. Both species can be compared to the similar compounds $M$Cl$_2$(thiourea)$_4$, $M$ = Ni(II) (DTN) and Co(II) (DTC), where DTN is know to harbour two magnetic field-induced quantum critical points. Direct comparison of DTN and DTC with the compounds studied here shows that substituting the halide Cl$^-$ ion, for the NCS$^-$ ion, results in a dramatic change in both the structural and magnetic properties., Main text: 13 pages - 11 figures, 2 tables. Supplemental information: 6 pages - 2 figures, 6 tables