Quantum Criticality at the Superconductor-Insulator Transition Probed by the Nernst Effect.

The superconductor-insulator transition (SIT) is an excellent example of a quantum phase transition at zero temperature, dominated by quantum fluctuations. These are expected to be very prominent close to the quantum critical point. So far, most of the experimental studies of the SIT have concentrated on transport properties and tunneling experiments that provide indirect information on criticality close to the transition. Here we present an experiment uniquely designed to study the evolution of quantum fluctuations through the quantum critical point. We utilize the Nernst effect, which has been shown to be effective in probing superconducting fluctuation. We measure the Nernst coefficient in amorphous indium oxide films tuned through the SIT and find a large signal on both the superconducting and the insulating sides, which peaks close to the critical point. The transverse Peltier coefficient α_{xy}, which is the thermodynamic quantity extracted from these measurements, follows quantum critical scaling with critical exponents ν∼0.7 and z∼1. These exponents are consistent with a clean X-Y model in 2+1 dimensions.

Live imaging of induced and controlled DNA double-strand break formation reveals extremely low repair by homologous recombination in human cells.

DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs), the most hazardous DNA lesions, may result in genomic instability, a hallmark of cancer cells. The main DSB repair pathways are non-homologous end joining (NHEJ) and homologous recombination (HR). In mammalian cells, NHEJ, which can lead to inaccurate repair, predominates. HR repair (HRR) is considered accurate and is restricted to S, G2 and M phases of the cell cycle. Despite its importance, many aspects regarding HRR remain unknown. Here, we developed a novel inducible on/off switch cell system that enables, for the first time, to induce a DSB in a rapid and reversible manner in human cells. By limiting the duration of DSB induction, we found that non-persistent endonuclease-induced DSBs are rarely repaired by HR, whereas persistent DSBs result in the published HRR frequencies (non-significant HR frequency versus frequency of ∼10%, respectively). We demonstrate that these DSBs are repaired by an accurate repair mechanism, which is distinguished from HRR (most likely, error-free NHEJ). Notably, our data reveal that HRR frequencies of endonuclease-induced DSBs in human cells are >10-fold lower than what was previously estimated by prevailing methods, which resulted in recurrent DSB formation. Our findings suggest a role for HRR mainly in repairing challenging DSBs, in contrast to uncomplicated lesions that are frequently repaired by NHEJ. Preventing HR from repairing DSBs in the complex and repetitive human genome probably has an essential role in maintaining genomic stability.

Onset of an insulating zero-plateau quantum Hall state in graphene.

We analyze the dissipative conductance of the zero-plateau quantum Hall state appearing in undoped graphene in strong magnetic fields. Charge transport in this state is assumed to be carried by a magnetic domain wall, which forms by hybridization of two counterpropagating edge states of opposing spin due to interactions. The resulting nonchiral edge mode is a Luttinger liquid of parameter K, which enters a gapped, perfectly conducting state below a critical value K_{c} approximately 1/2. Backscattering in this system involves spin flip, so that interaction with localized magnetic moments generates a finite resistivity Rxx via a "chiral Kondo effect." At finite temperatures T, Rxx(T) exhibits a crossover from metallic to insulating behavior as K is tuned across a threshold K_{MI}. For T --> 0, Rxx in the intermediate regime K_{MI} < K < K_{c} is finite, but diverges as K approaches K_{c}. This model provides a natural interpretation of recent experiments.

Magnetothermal transport in the spin-1/2 chains of copper pyrazine dinitrate.

We present experiments on the thermal transport in the spin-1/2 chain compound copper pyrazine dinitrate Cu(C4H4N2)(NO3)2. The heat conductivity shows a surprisingly strong dependence on the applied magnetic field B, characterized at low temperatures by two main features. The first one appearing at low B is a characteristic dip located at muBB approximately kBT, that may arise from umklapp scattering. The second one is a plateaulike feature in the quantum critical regime, muB|B - Bc| < kBT, where Bc is the saturation field at T=0. The latter feature clearly points towards a momentum and field-independent mean free path of the spin excitations, contrary to theoretical expectations.

Strongly correlated fractional quantum Hall line junctions.

We have studied a clean finite-length line junction between interacting counterpropagating single-branch fractional quantum Hall edge channels. Exact solutions for low-lying excitations and transport properties are obtained when the two edges belong to quantum Hall systems with different filling factors and interact via the long-range Coulomb interaction. Charging effects due to the coupling to external edge-channel leads are fully taken into account. Conductances and power laws in the current-voltage characteristics of tunneling are strongly affected by interedge correlations.