The idea of confinement states that in certain systems constituent particles can be discerned only indirectly being bound by an interaction whose strength increases with increasing particle separation. Though the most famous example is the confinement of quarks to form baryons and mesons in (3+1)-dimensional Quantum Chromodynamics, confinement can also be realized in condensed matter physics systems such as spin-ladders which consist of two spin-1/2 antiferromagnetic chains coupled together by spin exchange interactions. Excitations of individual chains (spinons) carrying spin S=1/2, are confined even by an infinitesimal interchain coupling. The realizations studied so far cannot illustrate this process due to the large strength of their interchain coupling which leaves no energy window for the spinon excitations of individual chains. Here we present neutron scattering experiments for a weakly-coupled ladder material. At high energies the spectral function approaches that of individual chains; at low energies it is dominated by spin 0,1 excitations of strongly-coupled chains.The experiments presented in this paper illustrate the condensed matter realization of the confinement idea. The original and most popularized form of this idea comes from particle theory, more specifically from the theory of strong interactions. It is suggested that heavy particles (baryons and mesons) are made of quarks. The latter particles possess properties (more precisely, quantum numbers) which cannot be directly observed, such as fractional electric charge (±2e/3,±e/3). In a similar fashion in spin ladders excitations of individual spin-1/2 chains (spinons) carry quantum numbers which which are forbidden as soon as the chains are coupled. Quarks are held together by the Yang-Mills (or colour) gauge field which quanta are called gluons. As for any gauge field at smallest distances this interaction obeys the Coulomb law, but at larger distances instead of decreasing it progressively increases due to the gluon-gluon interaction. The popular image is of gluon field lines sticking together and creating some kind of "string" between the quarks. This picture is very appealing since quarks being just end points of a string can under no circumstances appear as individual particles provided the string has a finite tension. Even if one allows the string to snap, none of its pieces can have just one end and hence single quarks still cannot appear. A finite string tension generates an effective potential between the quarks which grows with distance leading to their confinement. Since such a potential well apparently contains infinite number of energy levels, corresponding to different internal energies and hence by the E = mc 2 relation to different particles masses, one would imagine that there is an infinite number of particles with the same quantum numbers, but different masses. This picture is oversimplified, however, failing to take into account the quantum nature of the gluon

High trapped fields were found in zinc-doped, bulk melt-textured YBa2Cu3O7−x (YBCO) material showing a pronounced peak effect in the field dependence of the critical current density. Trapped fields up to 1.1 T were found at 77 K at the surface of a YBCO disk (diameter 26 mm, height 12 mm). Very high trapped fields up to 14.35 T were achieved at 22.5 K for a YBCO disk pair (diameter 26 mm, height 24 mm) by the addition of silver and using a bandage made of stainless steel. The pinning forces and trapped fields obtained in bulk YBCO material are compared with results reported for melt-processed NdBa2Cu3O7−x and SmBa2Cu3O7−x.

Improved trapped fields are reported for bulk melt-textured YBa2Cu3O 7−δ (YBCO) material in the temperature range between 20 K and 50 K. Trapped fields up to 12.2 T were obtained at 22 K on the surface of single YBCO disks (with Ag and Zn additions). In YBCO mini-magnets, maximum trapped fields of 16 T (at 24 K) and of 11.2 T (at 47 K) were achieved using (Zn + Ag) and Zn additions, respectively. In all cases, the YBCO disks were encapsulated in steel tubes in order to reinforce the material against the large tensile stress acting during the magnetizing process and to avoid cracking. We observed cracking not only during the magnetizing process, but also as a consequence of flux jumps due to thermomagnetic instabilities in the temperature range betweeen 20 K and 30 K. 7460Ge, 7462Bf, 7480BjBulk type II superconductors can trap high magnetic fields that are generated by superconducting persistent currents circulating macroscopically within the superconductor. The main features of the resulting field distribution are a maximum trapped field B 0 in the center of the superconducting domain and a field gradient towards the sample edge which is determined by the critical current density j c of the supercurrents. Therefore, high trapped fields B 0 in bulk superconductors require a high critical current density and a large size of the current loops. Large single-domain bulk YBa 2 Cu 3 O 7−δ based (YBCO) samples can be produced by melt texture processing, especially by using SmBa 2 Cu 3 O 7−δ (Sm-123) as a seed crystal.[1] The pinning effect in melt textured samples can be improved by irradiation methods [2,3] and alternatively, by zinc-doping. [4,5] Cracking of the samples was found to limit the trapped field of bulk YBCO at temperatures below 77 K which can be explained by tensile stresses that occur during the magnetization process due to the stored flux density gradient and may exceed the tensile strength of the material.[6] The mechanical properties of bulk YBCO and its tensile strength can be improved considerably by the addition of Ag. [7,8] Another possibility to avoid cracking during magnetizing is to encapsulate the bulk YBCO disks in steel tubes. [9] A steel tube leads to stress compensation by generating a compressive stress on YBCO after cooling from 300 K to the measuring temperature which is due to the higher thermal expansion coefficient of steel compared to that of YBCO in the a, b-plane. Maximum trapped fields B 0 of 11.5 T at 17 K and of 14.4 T at 22 K were reported for single YBCO disks and mini-magnets consisting of two single YBCO disks, respectively. [9] In both cases, Ag was added to the YBCO disks which were placed into austenite Cr-Ni steel tubes. Previous attempts to combine the two beneficial effects of Ag and Zn additions failed due to the solubility of Zn in Ag in oxygen atmosphere. High trapped fields have also been reported for bulk Sm-123 with additions of Ag. At the surface of Sm-123 disks, trapped fields of 2.1 T at 77 K and of 8 T at 40 K have been observed. [10] In the present paper, t...

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We present experimental results for the thermal conductivity kappa of the pseudo-two-leg ladder material CaCu2O3. The strong buckling of the ladder rungs renders this material a good approximation to a S=1/2 Heisenberg chain. Despite a strong suppression of the thermal conductivity of this material in all crystal directions due to inherent disorder, we find a dominant magnetic contribution kappa mag along the chain direction. kappa mag is linear in temperature, resembling the low-temperature limit of the thermal Drude weight D th of the S=1/2 Heisenberg chain. The comparison of kappamag and Dth yields a magnetic mean-free path of l mag approximately 22+/-5 A, in good agreement with magnetic measurements.

Collective orbital excitations in orbitally ordered YVO3 and HoVO3 E Benckiser, R Rückamp, T Möller et al. Abstract. The orbital excitations of a series of transition-metal compounds are studied by means of optical spectroscopy. Our aim was to identify signatures of collective orbital excitations by comparison with experimental and theoretical results for predominantly local crystal-field excitations. To this end, we have studied TiOCl, RTiO 3 (R = La, Sm and Y), LaMnO 3 , Y 2 BaNiO 5 , CaCu 2 O 3 and K 4 Cu 4 OCl 10 , ranging from early to late transition-metal ions, from t 2g to e g systems, and including systems in which the exchange coupling is predominantly three-dimensional, one-dimensional or zero-dimensional. With the exception of LaMnO 3 , we find orbital excitations in all compounds. We discuss the competition between orbital fluctuations (for dominant exchange coupling) and crystal-field splitting (for dominant coupling to the lattice). Comparison of our experimental results with configuration-interaction cluster calculations in general yields good agreement, demonstrating that the coupling to the lattice is important for a 7 Author to whom any correspondence should be addressed. quantitative description of the orbital excitations in these compounds. However, detailed theoretical predictions for the contribution of collective orbital modes to the optical conductivity (e.g. the line shape or the polarization dependence) are required to decide on a possible contribution of orbital fluctuations at low energies, in particular, in case of the orbital excitations at ≈0.25 eV in RTiO 3 . Further calculations are called for which take into account the exchange interactions between the orbitals and the coupling to the lattice on an equal footing. Contents

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YBCO bulk materials were crystallized by a multi-seeded melt growth process. Up to four biaxial oriented Sm-123 seeds were placed on the top of rectangular shaped YBCO bars (up to ). The oriented grown single grains are joined by partially coherent grain boundaries with an improved current transport capability and high levitation forces with overall values of 55-65 N. Segregation of nonsuperconducting rest melt and microcracks limit the current transport across the grain boundary.