Plutonium is a metal of both technological relevance and fundamental scientific interest. Nevertheless, the electronic structure of plutonium, which directly influences its metallurgical properties, is poorly understood. For example, plutonium's 5f electrons are poised on the border between localized and itinerant, and their theoretical treatment pushes the limits of current electronic structure calculations. Here we extend the range of complexity exhibited by plutonium with the discovery of superconductivity in PuCoGa5. We argue that the observed superconductivity results directly from plutonium's anomalous electronic properties and as such serves as a bridge between two classes of spin-fluctuation-mediated superconductors: the known heavy-fermion superconductors and the high-T(c) copper oxides. We suggest that the mechanism of superconductivity is unconventional; seen in that context, the fact that the transition temperature, T(c) approximately 18.5 K, is an order of magnitude greater than the maximum seen in the U- and Ce-based heavy-fermion systems may be natural. The large critical current displayed by PuCoGa5, which comes from radiation-induced self damage that creates pinning centres, would be of technological importance for applied superconductivity if the hazardous material plutonium were not a constituent.

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Abstract:"Conventional" superconductivity, as used in this review, refers to electron-phonon coupled superconducting electron pairs described by BCS theory. Unconventional superconductivity refers to superconductors where the Cooper pairs are not bound together by phonon-exchange but instead by exchange of some other kind, e. g. spin fluctuations in a superconductor with magnetic order either coexistent or nearby in the phase diagram. Such unconventional superconductivity has been known experimentally since heavy fermion CeCu2Si2, with its strongly correlated 4f electrons, was discovered to superconduct below 0.6 K in 1979. Since the discovery of unconventional superconductivity in the layered cuprates in 1986, the study of these materials saw Tc jump to 164 K by 1994. Further progess in high temperature superconductivity would be aided by understanding the cause of such unconventional pairing. This review compares the fundamental properties of 9 unconventional superconducting classes of materialsfrom 4f-electron heavy fermions to organic superconductors to classes where only three known members exist to the cuprates with over 200 examples -with the hope that common features will emerge to help theory explain (and predict!) these phenomena. In addition, three new emerging classes of superconductors (topological, interfacial -e. g. FeSe on SrTiO3, and H2S under high pressure) are briefly covered, even though their "conventionality" is not yet fully determined.

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Niemann-Pick disease is caused by a genetic deficiency in acid sphingomyelinase (ASM) leading to the intracellular accumulation of sphingomyelin and cholesterol in lysosomes. In the present study, we evaluated the effects of direct intracerebral transplantation of neural progenitor cells (NPCs) on the brain storage pathology in the ASM knock-out (ASMKO) mouse model of Type A Niemann-Pick disease. NPCs derived from adult mouse brain were genetically modified to express human ASM (hASM) and were transplanted into multiple regions of the ASMKO mouse brain. Transplanted NPCs survived, migrated, and showed region-specific differentiation in the host brain up to 10 weeks after transplantation (the longest time point examined). In vitro, gene-modified NPCs expressed up to 10 times more and released five times more ASM activity into the culture media compared with nontransduced NPCs. In vivo, transplanted cells expressed hASM at levels that were barely detectable by immunostaining but were sufficient for uptake and cross-correction of host cells, leading to reversal of distended lysosomal pathology and regional clearance of sphingomyelin and cholesterol storage. Within the host brain, the area of correction closely overlapped with the distribution of the hASM-modified NPCs. No correction of pathology occurred in brain regions that received transplants of nontransduced NPCs. These results indicate that the presence of transduced NPCs releasing low levels of hASM within the ASMKO mouse brain is necessary and sufficient to reverse lysosomal storage pathology. Potentially, NPCs may serve as a useful gene transfer vehicle for the treatment of CNS pathology in other lysosomal storage diseases and neurodegenerative disorders.

In this paper we report the synthesis, magnetization and heat capacity of the frustrated magnets AErSe2(A=Na,K) which contain perfect triangular lattices of Er 3+ . The magnetization data suggests no long-range magnetic order exists in AErSe2(A=Na,K), which is consistent with the heat capacity measurements. Large anisotropy is observed between the magnetization within the ab plane and along the c axis of both compounds. When the magnetic field is applied along ab plane, anomalies are observed at 1.8 µB in NaErSe2 at 0.2 T and 2.1 µB in KErSe2 at 0.18 T. Unlike NaErSe2, a plateau-like field-induced metamagnetic transition is observed for H c below 1 K in KErSe2. Two broad peaks are observed in the heat capacity below 10 K indicating possible crystal electric field(CEF) effects and magnetic entropy released under different magnetic fields. All results indicate that AErSe2 are strongly anisotropic, frustrated magnets with field-induced transition at low temperature. The lack of signatures for long-range magnetic order implies that these materials are candidates for hosting a quantum spin liquid ground state.

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We present measurements of the specific heat coefficient γ(≡ C/T ) in the low temperature limit as a function of an applied magnetic field for the Fe-based superconductor BaFe2(As0.7P0.3)2. We find both a linear regime at higher fields and a limiting square root H behavior at very low fields. The crossover from a Volovik-like √ H to a linear field dependence can be understood from a multiband calculation in the quasiclassical approximation assuming gaps with different momentum dependence on the hole-and electron-like Fermi surface sheets.