Author Correction: Choosing the future of Antarctica

On page 234 of this Perspective, '50% decrease' has been corrected online to '50% increase' in the sentence "The pH of surface waters south of 60° S decreased by 0.2 between 2017 and 2070, equivalent to a 50% increase in the concentration of hydrogen ions since the pre-industrial period¹."

Critical behavior of the spin-1 and spin-3/2 Baxter-Wu model in a crystal field

The phase diagram and the critical behavior of the spin-1 and the spin-3/2 two-dimensional Baxter-Wu model in a crystal field are studied by conventional finite-size scaling and conformal invariance theory. The phase diagram of this model, for the spin-1 case, is qualitatively the same as those of the diluted 4-states Potts model and the spin-1 Blume-Capel model. However, for the present case, instead of a tricritical point one has a pentacritical point for a finite value of the crystal field, in disagreement with previous work based on finite-size calculations. On the other hand, for the spin-3/2 case, the phase diagram is much richer and can present, besides a pentacritical point, an additional multicritical end point. Our results also support that the universality class of the critical behavior of the spin-1 and spin-3/2 Baxter-Wu model in a crystal field is the same as the pure Baxter-Wu model, even at the multicritical points.

Dissipative dynamics in a finite chaotic environment: Relationship between damping rate and Lyapunov exponent

We consider the energy flow between a classical one-dimensional harmonic oscillator and a set of N two-dimensional chaotic oscillators, which represents the finite environment. Using linear response theory we obtain an analytical effective equation for the system harmonic oscillator, which includes a frequency dependent dissipation, a shift, and memory effects. The damping rate is expressed in terms of the environment mean Lyapunov exponent. A good agreement is shown by comparing theoretical and numerical results, even for environments with mixed (regular and chaotic) motion. Resonance between system and environment frequencies is shown to be more efficient to generate dissipation than larger mean Lyapunov exponents or a larger number of bath chaotic oscillators.

Influence of age, sex and breeding status on mercury accumulation patterns in the wandering albatross Diomedea exulans

Although mercury bio-amplifies through the food chain and accumulates in top predators, mercury concentrations in tissues of the wandering albatross are greater than in any other vertebrate, including closely related species. In order to explore the alternative explanations for this pattern, we measured total mercury concentrations in feathers, plasma and blood cells of wandering albatrosses of known age, sex and breeding status sampled at South Georgia. Mercury concentrations were low in feathers and blood components of chicks, and higher in the feathers of young pre-breeders than in feathers or blood of older pre-breeders and breeding adults. There was no effect of sex on mercury concentrations in the feathers of pre-breeders or breeding adults, whereas levels were significantly higher in blood cells of breeding females than males. The high feather mercury concentrations of young pre-breeders compared with older birds suggest an increase in moult frequency as birds approach maturity.

The diet of toothfish species Dissostichus eleginoides and Dissostichus mawsoni with overlapping distributions

The diets of Antarctic toothfish Dissostichus mawsoni and Patagonian toothfish Dissostichus eleginoides were examined around the South Sandwich Islands in the Southern Ocean, one of few regions with overlapping populations of the two species. Despite large differences in the proportion of stomachs containing prey (76·2% of D. mawsoni compared to 7·2% of D. eleginoides), diet composition was broadly similar (Schoener overlap index of 74·4% based on prey mass) with finfishes (particularly macrourids and muraenolepidids) and cephalopods (mainly Kondakovia longimana) comprising >90% of the prey mass of both species. Predation rates of the main fish prey, as mean counts per stomach sampled, were spatially correlated with their relative abundance around the islands derived from fishery by-catch data, suggesting a general lack of prey selectivity. This study supports the view that bathyal Dissostichus are opportunistic carnivores and finds that D. mawsoni and D. eleginoides occupy a similar trophic niche and are likely to compete for prey in regions where both are distributed. The large increase in rate of prey occurrence and size of prey in D. mawsoni stomachs relative to D. eleginoides suggests, however, species differences in feeding behaviour, which may reflect the increased metabolic demands of a cold-water adapted physiology. [Correction added after online publication 13 June 2011: spelling of species name corrected].

Robust d-wave pairing correlations in the Heisenberg Kondo lattice model

The Kondo lattice model enlarged by an antiferromagnetic coupling J AF between the localized spins is here investigated using computational techniques. Our results suggest the existence of a d-wave superconducting phase close to half-filling mediated by antiferromagnetic fluctuations. This establishes a closer connection between theory and heavy fermion experiments than currently provided by the standard Kondo lattice model with J AF=0.

Dimerization induced by the RKKY interaction

We report the presence of spin dimerization in the ground state of the one-dimensional Kondo lattice model at quarter filling. The emergence of this new phase of the Kondo lattice can be traced to the form of the RKKY interaction between the localized moments and provides the first example of dimerization induced indirectly by itinerant electrons. We propose this dimer ordering as the driving mechanism of the spin-Peierls phase observed in the quasi-one-dimensional organic compounds (Per)2M(mnt)(2) (M=Pt, Pd). Moreover, this suggests that a richer phase diagram than the Doniach paradigm may be needed to accommodate the physics of heavy fermion materials.

Doped stripes in models for the cuprates emerging from the one-hole properties of the insulator

The extended and standard t-J models are computationally studied on ladders and planes, with emphasis on the small J/t region. At couplings compatible with photoemission results for undoped cuprates, half-doped stripes separating pi-shifted antiferromagnetic (AF) domains are found, as in Tranquada's interpretation of neutron experiments. Our main result is that the elementary stripe "building block" resembles the properties of one hole at small J/t, with robust AF correlations across the hole induced by the local tendency of the charge to separate from the spin. This suggests that the seed of half-doped stripes already exists in the unusual properties of the insulating parent compound.