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This study revisits the electroabsorption (EA) spectrum of polyacetylene, as functions of the electric field strength, isomerization degree, and light polarization states. The EA spectrum of $cis$-$(CH)_x$ reveals an oscillatory feature that follows the Stark shift-related first derivative of the materials absorption spectrum that contains v(0-1) and v(0-2) sidebands of the excited $C=C$ stretching vibration that agrees well with the Raman spectrum. EA spectrum of $trans $-$(CH)_x$ does not match the first derivative of the materials absorption spectrum, and the phonon sideband frequency does not agree with the RS spectrum. EA spectrum of $trans $-$(CH)_x$ reveals a band below the first allowed $1B_u$ exciton. We interpret this feature as due to the electric field activated even-parity dark (forbidden) exciton, namely $mA_g$ ($m >1$), showing that the nonluminescent $trans $-$(CH)_x$ is due to the reverse order of the excited states, where a dark $mA_g$ exciton lies below the allowed $1B_u$ exciton. This agrees with the unusual phonon sideband in $trans $-$(CH)_x$ absorption, since the excited state attenuation caused by the fast internal conversion from $1B_u$ to $mA_g$ influences the apparent frequency that determines the phonon sideband. Consequently, from the EA and RS spectra we estimate the $1B_u$ lifetime in $trans $-$(CH)_x$ to be $\sim 30$ fs. Integrated EA spectrum of $trans $-$(CH)_x$ shows a traditional Huang-Rhys type series with a relaxation parameter, $S \sim 0.5$. This indicates that the EA spectrum of the $trans $ isomer is also determined by a Stark shift related to the first derivative of the absorption spectrum, but preferentially for the longest chains in the films chain lengths distribution. This is due to the $N^3$ response of the non-linear susceptibility, $\chi^{(3)}$ ($\sim$EA), dependence on the chain length having $N$ monomers.

Local variations in the intergalactic medium (IGM) neutral hydrogen fraction will affect the Ly-$\alpha$ absorption signature of protoclusters identified in tomographic surveys. Using the IllustrisTNG simulations, we investigate how the AGN proximity effect and hot, collisionally ionised gas arising from gravitational infall and black hole feedback changes the Ly-$\alpha$ absorption associated with $M_{z=0}\simeq10^{14}\,M_\odot$ protoclusters at $z\simeq2.4$. We find that protocluster galaxy overdensities exhibit a weak anti-correlation with Ly-$\alpha$ transmission in IGM transmission maps, but local HI ionisation enhancements due to hot $T>10^{6}\rm\,K$ gas or nearby AGN can disrupt this relationship within individual protoclusters. On average, however, we find that strong reductions in the IGM neutral fraction are limited to within $\lesssim 5h^{-1}\,\textrm{cMpc}$ of the dark matter haloes. Local ionisation enhancements will therefore have a minimal impact on the completeness of protocluster identification in tomographic surveys if smoothing Ly-$\alpha$ transmission maps over scales of $\sim4 h^{-1}\,\textrm{cMpc}$, as is typically done in observations. However, if calibrating the relationship between the matter density and Ly-$\alpha$ transmission in tomographic maps using simple analytical models for the Ly-$\alpha$ forest opacity, the presence of hot gas around haloes can still result in systematically lower estimates of $M_{z=0}$ for the most massive protoclusters., Comment: 14 pages (including 1 appendix), 5 figures (plus 2 in the appendix), 1 table. Accepted for publication in MNRAS

We use state of the art hydrodyamical simulations from the Sherwood, EAGLE and Illustris projects to examine the signature of $M_{\rm z=0}\simeq 10^{14}M_{\odot}$ protoclusters observed in Ly-$\alpha$ absorption at $z\simeq 2.4$. We find there is a weak correlation between the mass overdensity, $\delta_{\rm m}$, and the Ly-$\alpha$ effective optical depth relative to the mean, $\delta_{\tau_\textrm{eff}}$, averaged over $15~h^{-1}\rm\,cMpc$ scales, although scatter in the $\delta_{\rm m}$--$\delta_{\tau_\textrm{eff}}$ plane means it is not possible to uniquely identify large scale overdensities with strong Ly-$\alpha$ absorption. Although all protoclusters are associated with large scale mass overdensities, most sight lines through protoclusters in a $\sim 10^{6}$ $\rm cMpc^{3}$ volume probe the low column density Ly-$\alpha$ forest. A small subset of sight lines that pass through protoclusters exhibit coherent, strong Ly-$\alpha$ absorption on $15h^{-1}\rm\,cMpc$ scales, although these correspond to a wide range in mass overdensity. Assuming perfect removal of contamination by Ly-$\alpha$ absorbers with damping wings, more than half of the remaining sight lines with $\delta_{\tau_{\rm eff}}>3.5$ trace protoclusters. It is furthermore possible to identify a model dependent $\delta_{\tau_{\rm eff}}$ threshold that selects only protoclusters. However, such regions are rare: excluding absorption caused by damped systems, less than 0.1 per cent of sight lines that pass through a protocluster have $\delta_{\tau_{\rm eff}}>3.5$, meaning that any protocluster sample selected in this manner will also be highly incomplete. On the other hand, coherent regions of Ly-$\alpha$ absorption also provide a promising route for identifying and studying filamentary environments at high redshift., Comment: 18 pages, 18 figures, 3 tables; accepted for publication in MNRAS

Organic semiconductors find increasing importance in spin transport devices due to the modulation and control of their properties through chemical synthetic versatility. The organic materials are used as interlayers between two ferromagnet (FM) electrodes in organic spin valves (OSV), as well as for magnetic spin manipulation of metal-organic complexes at the molecular level. In the latter, specifically, the substrate-induced magnetic switching in a paramagnetic molecule has been evoked extensively, but studied by delicate surface spectroscopies. Here we present evidence of the substantial magnetic switching in a nanosized thin film of the paramagnetic molecule, tris(8-hydroxyquinoline)iron(III) (Feq3) deposited on a FM substrate, using the magnetoresistance response of electrical spin-injection in an OSV structure, and the inverse-spin-Hall effect induced by state-of-art pulsed microwave spin-pumping. We show that interfacial spin control at the molecular level may lead to a macroscopic organic spin transport device, thus, bridging the gap between organic spintronics and molecular spintronics.

The molecule-based magnet [Ru$_2$(O$_2$CMe)$_4$]$_3$[Cr(CN)$_6$] contains two weakly-coupled, interpenetrating sublattices in a body-centered cubic structure. Although the field-dependent magnetization indicates a metamagnetic transition from an antiferromagnet to a paramagnet, the hysteresis loop also exhibits a substantial magnetic remanance and coercive field uncharacteristic of a typical metamagnet. We demonstrate that this material behaves like two giant moments with a weak antiferromagnetic coupling and a large energy barrier between the orientations of each moment. Because the sublattice moments only weakly depend on field in the transition region, the magnetic correlation length can be directly estimated from the magnetization., Comment: 3 figures