arXiv subjects

H. Lu

Publications and source records attributed to H. Lu.

At least 235 records · Page 13Linked to original sources

arXiv2012

Nonadiabatic quantum control of a semiconductor charge qubit

We demonstrate multipulse quantum control of a single electron charge qubit. The qubit is manipulated by applying nonadiabatic voltage pulses to a surface depletion gate and readout is achieved using a quantum point contact charge sensor. We observe Ramsey fringes in the excited state occupation in response to a pi/2 - pi/2 pulse sequence and extract T2* ~ 60 ps away from the charge degeneracy point. Simulations suggest these results may be extended to implement a charge-echo by reducing the interdot tunnel coupling and pulse rise time, thereby increasing the nonadiabaticity of the pulses.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2012

f(R) Gravities, Killing Spinor Equations, "BPS" Domain Walls and Cosmology

We derive the condition on f(R) gravities that admit Killing spinor equations and construct explicit such examples. The Killing spinor equations can be used to reduce the fourth-order differential equations of motion to the first order for both the domain wall and FLRW cosmological solutions. We obtain exact "BPS" domain walls that describe the smooth Randall-Sundrum II, AdS wormholes and the RG flow from IR to UV. We also obtain exact smooth cosmological solutions that describe the evolution from an inflationary starting point with a larger cosmological constant to an ever-expanding universe with a smaller cosmological constant. In addition, We find exact smooth solutions of pre-big bang models, bouncing or crunching universes. An important feature is that the scalar curvature R of all these metrics is varying rather than a constant. Another intriguing feature is that there are two different f(R) gravities that give rise to the same "BPS" solution. We also study linearized f(R) gravities in (A)dS vacua.

hep-th↗

arXiv2012

f(R) Theories of Supergravities and Pseudo-supergravities

We present f(R) theories of ten-dimensional supergravities, including the fermionic sector up to the quadratic order in fermion fields. They are obtained by performing the conformal scaling on the usual supergravities to the f(R) frame in which the dilaton becomes an auxiliary field and can be integrated out. The f(R) frame coincides with that of M-theory, D2-branes or NS-NS 5-branes. We study various BPS p-brane solutions and their near-horizon AdS \times sphere geometries in the context of the f(R) theories. We find that new solutions emerge with global structures that do not exist in the corresponding solutions of the original supergravity description. In lower dimensions, We construct the f(R) theory of N=2, D=5 gauged supergravity with a vector multiplet, and that for the four-dimensional U(1)^4 gauged theory with three vector fields set equal. We find that some previously-known BPS singular "superstars" become wormholes in the f(R) theories. We also construct a large class of f(R) (gauged) pseudo-supergravities. In addition we show that the breathing mode in the Kaluza-Klein reduction of Gauss-Bonnet gravity on S^1 is an auxiliary field and can be integrated out.

hep-th↗

arXiv2012

Observation of TeV gamma rays from the Cygnus region with the ARGO-YBJ experiment

We report the observation of TeV gamma-rays from the Cygnus region using the ARGO-YBJ data collected from 2007 November to 2011 August. Several TeV sources are located in this region including the two bright extended MGRO J2019+37 and MGRO J2031+41. According to the Milagro data set, at 20 TeV MGRO J2019+37 is the most significant source apart from the Crab Nebula. No signal from MGRO J2019+37 is detected by the ARGO-YBJ experiment, and the derived flux upper limits at 90% confidence level for all the events above 600 GeV with medium energy of 3 TeV are lower than the Milagro flux, implying that the source might be variable and hard to be identified as a pulsar wind nebula. The only statistically significant (6.4 standard deviations) gamma-ray signal is found from MGRO J2031+41, with a flux consistent with the measurement by Milagro.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2011

Solutions of Free Higher Spins in AdS

We consider free massive and massless higher integer spins in AdS backgrounds in general D dimensions. We obtain the solutions corresponding to the highest-weight state of the spin-\ell representations of the SO(2,D-1) isometry groups. The solution for the spin-\ell field is expressed recursively in terms of that for the spin-(\ell-1). Thus starting from the explicit spin-0, all the higher-spin solutions can be obtained. These solutions allow us to derive the generalized Breitenlohner-Freedman bound, and analyze the asymptotic falloffs. In particular, solutions with negative mass square in general have falloffs slower than those of the Schwarzschild AdS black holes in the AdS boundaries.

hep-th↗

arXiv2011

Reversal of Ferroelectric Polarization by Mechanical Means

Ferroelectric materials are characterized by the presence of an electric dipole that can be reversed by application of an external electric field, a feature that is exploited in ferroelectric memories. All ferroelectrics are piezoelectric, and therefore exhibit a strong intrinsic coupling between polarization and elastic deformation - a feature widely used in piezoelectric transducers and high-displacement actuators. A less explored and exploited property is flexoelectricity, i.e. the coupling between polarization and a strain gradient. Though flexoelectricity is an old concept (it was discovered in the Soviet Union almost 50 years ago), it is only with the advent of nanotechnology that its full potential is beginning to be realized, as gradients at the nanoscale can be much larger than at the macroscopic scale. Here, we demonstrate that the stress gradient generated by the tip of an atomic force microscope can be used to mechanically switch the polarization in the nanoscale volume of a ferroelectric film. This observation shows that pure mechanical force can be used as a dynamic tool for polarization control, enabling information processing in a new type of multiferroic high-density data storage devices where the memory bits are written mechanically and read electrically.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2011

Gauged Kaluza-Klein AdS Pseudo-supergravity

We obtain the pseudo-supergravity extension of the D-dimensional Kaluza-Klein theory, which is the circle reduction of pure gravity in D+1 dimensions. The fermionic partners are pseudo-gravitino and pseudo-dilatino. The full Lagrangian is invariant under the pseudo-supersymmetric transformation, up to quadratic order in fermion fields. We find that the theory possesses a U(1) global symmetry that can be gauged so that all the fermions are charged under the Kaluza-Klein vector. The gauging process generates a scalar potential that has a maximum, leading to the AdS vacuum. Whist the highest dimension for gauged AdS supergravity is seven, our gauged AdS pseudo-supergravities can exist in arbitrary dimensions.

hep-th↗

arXiv2011

Upper limits for the photoproduction cross section for the Phi--(1860) pentaquark state off the deuteron

We searched for the Phi--(1860) pentaquark in the photoproduction process off the deuteron in the Xi- pi- decay channel using CLAS. The invariant mass spectrum of the Xi- pi- system does not indicate any statistically significant enhancement near the reported mass M = 1.860 GeV. The statistical analysis of the sideband-subtracted mass spectrum yields a 90% confidence level upper limit of 0.7 nb for the photoproduction cross section of Phi--(1860) with a consecutive decay into Xi- pi- in the photon energy range 4.5 GeV < Egamma < 5.5 GeV.

nucl-ex↗

arXiv2011

Linearized Modes in Extended and Critical Gravities

We construct explicit solutions for the linearized massive and massless spin-2, vector and scalar modes around the AdS spacetimes in diverse dimensions. These modes may arise in extended (super)gravities with higher curvature terms in general dimensions. Log modes in critical gravities can also be straightforwardly deduced. We analyze the properties of these modes and obtain the tachyon-free condition, which allows negative mass square for these modes. However, such modes may not satisfy the standard AdS boundary condition and can be truncated out from the spectrum.

hep-th↗

arXiv2011

Killing Spinors for the Bosonic String and the Kaluza-Klein Theory with Scalar Potentials

The paper consists mainly of two parts. In the first part, we obtain well-defined Killing spinor equations for the low-energy effective action of the bosonic string with the conformal anomaly term. We show that the conformal anomaly term is the only scalar potential that one can add into the action that is consistent with the Killing spinor equations. In the second part, we demonstrate that the Kaluza-Klein theory can be gauged so that the Killing spinors are charged under the Kaluza-Klein vector. This gauging process generates a scalar potential with a maximum that gives rise to an AdS spacetime. We also construct solutions of these theories.

hep-th↗

arXiv2011

Critical and Non-Critical Einstein-Weyl Supergravity

We construct N=1 supersymmetrisations of some recently-proposed theories of critical gravity, conformal gravity, and extensions of critical gravity in four dimensions. The total action consists of the sum of three separately off-shell supersymmetric actions containing Einstein gravity, a cosmological term and the square of the Weyl tensor. For generic choices of the coefficients for these terms, the excitations of the resulting theory around an AdS_4 background describe massive spin-2 and massless spin-2 modes coming from the metric; massive spin-1 modes coming from a vector field in the theory; and massless and massive spin-3/2 modes (with two unequal masses) coming from the gravitino. These assemble into a massless and a massive N=1 spin-2 multiplet. In critical supergravity, the coefficients are tuned so that the spin-2 mode in the massive multiplet becomes massless. In the supersymmetrised extensions of critical gravity, the coefficients are chosen so that the massive modes lie in a "window" of lowest energies E_0 such that these ghostlike fields can be truncated by imposing appropriate boundary conditions at infinity, thus leaving just positive-norm massless supergravity modes.

hep-th↗

arXiv2011

Pseudo-Killing Spinors, Pseudo-supersymmetric p-branes, Bubbling and Less-bubbling AdS Spaces

We consider Einstein gravity coupled to an n-form field strength in D dimensions. Such a theory cannot be supersymmetrized in general, we nevertheless propose a pseudo-Killing spinor equation and show that the AdS X Sphere vacua have the maximum number of pseudo-Killing spinors, and hence are fully pseudo-supersymmetric. We show that extremal p-branes and their intersecting configurations preserve fractions of the pseudo-supersymmetry. We study the integrability condition for general (D,n) and obtain the additional constraints that are required so that the existence of the pseudo-Killing spinors implies the Einstein equations of motion. We obtain new pseudo-supersymmetric bubbling AdS_5 X S^5 spaces that are supported by a non-self-dual 5-form. This demonstrates that non-supersymmegtric conformal field theories may also have bubbling states of arbitrary droplets of free fermions in the phase space. We also obtain an example of less-bubbling AdS geometry in D=8, whose bubbling effects are severely restricted by the additional constraint arising from the integrability condition.

hep-th↗

arXiv2011

Pseudo-Supergravity Extension of the Bosonic String

We construct a ``pseudo-supersymmetric" fermionic extension of the effective action of the bosonic string in arbitrary spacetime dimension D. The theory is invariant under pseudo-supersymmetry transformations up to the quadratic fermion order, which is sufficient in order to be able to derive Killing spinor equations in bosonic backgrounds, and hence to define BPS type solutions determined by a system of first-order equations. The pseudo-supersymmetric theory can be extended by coupling it to a Yang-Mills pseudo-supermultiplet. This also allows us to construct ``α' corrections'' involving quadratic curvature terms. An exponential dilaton potential term, associated with the conformal anomaly for a bosonic string outside its critical dimension, can also be pseudo-supersymmetrised.

hep-th↗

arXiv2011

Killing Spinors for the Bosonic String

We obtain the effective action for the bosonic string with arbitrary Yang-Mills fields, up to the α' order, in general dimensions. The form of the action is determined by the requirement that the action admit well-defined Killing spinor equations, whose projected integrability conditions give rise to the full set of equations of motion. The success of the construction suggests that the hidden "pseudo-supersymmetry" associated with the Killing spinor equations may be a property of the bosonic string itself.

hep-th↗

arXiv2011

Long-term monitoring of the TeV emission from Mrk 421 with the ARGO-YBJ experiment

ARGO-YBJ is an air shower detector array with a fully covered layer of resistive plate chambers. It is operated with a high duty cycle and a large field of view. It continuously monitors the northern sky at energies above 0.3 TeV. In this paper, we report a long-term monitoring of Mrk 421 over the period from 2007 November to 2010 February. This source was observed by the satellite-borne experiments Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer and Swift in the X-ray band. Mrk 421 was especially active in the first half of 2008. Many flares are observed in both X-ray and gamma-ray bands simultaneously. The gamma-ray flux observed by ARGO-YBJ has a clear correlation with the X-ray flux. No lag between the X-ray and gamma-ray photons longer than 1 day is found. The evolution of the spectral energy distribution is investigated by measuring spectral indices at four different flux levels. Hardening of the spectra is observed in both X-ray and gamma-ray bands. The gamma-ray flux increases quadratically with the simultaneously measured X-ray flux. All these observational results strongly favor the synchrotron self-Compton process as the underlying radiative mechanism.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2011

Pseudo-supersymmetry, Consistent Sphere Reduction and Killing Spinors for the Bosonic String

Certain supergravity theories admit a remarkable consistent dimensional reduction in which the internal space is a sphere. Examples include type IIB supergravity reduced on S^5, and eleven-dimensional supergravity reduced on S^4 or S^7. Consistency means that any solution of the dimensionally-reduced theory lifts to give a solution in the higher dimension. Although supersymmetry seems to play a role in the consistency of these reductions, it cannot be the whole story since consistent sphere reductions of non-supersymmetric theories are also known, such as the reduction of the effective action of the bosonic string in any dimension D on either a 3-sphere or a (D-3)-sphere, retaining the gauge bosons of SO(4) or SO(D-2) respectively. We show that although there is no supersymmetry, there is nevertheless a natural Killing spinor equation for the D-dimensional bosonic string. A projection of the full integrability condition for these Killing spinors gives rise to the bosonic equations of motion (just as happens in the supergravity examples). Thus it appears that by extending the notion of supersymmetry to "pseudo-supersymmetry" in this way, one may be able to obtain a broader understanding of a relation between Killing spinors and consistent sphere reductions.

hep-th↗

arXiv2011

On Black Hole Stability in Critical Gravities

We consider extended cosmological gravities with Ricci tensor and scalar squared terms in diverse dimensions. These theories admit solutions of Einstein metrics, including the Schwarzschild-Tangherlini AdS black holes, whose mass and entropy vanish at the critical point. We perform linearized analysis around the black holes and show that in general the spectrum consists of the usual spin-2 massless and ghost massive modes. We demonstrate that there is no exponentially-growing tachyon mode in the black holes. At the critical point, the massless spin-2 modes have zero energy whilst the massive spin-2 modes are replaced by the log modes. There always exist certain linear combination of massless and log modes that has negative energy. Thus the stability of the black holes requires that the log modes to be truncated out by the boundary condition.

hep-th↗

arXiv2011

Quantum Coherence in a One-Electron Semiconductor Charge Qubit

We study quantum coherence in a semiconductor charge qubit formed from a GaAs double quantum dot containing a single electron. Voltage pulses are applied to depletion gates to drive qubit rotations and non-invasive state readout is achieved using a quantum point contact charge detector. We measure a maximum coherence time of ~7 ns at the charge degeneracy point, where the qubit level splitting is first-order-insensitive to gate voltage fluctuations. We compare measurements of the coherence time as a function of detuning with predictions from a 1/f noise model.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗