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L. Xu

Publications and source records attributed to L. Xu.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
arXiv2025

Newtonian-like behavior of starting vortex flow in superfluid helium at high Reynolds numbers

We study experimentally the starting vortices shed by airfoils accelerating uniformly from rest in superfluid helium-4 (He II). The vortices behave apparently as if they were moving in a classical Newtonian fluid, such as air or water. Specifically, the starting vortex positions obtained from the experimental data are found to be very close to those computed numerically in a Newtonian fluid, at sufficiently small times, when self-similar behavior is expected to occur, and for Reynolds numbers ranging approximately between $5 \times 10^2$ and $5 \times 10^5$. The result indicates neatly that turbulent flows of He II can be very similar to classical flows of Newtonian fluids, when thermal effects can be neglected and at sufficiently large flow scales, i.e. the study demonstrates that superfluid helium-4 could also be employed to study classical Newtonian flows.

physics.flu-dyn↗
arXiv2025

Adaptive Design for Contour Estimation from Computer Experiments with Quantitative and Qualitative Inputs

Computer experiments with quantitative and qualitative inputs are widely used to study many scientific and engineering processes. Much of the existing work has focused on design and modeling or process optimization for such experiments. This paper proposes an adaptive design approach for estimating a contour from computer experiments with quantitative and qualitative inputs. A new criterion is introduced to search for the follow-up inputs. The key features of the proposed criterion are (a) the criterion yields adaptive search regions; and (b) it is region-based cooperative in that for each stage of the sequential procedure, the candidate points in the design space is divided into two disjoint groups using confidence bounds, and within each group, an acquisition function is used to select a candidate point. Among the two selected points, a point that is closer to the contour level with the higher uncertainty or that has higher uncertainty when the distance between its prediction and the contour level is within a threshold is chosen. The proposed approach provides empirically more accurate contour estimation than existing approaches as illustrated in numerical examples and a real application. Theoretical justification of the proposed adaptive search region is given.

stat.ME↗
arXiv2025

Light-Emitting Microfibers from Lotus Root for Eco-friendly Optical Waveguides and Biosensing

Optical biosensors based on micro-/nano-fibers are highly valuable for probing and monitoring liquid environments and bioactivity. Most of current optical biosensors, however, are still based on glass, semiconductors, or metallic materials, which might be not fully suited for biologically-relevant environments. Here, we introduce biocompatible and flexible microfibers from Lotus silk as micro-environmental monitors that exhibit waveguiding of intrinsic fluorescence as well as of coupled light. These features make single-filament monitors excellent building blocks for a variety of sensing functions, including pH-probing and detection of bacterial activity. These results pave the way for the development of new and entirely eco-friendly, potentially multiplexed biosensing platforms.

physics.optics↗
arXiv2024

Sudden polarization angle jumps of the repeating fast radio burst FRB 20201124A

We report the first detection of polarization angle (PA) orthogonal jumps, a phenomenon previously only observed from radio pulsars, from a fast radio burst (FRB) source FRB 20201124A. We find three cases of orthogonal jumps in over two thousand bursts, all resembling those observed in pulsar single pulses. We propose that the jumps are due to the superposition of two orthogonal emission modes that could only be produced in a highly magnetized plasma, and they are caused by the line of sight sweeping across a rotating magnetosphere. The shortest jump timescale is of the order of one-millisecond, which hints that the emission modes come from regions smaller than the light cylinder of most pulsars or magnetars. This discovery provides convincing evidence that FRB emission originates from the complex magnetosphere of a magnetar, suggesting an FRB emission mechanism that is analogous to radio pulsars despite a huge luminosity difference between two types of objects.

astro-ph.HE↗
arXiv2023

Performance in beam tests of Carbon-enriched irradiated Low Gain Avalanche Detectors for the ATLAS High Granularity Timing Detector

The High Granularity Timing Detector (HGTD) will be installed in the ATLAS experiment to mitigate pile-up effects during the High Luminosity (HL) phase of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. Low Gain Avalanche Detectors (LGADs) will provide high-precision measurements of the time of arrival of particles at the HGTD, improving the particle-vertex assignment. To cope with the high-radiation environment, LGADs have been optimized by adding carbon in the gain layer, thus reducing the acceptor removal rate after irradiation. Performances of several carbon-enriched LGAD sensors from different vendors, and irradiated with high fluences of 1.5 and 2.5 x 10^15 neq/cm2, have been measured in beam test campaigns during the years 2021 and 2022 at CERN SPS and DESY. This paper presents the results obtained with data recorded by an oscilloscope synchronized with a beam telescope which provides particle position information within a resolution of a few um. Collected charge, time resolution and hit efficiency measurements are presented. In addition, the efficiency uniformity is also studied as a function of the position of the incident particle inside the sensor pad.

physics.ins-det↗
arXiv2022

Electron dynamics in planar radio frequency magnetron plasmas: II. Heating and energization mechanisms studied via a 2d3v particle-in-cell/Monte Carlo code

The present work investigates electron transport and heating mechanisms using an (r, z) particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation of a typical rf-driven axisymmetric magnetron discharge with a conducting target. It is shown that for the considered magnetic field topology the electron current flows through different channels in the (r, z) plane: a ``transverse'' one, which involves current flow through the electrons' magnetic confinement region (EMCR) above the racetrack, and two ''longitudinal'' ones. Electrons gain energy from the electric field along these channels following various mechanisms, which are rather distinct from those sustaining dc-powered magnetrons. The longitudinal power absorption involves mirror-effect heating (MEH), nonlinear electron resonance heating (NERH), magnetized bounce heating (MBH), and the heating by the ambipolar field at the sheath-presheath interface. The MEH and MBH represent two new mechanisms missing from the previous literature. The MEH is caused by a reversed electric field needed to overcome the mirror force generated in a nonuniform magnetic field to ensure sufficient flux of electrons to the powered electrode, and the MBH is related to a possibility for an electron to undergo multiple reflections from the expanding sheath in the longitudinal channels connected by the arc-like magnetic field. The electron heating in the transverse channel is caused mostly by the essentially collisionless Hall heating in the EMCR above the racetrack, generating a strong ExB azimuthal drift velocity. The latter mechanism results in an efficient electron energization, i.e., energy transfer from the electric field to electrons in the inelastic range. Since the main electron population energized by this mechanism remains confined within the discharge for a long time, its contribution to the ionization processes is dominant.

physics.plasm-ph↗
arXiv2021

Enhanced dissipation for the third component of 3D anisotropic Navier-Stokes equations

In this paper, we study the decay rates for the global small smooth solutions to 3D anisotropic incompressible Navier-Stokes equations. In particular, we prove that the horizontal components of the velocity field decay like the solutions of 2D classical Navier-Stokes equations. While the third component of the velocity field decays as the solutions of 3D Navier-Stokes equations. We remark that such enhanced decay rate for the third component is caused by the interplay between the divergence free condition of the velocity field and the horizontal Laplacian in the anisotropic Navier-Stokes equations.

math.AP↗
arXiv2021

A Bayesian level set method for an inverse medium scattering problem in acoustics

In this work, we are interested in the determination of the shape of the scatterer for the two dimensional time harmonic inverse medium scattering problems in acoustics. The scatterer is assumed to be a piecewise constant function with a known value inside inhomogeneities, and its shape is represented by the level set functions for which we investigate the information using the Bayesian method. In the Bayesian framework, the solution of the geometric inverse problem is defined as a posterior probability distribution. The well-posedness of the posterior distribution would be discussed, and the Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods will be applied to generate samples from the arising posterior distribution. Numerical experiments will be presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

math.NA↗
arXiv2020

Spectroscopic Monitoring of Blazar S5 0716+714: Brightness-Dependent Spectral Behavior

In this paper, we report the new results of spectroscopic observations of $\gamma$-ray blazar S5 0716+714 from 2019 September to 2020 March with the 2.4 m optical telescope at Lijiang Observatory of Yunnan Observatories. The median cadence of observations is $\sim$ 1 day. During the second observation period (Epoch2), the observational data reveal an extremely bright state and a bluer-when-brighter (BWB) chromatism. The BWB trend of Epoch2 differs significantly from that of the first observation period (Epoch1). A significantly brightness-dependent BWB chromatism emerges in the total data of Epoch1 and Epoch2. The BWB trend becomes weaker towards the brighter states, and likely becomes saturated at the highest state. Based on a log-parabolic function, a power-law of synchrotron peak flux and frequency $\nu_{\rm{p}}$, and a power-law of the curvature of synchrotron spectrum and its $\nu_{\rm{p}}$, simulation well reproduces the brightness-dependent BWB trend of S5 0716+714. The BWB trend is seemingly controlled by the shift of $\nu_{\rm{p}}$ with respect to the observational window, and effectively may be dominated by the variations of electron average energy and magnetic field in emitting region.

astro-ph.HE↗
arXiv2018

Oscillations and integrability of the vorticity in the 3D NS flows

In the studies of the Navier-Stokes (NS) regularity problem, it has become increasingly clear that a more realistic path to improved a priori bounds is to try to break away from the scaling of the energy-level estimates in the realm of the blow-up-type arguments (the solution in view is regular/smooth up to the possible blow-up time) rather than to try to improve regularity of arbitrary Leray's weak solutions. The present article is a contribution in this direction; more precisely, it is shown--in the context of an algebraic/polynomial-type blow-up profile of arbitrary degree--that a very weak condition on the vorticity direction field (membership in a local $bmo$ space weighted with arbitrary many logarithms)--suffices to break the energy-level scaling in the bounds on the vorticity. At the same time, the obtained bounds transform a 3D NS criticality scenario depicted by the macro-scale long vortex filaments into a no-singularity scenario.

math.AP↗
arXiv2017

Test beam measurement of ams H35 HV-CMOS capacitively coupled pixel sensor prototypes with high-resistivity substrate

In the context of the studies of the ATLAS High Luminosity LHC programme, radiation tolerant pixel detectors in CMOS technologies are investigated. To evaluate the effects of substrate resistivity on CMOS sensor performance, the H35DEMO demonstrator, containing different diode and amplifier designs, was produced in ams H35 HV-CMOS technology using four different substrate resistivities spanning from $\mathrm{80}$ to $\mathrm{1000~\Omega \cdot cm}$. A glueing process using a high-precision flip-chip machine was developed in order to capacitively couple the sensors to FE-I4 Readout ASIC using a thin layer of epoxy glue with good uniformity over a large surface. The resulting assemblies were measured in beam test at the Fermilab Test Beam Facilities with 120 GeV protons and CERN SPS H8 beamline using 80 GeV pions. The in-time efficiency and tracking properties measured for the different sensor types are shown to be compatible with the ATLAS ITk requirements for its pixel sensors.

physics.ins-det↗
arXiv2017

The Radio Synchrotron Background: Conference Summary and Report

We summarize the radio synchrotron background workshop that took place July 19-21, 2017 at the University of Richmond. This first scientific meeting dedicated to the topic was convened because current measurements of the diffuse radio monopole reveal a surface brightness that is several times higher than can be straightforwardly explained by known Galactic and extragalactic sources and processes, rendering it by far the least well understood photon background at present. It was the conclusion of a majority of the participants that the radio monopole level is at or near that reported by the ARCADE 2 experiment and inferred from several absolutely calibrated zero level lower frequency radio measurements, and unanimously agreed that the production of this level of surface brightness, if confirmed, represents a major outstanding question in astrophysics. The workshop reached a consensus on the next priorities for investigations of the radio synchrotron background.

astro-ph.HE↗
arXiv2017

Doping Dependence of Collective Spin and Orbital Excitations in Spin 1 Quantum Antiferromagnet La$_{2-x}$Sr$_x$NiO$_4$ Observed by X-rays

We report the first empirical demonstration that resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) is sensitive to \emph{collective} magnetic excitations in $S=1$ systems by probing the Ni $L_3$-edge of La$_{2-x}$Sr$_x$NiO$_4$ ($x = 0, 0.33, 0.45$). The magnetic excitation peak is asymmetric, indicating the presence of single and multi spin-flip excitations. As the hole doping level is increased, the zone boundary magnon energy is suppressed at a much larger rate than that in hole doped cuprates. Based on the analysis of the orbital and charge excitations observed by RIXS, we argue that this difference is related to the orbital character of the doped holes in these two families. This work establishes RIXS as a probe of fundamental magnetic interactions in nickelates opening the way towards studies of heterostructures and ultra-fast pump-probe experiments.

cond-mat.str-el↗
arXiv2016

Testbeam results of irradiated ams H18 HV-CMOS pixel sensor prototypes

HV-CMOS pixel sensors are a promising option for the tracker upgrade of the ATLAS experiment at the LHC, as well as for other future tracking applications in which large areas are to be instrumented with radiation-tolerant silicon pixel sensors. We present results of testbeam characterisations of the $4^{\mathrm{th}}$ generation of Capacitively Coupled Pixel Detectors (CCPDv4) produced with the ams H18 HV-CMOS process that have been irradiated with different particles (reactor neutrons and 18 MeV protons) to fluences between $1\cdot 10^{14}$ and $5\cdot 10^{15}$ 1-MeV-n$_\textrm{eq}$/cm$^2$. The sensors were glued to ATLAS FE-I4 pixel readout chips and measured at the CERN SPS H8 beamline using the FE-I4 beam telescope. Results for all fluences are very encouraging with all hit efficiencies being better than 97% for bias voltages of $85\,$V. The sample irradiated to a fluence of $1\cdot 10^{15}$ n$_\textrm{eq}$/cm$^2$ - a relevant value for a large volume of the upgraded tracker - exhibited 99.7% average hit efficiency. The results give strong evidence for the radiation tolerance of HV-CMOS sensors and their suitability as sensors for the experimental HL-LHC upgrades and future large-area silicon-based tracking detectors in high-radiation environments.

physics.ins-det↗
arXiv2016

Development of a modular test system for the silicon sensor R&D of the ATLAS Upgrade

High Voltage CMOS sensors are a promising technology for tracking detectors in collider experiments. Extensive R&D studies are being carried out by the ATLAS Collaboration for a possible use of HV-CMOS in the High Luminosity LHC upgrade of the Inner Tracker detector. CaRIBOu (Control and Readout Itk BOard) is a modular test system developed to test Silicon based detectors. It currently includes five custom designed boards, a Xilinx ZC706 development board, FELIX (Front-End LInk eXchange) PCIe card and a host computer. A software program has been developed in Python to control the CaRIBOu hardware. CaRIBOu has been used in the testbeam of the HV-CMOS sensor CCPDv4 at CERN. Preliminary results have shown that the test system is very versatile. Further development is ongoing to adapt to different sensors, and to make it available to various lab test stands.

physics.ins-det↗
arXiv2016

Results of the 2015 testbeam of a 180 nm AMS High-Voltage CMOS sensor prototype

Active pixel sensors based on the High-Voltage CMOS technology are being investigated as a viable option for the future pixel tracker of the ATLAS experiment at the High-Luminosity LHC. This paper reports on the testbeam measurements performed at the H8 beamline of the CERN Super Proton Synchrotron on a High-Voltage CMOS sensor prototype produced in 180 nm AMS technology. Results in terms of tracking efficiency and timing performance, for different threshold and bias conditions, are shown.

physics.ins-det↗
arXiv2016

New Constraints On Cosmic Polarization Rotation Including SPTpol B-mode Polarization Observations

We present an update of the cosmic polarization rotation (CPR) constraint from the recent SPTpol measurements of sub-degree B-mode polarization in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) of 100 square degrees of sky. Our previous CPR fluctuation constraint from the joint ACTpol-BICEP2-POLARBEAR polarization data is 23.7 mrad (1.36{\deg}). With new SPTpol data included, the CPR fluctuation constraint is updated to 17 mrad (1{\deg}) with the scalar to tensor ratio r = - 0.05 +- 0.1

astro-ph.CO↗