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L. Zhang

Publications and source records attributed to L. Zhang.

At least 181 records · Page 10Linked to original sources

The International Pulsar Timing Array: Second data release

In this paper, we describe the International Pulsar Timing Array second data release, which includes recent pulsar timing data obtained by three regional consortia: the European Pulsar Timing Array, the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves, and the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array. We analyse and where possible combine high-precision timing data for 65 millisecond pulsars which are regularly observed by these groups. A basic noise analysis, including the processes which are both correlated and uncorrelated in time, provides noise models and timing ephemerides for the pulsars. We find that the timing precisions of pulsars are generally improved compared to the previous data release, mainly due to the addition of new data in the combination. The main purpose of this work is to create the most up-to-date IPTA data release. These data are publicly available for searches for low-frequency gravitational waves and other pulsar science.

astro-ph.HE↗

Commensal discovery of four Fast Radio Bursts during Parkes Pulsar Timing Array observations

The Parkes Pulsar Timing Array (PPTA) project monitors two dozen millisecond pulsars (MSPs) in order to undertake a variety of fundamental physics experiments using the Parkes 64m radio telescope. Since June 2017 we have been undertaking commensal searches for fast radio bursts (FRBs) during the MSP observations. Here, we report the discovery of four FRBs (171209, 180309, 180311 and 180714). The detected events include an FRB with the highest signal-to-noise ratio ever detected at the Parkes observatory, which exhibits unusual spectral properties. All four FRBs are highly polarized. We discuss the future of commensal searches for FRBs at Parkes.

astro-ph.HE↗

Observation of charge density wave transition in TaSe3 mesowires

The quasi-one-dimensional (quasi-1D) TaSe3 attracts considerable attention for its intriguing superconductivity and possible interplay with nontrivial topology and charge density wave (CDW) state. However, unlike the isostructural analogues, CDW has not been observed for TaSe3 despite its quasi-1D character that is supposed to promote Peierls instabilities and CDW. Here we synthesize TaSe3 mesowires (MWs) using a one-step approach. For the MW of ~300 nm thick, a distinct CDW transition occurs at 65 K in the resistivity measurement, which has not been reported before and is further evidenced by the Raman characterization and susceptibility measurement. For comparison, we have also prepared bulk single crystal TaSe3. Although no anomaly appears in the resistivity and magnetoresistance measurements, the carrier type detected by Hall effect varies from n-type to p-type below 50 K, suggesting a reconstruction of Fermi surface that could be associated with CDW. The enhancement of CDW in the MWs is attributed to the reduced dimensionality. TaSe3 is demonstrated to be a promising platform to study the correlation and competition of CDW and superconductivity in the quasi-1D systems.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

Understanding anti-parity-time symmetric systems with a conventional heat transfer framework -- comment on "Anti-parity-time symmetry in diffusive systems"

Inspired by non-Hermitian physics, Li et al. (Science 364, 170-173) theoretically predicted and experimentally demonstrated a stationary temperature profile in a diffusive heat transfer system - seemingly indicating that heat "stops" diffusing. By analogy to the wave physics framework, the motionless and moving temperature profiles are manifestations of the anti-parity-time APT symmetry and symmetry breaking states, respectively. Their experimental setup consists of two thermally coupled rings rotating in the opposite direction. At a particular rotation speed, known as the exceptional point, the APT symmetry of the system changes, resulting in the temperature profile switching between stationary and moving states. In fact, this seemingly unusual and exotic behavior can be elegantly captured and predicted using a conventional heat transfer framework with similarity and scaling analysis. In this work, we show the system behavior can be characterized into three zones by two widely-used dimensionless parameters on a regime map. The exceptional point, discovered using wave physics, is located precisely on the zone boundary on the regime map, indicating a balance between the contribution of thermal coupling and mechanical motion. Furthermore, the observed cessation of thermal diffusion is merely a result of the long diffusion time constant of the experimental setup. The unfamiliarity of concepts in another scientific field as well as the remarkable equivalence of the two points of view prompts this in-depth discussion of the analogy between wave physics and heat transfer. We believe that this work can help bridge the gap and promote new developments in the two distinctly different disciplines.

physics.app-ph↗

Physics case for an LHCb Upgrade II - Opportunities in flavour physics, and beyond, in the HL-LHC era

The LHCb Upgrade II will fully exploit the flavour-physics opportunities of the HL-LHC, and study additional physics topics that take advantage of the forward acceptance of the LHCb spectrometer. The LHCb Upgrade I will begin operation in 2020. Consolidation will occur, and modest enhancements of the Upgrade I detector will be installed, in Long Shutdown 3 of the LHC (2025) and these are discussed here. The main Upgrade II detector will be installed in long shutdown 4 of the LHC (2030) and will build on the strengths of the current LHCb experiment and the Upgrade I. It will operate at a luminosity up to $ 2 \times 10^{34} \rm cm^{-2}s^{-1}$, ten times that of the Upgrade I detector. New detector components will improve the intrinsic performance of the experiment in certain key areas. An Expression Of Interest proposing Upgrade II was submitted in February 2017. The physics case for the Upgrade II is presented here in more depth. $CP$-violating phases will be measured with precisions unattainable at any other envisaged facility. The experiment will probe $b\to s \ell^+\ell^-$ and $b\to d \ell^+\ell^-$ transitions in both muon and electron decays in modes not accessible at Upgrade I. Minimal flavour violation will be tested with a precision measurement of the ratio of $B(B^0\toμ^+μ^-)/B(B_s^0\to μ^+μ^-)$. Probing charm $CP$ violation at the $10^{-5}$ level may result in its long sought discovery. Major advances in hadron spectroscopy will be possible, which will be powerful probes of low energy QCD. Upgrade II potentially will have the highest sensitivity of all the LHC experiments on the Higgs to charm-quark couplings. Generically, the new physics mass scale probed, for fixed couplings, will almost double compared with the pre-HL-LHC era; this extended reach for flavour physics is similar to that which would be achieved by the HE-LHC proposal for the energy frontier.

hep-ex↗

The magnetic structure and spin-flop transition in the A-site columnar-ordered quadruple perovskite $\mathrm{TmMn_3O_6}$

We present the magnetic structure of $\mathrm{TmMn_3O_6}$, solved via neutron powder diffraction - the first such study of any $R\mathrm{Mn_3O_6}$ A-site columnar-ordered quadruple perovskite to be reported. We demonstrate that long range magnetic order develops below 74 K, and at 28 K a spin-flop transition occurs driven by $f$-$d$ exchange and rare earth single ion anisotropy. In both magnetic phases the magnetic structure may be described as a collinear ferrimagnet, contrary to conventional theories of magnetic order in the manganite perovskites. Instead, we show that these magnetic structures can be understood to arise due to ferro-orbital order, the A, A$'$ and A$''$ site point symmetry, $mm2$, and the dominance of A-B exchange over both A-A and B-B exchange, which together are unique to the $R\mathrm{Mn_3O_6}$ perovskites.

cond-mat.str-el↗

Magnonic Weyl states in Cu2OSeO3

The multiferroic ferrimagnet Cu$_2$OSeO$_3$ with a chiral crystal structure attracted a lot of recent attention due to the emergence of magnetic skyrmion order in this material. Here, the topological properties of its magnon excitations are systematically investigated by linear spin-wave theory and inelastic neutron scattering. When considering Heisenberg exchange interactions only, two degenerate Weyl magnon nodes with topological charges $\pm$2 are observed at high-symmetry points. Each Weyl point splits into two as the symmetry of the system is further reduced by including into consideration the nearest-neighbor Dzyaloshinsky-Moriya interaction, crucial for obtaining an accurate fit to the experimental spin-wave spectrum. The predicted topological properties are verified by surface state and Chern number analysis. Additionally, we predict that a measurable thermal Hall conductivity can be associated with the emergence of the Weyl points, the position of which can be tuned by changing the crystal symmetry of the material.

cond-mat.str-el↗

Search for gamma-ray emission from the Sun during solar minimum with the ARGO-YBJ experiment

The hadronic interaction of cosmic rays with solar atmosphere can produce high energy gamma rays. The gamma-ray luminosity is correlated both with the flux of primary cosmic rays and the intensity of the solar magnetic field. The gamma rays below 200 GeV have been observed by $Fermi$ without any evident energy cutoff. The bright gamma-ray flux above 100 GeV has been detected only during solar minimum. The only available data in TeV range come from the HAWC observations, however outside the solar minimum. The ARGO-YBJ dataset has been used to search for sub-TeV/TeV gamma rays from the Sun during the solar minimum from 2008 to 2010, the same time period covered by the Fermi data. A suitable model containing the Sun shadow, solar disk emission and inverse-Compton emission has been developed, and the chi-square minimization method was used to quantitatively estimate the disk gamma-ray signal. The result shows that no significant gamma-ray signal is detected and upper limits to the gamma-ray flux at 0.3$-$7 TeV are set at 95\% confidence level. In the low energy range these limits are consistent with the extrapolation of the Fermi-LAT measurements taken during solar minimum and are compatible with a softening of the gamma-ray spectrum below 1 TeV. They provide also an experimental upper bound to any solar disk emission at TeV energies. Models of dark matter annihilation via long-lived mediators predicting gamma-ray fluxes > $10^{-7}$ GeV $cm^{-2}$ $s^{-1}$ below 1 TeV are ruled out by the ARGO-YBJ limits.

astro-ph.HE↗

Anomalous attenuation of piezoacoustic surface waves by liquid helium thin films

We report on the observation of an anomalously high attenuation of high frequency surface acoustic waves by thin films of liquid $^{4}$He. The piezoelectric acoustic waves propagate along the surface of a lithium niobate substrate, which is coated with varying amounts of liquid helium. When the thickness of the helium layer is much larger than the wavelength of the surface acoustic wave on the substrate its attenuation is dominated by the excitation of compressional waves into the liquid, in good agreement with theory and previous measurements. However, for sufficiently thin helium coverage, we find that the acoustic wave attenuation is significantly increased beyond that measured with the substrate submerged in bulk liquid. Possible mechanisms for this enhanced attenuation are discussed.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

Flip-chip gate-tunable acoustoelectric effect in graphene

We demonstrate a flip-chip device for performing low-temperature acoustoelectric measurements on exfoliated two-dimensional materials. With this device, we study gate-tunable acoustoelectric transport in an exfoliated monolayer graphene device, measuring the voltage created as high-frequency surface acoustic waves dynamically drive the graphene charge carriers, the density of which we simultaneously control with a silicon back-gate. We demonstrate ambipolar dependence of the acoustoelectric signal, as expected from the sign of the graphene charge carriers. We observe a marked reduction in the magnitude of the acoustoelectric signal over a well-defined range of density in the vicinity of charge neutrality, which we attribute to a spatially heterogeneous charge-disorder landscape not directly revealed by conventional transport measurements.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

Deep learning framework DNN with conditional WGAN for protein solubility prediction

Protein solubility plays a critical role in improving production yield of recombinant proteins in biocatalyst and pharmaceutical field. To some extent, protein solubility can represent the function and activity of biocatalysts which are mainly composed of recombinant proteins. Highly soluble proteins are more effective in biocatalytic processes and can reduce the cost of biocatalysts. Screening proteins by experiments in vivo is time-consuming and expensive. In literature, large amounts of machine learning models have been investigated, whereas parameters of those models are underdetermined with insufficient data of protein solubility. A data augmentation algorithm that can enlarge the dataset of protein solubility and improve the performance of prediction model is highly desired, which can alleviate the common issue of insufficient data in biotechnology applications for developing machine learning models. We first implemented a novel approach that a data augmentation algorithm, conditional WGAN was used to improve prediction performance of DNN for protein solubility from protein sequence by generating artificial data. After adding mimic data produced from conditional WGAN, the prediction performance represented by $R^{2}$ was improved compared with the $R^{2}$ without data augmentation. After tuning the hyperparameters of two algorithms and organizing the dataset, we achieved a $R^{2}$ value of $45.04\%$, which enhanced $R^{2}$ about $10\%$ compared with the previous study using the same dataset. Data augmentation opens the door to applications of machine learning models on biological data, as machine learning models always fail to be well trained by small datasets.

q-bio.QM↗

Unconventional field-effect transistor composed of electrons floating on liquid helium

We report on an unconventional $macroscopic$ field effect transistor composed of electrons floating above the surface of superfluid helium. With this device unique transport regimes are realized in which the charge density of the electron layer can be controlled in a manner not possible in other material systems. In particular, we are able to manipulate the collective behavior of the electrons to produce a highly non-uniform, but precisely controlled, charge density to reveal a negative source-drain current. This behavior can be understood by considering the propagation of damped charge oscillations along a transmission line formed by the inhomogeneous sheet of two-dimensional electrons above, and between, the source and drain electrodes of the transistor.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

Ultra-low Hysteresis in Giant Magnetocaloric Mn1-xVxFe(P,Si,B) Compounds

Large thermal hysteresis in the MnFe(P, Si, B) system hinders the heat exchange rate and thus limits the magnetocaloric applications at high frequencies. Substitution of Mn by V in Mn1-xVxFe0.95P0.593Si0.33B0.077 and Mn1-xVxFe0.95P0.563Si0.36B0.077 alloys was found to reduce the thermal hysteresis due to a decrease in the latent heat. Introducing V increases both the field-induced transition temperature shift and the magnetic moment per formula unit. Thus, a decease in the thermal hysteresis is obtained without losing the giant magnetocaloric effect. In consequence, an ultralow hysteresis (0.7 K) and a giant adiabatic temperature change of 2.3 K were achieved, which makes these alloys promising candidates for commercial magnetic refrigerator using permanent magnets.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

12-photon entanglement and scalable scattershot boson sampling with optimal entangled-photon pairs from parametric down-conversion

Entangled photon sources with simultaneously near-unity heralding efficiency and indistinguishability are the fundamental elements for scalable photonic quantum technologies. We design and realize a degenerate entangled-photon source from an ultrafast pulsed laser pumped spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC), which show simultaneously ~97% heralding efficiency and ~96% indistinguishability between independent single photons. Such a high-efficiency and frequency-uncorrelated SPDC source allows generation of the first 12-photon genuine entanglement with a state fidelity of 0.572(24). We further demonstrate a blueprint of scalable scattershot boson sampling using 12 SPDC sources and a 12*12-modes interferometer for three-, four-, and five-boson sampling, which yields count rates more than four orders of magnitudes higher than all previous SPDC experiments. Our work immediately enables high-efficiency implementations of multiplexing, scattershot boson sampling, and heralded creation of remotely entangled photons, opening up a promising pathway to scalable photonic quantum technologies.

quant-ph↗

The magnetic structures of rare-earth quadruple perovskite manganites $R$Mn$_7$O$_{12}$

We report a neutron powder diffraction study of $R$Mn$_7$O$_{12}$ quadruple perovskite manganites with $R$ = La, Ce, Nd, Sm, and Eu. We show that in all measured compounds concomitant magnetic ordering of the $A$ and $B$ manganese sublattices occurs on cooling below the N$\mathrm{\acute{e}}$el temperature. The respective magnetic structures are collinear, with one uncompensated Mn$^{3+}$ moment per formula unit as observed in bulk magnetisation measurements. We show that both LaMn$_7$O$_{12}$ and NdMn$_7$O$_{12}$ undergo a second magnetic phase transition at low temperature, which introduces a canting of the $B$ site sublattice moments that is commensurate in LaMn$_7$O$_{12}$ and incommensurate in NdMn$_7$O$_{12}$. This spin canting is consistent with a magnetic instability originating in the $B$ site orbital order. Furthermore, NdMn$_7$O$_{12}$ displays a third magnetic phase transition at which long range ordering of the Nd sublattice modifies the periodicity of the incommensurate spin canting. Our results demonstrate a rich interplay between transition metal magnetism, orbital order, and the crystal lattice, which may be fine tuned by cation substitution and rare earth magnetism.

cond-mat.str-el↗

Galactic Cosmic-Ray Anisotropy in the Northern hemisphere from the ARGO-YBJ Experiment during 2008-2012

This paper reports on the observation of the sidereal large-scale anisotropy of cosmic rays using data collected by the ARGO-YBJ experiment over 5 years (2008$-$2012). This analysis extends previous work limited to the period from 2008 January to 2009 December,near the minimum of solar activity between cycles 23 and 24.With the new data sample the period of solar cycle 24 from near minimum to maximum is investigated. A new method is used to improve the energy reconstruction, allowing us to cover a much wider energy range, from 4 to 520 TeV. Below 100 TeV, the anisotropy is dominated by two wide regions, the so-called "tail-in" and "loss-cone" features. At higher energies, a dramatic change of the morphology is confirmed. The yearly time dependence of the anisotropy is investigated. Finally, no noticeable variation of cosmic-ray anisotropy with solar activity is observed for a median energy of 7 TeV.

astro-ph.HE↗

Quality Assurance on Un-Doped CsI Crystals for the Mu2e Experiment

The Mu2e experiment is constructing a calorimeter consisting of 1,348 undoped CsI crystals in two disks. Each crystal has a dimension of 34 x 34 x 200 mm, and is readout by a large area silicon PMT array. A series of technical specifications was defined according to physics requirements. Preproduction CsI crystals were procured from three firms: Amcrys, Saint-Gobain and Shanghai Institute of Ceramics. We report the quality assurance on crystal's scintillation properties and their radiation hardness against ionization dose and neutrons. With a fast decay time of 30 ns and a light output of more than 100 p.e./MeV measured with a bi-alkali PMT, undoped CsI crystals provide a cost-effective solution for the Mu2e experiment.

physics.ins-det↗