arXiv subjects

Ming Yan

Publications and source records attributed to Ming Yan.

269 records · Page 15Linked to original sources

arXiv2016

Mid-infrared dual-comb spectroscopy with electro-optic modulators

We demonstrate dual-comb spectroscopy based on difference frequency generation of frequency-agile near-infrared frequency combs, produced with the help of electro-optic modulators. The combs have a remarkably flat intensity distribution and their positions and line spacings can be selected freely by simply dialing a knob. We record, in the 3-micron region, Doppler-limited absorption spectra with resolved comb lines within milliseconds. Precise molecular line parameters are retrieved. Our technique holds promise for fast and sensitive time-resolved studies e.g. of trace gases.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2016

Coordinate Friendly Structures, Algorithms and Applications

This paper focuses on coordinate update methods, which are useful for solving problems involving large or high-dimensional datasets. They decompose a problem into simple subproblems, where each updates one, or a small block of, variables while fixing others. These methods can deal with linear and nonlinear mappings, smooth and nonsmooth functions, as well as convex and nonconvex problems. In addition, they are easy to parallelize. The great performance of coordinate update methods depends on solving simple sub-problems. To derive simple subproblems for several new classes of applications, this paper systematically studies coordinate-friendly operators that perform low-cost coordinate updates. Based on the discovered coordinate friendly operators, as well as operator splitting techniques, we obtain new coordinate update algorithms for a variety of problems in machine learning, image processing, as well as sub-areas of optimization. Several problems are treated with coordinate update for the first time in history. The obtained algorithms are scalable to large instances through parallel and even asynchronous computing. We present numerical examples to illustrate how effective these algorithms are.

math.OC↗

arXiv2016

ARock: an Algorithmic Framework for Asynchronous Parallel Coordinate Updates

Finding a fixed point to a nonexpansive operator, i.e., $x^*=Tx^*$, abstracts many problems in numerical linear algebra, optimization, and other areas of scientific computing. To solve fixed-point problems, we propose ARock, an algorithmic framework in which multiple agents (machines, processors, or cores) update $x$ in an asynchronous parallel fashion. Asynchrony is crucial to parallel computing since it reduces synchronization wait, relaxes communication bottleneck, and thus speeds up computing significantly. At each step of ARock, an agent updates a randomly selected coordinate $x_i$ based on possibly out-of-date information on $x$. The agents share $x$ through either global memory or communication. If writing $x_i$ is atomic, the agents can read and write $x$ without memory locks. Theoretically, we show that if the nonexpansive operator $T$ has a fixed point, then with probability one, ARock generates a sequence that converges to a fixed points of $T$. Our conditions on $T$ and step sizes are weaker than comparable work. Linear convergence is also obtained. We propose special cases of ARock for linear systems, convex optimization, machine learning, as well as distributed and decentralized consensus problems. Numerical experiments of solving sparse logistic regression problems are presented.

math.OC↗

arXiv2016

Spin-Cherenkov effect in a magnetic nanostrip with interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction

Spin-Cherenkov effect enables strong excitations of spin waves (SWs) with nonlinear wave dispersions. The Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) results in anisotropy and nonreciprocity of SWs propagation. In this work, we study the effect of the interfacial DMI on SW Cherenkov excitations in permalloy thin-film strips within the framework of micromagnetism. By performing micromagnetic simulations, it is shown that coherent SWs are excited when the velocity of a moving magnetic source exceeds the propagation velocity of the SWs. Moreover, the threshold velocity of the moving magnetic source with finite DMI can be reduced compared to the case of zero DMI. It thereby provides a promising route towards efficient SW generation and propagation, with potential applications in spintronic and magnonic devices.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2016

A Multiphase Image Segmentation Based on Fuzzy Membership Functions and L1-norm Fidelity

In this paper, we propose a variational multiphase image segmentation model based on fuzzy membership functions and L1-norm fidelity. Then we apply the alternating direction method of multipliers to solve an equivalent problem. All the subproblems can be solved efficiently. Specifically, we propose a fast method to calculate the fuzzy median. Experimental results and comparisons show that the L1-norm based method is more robust to outliers such as impulse noise and keeps better contrast than its L2-norm counterpart. Theoretically, we prove the existence of the minimizer and analyze the convergence of the algorithm.

math.OC↗

arXiv2015

Frequency-agile dual-comb spectroscopy

We propose a new approach to near-infrared molecular spectroscopy, harnessing advanced concepts of optical telecommunications and supercontinuum photonics. We generate, without mode-locked lasers, two frequency combs of slightly different repetition frequencies and moderate, but rapidly tunable, spectral span. The output of a frequency-agile continuous wave laser is split and sent into two electro-optic intensity modulators. Flat-top low-noise frequency combs are produced by wave-breaking in a nonlinear optical fiber of normal dispersion. With a dual-comb spectrometer, we record Doppler-limited spectra spanning 60 GHz within 13 microseconds and 80-kHz refresh rate, at a tuning speed of 10 nm.s^(-1). The sensitivity for weak absorption is enhanced by a long gas-filled hollow-core fiber.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2015

Self Equivalence of the Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers

The alternating direction method of multipliers (ADM or ADMM) breaks a complex optimization problem into much simpler subproblems. The ADM algorithms are typically short and easy to implement yet exhibit (nearly) state-of-the-art performance for large-scale optimization problems. To apply ADM, we first formulate a given problem into the "ADM-ready" form, so the final algorithm depends on the formulation. A problem like $\mbox{minimize}_\mathbf{x} u(\mathbf{x}) + v(\mathbf{C}\mathbf{x})$ has six different "ADM-ready" formulations. They can be in the primal or dual forms, and they differ by how dummy variables are introduced. To each "ADM-ready" formulation, ADM can be applied in two different orders depending on how the primal variables are updated. Finally, we get twelve different ADM algorithms! How do they compare to each other? Which algorithm should one choose? In this paper, we show that many of the different ways of applying ADM are equivalent. Specifically, we show that ADM applied to a primal formulation is equivalent to ADM applied to its Lagrange dual; ADM is equivalent to a primal-dual algorithm applied to the saddle-point formulation of the same problem. These results are surprising since the primal and dual variables in ADM are seemingly treated very differently, and some previous work exhibit preferences in one over the other on specific problems. In addition, when one of the two objective functions is quadratic, possibly subject to an affine constraint, we show that swapping the update order of the two primal variables in ADM gives the same algorithm. These results identify the few truly different ADM algorithms for a problem, which generally have different forms of subproblems from which it is easy to pick one with the most computationally friendly subproblems.

math.OC↗

arXiv2014

One condition for solution uniqueness and robustness of both l1-synthesis and l1-analysis minimizations

The $\ell_1$-synthesis model and the $\ell_1$-analysis model recover structured signals from their undersampled measurements. The solution of former is a sparse sum of dictionary atoms, and that of the latter makes sparse correlations with dictionary atoms. This paper addresses the question: when can we trust these models to recover specific signals? We answer the question with a condition that is both necessary and sufficient to guarantee the recovery to be unique and exact and, in presence of measurement noise, to be robust. The condition is one--for--all in the sense that it applies to both of the $\ell_1$-synthesis and $\ell_1$-analysis models, to both of their constrained and unconstrained formulations, and to both the exact recovery and robust recovery cases. Furthermore, a convex infinity--norm program is introduced for numerically verifying the condition. A comprehensive comparison with related existing conditions are included.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2014

Fast Adaptive Algorithm for Robust Evaluation of Quality of Experience

Outlier detection is an integral part of robust evaluation for crowdsourceable Quality of Experience (QoE) and has attracted much attention in recent years. In QoE for multimedia, outliers happen because of different test conditions, human errors, abnormal variations in context, {etc}. In this paper, we propose a simple yet effective algorithm for outlier detection and robust QoE evaluation named iterative Least Trimmed Squares (iLTS). The algorithm assigns binary weights to samples, i.e., 0 or 1 indicating if a sample is an outlier, then the outlier-trimmed subset least squares solutions give robust ranking scores. An iterative optimization is carried alternatively between updating weights and ranking scores which converges to a local optimizer in finite steps. In our test setting, iLTS is up to 190 times faster than LASSO-based methods with a comparable performance. Moreover, a varied version of this method shows adaptation in outlier detection, which provides an automatic detection to determine whether a data sample is an outlier without \emph{a priori} knowledge about the amount of the outliers. The effectiveness and efficiency of iLTS are demonstrated on both simulated examples and real-world applications. A Matlab package is provided to researchers exploiting crowdsourcing paired comparison data for robust ranking.

cs.MM↗

arXiv2014

Nonconvex Sorted $\ell_1$ Minimization for Sparse Approximation

The $\ell_1$ norm is the tight convex relaxation for the $\ell_0$ "norm" and has been successfully applied for recovering sparse signals. For problems with fewer samplings, one needs to enhance the sparsity by nonconvex penalties such as $\ell_p$ "norm". As one method for solving $\ell_p$ minimization problems, iteratively reweighted $\ell_1$ minimization updates the weight for each component based on the value of the same component at the previous iteration. It assigns large weights on small components in magnitude and small weights on large components in magnitude. In this paper, we consider a weighted $\ell_1$ penalty with the set of the weights fixed and the weights are assigned based on the sort of all the components in magnitude. The smallest weight is assigned to the largest component in magnitude. This new penalty is called nonconvex sorted $\ell_1$. Then we propose two methods for solving nonconvex sorted $\ell_1$ minimization problems: iteratively reweighted $\ell_1$ minimization and iterative sorted thresholding, and prove that both methods will converge to a local optimum. We also show that both methods are generalizations of iterative support detection and iterative hard thresholding respectively. The numerical experiments demonstrate the better performance of assigning weights by sort compared to $\ell_p$ minimization.

math.OC↗

arXiv2014

An octave spanning mid-infrared frequency comb generated in a silicon nanophotonic wire waveguide

We demonstrate an octave-spanning frequency comb with a spectrum covering wavelengths from 1,540 nm up to 3,200 nm. The supercontinuum is generated by pumping a 1-cm long dispersion engineered silicon wire waveguide by 70 fs pulses with an energy of merely 15 pJ. We confirm the phase coherence of the output spectrum by beating the supercontinuum with narrow bandwidth CW lasers. We show that the experimental results are in agreement with numerical simulations.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2014

Few-cycle, Broadband, Mid-infrared Optical Parametric Oscillator Pumped by a 20-fs Ti:sapphire Laser

We report a few-cycle, broadband, singly-resonant optical parametric oscillator (OPO) for the mid-infrared based on MgO-doped periodically-poled LiNbO3 (MgO:PPLN), synchronously pumped by a 20-fs Ti:sapphire laser. By using crystal interaction lengths as short as 250 um, and careful dispersion management of input pump pulses and the OPO resonator, near-transform-limited, few-cycle idler pulses tunable across the mid-infrared have been generated, with as few as 3.7 optical cycles at 2682 nm. The OPO can be continuously tuned over 2179-3732 nm by cavity delay tuning, providing up to 33 mW of output power at 3723 nm. The idler spectra exhibit stable broadband profiles with bandwidths spaning over 422 nm (FWHM) recorded at 3732 nm. We investigate the effect of crystal length on spectral bandwidth and pulse duration at a fixed wavelength, confirming near-transform-limited idler pulses for all grating interaction lengths. By locking the repetition frequency of the pump laser to a radio-frequency reference, and without active stabilization of the OPO cavity length, an idler power stability better than 1.6% rms over >2.75 hours is obtained when operating at maximum output power, in excellent spatial beam quality with TEM00 mode profile.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2014

Differential femtosecond coherent Stokes and anti-Stokes Raman spectroscopy

We demonstrate a novel technique of coherent Raman spectroscopy with a femtosecond laser. We apply to a molecular sample a sequence of pairs of ultrashort excitation and probe pulses, with a linearly increasing time delay between the two pulses from one pair to the next. We measure, as a function of the delay, the intensity modulation in the signal resulting from the differential detection of the Stokes and anti-Stokes radiations generated at the sample. The Fourier transform of such time-domain signal reveals the spectrum of the excited vibrational Raman transitions. The experimental proof-of-principle demonstrates high resolution, broad spectral span and suppression of the non-resonant background, as well as sensitivity enhancement due to the differential detection.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2014

The Continuity of Images by Transmission Imaging Revisited

Transmission imaging, as an important imaging technique widely used in astronomy, medical diagnosis, and biology science, has been shown in [49] quite different from reflection imaging used in our everyday life. Understanding the structures of images (the prior information) is important for designing, testing, and choosing image processing methods, and good image processing methods are helpful for further uses of the image data, e.g., increasing the accuracy of the object reconstruction methods in transmission imaging applications. In reflection imaging, the images are usually modeled as discontinuous functions and even piecewise constant functions. In transmission imaging, it was shown very recently in [49] that almost all images are continuous functions. However, the author in [49] considered only the case of parallel beam geometry and used some too strong assumptions in the proof, which exclude some common cases such as cylindrical objects. In this paper, we consider more general beam geometries and simplify the assumptions by using totally different techniques. In particular, we will prove that almost all images in transmission imaging with both parallel and divergent beam geometries (two most typical beam geometries) are continuous functions, under much weaker assumptions than those in [49], which admit almost all practical cases. Besides, taking into accounts our analysis, we compare two image processing methods for Poisson noise (which is the most significant noise in transmission imaging) removal. Numerical experiments will be provided to demonstrate our analysis.

math.DG↗

arXiv2013

Restoration of Images Corrupted by Impulse Noise and Mixed Gaussian Impulse Noise using Blind Inpainting

This article studies the problem of image restoration of observed images corrupted by impulse noise and mixed Gaussian impulse noise. Since the pixels damaged by impulse noise contain no information about the true image, how to find this set correctly is a very important problem. We propose two methods based on blind inpainting and $\ell_0$ minimization that can simultaneously find the damaged pixels and restore the image. By iteratively restoring the image and updating the set of damaged pixels, these methods have better performance than other methods, as shown in the experiments. In addition, we provide convergence analysis for these methods, these algorithms will converge to coordinatewise minimum points. In addition, they will converge to local minimum points (or with probability one) with some modifications in the algorithms.

math.OC↗

arXiv2010

The magnonic limit of domain wall propagation in ferromagnetic nanotubes

We report a study on the field-driven propagation of vortex-like domain walls in ferromagnetic nanotubes. This particular geometry gives rise to a special feature of the static wall configuration, which significantly influences its dynamics. Unlike domain walls in flat strips, the left-right symmetry of domain wall propagation is broken. Furthermore, the domain wall velocity is not limited by the Walker breakdown. Under sufficiently large magnetic fields, the domain wall velocity reaches the velocity of spin waves (about 1000 m/s) and is thereafter connected with a direct emission of spin waves. The moving domain wall maintains its main structure but has characteristic spin-wave tails attached. The spatial profile of this topological soliton is determined by the spin-wave dispersion.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2008

Ultrafast dynamics of a magnetic antivortex - Micromagnetic simulations

The antivortex is a fundamental magnetization structure which is the topological counterpart of the well-known magnetic vortex. We study here the ultrafast dynamic behavior of an isolated antivortex in a patterned Permalloy thin-film element. Using micromagnetic simulations we predict that the antivortex response to an ultrashort external field pulse is characterized by the production of a new antivortex as well as of a temporary vortex, followed by an annihilation process. These processes are complementary to the recently reported response of a vortex and, like for the vortex, lead to the reversal of the orientation of the antivortex core region. In addition to its fundamental interest, this dynamic magnetization process could be used for the generation and propagation of spin waves for novel logical circuits.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗