arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to N. Martin.
In this paper, we develop robust estimators and tests for one-shot device testing under proportional hazards assumption based on divergence measures. Through a detailed Monte Carlo simulation study and a numerical example, the developed inferential procedures are shown to be more robust than the classical procedures, based on maximum likelihood estimators.
We report on the first study of the noncentrosymmetric ternary carbide YbCoC$_{2}$. Our magnetization, specific heat, resistivity and neutron diffraction measurements consistently show that the system behaves as a heavy-fermion compound, displaying an amplitude-modulated magnetic structure below the Néel temperature reaching $T_{N}$ = 33 K under pressure. Such a large value, being the highest among the Yb-based systems, is explained in the light of our ab initio calculations, which show that the 4f electronic states of Yb have a dual nature -- i.e., due to their strong hybridization with the 3d states of Co, 4f states expose both localized and itinerant properties.
We reconsider the case for the association of Galactic globular clusters (GCs) to the tidal stream of the Sagittarius dwarf spheroidal galaxy (Sgr dSph), using Gaia DR2 data. We use RR Lyrae to trace the stream in 6D and we select clusters matching the observed stream in position and velocity. In addition to the clusters residing in the main body of the galaxy (M 54, Ter 8, Ter 7, Arp 2) we confirm the membership of Pal 12 and Whiting 1 to the portion of the trailing arm populated by stars lost during recent perigalactic passages. NGC 2419, NGC 5634 and NGC 4147 are very interesting candidates, possibly associated to more ancient wraps of the stream. We note that all these clusters, with the exception of M 54, that lies within the stellar nucleus of the galaxy, are found in the trailing arm of the stream. The selected clusters are fully consistent with the [Fe/H] vs. [Mg/Fe], [Ca/Fe] patterns and the age-metallicity relation displayed by field stars in the main body of Sgr dSph.
We report a comprehensive small-angle neutron scattering~(SANS) study of Mn$_{1-x}$Fe$_{x}$Si at zero magnetic field. To delineate changes of magneto-crystalline anisotropies (MCAs) from effects due to defects and disorder, we recorded complementary susceptibility and specific heat data, and investigated selected compositions of Mn$_{1-x}$Co$_{x}$Si. For all systems studied the transition temperature and magnetic phase diagrams evolve monotonically with composition consistent with literature. The SANS patterns of the magnetic order recorded under zero-field cooling display strong changes of the directions of the intensity maxima and smeared out intensity distributions as a function of composition. We show that cubic MCAs account for the complex evolution of the SANS patterns, where for increasing $x$ the character of the MCAs shifts from terms that are fourth-order to terms that are sixth order in spin--orbit coupling. The magnetic field dependence of the susceptibility and SANS establishes that the helix reorientation as a function of magnetic field for Fe- or Co-doped MnSi is dominated by pinning due to defects and disorder. The presence of thermodynamic anomalies of the specific heat at the phase boundaries of the skyrmion lattice phase in the doped samples and properties observed in Mn$_{1-x}$Co$_{x}$Si establishes that the pinning due to defects and disorder remains, however, weak and comparable to the field scale of the helix reorientation. The observation that MCAs, that are sixth order in spin-orbit coupling, play an important role for the spontaneous order in Mn$_{1-x}$Fe$_{x}$Si and Mn$_{1-x}$Co$_{x}$Si, offering a fresh perspective for a wide range of topics in cubic chiral magnets such as the generic magnetic phase diagram, the morphology of topological spin textures, the paramagnetic-to-helical transition, and quantum phase transitions.
We study the evolution of the magnetic phase diagram of Mn$_{1-x}$Fe$_{x}$Ge alloys with concentration $x$ ($0 \leq x \leq 0.3$) by small-angle neutron scattering. We unambiguously observe the absence of a skyrmion lattice (or A-phase) in bulk MnGe and its onset under a small Mn/Fe substitution. The A-phase is there endowed with an exceptional skyrmion density, and is stabilized within a very large temperature region and a field range which scales with the Fe concentration. Our findings highlight the possibility to fine-tune properties of skyrmion lattices by means of chemical doping.
The cubic chiral helimagnets with the $P2_13$ space group represent a group of compounds in which the stable skyrmion-lattice state is experimentally observed. The key parameter that controls the energy landscape of such systems and determines the emergence of a topologically nontrivial magnetic structures is the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI). Chemical substitution is recognized as a convenient instrument to tune the DMI in real materials and has been successfully utilized in studies of a number of chiral magnets, such as MnSi, FeGe, MnGe, and others. In our study, we applied small-angle neutron scattering to investigate how chemical substitution influences the skyrmionic properties of an insulating helimagnet Cu$_2$OSeO$_3$ when Cu ions are replaced by either Zn or Ni. Our results demonstrate that the DMI is enhanced in the Ni-substituted compounds (Cu,Ni)$_2$OSeO$_3$, but weakened in (Cu,Zn)$_2$OSeO$_3$. The observed changes in the DMI strength are reflected in the magnitude of the spin-spiral propagation vector and the temperature stability of the skyrmion phase.
We present radial velocities for five member stars of the recently discovered young (age= 100-150 Myr) stellar system Price-Whelan 1 (PW 1), that is located far away in the Galactic Halo (D~ 29 kpc, Z~ 15 kpc), and that is probably associated to the Leading Arm (LA) of the Magellanic Stream. We measure the systemic radial velocity of PW 1, V_r=275 +/- 10 km/s, significantly larger than the velocity of the LA gas in the same direction. We re-discuss the main properties and the origin of this system in the light of these new observations, computing the orbit of the system and comparing its velocity with that of the HI in its surroundings. We show that the bulk of the gas at the velocity of the stars is more than 10 deg (5~kpc) away from PW 1 and the velocity difference between the gas and the stars become larger as gas closer to the stars is considered. We discuss the possibilities that (a) the parent gas cloud was dissolved by the interaction with the Galactic gas, and (b) that the parent cloud is the high velocity cloud HVC287.5+22.5+240, lagging behind the stellar system by ~25 km/s and ~10 deg.
Reentrant spin glasses are frustrated disordered ferromagnets developing vortex-like textures under an applied magnetic field. Our study of a Ni$_{0.81}$Mn$_{0.19}$ single crystal by small angle neutron scattering clarifies their internal structure and shows that these textures are randomly distributed. Spin components transverse to the magnetic field rotate over length scales of 3-15 nm in the explored field range, decreasing as field increases according to a scaling law. Monte-Carlo simulations reveal that the internal structure of the vortices is strongly distorted and differs from that assumed for "frustrated" skyrmions, built upon a competition between symmetric exchange interactions. Isolated vortices have small non-integer topological charge. The vortices keep an anisotropic shape on a 3 dimensional lattice, recalling "croutons" in a "ferromagnetic soup". Their size and number can be tuned independently by the magnetic field and concentration x (or heat treatment), respectively. This opens an original route to understand and control the influence of quenched disorder in systems hosting non trivial spin textures.
We study the effect of a finite sample size, beam divergence and detector thickness on the resolution function of a MIEZE spectrometer. We provide a transparent analytical framework which can be used to determine the optimal trade-off between incoming flux and time resolution for a given experimental configuration. The key result of our approach is that the usual limiting factor of MIEZE spectroscopy, namely neutron path length differences throughout the instrument, can be suppressed up to relatively large momentum transfers by using a proper small-angle (SANS) geometry. Under such configuration, the hitherto accepted limits of MIEZE spectroscopy in terms of time-resolution are pushed upwards by typically an order of magnitude, giving access to most of the topical fields in soft- and hard-condensed matter physics.
Magnetic skyrmions are nano-sized topologically protected spin textures with particle-like properties. They can form lattices perpendicular to the magnetic field and the orientation of these skyrmion lattices with respect to the crystallographic lattice is governed by spin-orbit coupling. By performing small angle neutron scattering measurements, we investigate the coupling between the crystallographic and skyrmion lattices in both Cu$_2$OSeO$_3$ and the archetype chiral magnet MnSi. The results reveal that the orientation of the skyrmion lattice is primarily determined by the magnetic field direction with respect to the crystallographic lattice. In addition, it is also influenced by the magnetic history of the sample which can induce metastable lattices. Kinetic measurements show that these metastable skyrmion lattices may or may not relax to their equilibrium positions under macroscopic relaxation times. Furthermore, multidomain lattices may form when two or more equivalent crystallographic directions are favored by spin-orbit coupling and oriented perpendicular to the magnetic field.
We report on diffuse neutron scattering experiments providing evidence for the presence of random strains in the quantum spin ice candidate Pr2Zr2O7. Since Pr is a non-Kramers ion, the strain deeply modifies the picture of Ising magnetic moments governing the low temperature properties of this material. It is shown that the derived strain distribution accounts for the temperature dependence of the specific heat and of the spin excitation spectra. Taking advantage of mean field and spin dynamics simulations, we argue that the randomness in Pr2Zr2O7, promotes a new state of matter, which is disordered, yet characterized by short range antiferroquadrupolar correlations, and from which emerge spin-ice like excitations. This study thus opens an original research route in the field of quantum spin ice.
Extremely metal-poor (EMP) stars are old objects formed in the first Gyr of the Universe. They are rare and, to select them, the most successful strategy has been to build on large and low-resolution spectroscopic surveys. The combination of narrow- and broad band photometry provides a powerful and cheaper alternative to select metal-poor stars. The on-going Pristine Survey is adopting this strategy, conducting photometry with the CFHT MegaCam wide field imager and a narrow-band filter centred at 395.2 nm on the CaII-H and -K lines. In this paper we present the results of the spectroscopic follow-up conducted on a sample of 26 stars at the bright end of the magnitude range of the Survey (g<=15), using FEROS at the MPG/ESO 2.2 m telescope. From our chemical investigation on the sample, we conclude that this magnitude range is too bright to use the SDSS gri bands, which are typically saturated. Instead the Pristine photometry can be usefully combined with the APASS gri photometry to provide reliable metallicity estimates.
This paper develops a new family of estimators, the minimum density power divergence estimators (MDPDEs), for the parameters of the one-shot device model as well as a new family of test statistics, Z-type test statistics based on MDPDEs, for testing the corresponding model parameters. The family of MDPDEs contains as a particular case the maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) considered in Balakrishnan and Ling (2012). Through a simulation study, it is shown that some MDPDEs have a better behavior than the MLE in relation to robustness. At the same time, it can be seen that some Z-type tests based on MDPDEs have a better behavior than the classical Z-test statistic also in terms of robustness.
We study the evolution of helical magnetism in MnGe chiral magnet upon partial substitution of Mn for non magnetic 3d-Co and 4d-Rh ions. At high doping levels, we observe spin helices with very long periods -more than ten times larger than in the pure compound- and sizable ordered moments. This behavior calls for a change in the energy balance of interactions leading to the stabilization of the observed magnetic structures. Strikingly, neutron scattering unambiguously shows a double periodicity in the observed spectra at $x \gtrsim 0.45$ and $\gtrsim 0.25$ for Co- and Rh-doping, respectively. In analogy with observations made in cholesteric liquid crystals, we suggest that it reveals the presence of magnetic twist-grain-boundary phases, involving a dense short-range correlated network of screw dislocations. The dislocation cores are described as smooth textures made of non-radial double-core skyrmions.
The chemical abundance ratios and radial velocities for two stars in the recently discovered Triangulum II faint dwarf galaxy have been determined from high resolution, medium signal-to-noise ratio spectra from the Gemini-GRACES facility. These stars have stellar parameters and metallicities similar to those derived from their photometry and medium-resolution Ca II triplet spectra, and supports that Triangulum II has a metallicity spread consistent with chemical evolution in a dwarf galaxy. The elemental abundances show that both stars have typical calcium abundances and barium upper limits for their metallicities, but low magnesium and sodium. This chemical composition resembles some stars in dwarf galaxies, attributed to inhomogeneous mixing in a low star formation environment, and/or yields from only a few supernova events. One of our targets (Star40) has an enhancement in potassium, and resembles some stars in the unusual outer halo star cluster, NGC 2419. Our other target (Star46) appears to be a binary based on a change in its radial velocity (Delta v(rad) = 24.5 +/- 2.1 km/s). This is consistent with variations found in binary stars in other dwarf galaxies. While this serves as a reminder of the high binary fraction in these ultra faint dwarf galaxies, this particular object has had little impact on the previous determination of the velocity dispersion in Triangulum II.
We present the results of VLT-MUSE integral field spectroscopy of SECCO1, a faint, star-forming stellar system recently discovered as the stellar counterpart of an Ultra Compact High Velocity Cloud (HVC274.68+74.0), very likely residing within a substructure of the Virgo cluster of galaxies. We have obtained the radial velocity of a total of 38 individual compact sources identified as HII regions in the main and secondary body of the system, and derived the metallicity for 18 of them. We provide the first direct demonstration that the two stellar bodies of SECCO1 are physically associated and that their velocities match the HI velocities. The metallicity is quite uniform over the whole system, with a dispersion sigma_12+log(O/H/)=0.08, lower than the uncertainty on individual metallicity estimates. The mean abundance, 12+log(O/H)=8.44, is much higher than the typical values for local dwarf galaxies of similar stellar mass. This strongly suggests that the SECCO~1 stars were born from a pre-enriched gas cloud, possibly stripped from a larger galaxy. Using archival HST images we derive a total stellar mass of ~1.6 X 10^5 M_sun for SECCO1, confirming that it has a very high HI to stellar mass ratio for a dwarf galaxy, M_HI/M_*~ 100. The star formation rate, derived from the H_alpha flux is a factor of more than 10 higher than in typical dwarf galaxies of similar luminosity.
SECCO is a survey devoted to the search for stellar counterparts within Ultra Compact High Velocity Clouds. In this contribution we present the results of a set of simulations aimed at the quantitative estimate of the sensitivity of the survey as a function of the total luminosity, size and distance of the stellar systems we are looking for. For all our synthetic galaxies we assumed an exponential surface brightness profile and an old and metal-poor population. The synthetic galaxies are simulated both on the images and on the photometric catalogs, taking into account all the observational effects. In the fields where the available observational material is of the top quality we detect synthetic galaxies as >=5 sigma over-densities of resolved stars down to muV,h=30.0 mag/arcsec2, for D<=1.5 Mpc, and down to muV,h~29.5 mag/arcsec2, for D<=2.5 Mpc. In the field with the worst observational material of the whole survey we detect synthetic galaxies with muV,h<=28.8 mag/arcsec2 out to D<=1.0 Mpc, and those with muV,h<=27.5 mag/arcsec2 out to D<=2.5 Mpc. Dwarf galaxies with MV=-10, with sizes in the range spanned by known dwarfs, are detected by visual inspection of the images up to D=5 Mpc independently of the image quality. In the best quality images dwarfs are partially resolved into stars up to D=3.0 Mpc, and completely unresolved at D=5 Mpc. As an independent test of the sensitivity of our images to low surface brightness galaxies we report on the detection of several dwarf spheroidal galaxies probably located in the Virgo cluster with MV<=-8.0 and muV,h<=26.8 mag/arcsec2. The nature of the previously discovered SECCO 1 stellar system, also likely located in the Virgo cluster, is re-discussed in comparison with these dwarfs. While specific for the SECCO survey, our study may also provide general guidelines for detection of faint stellar systems with 8m class telescopes.
The globally increased demand for helium-3 along with the limited availability of this gas calls for the development of alternative technologies for the large ESS instrumentation pool. We report on the CASCADE Project - a novel detection system, which has been developed for the purposes of neutron spin echo spectroscopy. It features 2D spatially resolved detection of thermal neutrons at high rates. The CASCADE detector is composed of a stack of solid boron-10 coated Gas Electron Multiplier foils, which serve both as a neutron converter and as an amplifier for the primary ionization deposited in the standard Argon-CO2 counting gas environment. This multi-layer setup efficiently increases the detection efficiency and serves as a helium-3 alternative. It has furthermore been possible to extract the signal of the charge traversing the stack to identify the very thin conversion layer of about 1 micrometer. This allows the precise determination of the time-of-flight, necessary for the application in MIEZE spin echo techniques.