arXiv subjects

S. Li

Publications and source records attributed to S. Li.

At least 253 records · Page 14Linked to original sources

arXiv2011

Bonding mechanism in the nitrides Ti2AlN and TiN: an experimental and theoretical investigation

The electronic structure of nanolaminate Ti2AlN and TiN thin films has been investigated by bulk-sensitive soft x-ray emission spectroscopy. The measured Ti L, N K, Al L1 and Al L2,3 emission spectra are compared with calculated spectra using ab initio density-functional theory including dipole transition matrix elements. Three different types of bond regions are identified; a relatively weak Ti 3d - Al 3p bonding between -1 and -2 eV below the Fermi level, and Ti 3d - N 2p and Ti 3d - N 2s bonding which are deeper in energy observed at -4.8 eV and -15 eV below the Fermi level, respectively. A strongly modified spectral shape of 3s states of Al L2,3 emission from Ti2AlN in comparison to pure Al metal is found, which reflects the Ti 3d - Al 3p hybridization observed in the Al L1 emission. The differences between the electronic and crystal structures of Ti2AlN and TiN are discussed in relation to the intercalated Al layers of the former compound and the change of the materials properties in comparison to the isostructural carbides.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2011

Diversity of multiwavelength emission bumps in the GRB 100219A afterglow

Context. Multi-wavelength observations of gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglows provide important information about the activity of their central engines and their environments. In particular, the short timescale variability, such as bumps and/or rebrightening features visible in the multi-wavelength light curves, is still poorly understood. Aims. We analyze the multi-wavelength observations of the GRB100219A afterglow at redshift 4.7. In particular, we attempt to identify the physical origin of the late achromatic flares/bumps detected in the X-ray and optical bands. Methods. We present ground-based optical photometric data and Swift X-ray observations on GRB100219A. We analyzed the temporal behavior of the X-ray and optical light curves, as well as the X-ray spectra. Results. The early flares in the X-ray and optical light curves peak simultaneously at about 1000 s after the burst trigger, while late achromatic bumps in the X-ray and optical bands appear at about 20000 s after the burst trigger. These are uncommon features in the afterglow phenomenology. Considering the temporal and spectral properties, we argue that both optical and X-ray emissions come from the same mechanism. The late flares/bumps may be produced by late internal shocks from long-lasting activity of the central engine. An off-axis origin for a structured jet model is also discussed to interpret the bump shapes. The early optical bump can be interpreted as the afterglow onset, while the early X-ray flare could be caused by the internal activity. GRB 100219A exploded in a dense environment as revealed by the strong attenuation of X-ray emission and the optical-to-X-ray spectral energy distribution.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2011

The electric field as a novel switch for uptake/release of hydrogen storage in nitrogen doped graphene

Nitrogen-doped graphene was recently synthesized and was reported to be a catalyst for hydrogen dissociative adsorption under a perpendicular applied electric field (F). In this work, the diffusion of H atoms on N-doped graphene, in the presence and absence of an applied perpendicular electric field, is studied using density functional theory. We demonstrate that the applied field can significantly facilitate the binding of hydrogen molecules on N-doped graphene through dissociative adsorption and diffusion on the surface. By removing the applied field the absorbed H atoms can be released efficiently. Our theoretical calculation indicates that N-doped graphene is a promising hydrogen storage material with reversible hydrogen adsorption/desorption where the applied electric field can act as a switch for the uptake/release processes.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2011

Very large optical rotation generated by Rb vapor in a multi-pass cell

Paramagnetic Faraday rotation is a powerful technique for atom sensing widely used in quantum non-demolition measurements, fundamental symmetry tests, and other precision measurements. We demonstrate the use of a multi-pass optical cell for Faraday rotation spectroscopy and observe polarization rotation in excess of 100 radians from spin-polarized Rb vapor. Unlike optical cavities, multi-pass cells have a deterministic number of light passes and can be used to measure large optical rotations. We also observe a 10-fold suppression of transverse spin relaxation when Rb atoms are placed in a coherent superposition state immune to spin-exchange collisions.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2010

Enhanced stability of hydrogen atoms at the graphene/graphane interface of nanoribbons

The thermal stability of graphene/graphane nanoribbons (GGNRs) is investigated using density functional theory. It is found that the energy barriers for the diffusion of hydrogen atoms on the zigzag and armchair interfaces of GGNRs are 2.86 and 3.17 eV, respectively, while the diffusion barrier of an isolated H atom on pristine graphene was only ~0.3 eV. These results unambiguously demonstrate that the thermal stability of GGNRs can be enhanced significantly by increasing the hydrogen diffusion barriers through graphene/graphane interface engineering. This may provide new insights for viable applications of GGNRs.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2010

Intrinsic Ferromagnetism in Eu doped ZnO

We report room temperature ferromagnetism in as-implanted Eu doped ZnO (ZnO:Eu). To address the origin of ferromagnetism ab initio calculations of ZnO:Eu system are performed. Results show that the ferromagnetism is induced by ZnO point defects as Eu ions in perfect ZnO tend to align antiferromagnetically.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2009

Interruption of Tidal Disruption Flares By Supermassive Black Hole Binaries

Supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs) are products of galaxy mergers, and are important in testing Lambda cold dark matter cosmology and locating gravitational-wave-radiation sources. A unique electromagnetic signature of SMBHBs in galactic nuclei is essential in identifying the binaries in observations from the IR band through optical to X-ray. Recently, the flares in optical, UV, and X-ray caused by supermassive black holes (SMBHs) tidally disrupting nearby stars have been successfully used to observationally probe single SMBHs in normal galaxies. In this Letter, we investigate the accretion of the gaseous debris of a tidally disrupted star by a SMBHB. Using both stability analysis of three-body systems and numerical scattering experiments, we show that the accretion of stellar debris gas, which initially decays with time $\propto t^{-5/3}$, would stop at a time $T_{\rm tr} \simeq ηT_{\rm b}$. Here, $η\sim0.25$ and $T_{\rm b}$ is the orbital period of the SMBHB. After a period of interruption, the accretion recurs discretely at time $T_{\rm r} \simeq ξT_b$, where $ξ\sim 1$. Both $η$ and $ξ$ sensitively depend on the orbital parameters of the tidally disrupted star at the tidal radius and the orbit eccentricity of SMBHB. The interrupted accretion of the stellar debris gas gives rise to an interrupted tidal flare, which could be used to identify SMBHBs in non-active galaxies in the upcoming transient surveys.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2009

Al doped graphene: A promising material for hydrogen storage at room temperature

A promising material for hydrogen storage at room temperature-Al doped graphene was proposed theoretically by using density functional theory calculation. Hydrogen storage capacity of 5.13 wt% was predicted at T = 300 K and P = 0.1 Gpa with adsorption energy Eb = -0.260 eV/H2. This is close to the target of 6 wt% and satisfies the requirement of immobilization hydrogen with Eb of -0.2 ~ -0.4 eV/H2 at ambient temperature and modest pressure for commercial applications specified by U.S. Department of Energy. It is believed that the doped Al varies the electronic structures of both C and H2. The bands of H2 overlapping with those of Al and C synchronously are the underlying mechanism of hydrogen storage capacity enhancement.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2008

Type I Planet Migration in Nearly Laminar Disks

We describe 2D hydrodynamic simulations of the migration of low-mass planets ($\leq 30 M_{\oplus}$) in nearly laminar disks (viscosity parameter $α< 10^{-3}$) over timescales of several thousand orbit periods. We consider disk masses of 1, 2, and 5 times the minimum mass solar nebula, disk thickness parameters of $H/r = 0.035$ and 0.05, and a variety of $α$ values and planet masses. Disk self-gravity is fully included. Previous analytic work has suggested that Type I planet migration can be halted in disks of sufficiently low turbulent viscosity, for $α\sim 10^{-4}$. The halting is due to a feedback effect of breaking density waves that results in a slight mass redistribution and consequently an increased outward torque contribution. The simulations confirm the existence of a critical mass ($M_{cr} \sim 10 M_{\oplus}$) beyond which migration halts in nearly laminar disks. For $α\ga 10^{-3}$, density feedback effects are washed out and Type I migration persists. The critical masses are in good agreement with the analytic model of Rafikov (2002). In addition, for $α\la 10^{-4}$ steep density gradients produce a vortex instability, resulting in a small time-varying eccentricity in the planet's orbit and a slight outward migration. Migration in nearly laminar disks may be sufficiently slow to reconcile the timescales of migration theory with those of giant planet formation in the core accretion model.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2008

A Fast Potential and Self-Gravity Solver for Non-Axisymmetric Disks

Disk self-gravity could play an important role in the dynamic evolution of interaction between disks and embedded protoplanets. We have developed a fast and accurate solver to calculate the disk potential and disk self-gravity forces for disk systems on a uniform polar grid. Our method follows closely the method given by Chan et al. (2006), in which an FFT in the azimuthal direction is performed and a direct integral approach in the frequency domain in the radial direction is implemented on a uniform polar grid. This method can be very effective for disks with vertical structures that depend only on the disk radius, achieving the same computational efficiency as for zero-thickness disks. We describe how to parallelize the solver efficiently on distributed parallel computers. We propose a mode-cutoff procedure to reduce the parallel communication cost and achieve nearly linear scalability for a large number of processors. For comparison, we have also developed a particle-based fast tree-code to calculate the self-gravity of the disk system with vertical structure. The numerical results show that our direct integral method is at least two order of magnitudes faster than our optimized tree-code approach.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2008

K to pi and K to 0 in 2+1 Flavor Partially Quenched Chiral Perturbation Theory

We calculate results for K to pi and K to 0 matrix elements to next-to-leading order in 2+1 flavor partially quenched chiral perturbation theory. Results are presented for both the Delta I=1/2 and 3/2 channels, for chiral operators corresponding to current-current, gluonic penguin, and electroweak penguin 4-quark operators. These formulas are useful for studying the chiral behavior of currently available 2+1 flavor lattice QCD results, from which the low energy constants of the chiral effective theory can be determined. The low energy constants of these matrix elements are necessary for an understanding of the Delta I=1/2 rule, and for calculations of epsilon'/epsilon using current lattice QCD simulations.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2008

Formation of X-Ray Cavities by the Magnetically Dominated Jet-Lobe System in a Galaxy Cluster

We present cosmological magnetohydrodynamic simulations of the formation of a galaxy cluster with magnetic energy feedback from an active galactic nuclei (AGN). We demonstrate that X-ray cavities can be produced by the magnetically dominated jet-lobe system that is supported by a central axial current. The cavities are magnetically dominated and their morphology is determined jointedly by the magnetic fields and the background cluster pressure profile. The expansion and motion of the cavities are driven initially by the Lorentz force of the magnetic fields, and the cavities only become buoyant at late stages ($> 500$ Myr). We find that up to $80%-90%$ of the injected magnetic energy goes into doing work against the hot cluster medium, heating it, and lifting it in the cluster potential.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2008

Enhancement of CO detection in Al doped graphene

A principle of enhancement CO adsorption was developed theoretically by using density functional theory through doping Al into graphene. The results show that the Al doped graphene has strong chemisorption of CO molecule by forming Al-CO bond, where CO onto intrinsic graphene remains weak physisorption. Furthermore, the enhancement of CO sensitivity in the Al doped graphene is determined by a large electrical conductivity change after adsorption, where CO absorption leads to increase of electrical conductivity upon via introducing large amount of shallow acceptor states. Therefore, this newly developed Al doped graphene would be an excellent candidate for sensing CO gas.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2008

Physical Results from 2+1 Flavor Domain Wall QCD and SU(2) Chiral Perturbation Theory

We have simulated QCD using 2+1 flavors of domain wall quarks on a $(2.74 {\rm fm})^3$ volume with an inverse lattice scale of $a^{-1} = 1.729(28)$ GeV. The up and down (light) quarks are degenerate in our calculations and we have used four values for the ratio of light quark masses to the strange (heavy) quark mass in our simulations: 0.217, 0.350, 0.617 and 0.884. We have measured pseudoscalar meson masses and decay constants, the kaon bag parameter $B_K$ and vector meson couplings. We have used SU(2) chiral perturbation theory, which assumes only the up and down quark masses are small, and SU(3) chiral perturbation theory to extrapolate to the physical values for the light quark masses. While next-to-leading order formulae from both approaches fit our data for light quarks, we find the higher order corrections for SU(3) very large, making such fits unreliable. We also find that SU(3) does not fit our data when the quark masses are near the physical strange quark mass. Thus, we rely on SU(2) chiral perturbation theory for accurate results. We use the masses of the $Ω$ baryon, and the $π$ and $K$ mesons to set the lattice scale and determine the quark masses. We then find $f_π= 124.1(3.6)_{\rm stat}(6.9)_{\rm syst} {\rm MeV}$, $f_K = 149.6(3.6)_{\rm stat}(6.3)_{\rm syst} {\rm MeV}$ and $f_K/f_π= 1.205(0.018)_{\rm stat}(0.062)_{\rm syst}$. Using non-perturbative renormalization to relate lattice regularized quark masses to RI-MOM masses, and perturbation theory to relate these to $\bar{\rm MS}$ we find $ m_{ud}^{\bar{\rm MS}}(2 {\rm GeV}) = 3.72(0.16)_{\rm stat}(0.33)_{\rm ren}(0.18)_{\rm syst} {\rm MeV}$ and $m_{s}^{\bar{\rm MS}}(2 {\rm GeV}) = 107.3(4.4)_{\rm stat}(9.7)_{\rm ren}(4.9)_{\rm syst} {\rm MeV}$.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2007

Non-perturbative renormalization of quark bilinear operators and B_K using domain wall fermions

We present a calculation of the renormalization coefficients of the quark bilinear operators and the K-Kbar mixing parameter B_K. The coefficients relating the bare lattice operators to those in the RI/MOM scheme are computed non-perturbatively and then matched perturbatively to the MSbar scheme. The coefficients are calculated on the RBC/UKQCD 2+1 flavor dynamical lattice configurations. Specifically we use a 16^3 x 32 lattice volume, the Iwasaki gauge action at beta=2.13 and domain wall fermions with L_s=16.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2007

2+1 flavor domain wall QCD on a (2 fm)^3 lattice: light meson spectroscopy with Ls = 16

We present results for light meson masses and pseudoscalar decay constants from the first of a series of lattice calculations with 2+1 dynamical flavors of domain wall fermions and the Iwasaki gauge action. The work reported here was done at a fixed lattice spacing of about 0.12 fm on a 16^3\times32 lattice, which amounts to a spatial volume of (2 fm)^3 in physical units. The number of sites in the fifth dimension is 16, which gives m_{res} = 0.00308(4) in these simulations. Three values of input light sea quark masses, m_l^{sea} \approx 0.85 m_s, 0.59 m_s and 0.33 m_s were used to allow for extrapolations to the physical light quark limit, whilst the heavier sea quark mass was fixed to approximately the physical strange quark mass m_s. The exact rational hybrid Monte Carlo algorithm was used to evaluate the fractional powers of the fermion determinants in the ensemble generation. We have found that f_π= 127(4) MeV, f_K = 157(5) MeV and f_K/f_π= 1.24(2), where the errors are statistical only, which are in good agreement with the experimental values.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2007

Neutral kaon mixing from 2+1 flavor Domain Wall QCD

We present the first results for neutral kaon mixing using 2+1 flavors of domain wall fermions. A new approach is used to extrapolate to the physical up and down quark masses from our numerical studies with pion masses in the range 240 -- 420 MeV; only $SU(2)_L \times SU(2)_R$ chiral symmetry is assumed and the kaon is not assumed to be light. Our main result is $B_K^{\bar{\rm MS}}(2 \mathrm{GeV}) = 0.524(10)(28)$ where the first error is statistical and the second incorporates estimates for all systematic errors.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2007

Magnetic fluctuations in n-type high-$T_c$ superconductors reveal breakdown of fermiology

By combining experimental measurements of the quasiparticle and dynamical magnetic properties of optimally electron-doped Pr$_{0.88}$LaCe$_{0.12}$CuO$_4$ with theoretical calculations we demonstrate that the conventional fermiology approach cannot possibly account for the magnetic fluctuations in these materials. In particular, we perform tunneling experiments on the very same sample for which a dynamical magnetic resonance has been reported recently and use photoemission data by others on a similar sample to characterize the fermionic quasiparticle excitations in great detail. We subsequently use this information to calculate the magnetic response within the conventional fermiology framework as applied in a large body of work for the hole-doped superconductors to find a profound disagreement between the theoretical expectations and the measurements: this approach predicts a step-like feature rather than a sharp resonance peak, it underestimates the intensity of the resonance by an order of magnitude, it suggests an unreasonable temperature dependence of the resonance, and most severely, it predicts that most of the spectral weight resides in incommensurate wings which are a key feature of the hole-doped cuprates but have never been observed in the electron-doped counterparts. Our findings strongly suggest that the magnetic fluctuations reflect the quantum-mechanical competition between antiferromagnetic and superconducting orders.

cond-mat.supr-con↗