arXiv subjects

S. Sharma

Publications and source records attributed to S. Sharma.

At least 199 records · Page 11Linked to original sources

arXiv2015

Oscillating red giants observed during Campaign 1 of the Kepler K2 mission: New prospects for galactic archaeology

NASA's re-purposed Kepler mission -- dubbed K2 -- has brought new scientific opportunities that were not anticipated for the original Kepler mission. One science goal that makes optimal use of K2's capabilities, in particular its 360-degree ecliptic field of view, is galactic archaeology -- the study of the evolution of the Galaxy from the fossil stellar record. The thrust of this research is to exploit high-precision, time-resolved photometry from K2 in order to detect oscillations in red giant stars. This asteroseismic information can provide estimates of stellar radius (hence distance), mass and age of vast numbers of stars across the Galaxy. Here we present the initial analysis of a subset of red giants, observed towards the North Galactic Gap, during the mission's first full science campaign. We investigate the feasibility of using K2 data for detecting oscillations in red giants that span a range in apparent magnitude and evolutionary state (hence intrinsic luminosity). We demonstrate that oscillations are detectable for essentially all cool giants within the $\log g$ range $\sim 1.9-3.2$. Our detection is complete down to $\mathit{Kp}\sim 14.5$, which results in a seismic sample with little or no detection bias. This sample is ideally suited to stellar population studies that seek to investigate potential shortcomings of contemporary Galaxy models.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2015

Spectrum for non-magnetic Mott insulators from power functional within Reduced Density Matrix Functional Theory

A fully first principles theory capable of treating strongly correlated solids remains the outstanding challenge of modern day materials science. This is exemplified by the transition metal oxides, prototypical Mott insulators, that remain insulating even in the absence of long range magnetic order. Capturing the non-magnetic insulating state of these materials presents a difficult challenge for any modern electronic structure theory. In this paper we demonstrate that reduced density matrix functional theory, in conjunction with the power functional, can successfully treat the non-magnetic insulating state of the transition metal oxides NiO and MnO. We show that the electronic spectrum retains a gap even in the absence of spin order. We further discuss the detailed way in which RDMFT performs for Mott insulators and band insulators, finding that for the latter occupation number minimization alone is required, but for the former full minimization over both occupation numbers and natural orbitals is essential.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2015

Doping induced metal-insulator phase transition in NiO

The insulator to metal phase transition in NiO is studied within the framework of reduced density matrix functional theory and density functional theory. We find that the spectral density obtained using reduced density matrix functional theory is in good agreement with experiments both undoped as well as doped NiO. We find that the physical description of the hole-doping induced phase transition \emph{qualitatively differs} depending on whether NiO is calculated within density functional theory or reduced density matrix functional. In the former case the underlying mechanism of the phase transition is identified to be a rigid shift of chemical potential, while in the latter case a redistribution of the spectral weight drives the transition. These latter results are found to be in good agreement with both experiments and previous many-body calculations.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2015

Demonstration of Optimal Control of Laser Induced Spin-Orbit Mediated Ultrafast Demagnetization

Laser induced ultrafast demagnetization is the process whereby the magnetic moment of a ferromagnetic material is seen to drop significantly on a timescale of $10-100$s of femtoseconds due to the application of a strong laser pulse. If this phenomenon can be harnessed for future technology, it offers the possibility for devices operating at speeds several orders of magnitude faster than at present. A key component to successful transfer of such a process to technology is the controllability of the process, i.e. that it can be tuned in order to overcome the practical and physical limitations imposed on the system. In this paper, we demonstrate that the spin-orbit mediated form of ultrafast demagnetization recently investigated [arXiv:1406.6607] by ab-initio time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) can be controlled. To do so we use quantum optimal control theory (OCT) to couple our TDDDT simulations to the optimization machinery of OCT. We show that a laser pulse can be found which maximizes the loss of moment within a given time interval while subject to several practical and physical constraints. Furthermore we also include a constraint on the fluence of the laser pulses and find the optimal pulse that combines significant demagnetization with a desire for less powerful pulses. These calculations demonstrate optimal control is possible for spin-orbit mediated ultrafast demagnetization and lay the foundation for future optimizations/simulations which can incorporate even more constraints.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2015

L1$_0$ stacked binaries as candidates for hard magnets: FePt, MnAl and MnGa

A novel strategy of stacking binary magnets to enhance the magneto crystalline anisotropy is explored. This strategy is used in the search for hard magnets by studying FePt/MnGa and FePt/MnAl stacks. The choice of these binaries is motivated by the fact that they already possess large magneto crystalline anisotropy. Several possible alternative structures for these materials are explored in order to reduce the amount of Pt owing to its high cost.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2015

GALAH Survey: Chemically Tagging the Thick Disk

The GALAH survey targets one million stars in the southern hemisphere down to a limiting magnitude of V = 14 at the Anglo- Australian Telescope. The project aims to measure up to 30 elemental abundances and radial velocities (~1 km/s accuracy) for each star at a resolution of R = 28000. These elements fall into 8 independent groups (e.g. alpha, Fe peak, r-process). For all stars, Gaia will provide distances to 1% and transverse velocities to 1 km/s or better, giving us a 14D set of parameters for each star, i.e. 6D phase space and 8D abundance space. There are many scientic applications but here we focus on the prospect of chemically tagging the thick disk and making a direct measurement of how stellar migration evolves with cosmic time.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2015

The GALAH Survey: Scientific Motivation

The GALAH survey is a large high-resolution spectroscopic survey using the newly commissioned HERMES spectrograph on the Anglo-Australian Telescope. The HERMES spectrograph provides high-resolution (R ~28,000) spectra in four passbands for 392 stars simultaneously over a 2 degree field of view. The goal of the survey is to unravel the formation and evolutionary history of the Milky Way, using fossil remnants of ancient star formation events which have been disrupted and are now dispersed throughout the Galaxy. Chemical tagging seeks to identify such dispersed remnants solely from their common and unique chemical signatures; these groups are unidentifiable from their spatial, photometric or kinematic properties. To carry out chemical tagging, the GALAH survey will acquire spectra for a million stars down to V~14. The HERMES spectra of FGK stars contain absorption lines from 29 elements including light proton-capture elements, alpha-elements, odd-Z elements, iron-peak elements and n-capture elements from the light and heavy s-process and the r-process. This paper describes the motivation and planned execution of the GALAH survey, and presents some results on the first-light performance of HERMES.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2014

An efficient algorithm for time propagation within time-dependent density functional theory

An efficient algorithm for time propagation of the time-dependent Kohn-Sham equations is presented. The algorithm is based on dividing the Hamiltonian into small time steps and assuming that it is constant over these steps. This allows for the time-propagating Kohn-Sham wave function to be expanded in the instantaneous eigenstates of the Hamiltonian. The stability and efficiency of the algorithm are tested not just for non-magnetic but also for fully non-collinear magnetic systems. We show that even for delicate properties, like magnetization density, large time-step sizes can be used indicating the stability and efficiency of the algorithm.

physics.comp-ph↗

arXiv2014

The melting and abundance of open charm hadrons

Ratios of cumulants of conserved net charge fluctuations are sensitive to the degrees of freedom that are carriers of the corresponding quantum numbers in different phases of strong interaction matter. Using lattice QCD with 2+1 dynamical flavors and quenched charm quarks we calculate second and fourth order cumulants of net charm fluctuations and their correlations with other conserved charges such as net baryon number, electric charge and strangeness. Analyzing appropriate ratios of these cumulants we probe the nature of charmed degrees of freedom in the vicinity of the QCD chiral crossover region. We show that for temperatures above the chiral crossover transition temperature, charmed degrees of freedom can no longer be described by an uncorrelated gas of hadrons. This suggests that the dissociation of open charm hadrons and the emergence of deconfined charm states sets in just near the chiral crossover transition. Till the crossover region we compare these lattice QCD results with two hadron resonance gas models --including only the experimentally established charmed resonances and also including additional states predicted by quark model and lattice QCD calculations. This comparison provides evidence for so far unobserved charmed hadrons that contribute to the thermodynamics in the crossover region.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2014

Additional Strange Hadrons from QCD Thermodynamics and Strangeness Freeze-out in Heavy Ion Collisions

We compare lattice QCD results for appropriate combinations of net strangeness fluctuations and their correlations with net baryon number fluctuations with predictions from two hadron resonance gas (HRG) models having different strange hadron content. The conventionally used HRG model based on experimentally established strange hadrons fails to describe the lattice QCD results in the hadronic phase close to the QCD crossover. Supplementing the conventional HRG with additional, experimentally uncharted strange hadrons predicted by quark model calculations and observed in lattice QCD spectrum calculations leads to good descriptions of strange hadron thermodynamics below the QCD crossover. We show that the thermodynamic presence of these additional states gets imprinted in the yields of the ground-state strange hadrons leading to a systematic 5--8 MeV decrease of the chemical freeze-out temperatures of ground-state strange baryons.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2014

Chemical gradients in the Milky Way from the RAVE data. II. Giant stars

We provide new constraints on the chemo-dynamical models of the Milky Way by measuring the radial and vertical chemical gradients for the elements Mg, Al, Si, Ti, and Fe in the Galactic disc and the gradient variations as a function of the distance from the Galactic plane ($Z$). We selected a sample of giant stars from the RAVE database using the gravity criterium 1.7$<$log g$<$2.8. We created a RAVE mock sample with the Galaxia code based on the Besan\c con model and selected a corresponding mock sample to compare the model with the observed data. We measured the radial gradients and the vertical gradients as a function of the distance from the Galactic plane $Z$ to study their variation across the Galactic disc. The RAVE sample exhibits a negative radial gradient of $d[Fe/H]/dR=-0.054$ dex kpc$^{-1}$ close to the Galactic plane ($|Z|<0.4$ kpc) that becomes flatter for larger $|Z|$. Other elements follow the same trend although with some variations from element to element. The mock sample has radial gradients in fair agreement with the observed data. The variation of the gradients with $Z$ shows that the Fe radial gradient of the RAVE sample has little change in the range $|Z|\lesssim0.6$ kpc and then flattens. The iron vertical gradient of the RAVE sample is slightly negative close to the Galactic plane and steepens with $|Z|$. The mock sample exhibits an iron vertical gradient that is always steeper than the RAVE sample. The mock sample also shows an excess of metal-poor stars in the [Fe/H] distributions with respect to the observed data. These discrepancies can be reduced by decreasing the number of thick disc stars and increasing their average metallicity in the Besan\c con model.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2014

Laser induced ultrafast demagnetization: an \emph{ab-initio} perspective

Time-dependent density functional theory is implemented in an all electron solid-state code for the case of fully non-collinear spins. We use this to study laser induced demagnetization in Fe, Co and Ni. It is shown that this demagnetization is a two-step process: excitation of a fraction of electrons followed by spin-flip transitions of the remaining localized electrons. These results successfully explain several experimental features such as the time-lag between the start of the pulse and demagnetization and spin-flip excitations dominating the physics. We further show that it is possible to control the moment loss by tunable laser parameters like frequency, duration and intensity.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2014

Kinematic modelling of the Milky Way using the RAVE and GCS stellar surveys

We investigate the kinematic parameters of the Milky Way disc using the RAVE and GCS stellar surveys. We do this by fitting a kinematic model to the data taking the selection function of the data into account. For stars in the GCS we use all phase-space coordinates, but for RAVE stars we use only $(l,b,v_{\rm los})$. Using MCMC technique, we investigate the full posterior distributions of the parameters given the data. We investigate the `age-velocity dispersion' relation for the three kinematic components ($σ_R,σ_ϕ,σ_z$), the radial dependence of the velocity dispersions, the Solar peculiar motion ($U_{\odot},V_{\odot}, W_{\odot} $), the circular speed $Θ_0$ at the Sun and the fall of mean azimuthal motion with height above the mid-plane. We confirm that the Besançon-style Gaussian model accurately fits the GCS data, but fails to match the details of the more spatially extended RAVE survey. In particular, the Shu distribution function (DF) handles non-circular orbits more accurately and provides a better fit to the kinematic data. The Gaussian distribution function not only fits the data poorly but systematically underestimates the fall of velocity dispersion with radius. We find that correlations exist between a number of parameters, which highlights the importance of doing joint fits. The large size of the RAVE survey, allows us to get precise values for most parameters. However, large systematic uncertainties remain, especially in $V_{\odot}$ and $Θ_0$. We find that, for an extended sample of stars, $Θ_0$ is underestimated by as much as $10\%$ if the vertical dependence of the mean azimuthal motion is neglected. Using a simple model for vertical dependence of kinematics, we find that it is possible to match the Sgr A* proper motion without any need for $V_{\odot}$ being larger than that estimated locally by surveys like GCS.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2014

A Time Projection Chamber for High Accuracy and Precision Fission Cross Section Measurements

The fission Time Projection Chamber (fissionTPC) is a compact (15 cm diameter) two-chamber MICROMEGAS TPC designed to make precision cross section measurements of neutron-induced fission. The actinide targets are placed on the central cathode and irradiated with a neutron beam that passes axially through the TPC inducing fission in the target. The 4$π$ acceptance for fission fragments and complete charged particle track reconstruction are powerful features of the fissionTPC which will be used to measure fission cross sections and examine the associated systematic errors. This paper provides a detailed description of the design requirements, the design solutions, and the initial performance of the fissionTPC.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2014

A magnetically shielded room with ultra low residual field and gradient

A versatile and portable magnetically shielded room with a field of (700 \pm 200) pT within a central volume of 1m x 1m x 1m and a field gradient less than 300 pT/m is described. This performance represents more than a hundred-fold improvement of the state of the art for a two-layer magnetic shield and provides an environment suitable for a next generation of precision experiments in fundamental physics at low energies; in particular, searches for electric dipole moments of fundamental systems and tests of Lorentz-invariance based on spin-precession experiments. Studies of the residual fields and their sources enable improved design of future ultra-low gradient environments and experimental apparatus.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2013

Bootstrap kernel for organic low dimensional systems; PPV, pentacene and picene

We apply the bootstrap kernel within time dependent density functional theory to study one-dimensional chain of organic polymer poly-phenylene-vinylene and molecular crystals of picene and pentacene. The behaviour of this kernel in the presence and absence of local field effects is studied. The absorption spectra of poly-phenylene-vinylene has a bound excitonic peak which is well reproduced by the bootstrap kernel. Pentacene and picene, electronically similar materials, have remarkably different excitonic physics which is also captured properly by the bootstrap kernel. Inclusion of local-field effects dramatically change the spectra for both picene and pentacene. We highlight the reason behind this change. This also sheds light on the reasons behind the discrepancy in results between two different previous Bethe-Salpeter calculations.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2013

Chemical gradients in the Milky Way from the RAVE data. I. Dwarf stars

Aim: We aim at measuring the chemical gradients of the elements Mg, Al, Si, and Fe along the Galactic radius to provide new constraints on the chemical evolution models of the Galaxy and Galaxy models such as the Besancon model. Methods: We analysed three different samples selected from three independent datasets: a sample of 19,962 dwarf stars selected from the RAVE database, a sample of 10,616 dwarf stars selected from the Geneva-Copenhagen Survey (GCS) dataset, and a mock sample (equivalent to the RAVE sample) created by using the GALAXIA code, which is based on the Besancon model. We measured the chemical gradients as functions of the guiding radius (Rg) at different distances from the Galactic plane reached by the stars along their orbit (Zmax). Results: The chemical gradients of the RAVE and GCS samples are negative and show consistent trends, although they are not equal: at Zmax<0.4 kpc and 4.5<Rg(kpc)<9.5, the iron gradient for the RAVE sample is d[Fe/H]/dRg=-0.065 dex kpc^{-1}, whereas for the GCS sample it is d[Fe/H]/dRg=-0.043 dex kpc^{-1} with internal errors +-0.002 and +-0.004 dex kpc^{-1}, respectively. The gradients of the RAVE and GCS samples become flatter at larger Zmax. Conversely, the mock sample has a positive iron gradient of d[Fe/H]/dRg=+0.053+-0.003 dex kpc^{-1} at Zmax<0.4 kpc and remains positive at any Zmax. These positive and unrealistic values originate from the lack of correlation between metallicity and tangential velocity in the Besancon model. The discrepancies between the observational samples and the mock sample can be reduced by i) decreasing the density, ii) decreasing the vertical velocity, and iii) increasing the metallicity of the thick disc in the Besancon model.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2013

The RAdial Velocity Experiment (RAVE): Fourth data release

We present the stellar atmospheric parameters (effective temperature, surface gravity, overall metallicity), radial velocities, individual abundances and distances determined for 425 561 stars, which constitute the fourth public data release of the RAdial Velocity Experiment (RAVE). The stellar atmospheric parameters are computed using a new pipeline, based on the algorithms of MATISSE and DEGAS. The spectral degeneracies and the 2MASS photometric information are now better taken into consideration, improving the parameter determination compared to the previous RAVE data releases. The individual abundances for six elements (magnesium, aluminum, silicon, titanium, iron and nickel) are also given, based on a special-purpose pipeline which is also improved compared to that available for the RAVE DR3 and Chemical DR1 data releases. Together with photometric information and proper motions, these data can be retrieved from the RAVE collaboration website and the Vizier database.

astro-ph.GA↗