arXiv subjects

X. Dai

Publications and source records attributed to X. Dai.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Measurement of reactor antineutrino oscillation at SNO+

The SNO+ collaboration reports its second spectral analysis of reactor antineutrino oscillation using 286 tonne-years of new data. The measured energies of reactor antineutrino candidates were fitted to obtain the second-most precise determination of the neutrino mass-squared difference $\Delta m^2_{21}$ = ($7.96^{+0.48}_{-0.42}$) $\times$ 10$^{-5}$ eV$^2$. Constraining $\Delta m^2_{21}$ and $\sin^2\theta_{12}$ with measurements from long-baseline reactor antineutrino and solar neutrino experiments yields $\Delta m^2_{21}$ = ($7.58^{+0.18}_{-0.17}$) $\times$ 10$^{-5}$ eV$^2$ and $\sin^2\theta_{12} = 0.308 \pm 0.013$. This fit also yields a first measurement of the flux of geoneutrinos in the Western Hemisphere, with $73^{+47}_{-43}$ TNU at SNO+.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2024

Incommensurate Transverse Peierls Transition

In one-dimensional quantum materials, conducting electrons and the underlying lattices can undergo a spontaneous translational symmetry breaking, known as Peierls transition. For nearly a century, the Peierls transition has been understood within the paradigm of electron-electron interactions mediated by longitudinal acoustic phonons. This classical picture has recently been revised in topological semimetals, where transverse acoustic phonons can couple with conducting p-orbital electrons and give rise to an unconventional Fermi surface instability, dubbed the transverse Peierls transition (TPT). Most interestingly, the TPT induced lattice distortions can further break rotation or mirror/inversion symmetries, leading to nematic or chiral charge density waves (CDWs). Quantum materials that host the TPT, however, have not been experimentally established. Here, we report the experimental discovery of an incommensurate TPT in the tetragonal Dirac semimetal EuAl$_4$. Using inelastic x-ray scattering with meV resolution, we observe the complete softening of a transverse acoustic phonon at the CDW wavevector upon cooling, whereas the longitudinal acoustic phonon is nearly unchanged. Combining with first principles calculations, we show that the incommensurate CDW wavevector matches the calculated charge susceptibility peak and connects the nested Dirac bands with Al 3$p_{x}$ and 3$p_{y}$ orbitals. Supplemented by second harmonic generation measurements, we show that the CDW induced lattice distortions break all vertical and diagonal mirrors whereas the four-fold rotational symmetry is retained below the CDW transition. Our observations strongly suggest a chiral CDW in EuAl$_4$ and highlight the TPT as a new avenue for chiral quantum states.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2023

Decoherence of a tunable capacitively shunted flux qubit

Quantum annealing is a method to solve optimization problems that leverages quantum tunneling in a coupled qubit system. We present a detailed study of the coherence of a tunable capacitively-shunted flux qubit, designed for coherent quantum annealing applications. We find that for high qubit frequencies, thermal noise in the bias line makes a significant contribution to the relaxation, arising from the design choice to experimentally explore both fast annealing and high-frequency control. The measured dephasing rate is primarily due to intrinsic low-frequency flux noise in the two qubit loops, with additional contribution from the low-frequency noise of control electronics used for fast annealing. Our results characterize decoherence in a realistic setup for quantum annealing and are relevant for ongoing efforts toward building superconducting quantum annealers with increased coherence.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

A Method to Load Tellurium in Liquid Scintillator for the Study of Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay

A method has been developed to load tellurium into liquid scintillator so as to permit searches for neutrinoless double beta decay with high sensitivity. The approach involves the synthesis of an oil-soluble tellurium compound from telluric acid and an organic diol. The process utilises distillable chemicals that can be safely handled underground and affords low radioactive backgrounds, low optical absorption and high light yields at loading levels of at least several percent Te by weight.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2022

Optimizing for periodicity: a model-independent approach to flux crosstalk calibration for superconducting circuits

Flux tunability is an important engineering resource for superconducting circuits. Large-scale quantum computers based on flux-tunable superconducting circuits face the problem of flux crosstalk, which needs to be accurately calibrated to realize high-fidelity quantum operations. Typical calibration methods either assume that circuit elements can be effectively decoupled and simple models can be applied, or require a large amount of data. Such methods become ineffective as the system size increases and circuit interactions become stronger. Here we propose a new method for calibrating flux crosstalk, which is independent of the underlying circuit model. Using the fundamental property that superconducting circuits respond periodically to external fluxes, crosstalk calibration of N flux channels can be treated as N independent optimization problems, with the objective functions being the periodicity of a measured signal depending on the compensation parameters. We demonstrate this method on a small-scale quantum annealing circuit based on superconducting flux qubits, achieving comparable accuracy with previous methods. We also show that the objective function usually has a nearly convex landscape, allowing efficient optimization.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

Tunable Coupler for Mediating Interactions between a Two-Level System and a Waveguide from a Decoupled State to the Ultra-Strong Coupling Regime

Two-level systems (TLS) coupled to waveguides are a fundamental paradigm for light-matter interactions and quantum networks. We introduce and experimentally demonstrate a method to tune the interaction between a TLS, implemented as a flux qubit, and a transmission line waveguide from a decoupled state to a coupling strength that is a significant fraction of the TLS transition frequency, near the ultra-strong coupling regime. The coupling, controlled via magnetic flux, is described by a normalized coupling strength $\alpha$ that is measured to range between $6.2\times10^{-5}$ and $2.19\times10^{-2}$, with larger attainable maximum values predicted by a circuit model of the device. This system enables future investigations in the dynamics of the spin-boson model, microwave photonics, and relativistic quantum information.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

Dissipative Landau-Zener tunneling in the crossover regime from weak to strong environment coupling

Landau-Zener tunneling, which describes the transition in a two-level system during a sweep through an anti-crossing, is a model applicable to a wide range of physical phenomena. Realistic quantum systems are affected by dissipation due to coupling to their environments. An important aspect of understanding such open quantum systems is the relative energy scales of the system itself and the system-environment coupling, which distinguishes the weak- and strong-coupling regimes. Using a tunable superconducting flux qubit, we observe the crossover from weak to strong coupling to the environment in Landau-Zener tunneling. Our results confirm previous theoretical studies of dissipative Landau-Zener tunneling in the weak and strong coupling limits. We devise a spin bath model that effectively captures the crossover regime. This work is relevant for understanding the role of dissipation in quantum annealing, where the system is expected to go through a cascade of Landau-Zener transitions before reaching the target state.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2021

Active Galactic Nuclei Abundance in Cosmic Voids

The abundance of active galactic nuclei (AGN) in cosmic voids is relatively unexplored in the literature, but can potentially provide new constraints on the environmental dependence of AGN activity and the AGN-host co-evolution. We investigated AGN fraction in one of the largest samples of optically selected cosmic voids from SDSS Data Release 12 for redshift range 0.2-0.7 for moderately bright and bright AGN. We separated inner and outer void regions based on the void size, given by its effective void radius. We classified galaxies at a distance < 0.6Reff as inner void members and galaxies in the interval 0.6 < R/Reff < 1.3 as outer void galaxies. We found higher average fractions in the inner voids (4.9+-0.7)% than for their outer counterparts (3.1+-0.1)% at z>0.42, which clearly indicates an environmental dependence. This conclusion was confirmed upon further separating the data in narrower void-centric distance bins and measured a significant decrease in AGN activity from inner to outer voids for z>0.42. At low redshifts (z<0.42), we find very weak dependence on the environment for the inner and outer regions for two out of three bins. We argue that the higher fraction in low-density regions close to void centers relative to their outer counterparts observed in the two higher redshift bins suggests that there may occur more efficient galaxy interactions at one-to-one level in voids which may be suppressed in denser environments due to higher velocity dispersions. It could also indicate less prominent ram pressure stripping in voids or some intrinsic host or void environment properties.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2021

Contrarians synchronize beyond the limit of pairwise interactions

We give evidence that a population of pure contrarians globally coupled D-dimensional Kuramoto oscillators reaches a collective synchronous state when the interplay between the units goes beyond the limit of pairwise interactions. Namely, we will show that the presence of higher order interactions may induce the appearance of a coherent state even when the oscillators are coupled negatively to the mean field. An exact solution for the description of the microscopic dynamics for forward and backward transitions is provided, which entails imperfect symmetry breaking of the population into a frequency-locked state featuring two clusters of different instantaneous phases. Our results contribute to a better understanding of the powerful potential of group interactions entailing multi-dimensional choices and novel dynamical states in many circumstances, such as in social systems.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2021

Calibration of flux crosstalk in large-scale flux-tunable superconducting quantum circuits

Magnetic flux tunability is an essential feature in most approaches to quantum computing based on superconducting qubits. Independent control of the fluxes in multiple loops is hampered by crosstalk. Calibrating flux crosstalk becomes a challenging task when the circuit elements interact strongly. We present a novel approach to flux crosstalk calibration, which is circuit model independent and relies on an iterative process to gradually improve calibration accuracy. This method allows us to reduce errors due to the inductive coupling between loops. The calibration procedure is automated and implemented on devices consisting of tunable flux qubits and couplers with up to 27 control loops. We devise a method to characterize the calibration error, which is used to show that the errors of the measured crosstalk coefficients are all below 0.17%.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2021

eROSITA calibration and performance verification phase: High-mass X-ray binaries in the Magellanic Clouds

During its performance verification phase, the soft X-ray instrument eROSITA aboard the Spektrum-Roentgen-Gamma(SRG) spacecraft observed large regions in the Magellanic Clouds, where almost 40 known high-mass X-ray binaries (HMXBs, including candidates) are located. We looked for new HMXBs in the eROSITA data, searched for pulsations in HMXB candidates and investigated the long-term behaviour of the full sample using archival X-ray and optical data. For sources sufficiently bright, a detailed spectral and temporal analysis of their eROSITA data was performed. A source detection analysis of the eROSITA images in different energy bands provided count rates and upper limits for the remaining sources. We report the discovery of a new Be/X-ray binary in the Large Magellanic Cloud. The transient SRGEt J052829.5-690345 was detected with a 0.2-8.0 keV luminosity of ~10^35 erg/s and exhibits a hard X-ray spectrum, typical for this class of HMXBs. The OGLE I-band light curve of the V~15.7 mag counterpart shows large variations by up to 0.75 mag, which occur quasi periodically with ~511 days. The eROSITA observations of the Small Magellanic Cloud covered 16 Be/X-ray binary pulsars, five of them were bright enough to accurately determine their current pulse period. The pulse periods for SXP 726 and SXP 1323 measured from eROSITA data are ~800 s and ~1006 s, respectively, far away from their discovery periods. Including archival XMM-Newton observations we update the spin-period history of the two long-period pulsars which show nearly linear trends in their period evolution since more than 15 years. The corresponding average spin-down rate for SXP 726 is 4.3 s/yr while SXP 1323 shows spin-up with a rate of -23.2 s/yr. We discuss the spin evolution of the two pulsars in the framework of quasi-spherical accretion.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2021

The SNO+ Experiment

The SNO+ experiment is located 2 km underground at SNOLAB in Sudbury, Canada. A low background search for neutrinoless double beta ($0νββ$) decay will be conducted using 780 tonnes of liquid scintillator loaded with 3.9 tonnes of natural tellurium, corresponding to 1.3 tonnes of $^{130}$Te. This paper provides a general overview of the SNO+ experiment, including detector design, construction of process plants, commissioning efforts, electronics upgrades, data acquisition systems, and calibration techniques. The SNO+ collaboration is reusing the acrylic vessel, PMT array, and electronics of the SNO detector, having made a number of experimental upgrades and essential adaptations for use with the liquid scintillator. With low backgrounds and a low energy threshold, the SNO+ collaboration will also pursue a rich physics program beyond the search for $0νββ$ decay, including studies of geo- and reactor antineutrinos, supernova and solar neutrinos, and exotic physics such as the search for invisible nucleon decay. The SNO+ approach to the search for $0νββ$ decay is scalable: a future phase with high $^{130}$Te-loading is envisioned to probe an effective Majorana mass in the inverted mass ordering region.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2021

Study of quasi-particle dynamics using the optical pulse response of asuperconducting resonator

We study the optical pulse response of a superconducting half-wavelength coplanar waveguide (CPW) resonator. We apply a short optical pulse to the center strip of the CPW resonator, where the current distribution shows antinodes or nodes for different resonance modes, and measure the frequency response. We develop a time-dependent variable inductance circuit model with which we can simulate the optical pulse response of the resonator. By fitting this model to experimental data, we extract the temporal kinetic inductance variations, which directly reflect the quasi-particle recombination with time and diffusion in space. We also retrieve the spatial size of the quasi-particle distribution and the quasi-particle diffusion constant. Our study is very useful for the design of photon-counting kinetic inductance detectors, and the method developed in this work provides a useful way to study the quasi-particle dynamics in the superconductor.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2021

Development, characterisation, and deployment of the SNO+ liquid scintillator

A liquid scintillator consisting of linear alkylbenzene as the solvent and 2,5-diphenyloxazole as the fluor was developed for the SNO+ experiment. This mixture was chosen as it is compatible with acrylic and has a competitive light yield to pre-existing liquid scintillators while conferring other advantages including longer attenuation lengths, superior safety characteristics, chemical simplicity, ease of handling, and logistical availability. Its properties have been extensively characterized and are presented here. This liquid scintillator is now used in several neutrino physics experiments in addition to SNO+.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2020

Search for $hep$ solar neutrinos and the diffuse supernova neutrino background using all three phases of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory

A search has been performed for neutrinos from two sources, the $hep$ reaction in the solar $pp$ fusion chain and the $ν_e$ component of the diffuse supernova neutrino background (DSNB), using the full dataset of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory with a total exposure of 2.47 kton-years after fiducialization. The $hep$ search is performed using both a single-bin counting analysis and a likelihood fit. We find a best-fit flux that is compatible with solar model predictions while remaining consistent with zero flux, and set a one-sided upper limit of $Φ_{hep} < 30\times10^{3}~\mathrm{cm}^{-2}~\mathrm{s}^{-1}$ [90% credible interval (CI)]. No events are observed in the DSNB search region, and we set an improved upper bound on the $ν_e$ component of the DSNB flux of $Φ^\mathrm{DSNB}_{ν_e} < 19~\textrm{cm}^{-2}~\textrm{s}^{-1}$ (90% CI) in the energy range $22.9 < E_ν< 36.9$~MeV.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2020

D-dimensional oscillators in simplicial structures: odd and even dimensions display different synchronization scenarios

From biology to social science, the functioning of a wide range of systems is the result of elementary interactions which involve more than two constituents, so that their description has unavoidably to go beyond simple pairwise-relationships. Simplicial complexes are therefore the mathematical objects providing a faithful representation of such systems. We here present a complete theory of synchronization of $D$-dimensional oscillators obeying an extended Kuramoto model, and interacting by means of 1- and 2- simplices. Not only our theory fully describes and unveils the intimate reasons and mechanisms for what was observed so far with pairwise interactions, but it also offers predictions for a series of rich and novel behaviors in simplicial structures, which include: a) a discontinuous de-synchronization transition at positive values of the coupling strength for all dimensions, b) an extra discontinuous transition at zero coupling for all odd dimensions, and c) the occurrence of partially synchronized states at $D=2$ (and all odd $D$) even for negative values of the coupling strength, a feature which is inherently prohibited with pairwise-interactions. Furthermore, our theory untangles several aspects of the emergent behavior: the system can never fully synchronize from disorder, and is characterized by an extreme multi-stability, in that the asymptotic stationary synchronized states depend always on the initial conditions. All our theoretical predictions are fully corroborated by extensive numerical simulations. Our results elucidate the dramatic and novel effects that higher-order interactions may induce in the collective dynamics of ensembles of coupled $D$-dimensional oscillators, and can therefore be of value and interest for the understanding of many phenomena observed in nature, like for instance the swarming and/or flocking processes unfolding in three or more dimensions.

nlin.AO↗

arXiv2020

The Search for Failed Supernovae with the Large Binocular Telescope: N6946-BH1, Still No Star

We present new Large Binocular Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, and Spitzer Space Telescope data for the failed supernova candidate N6946-BH1. We also report an unsuccessful attempt to detect the candidate with Chandra. The ~300,000 Lsun red supergiant progenitor underwent an outburst in 2009 and has since disappeared in the optical. In the LBT data from May 2008 through October 2019, the upper limit on any increase in the R-band luminosity of the source is 2000 Lsun. HST and Spitzer observations show that the source continued to fade in the near-IR and mid-IR, fading by approximately a factor of 2 between October 2015 and September 2017 to 2900 Lsun at H band (F160W). Models of the spectral energy distribution are inconsistent with a surviving star obscured either by an ongoing wind or dust formed in the transient. The disappearance of N6946-BH1 remains consistent with a failed supernova.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2020

Equivalence of the Fermat potential and the lensing potential approaches to computing the integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect

We show in detail that the recently derived expression for evaluating the integrated Sachs-Wolfe (ISW) temperature shift in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) caused by individual embedded (compensated) lenses is equivalent to the conventional approach for flat background cosmologies. The conventional approach requires evaluating an integral of the time derivative of the lensing potential, whereas the new Fermat potential approach is simpler and only requires taking a derivative of the potential part of the time delay.

astro-ph.CO↗