arXiv subjects

Xiang Zhou

Publications and source records attributed to Xiang Zhou.

179 records · Page 10Linked to original sources

arXiv2015

Spectroscopic study of light scattering in linear alkylbenzene for liquid scintillator neutrino detectors

We has set up a light scattering spectrometer to study the depolarization of light scattering in linear alkylbenzene. From the scattering spectra it can be unambiguously shown that the depolarized part of light scattering belongs to Rayleigh scattering. The additional depolarized Rayleigh scattering can make the effective transparency of linear alkylbenzene much better than it was expected. Therefore sufficient scintillation photons can transmit through the large liquid scintillator detector of JUNO. Our study is crucial to achieving the unprecedented energy resolution 3\%/$\sqrt{E\mathrm{(MeV)}}$ for JUNO experiment to determine the neutrino mass hierarchy. The spectroscopic method can also be used to judge the attribution of the depolarization of other organic solvents used in neutrino experiments.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2015

Rayleigh scattering and depolarization ratio in linear alkylbenzene

Linear alkylbenzene (LAB) is adopted to be the organic solvent for the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) liquid scintillator detectors due to the ultra-transparency. However the current Rayleigh scattering length calculation disagrees with the measurement. The present paper for the first time reports the Rayleigh scattering of LAB being anisotropic and the depolarization ratio being 0.31+-0.01(stat.)+-0.01(sys.). We proposed an indirectly method for Rayleigh scattering measurement with Einstein-Smoluchowski-Cabannes formula, and the Rayleigh scattering length of LAB is determined to be 28.2+-1.0 m at 430 nm.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2015

Electrical control of exchange spring in antiferromagnetic metals

Manipulation of antiferromagnetic (AFM) spins by electrical means is on great demand to develop the AFM spintronics with low power consumption. In spite of the electrical modulation of insulated AFMs through coupling between their intrinsic ferroelectricity and antiferromagnetism, direct electrical control of AFM metals remains challenging due to the screening effect by the surface charge, and the manipulation is confined to a limited depth of atomic dimensions, which is insufficient to form a stable AFM exchange spring. In the present letter we primarily report a reversible electrical control of exchange spring in AFM metals, using an ionic liquid to exert a substantial electric-field effect. The exchange spring could transfer the force to the ferromagnet/antiferromagnet interface, enabling a deeper modulation depth in AFM metals. The manipulation of AFM moments by gate voltage is demonstrated in [Co/Pt]/IrMn model system and a single IrMn layer with the IrMn thickness up to 5 nm. Besides the fundamental significance of modulating the spin structures in metallic AFM via all-electrical fashion, the present finding would advance the development of low-power-consumption AFM spintronics.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2015

Densities, isobaric thermal expansion coefficients and isothermal compressibilities of linear alkylbenzene

We report the measurements of the densities of linear alkylbenzene at three temperatures over 4 to 23 Celsius degree with pressures up to 10 MPa. The measurements have been analysed to yield the isobaric thermal expansion coefficients and, so far for the first time, isothermal compressibilities of linear alkylbenzene. Relevance of results for current generation (i.e. Daya Bay) and next generation (i.e. JUNO) large liquid scintillator neutrino detectors are discussed.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2015

Nature of magnetotransport in metal/insulating-ferromagnet heterostructures: Spin Hall magnetoresistance or magnetic proximity effect

We study the anomalous Hall-like effect (AHLE) and the effective anisotropic magnetoresistance (EAMR) in antiferromagnetic γ -IrMn3/Y3Fe5O12(YIG) and Pt/YIG heterostructures. For γ -IrMn3/YIG, the EAMR and the AHLE resistivity change sign with temperature due to the competition between the spin Hall magnetoresistance (SMR) and the magnetic proximity effect (MPE) induced by the interfacial antiferromagnetic uncompensated magnetic moment. In contrast, for Pt/YIG the AHLE resistivity changes sign with temperature whereas no sign change is observed in the EAMR. This is because the MPE and the SMR play a dominant role in the AHLE and the EAMR, respectively. As new types of galvanomagnetic property, the AHLE and the EAMR have proved vital in disentangling the MPE and the SMR in metal/insulating-ferromagnet heterostructures.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2014

Finding Transition Pathways on Manifolds

We consider noise-induced transition paths in randomly perturbed dynami- cal systems on a smooth manifold. The classical Freidlin-Wentzell large devia- tion theory in Euclidean spaces is generalized and new forms of action functionals are derived in the spaces of functions and the space of curves to accommodate the intrinsic constraints associated with the manifold. Numerical meth- ods are proposed to compute the minimum action paths for the systems with constraints. The examples of conformational transition paths for a single and double rod molecules arising in polymer science are numerically investigated.

math-ph↗

arXiv2014

An Iterative Minimization Formulation for Saddle-Point Search

This paper proposes and analyzes an iterative minimization formulation for search- ing index-1 saddle points of an energy function. This formulation differs from other eigenvector-following methods by constructing a new objective function near the guess at each iteration step. This leads to a quadratic convergence rate, in comparison to the linear case of the gentlest ascent dynamics (E and Zhou, nonlinearity, vol 24, p1831, 2011) and many other existing methods. We also propose the generalization of the new methodology for saddle points of higher index and for constrained energy functions on manifold.

math.NA↗

arXiv2014

Efficient rare event simulation for failure problems in random media

In this paper we study rare events associated to solutions of elliptic partial differential equations with spatially varying random coefficients. The random coefficients follow the lognormal distribution, which is determined by a Gaussian process. This model is employed to study the failure problem of elastic materials in random media in which the failure is characterized by that the strain field exceeds a high threshold. We propose an efficient importance sampling scheme to compute small failure probabilities in the high threshold limit. The change of measure in our scheme is parametrized by two density functions. The efficiency of the importance sampling scheme is validated by numerical examples.

math.NA↗

arXiv2013

Extreme Analysis of a Non-convex and Nonlinear Functional of Gaussian Processes -- On the Tail Asymptotics of Random Ordinary Differential Equations

In this paper, we consider a stochastic system described by a differential equation admitting a spatially varying random coefficient. The differential equation has been employed to model various static physics systems such as elastic deformation, water flow, electric-magnetic fields, temperature distribution, etc. A random coefficient is introduced to account for the system's uncertainty and/or imperfect measurements. This random coefficient is described by a Gaussian process (the input process) and thus the solution to the differential equation (under certain boundary conditions) is a complexed functional of the input Gaussian process. In this paper, we focus the analysis on the one-dimensional case and derive asymptotic approximations of the tail probabilities of the solution to the equation that has various physics interpretations under different contexts. This analysis rests on the literature of the extreme analysis of Gaussian processes (such as the tail approximations of the supremum) and extends the analysis to more complexed functionals.

math.PR↗

arXiv2013

Efficient Algorithms for Multivariate Linear Mixed Models in Genome-wide Association Studies

Multivariate linear mixed models (mvLMMs) have been widely used in many areas of genetics, and have attracted considerable recent interest in genome-wide association studies (GWASs). However, fitting mvLMMs is computationally non-trivial, and no existing method is computationally practical for performing the likelihood ratio test (LRT) for mvLMMs in GWAS settings with moderate sample size n. The existing software MTMM perform an approximate LRT for two phenotypes, and as we find, its p values can substantially understate the significance of associations. Here, we present novel computationally-efficient algorithms for fitting mvLMMs, and computing the LRT in GWAS settings. After a single initial eigen-decomposition (with complexity O(n^3)) the algorithms i) reduce computational complexity (per iteration of the optimizer) from cubic to linear in n; and ii) in GWAS analyses, reduces per-marker complexity from cubic to quadratic in n. These innovations make it practical to compute the LRT for mvLMMs in GWASs for tens of thousands of samples and a moderate number of phenotypes (~2-10). With simulations, we show that the LRT provides correct control for type I error. With both simulations and real data we find that the LRT is more powerful than the approximate LRT from MTMM, and illustrate the benefits of analyzing more than two phenotypes. The method is implemented in the GEMMA software package, freely available at http://stephenslab.uchicago.edu/software.html

q-bio.QM↗

arXiv2013

An Explicit Cross Entropy Scheme for Mixtures

The key issue in importance sampling is the choice of the alternative sampling distribution, which is often chosen from the exponential tilt family of the underlying distribution. However, when the problem exhibits certain kind of nonconvexity, it is very likely that a single exponential change of measure will never attain asymptotic optimality and can lead to erroneous estimates. In this paper we introduce an explicit iterative scheme which combines the traditional cross-entropy method and the EM algorithm to find an efficient alternative sampling distribution in the form of mixtures. We also study the applications of this scheme to the estimation of rainbow option prices.

math.PR↗

arXiv2012

Polygenic Modeling with Bayesian Sparse Linear Mixed Models

Both linear mixed models (LMMs) and sparse regression models are widely used in genetics applications, including, recently, polygenic modeling in genome-wide association studies. These two approaches make very different assumptions, so are expected to perform well in different situations. However, in practice, for a given data set one typically does not know which assumptions will be more accurate. Motivated by this, we consider a hybrid of the two, which we refer to as a "Bayesian sparse linear mixed model" (BSLMM) that includes both these models as special cases. We address several key computational and statistical issues that arise when applying BSLMM, including appropriate prior specification for the hyper-parameters, and a novel Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm for posterior inference. We apply BSLMM and compare it with other methods for two polygenic modeling applications: estimating the proportion of variance in phenotypes explained (PVE) by available genotypes, and phenotype (or breeding value) prediction. For PVE estimation, we demonstrate that BSLMM combines the advantages of both standard LMMs and sparse regression modeling. For phenotype prediction it considerably outperforms either of the other two methods, as well as several other large-scale regression methods previously suggested for this problem. Software implementing our method is freely available from http://stephenslab.uchicago.edu/software.html

q-bio.QM↗

arXiv2011

The Gentlest Ascent Dynamics

Dynamical systems that describe the escape from the basins of attraction of stable invariant sets are presented and analyzed. It is shown that the stable fixed points of such dynamical systems are the index-1 saddle points. Generalizations to high index saddle points are discussed. Both gradient and non-gradient systems are considered. Preliminary results on the nature of the dynamical behavior are presented.

math.DS↗

arXiv2010

Maximum relative excitation of a specific vibrational mode via optimum laser pulse duration

For molecules and materials responding to femtosecond-scale optical laser pulses, we predict maximum relative excitation of a Raman-active vibrational mode with period T when the pulse has an FWHM duration of 0.42 T. This result follows from a general analytical model, and is precisely confirmed by detailed density-functional-based dynamical simulations for C60 and a carbon nanotube, which include anharmonicity, nonlinearity, no assumptions about the polarizability tensor, and no averaging over rapid oscillations within the pulse. The mode specificity is, of course, best at low temperature and for pulses that are electronically off-resonance, and the energy deposited in any mode is proportional to the fourth power of the electric field.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2009

Spin continuity equation and definition of spin current

For an electron, a spin-1/2 particle, the spin charge $\mathbf{s}$, a real pseudovector with constant length, could determine the spin polarization properties in quantum mechanics. Since spin density $ρ_{\mathbf{s}}$ could be expressed as the product of probability density $ρ$ and the spin charge $\mathbf{s}$, the spin continuity equation could be derived from fundamental principles of quantum mechanics and the definition of spin current arise naturally. Only in some specific conditions the conventional definition of spin current coincides with ours. The equilibrium spin currents would vanish automatically in two-dimensional electron gas with Rashba spin-orbit interaction by using our definition of spin current.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2009

Time-varying perturbations can distinguish among integrate-to-threshold models for perceptual decision-making in reaction time tasks

Several integrate-to-threshold models with differing temporal integration mechanisms have been proposed to describe the accumulation of sensory evidence to a prescribed level prior to motor response in perceptual decision-making tasks. An experiment and simulation studies have shown that the introduction of time-varying perturbations during integration may distinguish among some of these models. Here, we present computer simulations and mathematical proofs that provide more rigorous comparisons among one-dimensional stochastic differential equation models. Using two perturbation protocols and focusing on the resulting changes in the means and standard deviations of decision times, we show that, for high signal-to-noise ratios, drift-diffusion models with constant and time-varying drift rates can be distinguished from Ornstein-Uhlenbeck processes, but not necessarily from each other. The protocols can also distinguish stable from unstable Ornstein-Uhlenbeck processes, and we show that a nonlinear integrator can be distinguished from these linear models by changes in standard deviations. The protocols can be implemented in behavioral experiments.

q-bio.NC↗

arXiv2008

Persistent spin currents in electron systems with spin-orbit interaction

We investigate the persistent spin currents in one- and two-dimensional electron systems with spin-orbit interaction in thermodynamics equilibrium at absolute zero temperature. The persistent spin current is the intrinsic one which is connected with the Berry phases in the configuration spaces of an electron system and winding numbers in the field configurations of electrons. When the topological space of the configuration of a system has the nontrivial first homotopy groups, the persistent spin currents in the system could be nonzero and not easily destroyed by impurity scattering in ballistic limit. The non-vanishing background spin currents in infinite two-dimensional electron system found by Rashba could be realized by the transport persistent spin currents in a finite torus electron system with spin-orbit interaction. In this sense, we meet the challenge proposed by Rashba.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗