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Y. Ma

Publications and source records attributed to Y. Ma.

At least 127 records · Page 7Linked to original sources
arXiv2015

The Interaction of Venus-like, M-dwarf Planets with the Stellar Wind of Their Host Star

We study the interaction between the atmospheres of Venus-like, non-magnetized exoplanets orbiting an M-dwarf star, and the stellar wind using a multi-species Magnetohydrodynaic (MHD) model. We focus our investigation on the effect of enhanced stellar wind and enhanced EUV flux as the planetary distance from the star decreases. Our simulations reveal different topologies of the planetary space environment for sub- and super-Alfvenic stellar wind conditions, which could lead to dynamic energy deposition in to the atmosphere during the transition along the planetary orbit. We find that the stellar wind penetration for non-magnetized planets is very deep, up to a few hundreds of kilometers. We estimate a lower limit for the atmospheric mass-loss rate and find that it is insignificant over the lifetime of the planet. However, we predict that when accounting for atmospheric ion acceleration, a significant amount of the planetary atmosphere could be eroded over the course of a billion years.

astro-ph.EP↗
arXiv2015

Measurement of the strong interaction induced shift and width of the 1s state of kaonic deuterium at J-PARC

The antikaon-nucleon interaction close to threshold provides crucial information on the interplay between spontaneous and explicit chiral symmetry breaking in low-energy QCD. In this context the importance of kaonic deuterium X-ray spectroscopy has been well recognized, but no experimental results have yet been obtained due to the difficulty of the measurement. We propose to measure the shift and width of the kaonic deuterium 1s state with an accuracy of 60 eV and 140 eV respectively at J-PARC. These results together with the kaonic hydrogen data (KpX at KEK, DEAR and SIDDHARTA at DAFNE) will then permit the determination of values of both the isospin I=0 and I=1 antikaon-nucleon scattering lengths and will provide the most stringent constraints on the antikaon-nucleon interaction, promising a breakthrough. Refined Monte Carlo studies were performed, including the investigation of background suppression factors for the described setup. These studies have demonstrated the feasibility of determining the shift and width of the kaonic deuterium atom 1s state with the desired accuracy of 60 eV and 140 eV.

nucl-ex↗
arXiv2014

A strain-tunable quantum dot embedded in a nanowire antenna

We demonstrate an elastically-tunable self-assembled quantum dot in a nanowire antenna that emits single photons with resolution-limited spectral linewidths. The single-photon device is comprised of a single quantum dot embedded in a top-down fabricated nanowire waveguide integrated onto a piezoelectric actuator. Non-resonant excitation leads to static (fluctuating) charges likely at the nanowire surface, causing DC Stark shifts (inhomogeneous broadening); for low excitation powers, the effects are not observed and resolution-limited linewidths are obtained. Despite significant strain-field relaxation in the high-aspect-ratio nanowires, we achieve up to 1.2 meV tuning of a dot's transition energy. Single-photon sources with high brightness, resolution-limited linewidths, and wavelength tunability are promising for future quantum technologies.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗
arXiv2014

Nitrogen backbone oligomers

In contrast to carbon, which forms long polymeric chains, all-nitrogen chains are very unstable. Here we found that nitrogen and hydrogen directly react at room temperature and pressures of about 35 GPa forming a mixture of nitrogen backbone oligomers - chains of single-bonded nitrogen atom with the rest of the bonds terminated with hydrogen atoms - as identified by IR absorption, Raman, X-ray diffraction experiments and theoretical calculations. The pressure required for the synthesis strongly decreases with temperature to about 20 GPa at 550 K. At releasing pressures below about 10 GPa, the product transforms into hydrazine. Our findings might open a way for the practical synthesis of these extremely high energetic materials as the formation of nitrogen-hydrogen compounds is favorable already at pressures above 2 GPa according to the calculations.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗
arXiv2013

The OLYMPUS Experiment

The OLYMPUS experiment was designed to measure the ratio between the positron-proton and electron-proton elastic scattering cross sections, with the goal of determining the contribution of two-photon exchange to the elastic cross section. Two-photon exchange might resolve the discrepancy between measurements of the proton form factor ratio, $μ_p G^p_E/G^p_M$, made using polarization techniques and those made in unpolarized experiments. OLYMPUS operated on the DORIS storage ring at DESY, alternating between 2.01~GeV electron and positron beams incident on an internal hydrogen gas target. The experiment used a toroidal magnetic spectrometer instrumented with drift chambers and time-of-flight detectors to measure rates for elastic scattering over the polar angular range of approximately $25^\circ$--$75^\circ$. Symmetric Møller/Bhabha calorimeters at $1.29^\circ$ and telescopes of GEM and MWPC detectors at $12^\circ$ served as luminosity monitors. A total luminosity of approximately 4.5~fb$^{-1}$ was collected over two running periods in 2012. This paper provides details on the accelerator, target, detectors, and operation of the experiment.

physics.ins-det↗
arXiv2013

Light Yield in DarkSide-10: a Prototype Two-phase Liquid Argon TPC for Dark Matter Searches

As part of the DarkSide program of direct dark matter searches using liquid argon TPCs, a prototype detector with an active volume containing 10 kg of liquid argon, DarkSide-10, was built and operated underground in the Gran Sasso National Laboratory in Italy. A critically important parameter for such devices is the scintillation light yield, as photon statistics limits the rejection of electron-recoil backgrounds by pulse shape discrimination. We have measured the light yield of DarkSide-10 using the readily-identifiable full-absorption peaks from gamma ray sources combined with single-photoelectron calibrations using low-occupancy laser pulses. For gamma lines of energies in the range 122-1275 keV, we get consistent light yields averaging 8.887+-0.003(stat)+-0.444(sys) p.e./keVee. With additional purification, the light yield measured at 511 keV increased to 9.142+-0.006(stat) p.e./keVee.

astro-ph.IM↗
arXiv2013

Hypernuclear spectroscopy of products from 6Li projectiles on a carbon target at 2 AGeV

A novel experiment, aiming at demonstrating the feasibility of hypernuclear spectroscopy with heavy-ion beams, was conducted. Using the invariant mass method, the spectroscopy of hypernuclear products of 6Li projectiles on a carbon target at 2 AGeV was performed. Signals of the Λ-hyperon and 3ΛH and 4ΛH hypernuclei were observed for final states of p+π^-, 3He+π^- and 4He+π^-, respectively, with significance values of 6.7, 4.7 and 4.9σ. By analyzing the proper decay time from secondary vertex distribution with the unbinned maximum likelihood fitting method, their lifetime values were deduced to be $262 ^{+56}_{-43} \pm 45$ ps for Λ, $183 ^{+42}_{-32} \pm 37$ ps for 3ΛH, and $140 ^{+48}_{-33}\pm 35 $ ps for 4ΛH.

nucl-ex↗
arXiv2013

Effects of Electron-Electron Interactions on Electronic Raman Scattering of Graphite in High Magnetic Fields

We report the observation of strongly temperature-dependent, asymmetric spectral lines in electronic Raman scattering spectra of graphite in a high magnetic field up to 45 T applied along the c-axis. The magnetic field quantizes the in-plane motion, while the out-of-plane motion remains free, effectively reducing the system dimension from three to one. Optically created electron-hole pairs interact with, or shake up, the one-dimensional Fermi sea in the lowest Landau subbands. Based on the Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid theory, we show that interaction effects modify the van Hove singularity to the form $(ω-Δ)^{2α-1/2}$ at zero temperature. At finite temperature, we predict a thermal broadening factor that increases linearly with the temperature. Our model reproduces the observed temperature-dependent line-shape, determining $α$ to be $\sim$0.05 at 40 T.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗
arXiv2013

Minimum Error Tree Decomposition

This paper describes a generalization of previous methods for constructing tree-structured belief network with hidden variables. The major new feature of the described method is the ability to produce a tree decomposition even when there are errors in the correlation data among the input variables. This is an important extension of existing methods since the correlational coefficients usually cannot be measured with precision. The technique involves using a greedy search algorithm that locally minimizes an error function.

cs.AI↗
arXiv2012

Intrinsic Ultrathin Topological Insulators Grown via MBE Characterized by in-situ Angle Resolved Photoemission Spectroscopy

We demonstrate the capability of growing high quality ultrathin films of the topological insulators Bi2Se3 and Bi2Te3 using molecular beam epitaxy. Unlike previous growth techniques, which often pin the Fermi energy in the conduction band for ultrathin samples, our samples remain intrinsic bulk insulators. We characterize these films using in-situ angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES), which is a direct probe of bandstructure, and ex-situ atomic force microscopy. We find that the conduction band lies above the Fermi energy, indicating bulk insulating behavior with only the surface states crossing EF . We conclude that thermal cracking of Te and Se in our growth leads to higher quality thin films, paving the way for future improvements in growth of topological insulators.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗
arXiv2012

Enhancement of Betatron radiation from laser-driven Ar clustering gas

Bright betatron x-ray has been generated using an Ar clustering gas jet target irradiated with a 3 TW ultra-high contrast laser. The measured emission flux with photon energy > 2.4 keV reaches 2\times10^8 photons/shot. It is ten-fold enhancement comparing to the emission flux produced by using gas target in the same laser parameters. Observation shows that much larger electron beam charge and divergence angle lead to this improvement. Simulations point to the existence of cluster in gas results in the increasing of electron injection and much larger wiggling amplitude in wake-field, enriching the betatron x-ray photons.

physics.plasm-ph↗
arXiv2012

Magnetophonon resonance in graphite: High-field Raman measurements and electron-phonon coupling contributions

We perform Raman scattering experiments on natural graphite in magnetic fields up to 45 T, observing a series of peaks due to interband electronic excitations over a much broader magnetic field range than previously reported. We also explore electron-phonon coupling in graphite via magnetophonon resonances. The Raman G peak shifts and splits as a function of magnetic field, due to the magnetically tuned coupling of the E2g optical phonons with the K- and H-point inter-Landau-level excitations. The analysis of the observed anticrossing behavior allows us to determine the electron-phonon coupling for both K- and H-point carriers. In the highest field range (>35 T) the G peak narrows due to suppression of electron-phonon interaction.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗
arXiv2010

Evolutionary crystal structure prediction and novel high-pressure phases

Prediction of stable crystal structures at given pressure-temperature conditions, based only on the knowledge of the chemical composition, is a central problem of condensed matter physics. This extremely challenging problem is often termed "crystal structure prediction problem", and recently developed evolutionary algorithm USPEX (Universal Structure Predictor: Evolutionary Xtallography) made an important progress in solving it, enabling efficient and reliable prediction of structures with up to ~40 atoms in the unit cell using ab initio methods. Here we review this methodology, as well as recent progress in analyzing energy landscape of solids (which also helps to analyze results of USPEX runs). We show several recent applications - (1) prediction of new high-pressure phases of CaCO3, (2) search for the structure of the polymeric phase of CO2 ("phase V"), (3) high-pressure phases of oxygen, (4) exploration of possible stable compounds in the Xe-C system at high pressures, (5) exotic high-pressure phases of elements boron and sodium.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗
arXiv2009

Transparent dense sodium

Under pressure, metals exhibit increasingly shorter interatomic distances. Intuitively, this response is expected to be accompanied by an increase in the widths of the valence and conduction bands and hence a more pronounced free-electron-like behaviour. But at the densities that can now be achieved experimentally, compression can be so substantial that core electrons overlap. This effect dramatically alters electronic properties from those typically associated with simple free-electron metals such as lithium and sodium, leading in turn to structurally complex phases and superconductivity with a high critical temperature. But the most intriguing prediction - that the seemingly simple metals Li and Na will transform under pressure into insulating states, owing to pairing of alkali atoms - has yet to be experimentally confirmed. Here we report experimental observations of a pressure-induced transformation of Na into an optically transparent phase at 200 GPa (corresponding to 5.0-fold compression). Experimental and computational data identify the new phase as a wide bandgap dielectric with a six-coordinated, highly distorted double-hexagonal close-packed structure. We attribute the emergence of this dense insulating state not to atom pairing, but to p-d hybridizations of valence electrons and their repulsion by core electrons into the lattice interstices. We expect that such insulating states may also form in other elements and compounds when compression is sufficiently strong that atomic cores start to overlap strongly.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗
arXiv2009

Global and local critical current density in superconducting SmFeAsO$_{1-x}$F$_x$ measured by two methods

The critical current densities of polycrystalline bulk SmFeAsO$_{1-x}$F$_x$ prepared by the powder-in-tube (PIT) method and by a conventional solid-state reaction were investigated using the remnant magnetic moment method and Campbell's method. Two types of shielding current, corresponding to global and local critical current densities $J_{\rm c}$ were observed using both measurement methods. The global and local $J_{\rm c}$ were on the order of $10^7$ A/m$^2$ and $10^{10}$ A/m$^2$ at 5 K, respectively. The local $J_{\rm c}$ decreased slightly with increasing magnetic field. The global $J_{\rm c}$ was independent of the preparation method, while the local $J_{\rm c}$ was larger for samples prepared by PIT than for those prepared by solid-state reaction.

cond-mat.supr-con↗
arXiv2002

Has Nucleonic Matter at the Critical Point Been Produced in Recent Multifragmentation Experiments?

For nuclei in five different mass regions the critical temperatures, at which the surface tension vanishes, are derived from information on the liquid branch of the coexistence curve. These critical temperatures increase with increasing mass and, for higher masses are well above recently reported critical temperatures obtained from Fisher Droplet model and percolation model analyses. However, for the lowest mass region nuclei, with 30<A<60, this analysis indicates that nucleonic matter has been produced essentially at the critical point, characterized by Tc and rho_c.

nucl-ex↗
arXiv2002

Caloric Curves and Nuclear Expansion

Nuclear caloric curves have been analyzed using an expanding Fermi gas hypothesis to extract average nuclear densities. In this approach the observed flattening of the caloric curves reflects progressively increasing expansion with increasing excitation energy. This expansion results in a corresponding decrease in the density and Fermi energy of the excited system. For nuclei of medium to heavy mass apparent densities ~ 0.4 rho_0 are reached at the higher excitation energies.

nucl-ex↗