arXiv subjects

Yi Zhang

Publications and source records attributed to Yi Zhang.

At least 1,243 records · Page 69Linked to original sources

arXiv2015

The Giant Radio Array for Neutrino Detection

High-energy neutrino astronomy will probe the working of the most violent phenomena in the Universe. The Giant Radio Array for Neutrino Detection (GRAND) project consists of an array of $\sim10^5$ radio antennas deployed over $\sim$200000km$^2$ in a mountainous site. It aims at detecting high-energy neutrinos via the measurement of air showers induced by the decay in the atmosphere of $τ$ leptons produced by the interaction of the cosmic neutrinos under the Earth surface. Our objective with GRAND is to reach a neutrino sensitivity of $3\times10^{-11}E^{-2}$GeV$^{-1}$cm$^{-2}$s$^{-1}$sr$^{-1}$ above $3 \times10^{16}$eV. This sensitivity ensures the detection of cosmogenic neutrinos in the most pessimistic source models, and about 100 events per year are expected for the standard models. GRAND would also probe the neutrino signals produced at the potential sources of UHECRs. We show how our preliminary design should enable us to reach our sensitivity goals, and present the experimental characteristics. We assess the possibility to adapt GRAND to other astrophysical radio measurements. We discuss in this token the technological options for the detector and the steps to be taken to achieve the GRAND project.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2015

Discovery of a Weyl Semimetal in non-Centrosymmetric Compound TaAs

Three-dimensional (3D) topological Weyl semimetals (TWSs) represent a novel state of quantum matter with unusual electronic structures that resemble both a "3D graphene" and a topological insulator by possessing pairs of Weyl points (through which the electronic bands disperse linearly along all three momentum directions) connected by topological surface states, forming the unique "Fermi-arc" type Fermi-surface (FS). Each Weyl point is chiral and contains half of the degrees of freedom of a Dirac point, and can be viewed as a magnetic monopole in the momentum space. Here, by performing angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy on non-centrosymmetric compound TaAs, we observed its complete band structures including the unique "Fermi-arc" FS and linear bulk band dispersion across the Weyl points, in excellent agreement with the theoretical calculations. This discovery not only confirms TaAs as the first 3D TWS, but also provides an ideal platform for realizing exotic physical phenomena (e.g. negative magnetoresistance, chiral magnetic effects and quantum anomalous Hall effect) which may also lead to novel future applications.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2015

The almost mobility edge in the almost Mathieu equation

Harper's equation (aka the "almost Mathieu" equation) famously describes the quantum dynamics of an electron on a one dimensional lattice in the presence of an incommensurate potential with magnitude $V$ and wave number $Q$. It has been proven that all states are delocalized if $V$ is less than a critical value $V_c=2t$ and localized if $V> V_c$. Here, we show that this result (while correct) is highly misleading, at least in the small $Q$ limit. In particular, for $V E_c$, form a set of narrow bands with exponentially small bandwidths $ \sim t\ \exp[-(2πα/Q)]$ (where $α$ is an energy dependent number of order 1) separated by band-gaps $ \sim t Q$. Thus, the states with $|E|> E_c$ are "almost localized" in that they have an exponentially large effective mass and are easily localized by small perturbations. We establish this both using exact numerical solution of the problem, and by exploiting the well known fact that the same eigenvalue problem arises in the Hofstadter problem of an electron moving on a 2D lattice in the presence of a magnetic field, $B=Q/2π$. From the 2D perspective, the almost localized states are simply the Landau levels associated with semiclassical precession around closed contours of constant quasiparticle energy; that they are not truly localized reflects an extremely subtle form of magnetic breakdown.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2015

Variational Monte Carlo study of chiral spin liquid in the extended Heisenberg model on the Kagome lattice

We investigate the extended Heisenberg model on the Kagome lattice by using Gutzwiller projected fermionic states and the variational Monte Carlo technique. In particular, when both second- and third-neighbor super-exchanges are considered, we find that a gapped spin liquid described by non-trivial magnetic fluxes and long-range chiral-chiral correlations is energetically favored compared to the gapless U(1) Dirac state. Furthermore, the topological Chern number, obtained by integrating the Berry curvature, and the degeneracy of the ground state, by constructing linearly independent states, lead us to identify this flux state as the chiral spin liquid with $C=1/2$ fractionalized Chern number.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2015

Finite Element Methods for the Stochastic Allen-Cahn Equation with Gradient-type Multiplicative Noises

This paper studies finite element approximations of the stochastic Allen-Cahn equation with gradient-type multiplicative noises that are white in time and correlated in space. The sharp interface limit as the parameter $ε\rightarrow 0$ of the stochastic equation formally approximates a stochastic mean curvature flow which is described by a stochastically perturbed geometric law of the deterministic mean curvature flow. Both the stochastic Allen-Cahn equation and the stochastic mean curvature flow arise from materials science, fluid mechanics and cell biology applications. Two fully discrete finite element methods which are based on different time-stepping strategies for the nonlinear term are proposed. Strong convergence with sharp rates for both fully discrete finite element methods is proved. This is done with a crucial help of the Hölder continuity in time with respect to the spatial $L^2$-norm and $H^1$-seminorm for the strong solution of the stochastic Allen-Cahn equation, which are key technical lemmas proved in paper. It also relies on the fact that high moments of the strong solution are bounded in various spatial and temporal norms. Numerical experiments are provided to gauge the performance of the proposed fully discrete finite element methods and to study the interplay of the geometric evolution and gradient-type noises.

math.NA↗

arXiv2015

Chiral spin density wave order on frustrated honeycomb and bilayer triangle lattice Hubbard model at half-filling

We study the Hubbard model on the frustrated honeycomb lattice with nearest-neighbor $t_1$ and second nearest-neighbor hopping $t_2$, which is isomorphic to the bilayer triangle lattice, using the SU(2)-invariant slave boson theory. We show that the Coulomb interaction $U$ induces antiferromagnetic (AF) chiral spin-density wave ($χ$-SDW) order in a wide range of $κ=t_2/t_1$ where both the two-sublattice AF order at small $κ$ and the decoupled three-sublattice 120$^\circ$ order at large $κ$ are strongly frustrated, leading to three distinct phases with different anomalous Hall responses. We find a continuous transition from a $χ$-SDW semimetal with anomalous Hall effect to a topological chiral Chern insulator exhibiting quantum anomalous Hall effect, followed by a discontinuous transition to a $χ$-SDW insulator with zero total Chern number but anomalous ac Hall effect.The $χ$-SDW is likely a generic phase of strongly correlated and highly frustrated hexagonal lattice electrons.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2015

Probing the Role of Interlayer Coupling and Coulomb Interactions on Electronic Structure in Few-Layer MoSe2 Nanostructures

Despite the weak nature of interlayer forces in transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) materials, their properties are highly dependent on the number of layers in the few-layer two-dimensional (2D) limit. Here, we present a combined scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy and GW theoretical study of the electronic structure of high quality single- and few-layer MoSe2 grown on bilayer graphene. We find that the electronic (quasiparticle) bandgap, a fundamental parameter for transport and optical phenomena, decreases by nearly one electronvolt when going from one layer to three due to interlayer coupling and screening effects. Our results paint a clear picture of the evolution of the electronic wave function hybridization in the valleys of both the valence and conduction bands as the number of layers is changed. This demonstrates the importance of layer number and electron-electron interactions on van der Waals heterostructures, and helps to clarify how their electronic properties might be tuned in future 2D nanodevices.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2015

Are there quantum oscillations in an incommensurate charge density wave?

Because a material with an incommensurate charge density wave (ICDW) is only quasi-periodic, Bloch's theorem does not apply and there is no sharply defined Fermi surface. We will show that, as a consequence, there are no quantum oscillations which are truly periodic functions of $1/B$ (where $ B$ is the magnitude of an applied magnetic field). For a weak ICDW, there exist broad ranges of $1/B$ in which approximately periodic variations occur, but with frequencies that vary inexorably in an unending cascade with increasing $1/B$. For a strong ICDW, e.g. in a quasi-crystal, no quantum oscillations survive at all. Rational and irrational numbers really are different.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2015

General procedure for determining braiding and statistics of anyons using entanglement interferometry

Recently, it was argued that the braiding and statistics of anyons in a two-dimensional topological phase can be extracted by studying the quantum entanglement of the degenerate ground-states on the torus. This construction either required a lattice symmetry (such as $π/2$ rotation) or tacitly assumed that the `minimum entanglement states' (MESs) for two different bipartitions can be uniquely assigned quasiparticle labels. Here we describe a procedure to obtain the modular $\mathcal S$ matrix, which encodes the braiding statistics of anyons, which does not require making any of these assumptions. Our strategy is to compare MESs of three independent entanglement bipartitions of the torus, which leads to a unique modular $\mathcal S$. This procedure also puts strong constraints on the modular $\mathcal T$ and $\mathcal U$ matrices without requiring any symmetries, and in certain special cases, completely determines it. Our method applies equally to Abelian and non-Abelian topological phases.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2015

Reconstruct the Distance Duality Relation by Gaussian Process

In this letter, the distance-duality (DD) relation is reconstructed by Gaussian process (GP) which is cosmological model-independent. Generally, the GP plays two important roles. One is to shape the $η$ tendency which denotes the deviation from the DD relation, the other one is to produce the luminosity-distance (LD, $D_{L}$) and the angular-diameter-distance (ADD, $D_{A}$) data at the same redshift. The shapes of $η$ are given out based on SNe Ia (Type Ia supernovae) data with different light-curve fitters (including MLCS2K2 and SALT2) and ADD data with different galaxy cluster morphologies (including the elliptical $β$ and spherical $β$ models). The data related to MLCS2K2 light-curve fitter have higher values of $η$ compared to that related to the SALT2 light-curve fitter. As for the morphology of galaxy cluster, the DD relation is favored by the elliptical one.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2014

Hierarchical Bayesian Models with Factorization for Content-Based Recommendation

Most existing content-based filtering approaches learn user profiles independently without capturing the similarity among users. Bayesian hierarchical models \cite{Zhang:Efficient} learn user profiles jointly and have the advantage of being able to borrow discriminative information from other users through a Bayesian prior. However, the standard Bayesian hierarchical models assume all user profiles are generated from the same prior. Considering the diversity of user interests, this assumption could be improved by introducing more flexibility. Besides, most existing content-based filtering approaches implicitly assume that each user profile corresponds to exactly one user interest and fail to capture a user's multiple interests (information needs). In this paper, we present a flexible Bayesian hierarchical modeling approach to model both commonality and diversity among users as well as individual users' multiple interests. We propose two models each with different assumptions, and the proposed models are called Discriminative Factored Prior Models (DFPM). In our models, each user profile is modeled as a discriminative classifier with a factored model as its prior, and different factors contribute in different levels to each user profile. Compared with existing content-based filtering models, DFPM are interesting because they can 1) borrow discriminative criteria of other users while learning a particular user profile through the factored prior; 2) trade off well between diversity and commonality among users; and 3) handle the challenging classification situation where each class contains multiple concepts. The experimental results on a dataset collected from real users on digg.com show that our models significantly outperform the baseline models of L-2 regularized logistic regression and traditional Bayesian hierarchical model with logistic regression.

cs.IR↗

arXiv2014

Learning from Labeled Features for Document Filtering

Existing document filtering systems learn user profiles based on user relevance feedback on documents. In some cases, users may have prior knowledge about what features are important. For example, a Spanish speaker may only want news written in Spanish, and thus a relevant document should contain the feature "Language: Spanish"; a researcher focusing on HIV knows an article with the medical subject "Subject: AIDS" is very likely to be relevant to him/her. Semi-structured documents with rich metadata are increasingly prevalent on the Internet. Motivated by the well-adopted faceted search interface in e-commerce, we study the exploitation of user prior knowledge on faceted features for semi-structured document filtering. We envision two faceted feedback mechanisms, and propose a novel user profile learning algorithm that can incorporate user feedback on features. To evaluate the proposed work, we use two data sets from the TREC filtering track, and conduct a user study on Amazon Mechanical Turk. Our experiment results show that user feedback on faceted features is useful for filtering. The proposed user profile learning algorithm can effectively learn from user feedback on both documents and features, and performs better than several existing methods.

cs.IR↗

arXiv2014

The Cosmological Effect of CMB/BAO Measurements

In this paper, the CMB/BAO measurements which cover the 13 redshift data in the regime $0.106 \leq z \leq 2.34$ are given out. The CMB/BAO samples are based on the BAO distance ratios $r_{s}(z_d)/D_{V}(z)$ and the CMB acoustic scales $l_{A}$. It could give out the accelerating behaviors of the $Λ$CDM, $w$CDM and o$Λ$CDM models. As the direction of the degeneracy of $Ω_{m0}-w$ and $Ω_{m0}-Ω_{k0}$ are different for the CMB/BAO and BAO data, the CMB/BAO data show ability of breaking parameter degeneracy. Our tightest constraining results is from the BAO+Planck/BAO+$Ω_{b}h^2$+$Ω_{m}h^2$ data which has $Ω_{m0}$ tension, but doesn't have $H_{0}$ tension with the Planck result. The extending parameters $w$ and $Ω_{k0}$ could alleviate the $Ω_{m0}$ tensions slightly.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2014

Constrained total undiscounted continuous-time Markov decision processes

The present paper considers the constrained optimal control problem with total undiscounted criteria for a continuous-time Markov decision process (CTMDP) in Borel state and action spaces. Under the standard compactness and continuity conditions, we show the existence of an optimal stationary policy out of the class of general nonstationary ones. In the process, we justify the reduction of the CTMDP model to a discrete-time Markov decision process (DTMDP) model based on the studies of the undiscounted occupancy and occupation measures. We allow that the controlled process is not necessarily absorbing, and the transition rates are not necessarily separated from zero, and can be arbitrarily unbounded; these features count for the main technical difficulties in studying undiscounted CTMDP models.

math.OC↗

arXiv2014

Sufficiency of stationary policies for constrained continuous-time Markov decision processes with total cost criteria

This paper, based on the compactness-continuity and finite value conditions, establishes the sufficiency of the class of stationary policies out of the general class of history-dependent ones for a constrained continuous-time Markov decision process in Borel state and action spaces with total nonnegative cost criteria. The controlled process is not necessarily absorbing, the discount factor can be identically equal to zero, and the transition rates can also be equal to zero, which account for the major technical difficulties. Models with these features seemingly had not been handled in the previous literature.

math.OC↗

arXiv2014

A digital CDS technique and the performance testing

Readout noise is a critical parameter for characterizing the performance of charge-coupled devices (CCDs), which can be greatly reduced by the correlated double sampling (CDS) circuit. However, conventional CDS circuit inevitably introduces new noises since it consists of several active analog components such as operational amplifiers. This paper proposes a digital CDS circuit technique, which transforms the pre-amplified CCD signal into a train of digital presentations by a high-speed data acquisition card directly without the noisy CDS circuit first, then implement the digital CDS algorithm through numerical method. The readout noise of 3.3 e$^{-}$ and the energy resolution of 121 eV@5.9keV can be achieved via the digital CDS technique.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2014

Observation of giant bandgap renormalization and excitonic effects in a monolayer transition metal dichalcogenide semiconductor

Two-dimensional (2D) transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) exhibit novel electrical and optical properties and are emerging as a new platform for exploring 2D semiconductor physics. Reduced screening in 2D results in dramatically enhanced electron-electron interactions, which have been predicted to generate giant bandgap renormalization and excitonic effects. Currently, however, there is little direct experimental confirmation of such many-body effects in these materials. Here we present an experimental observation of extraordinarily large exciton binding energy in a 2D semiconducting TMD. We accomplished this by determining the single-particle electronic bandgap of single-layer MoSe2 via scanning tunneling spectroscopy (STS), as well as the two-particle exciton transition energy via photoluminescence spectroscopy (PL). These quantities yield an exciton binding energy of 0.55 eV for monolayer MoSe2, a value that is orders of magnitude larger than what is seen in conventional 3D semiconductors. This finding is corroborated by our ab initio GW and Bethe Salpeter equation calculations, which include electron correlation effects. The renormalized bandgap and large exciton binding observed here will have a profound impact on electronic and optoelectronic device technologies based on single-layer semiconducting TMDs.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2014

Group Testing with Pools of Fixed Size

In the classical combinatorial (adaptive) group testing problem, one is given two integers $d$ and $n$, where $0\le d\le n$, and a population of $n$ items, exactly $d$ of which are known to be defective. The question is to devise an optimal sequential algorithm that, at each step, tests a subset of the population and determines whether such subset is contaminated (i.e. contains defective items) or otherwise. The problem is solved only when the $d$ defective items are identified. The minimum number of steps that an optimal sequential algorithm takes in general (i.e. in the worst case) to solve the problem is denoted by $M(d, n)$. The computation of $M(d, n)$ appears to be very difficult and a general formula is known only for $d = 1$. We consider here a variant of the original problem, where the size of the subsets to be tested is restricted to be a fixed positive integer $k$. The corresponding minimum number of tests by a sequential optimal algorithm is denoted by $M^{\lbrack k\rbrack}(d, n)$. In this paper we start the investigation of the function $M^{\lbrack k\rbrack}(d, n)$.

math.CO↗