arXiv subjects

Z. Wang

Publications and source records attributed to Z. Wang.

At least 127 records · Page 7Linked to original sources

arXiv2021

Improved limits on solar axions and bosonic dark matter from the CDEX-1B experiment using the profile likelihood ratio method

We present the improved constraints on couplings of solar axions and more generic bosonic dark matter particles using 737.1 kg-days of data from the CDEX-1B experiment. The CDEX-1B experiment, located at the China Jinping Underground Laboratory, primarily aims at the direct detection of weakly interacting massive particles using a p-type point-contact germanium detector. We adopt the profile likelihood ratio method for analysis of data in the presence of backgrounds. An energy threshold of 160 eV was achieved, much better than the 475 eV of CDEX-1A with an exposure of 335.6 kg-days. This significantly improves the sensitivity for the bosonic dark matter below 0.8 keV among germanium detectors. Limits are also placed on the coupling $g_{Ae} < 2.48 \times 10^{-11}$ from Compton, bremsstrahlung, atomic-recombination and de-excitation channels and $g^{eff}_{AN} \times g_{Ae} < 4.14 \times 10^{-17}$ from a $^{57}$Fe M1 transition at 90\% confidence level.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2021

Regularity of fractional heat semigroup associated with Schrödinger operators

Let $L=-Δ+V$ be a Schrödinger operator, where the potential $V$ belongs to the reverse Hölder class. By the subordinative formula, we introduce the fractional heat semigroup $\{e^{-t{L}^α}\}_{t>0}, α>0$, associated with ${L}$. By the aid of the fundamental solution of the heat equation: $$\partial_{t}u+L u=\partial_{t}u -Δu+Vu=0,$$ we estimate the gradient and the time-fractional derivatives of the fractional heat kernel $K^{L}_{α,t}(\cdot, \cdot)$, respectively. This method is independent of the Fourier transform, and can be applied to the second order differential operators whose heat kernels satisfying Gaussian upper bounds. As an application, we establish a Carleson measure characterization of the Campanato type space $BMO^γ_{L}(\mathbb{R}^{n})$ via $\{e^{-t{L}^α}\}_{t>0}$.

math.CA↗

arXiv2021

Evolutionary games on simplicial complexes

Elucidating the mechanisms that lead to cooperation is still one of the main scientific challenges of current times, as many common cooperative scenarios remain elusive and at odds with Darwin's natural selection theory. Here, we study evolutionary games on populations that are structured beyond pairwise interactions. Specifically, we introduce a general evolutionary approach that allows studying situations in which indirect interactions via a neighbor other than the direct pairwise connection (or via a group of neighbors), impact the strategy of the focal player. To this end, we consider simplicial graphs that encode two- and three-body interactions, which enables to study competition between all possible pairs of social dilemmas and to scrutinize the role of three-body interactions in all the observed phenomenology. We simultaneously investigate how social dilemma with different Nash equilibria compete in simplicial structures and how such a competition is modulated by the unbalance of 2- and 1-simplices, which in its turn reflects the relative prevalence of pairwise or group interactions among the players. We report a number of results that: (i) support that higher-order games allow for non-dominant strategists to emerge and coexist with dominant ones, a scenario that can't be explained by any pairwise schemes, no matter the network of contacts; (ii) characterize a novel transition from dominant defection to dominant cooperation as a function of the simplicial structure of the population; and (iii) demonstrate that 2-simplex interactions are a source of strategy diversity, i.e. increasing the relative prevalence of group interactions always promotes diverse strategic identities of individuals. Our study constitutes a step forward in the quest for understanding the roots of cooperation and the mechanisms that sustain it in real-world and social environments.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2021

Numerical study of COVID-19 spatial-temporal spreading in London

Recent study reported that an aerosolised virus (COVID-19) can survive in the air for a few hours. It is highly possible that people get infected with the disease by breathing and contact with items contaminated by the aerosolised virus. However, the aerosolised virus transmission and trajectories in various meteorological environments remain unclear. This paper has investigated the movement of aerosolised viruses from a high concentration source across a dense urban area. The case study looks at the highly air polluted areas of London: University College Hospital (UCH) and King Cross and St Pancras International Station (KCSPI). We explored the spread and decay of COVID-19 released from the hospital and railway stations with the prescribed meteorological conditions. The study has three key findings: the primary result is that it is possible for the virus to travel from meters up to hundred meters from the source location. The secondary finding shows viruses released into the atmosphere from entry and exit points at KCSPI remain trapped within a small radial distance of < 50m. This strengthens the case for the use of face coverings to reduce the infection rate. The final finding shows that there are different levels of risk at various door locations for UCH, depending on which door is used there can be a higher concentration of COVID-19. Although our results are based on London, since the fundamental knowledge processes are the same, our study can be further extended to other locations (especially the highly air polluted areas) in the world.

physics.med-ph↗

arXiv2021

Theia: An advanced optical neutrino detector

New developments in liquid scintillators, high-efficiency, fast photon detectors, and chromatic photon sorting have opened up the possibility for building a large-scale detector that can discriminate between Cherenkov and scintillation signals. Such a detector could exploit these two distinct signals to observe particle direction and species using Cherenkov light while also having the excellent energy resolution and low threshold of a scintillator detector. Situated in a deep underground laboratory, and utilizing new techniques in computing and reconstruction techniques, such a detector could achieve unprecedented levels of background rejection, thus enabling a rich physics program that would span topics in nuclear, high-energy, and astrophysics, and across a dynamic range from hundreds of keV to many GeV. The scientific program would include observations of low- and high-energy solar neutrinos, determination of neutrino mass ordering and measurement of the neutrino CP violating phase, observations of diffuse supernova neutrinos and neutrinos from a supernova burst, sensitive searches for nucleon decay and, ultimately, a search for NeutrinoLess Double Beta Decay (NLDBD) with sensitivity reaching the normal ordering regime of neutrino mass phase space. This paper describes Theia, a detector design that incorporates these new technologies in a practical and affordable way to accomplish the science goals described above. We consider two scenarios, one in which Theia would reside in a cavern the size and shape of the caverns intended to be excavated for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) which we call Theia 25, and a larger 100 ktonne version (Theia 100) that could achieve an even broader and more sensitive scientific program.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2021

Inhomogeneous Knight shift in vortex cores of superconducting FeSe

We report $^{77}$Se NMR data in the normal and superconducting states of a single crystal of FeSe for several different field orientations. The Knight shift is suppressed in the superconducting state for in-plane fields, but does not vanish at zero temperature. For fields oriented out of the plane, little or no reduction is observed below $T_c$. These results reflect spin-singlet pairing emerging from a nematic state with large orbital susceptibility and spin-orbit coupling. The spectra and spin-relaxation rate data reveal electronic inhomogeneity that is enhanced in the superconducting state, possibly arising from enhanced density of states in the vortex cores. Despite the spin polarization of these states, there is no evidence for antiferromagnetic fluctuations.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2021

Bright, high-repetition-rate water window soft X-ray source enabled by nonlinear pulse self-compression in an antiresonant hollow-core fibre

Bright, coherent soft X-ray (SXR) radiation is essential to a variety of applications in fundamental research and life sciences. So far, high photon flux in this spectral region can only be delivered by synchrotrons, free electron lasers or high-order harmonic generation (HHG) sources, which are driven by kHz-class repetition rate lasers with very high peak powers. Here, we establish a novel route toward powerful and easy-to-use SXR sources by presenting a compact experiment, in which nonlinear pulse self-compression to the few-cycle regime is combined with phase-matched HHG in a single, helium-filled antiresonant hollow-core fibre (ARHCF). This enables the first 100 kHz-class repetition rate, table-top SXR source, that delivers an application-relevant flux of 2.8*10^6 Photons/s/eV around 300 eV. The fibre-integration of temporal pulse self-compression (leading to the formation of the necessary strong-field waveforms) and pressure controlled phase-matching will allow compact, high repetition rate laser technology, including commercially available systems, to drive simple and cost-effective, coherent high-flux SXR sources.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2021

Surrogate-free machine learning-based organ dose reconstruction for pediatric abdominal radiotherapy

To study radiotherapy-related adverse effects, detailed dose information (3D distribution) is needed for accurate dose-effect modeling. For childhood cancer survivors who underwent radiotherapy in the pre-CT era, only 2D radiographs were acquired, thus 3D dose distributions must be reconstructed from limited information. State-of-the-art methods achieve this by using 3D surrogate anatomies. These can lack personalization and lead to coarse reconstructions. We present and validate a surrogate-free dose reconstruction method based on Machine Learning (ML). Abdominal planning CTs ($n$=142) of recently-treated childhood cancer patients were gathered, their organs at risk were segmented, and 300 artificial Wilms' tumor plans were sampled automatically. Each artificial plan was automatically emulated on the 142 CTs, resulting in 42,600 3D dose distributions from which dose-volume metrics were derived. Anatomical features were extracted from digitally reconstructed radiographs simulated from the CTs to resemble historical radiographs. Further, patient and radiotherapy plan features typically available from historical treatment records were collected. An evolutionary ML algorithm was then used to link features to dose-volume metrics. Besides 5-fold cross-validation, a further evaluation was done on an independent dataset of five CTs each associated with two clinical plans. Cross-validation resulted in Mean Absolute Errors (MAEs) $\leq$0.6 Gy for organs completely inside or outside the field. For organs positioned at the edge of the field, MAEs $\leq$1.7 Gy for D$_{mean}$, $\leq$2.9 Gy for D$_{2cc}$, and $\leq$13% for V$_{5Gy}$ and V$_{10Gy}$, were obtained, without systematic bias. Similar results were found for the independent dataset. Our novel, ML-based organ dose reconstruction method is not only accurate but also efficient, as the setup of a surrogate is no longer needed.

physics.med-ph↗

arXiv2021

Variational system identification of the partial differential equations governing microstructure evolution in materials: Inference over sparse and spatially unrelated data

Pattern formation is a widely observed phenomenon in diverse fields including materials physics, developmental biology and ecology, among many others. The physics underlying the patterns is specific to the mechanisms, and is encoded by partial differential equations (PDEs). With the aim of discovering hidden physics, we have previously presented a variational approach to identifying such systems of PDEs in the face of noisy data at varying fidelities (Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering, 353:201-216, 2019). Here, we extend our variational system identification methods to address the challenges presented by image data on microstructures in materials physics. PDEs are formally posed as initial and boundary value problems over combinations of time intervals and spatial domains whose evolution is either fixed or can be tracked. However, the vast majority of microscopy techniques for evolving microstructure in a given material system deliver micrographs of pattern evolution over domains that bear no relation with each other at different time instants. The temporal resolution can rarely capture the fastest time scales that dominate the early dynamics, and noise abounds. Furthermore, data for evolution of the same phenomenon in a material system may well be obtained from different physical specimens. Against this backdrop of spatially unrelated, sparse and multi-source data, we exploit the variational framework to make judicious choices of weighting functions and identify PDE operators from the dynamics. A consistency condition arises for parsimonious inference of a minimal set of the spatial operators at steady state. It is complemented by a confirmation test that provides a sharp condition for acceptance of the inferred operators. The entire framework is demonstrated on synthetic data that reflect the characteristics of the experimental material microscopy images.

cs.CE↗

arXiv2021

Photon-counting spectral phase-contrast mammography

Phase-contrast imaging is an emerging technology that may increase the signal-difference-to-noise ratio in medical imaging. One of the most promising phase-contrast techniques is Talbot interferometry, which, combined with energy-sensitive photon-counting detectors, enables spectral differential phase-contrast mammography. We have evaluated a realistic system based on this technique by cascaded-systems analysis and with a task-dependent ideal-observer detectability index as a figure-of-merit. Beam-propagation simulations were used for validation and illustration of the analytical framework. Differential phase contrast improved detectability compared to absorption contrast, in particular for fine tumor structures. This result was supported by images of human mastectomy samples that were acquired with a conventional detector. The optimal incident energy was higher in differential phase contrast than in absorption contrast when disregarding the setup design energy. Further, optimal weighting of the transmitted spectrum was found to have a weaker energy dependence than for absorption contrast. Taking the design energy into account yielded a superimposed maximum on both detectability as a function of incident energy, and on optimal weighting. Spectral material decomposition was not facilitated by phase contrast, but phase information may be used instead of spectral information.

physics.med-ph↗

arXiv2020

First observation of magnetic flux rope inside electron diffusion region

Magnrtic flux ropes (MFRs) play a crucial role during magnetic reconnection. They are believed to be primarily generated by tearing mode instabilities in the electron diffusion region (EDR). However, they have never been observed inside the EDR. Here, we present the first observation of an MFR inside an EDR. The bifurcated non-force-free MFR, with a width of 27.5de in the L direction and 4.8de in the N direction, was moving away from the X-line. Inside the MFR, strong energy dissipation was detected. The MFR can modulate the electric field in the EDR. We reconstructed magnetic topology of the electron-scale MFR. Our study promotes understanding of MRFs' initial state and its role in electron-scale processes during magnetic reconnection.

physics.space-ph↗

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

Hyperfine Couplings as a Probe of Orbital Anisotropy in Heavy Fermion Materials

The transferred hyperfine interaction between nuclear and electron spins in an heavy fermion material depends on the hybridization between the $f$-electron orbitals and those surrounding a distant nucleus. In CeMIn$_5$ (M=Rh, Ir, Co), both the hyperfine coupling to the two indium sites as well as the crystalline electric field at the Ce are strongly dependent on the transition metal. We measure a series of CeRh$_{1-x}$Ir$_x$In$_5$ crystals and find that the hyperfine coupling reflects the orbital anisotropy of the ground state Ce 4$f$ wavefunction. These findings provide direct proof that the localized to itinerant transition is dominated by hybridization out of the Ce-In plane in this system.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2020

Self-Supervised Domain Adaptation with Consistency Training

We consider the problem of unsupervised domain adaptation for image classification. To learn target-domain-aware features from the unlabeled data, we create a self-supervised pretext task by augmenting the unlabeled data with a certain type of transformation (specifically, image rotation) and ask the learner to predict the properties of the transformation. However, the obtained feature representation may contain a large amount of irrelevant information with respect to the main task. To provide further guidance, we force the feature representation of the augmented data to be consistent with that of the original data. Intuitively, the consistency introduces additional constraints to representation learning, therefore, the learned representation is more likely to focus on the right information about the main task. Our experimental results validate the proposed method and demonstrate state-of-the-art performance on classical domain adaptation benchmarks. Code is available at https://github.com/Jiaolong/ss-da-consistency.

cs.CV↗

arXiv2020

Optical transceivers for event triggers in the ATLAS phase-I upgrade

The ATLAS phase-I upgrade aims to enhance event trigger performance in the Liquid Argon (LAr) calorimeter and the forward muon spectrometer. The trigger signals are transmitted by optical transceivers at 5.12 Gbps per channel in a radiation field. We report the design, quality control in production and ageing test of the transceivers fabricated with the LOCld laser driver and multi-mode 850 nm vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL). The modules are packaged in miniature formats of dual-channel transmitter (MTx) and transceiver (MTRx) for the LAr. The transmitters are also packaged in small form-factor pluggable (SFP) for the muon spectrometer. In production, the LOCld chips and VCSELs in TOSA package were examined before assembly. All of the modules were tested and selected during production for quality control based on the eye-diagram parameters measured at 5.12 Gbps. The yield is 98 % for both the MTx and MTRx on a total 4.7k modules. The uniformity of transmitter channels of a MTx was assured by choosing the TOSA components with approximately equal light powers. The ageing effect is monitored in burn-in of a small batch of transmitter modules with bit-error test and eye-diagrams measured periodically. The observables are stable with the light power degradation within 5 % over a period of more than 6k hours.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2020

Terahertz Magneto-optical investigation of quadrupolar spin-lattice effects in magnetically frustrated Tb2Ti2O7

The significance of spin-lattice coupling in the phase diagram of the quantum spin-icepyrochlore Tb2Ti2O7 has been a topic of debate for some time. Here, we focus on the aspect of vibronic coupling, which occurs between the Tb3+ electronic levels and transverse acoustic phonons, by studying their dependence on a magnetic field applied along the cubic h111i direction. Our experimental THz spectroscopy measurements, combined with quantitative theoretical quantum calculations, show that indeed vibronic effects are observed at 3 K. An analysis incorporating quadrupolar spin-lattice effects in the Hamiltonian is therefore relevant in this compound, which is no longer optically isotropic but magnetically birefringent.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2020

Tunable coupler for realizing a controlled-phase gate with dynamically decoupled regime in a superconducting circuit

Controllable interaction between superconducting qubits is desirable for large-scale quantum computation and simulation. Here, based on a theoretical proposal by Yan et al. [Phys. Rev. Appl. 10, 054061 (2018)] we experimentally demonstrate a simply-designed and flux-controlled tunable coupler with a continuous tunability by adjusting the coupler frequency, which can completely turn off adjacent superconducting qubit coupling. Utilizing the tunable interaction between two qubits via the coupler, we implement a different type of controlled-phase (CZ) gate with 'dynamically decoupled regime', which allows the qubit-qubit coupling to be only 'on' at the usual operating point while dynamically 'off' during the tuning process of one qubit frequency into and out of the operating point. This scheme not only efficiently suppresses the leakage out of the computational subspace, but also allows for the acquired two-qubit phase being geometric at the operating point. We achieve an average CZ gate fidelity of 98.3(0.6), which is dominantly limited by qubit decoherence. The demonstrated tunable coupler provides a desirable tool to suppress adjacent qubit coupling and is suitable for large scale quantum computation and simulation.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2020

Free-standing silicon shadow masks for transmon qubit fabrication

Nanofabrication techniques for superconducting qubits rely on resist-based masks patterned by electron-beam or optical lithography. We have developed an alternative nanofabrication technique based on free-standing silicon shadow masks fabricated from silicon-on-insulator wafers. These silicon shadow masks not only eliminate organic residues associated with resist-based lithography, but also provide a pathway to better understand and control surface-dielectric losses in superconducting qubits by decoupling mask fabrication from substrate preparation. We have successfully fabricated aluminum 3D transmon superconducting qubits with these shadow masks and found coherence quality factors comparable to those fabricated with standard techniques.

physics.app-ph↗