arXiv subjects

Z. Y. Liu

Publications and source records attributed to Z. Y. Liu.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2013

Topological Insulators in Hexagonal Wurtzite-type Binary Compounds

We propose new topological insulators in hexagonal wurtzite-type binary compounds based on the first principles calculations. It is found that two compounds AgI and AuI are three-dimensional topological insulators with a naturally opened band-gap at Fermi level. From band inversion mechanism point view, this new family of topological insulators is similar with HgTe, which has s (Gamma 6) - p (Gamma 8) band inversion. Our results strongly support that the spin-orbit coupling is not an essential factor to the band inversion mechanism; on the contrary, it is mainly responsible to the formation of a global band gap for the studied topological insulators. We further theoretically explore the feasibility of tuning the topological order of the studied compounds with two types of strains. The results show that the uniaxial strain can contribute extremely drastic impacts to the band inversion behavior, which provide an effective approach to induce topological phase transition.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2013

Non-detection of pulsed radio emission from magnetar Swift J1834.9-0846: constraint on the fundamental plane of magnetar radio emission

The magnetar Swift J1834.9-0846 is observed using Nanshan 25 meter radio telescope. No pulsed radio emission is detected. The upper limit on pulsed radio emission from this source is 0.5 mJy. According to the fundamental plane for radio magnetars, this source should have radio emission. Therefore, our results put constraints on the existence of a fundamental plane of magnetar radio emission. We argue that a magnetar's ability to emit radio emission may have little to do with the spin down luminosity and it is related to the magnetar X-ray luminosity. The only necessary condition is a relatively low X-ray luminosity.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2012

Phototransistor Behavior Based on Dye-Sensitized Solar Cell

In the present work, a light-controlled device cell is established based on the dye-sensitized solar cell using nanocrystalline TiO2 films. Voltage-current curves are characterized by three types of transport behaviors: linear increase, saturated plateau and breakdown-like increase, which are actually of the typical performances for a photo-gated transistor. Moreover, an asymmetric behavior is observed in the voltage-current loops, which is believed to arise from the difference in the effective photo-conducting areas. The photovoltaic voltage between the shared counter electrode and drain (VCE-D) is investigated as well, clarifying that the predominant dark process in source and the predominant photovoltaic process in drain are series connected, modifying the electric potential levels and thus resulting in the characteristic phototransistor behaviors.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2012

Generalized Slater-Pauling rule for the inverse Heusler compounds

We present extensive first-principles calculations on the inverse full-Heusler compounds having the chemical formula X$_2$YZ where (X = Sc, Ti, V, Cr or Mn), (Z = Al, Si or As) and the Y ranges from Ti to Zn. Several of these alloys are identified to be half-metallic magnets. We show that the appearance of half-metallicity is associated in all cases to a Slater-Pauling behavior of the total spin-magnetic moment. There are three different variants of this rule for the inverse Heusler alloys depending on the chemical type of the constituent transition-metal atoms. Simple arguments regarding the hybridization of the d-orbitals of neighboring atoms can explain these rules. We expect our results to trigger further experimental interest on this type of half-metallic Heusler compounds.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2011

Long term monitoring of mode switching for PSR B0329+54

The mode switching phenomenon of PSR B0329+54 is investigated based on the long-term monitoring from September 2003 to April 2009 made with the Urumqi 25m radio telescope at 1540 MHz. At that frequency, the change of relative intensity between the leading and trailing components is the predominant feature of mode switching. The intensity ratios between the leading and trailing components are measured for the individual profiles averaged over a few minutes. It is found that the ratios follow normal distributions, where the abnormal mode has a wider typical width than the normal mode, indicating that the abnormal mode is less stable than the normal mode. Our data show that 84.9% of the time for PSR B0329+54 was in the normal mode and 15.1% was in the abnormal mode. From the two passages of eight-day quasi-continuous observations in 2004, and supplemented by the daily data observed with 15 m telescope at 610 MHz at Jodrell Bank Observatory, the intrinsic distributions of mode timescales are constrained with the Bayesian inference method. It is found that the gamma distribution with the shape parameter slightly smaller than 1 is favored over the normal, lognormal and Pareto distributions. The optimal scale parameters of the gamma distribution is 31.5 minutes for the abnormal mode and 154 minutes for the normal mode. The shape parameters have very similar values, i.e. 0.75^{+0.22}_{-0.17} for the normal mode and 0.84^{+0.28}_{-0.22} for the abnormal mode, indicating the physical mechanisms in both modes may be the same. No long-term modulation of the relative intensity ratios was found for both the modes, suggesting that the mode switching was stable. The intrinsic timescale distributions, for the first time constrained for this pulsar, provide valuable information to understand the physics of mode switching.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2011

Strong pulses detected from a rotating radio transient J1819$-$1458

We analyze individual pulses detected from RRAT J1819$-$1458. From April 2007 to April 2010, we carried out observations using the Nanshan 25-m radio telescope of Urumqi Observatory at a central frequency of 1541.25 MHz. We obtain a dispersion measure $DM=195.7\pm0.3$ pc cm^{-3} by analyzing all the 423 detected bursts. The tri-band pattern of arrival time residuals is confirmed by a single pulse timing analysis. Twenty-seven bimodal bursts located in the middle residual band are detected, and, profiles of two typical bimodal bursts and two individual single-peak pulses are presented. We determine the statistical properties of SNR and W$_{50}$ of bursts in different residual bands. The W$_{50}$ variation with SNR shows that the shapes of bursts are quite different from each other. The cumulative probability distribution of intensity for a possible power law with index $α=1.6\pm0.2$ is inferred from the number of those bursts with $SNR\ge6$ and high intensities.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2010

Multiwavelength properties of a new Geminga-like pulsar: PSR J2021+4026

In this paper, we report a detailed investigation of the multiwavelength properties of a newly detected gamma-ray pulsar, PSR J2021+4026, in both observational and theoretical aspects. We firstly identify an X-ray source in the XMM-Newton serendipitous source catalogue, 2XMM J202131.0+402645, located within the 95% confidence circle of PSR J2021+4026. With an archival Chandra observation, this identification provides an X-ray position with arcsecond accuracy which is helpful in facilitating further investigations. Searching for the pulsed radio emission at the position of 2XMM J202131.0+402645 with a 25-m telescope at Urumqi Astronomical Observatory resulted in null detection and places an upper-limit of 0.1~mJy for any pulsed signal at 18~cm. Together with the emission properties in X-ray and gamma-ray, the radio quietness suggests PSR J2021+4026 to be another member of Geminga-like pulsars. In the radio sky survey data, extended emission features have been identified in the gamma-ray error circle of PSR J2021+4026. We have also re-analyzed the gamma-ray data collected by FERMI's Large Area Telescope. We found that the X-ray position of 2XMM J202131.0+402645 is consistent with that of the optimal gamma-ray timing solution. We have further modeled the results in the context of outer gap model which provides us with constraints for the pulsar emission geometry such as magnetic inclination angle and the viewing angle. We have also discussed the possibility of whether PSR J2021+4026 has any physical association with the supernova remnant G78.2+2.1 (gamma-Cygni).

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2010

A very large glitch in PSR B2334+61

Seven years of pulse time-of-arrival measurements have been collected from observations of the young pulsar PSR B2334+61 using the Nanshan radio telescope of Urumqi Observatory. A phase-connected solution has been obtained over the whole data span, 2002 August to 2009 August. This includes a very large glitch that occurred between 2005 August 26 and September 8 (MJDs 53608 and 53621). The relative increase in rotational frequency for this glitch, $Δν_{g}/ν~\sim~20.5\times10^{-6}$, is the largest ever seen. Although accounting for less than 1\% of the glitch, there were two well-defined exponential decay terms with time constants of 21 and 147 days respectively. There was also a large long-term increase in the spindown rate with $Δ\dotν_p/\dotν\sim 0.011$ at the time of the glitch. A highly significant oscillation with a period of close to one year is seen in the post-glitch residuals. It is very unlikely that this can be accounted for by a pulsar position error or proper motion -- it appears to result from effects interior to the neutron star. Implications of these results for pulsar glitch models are discussed.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2010

29 Glitches Detected at Urumqi Observatory

Glitches detected in pulsar timing observations at the Nanshan radio telescope of Urumqi Observatory between 2002 July and 2008 December are presented. In total, 29 glitches were detected in 19 young pulsars, with this being the first detection of a glitch in 12 of these pulsars. Fractional glitch amplitudes range from a few parts in 10^{-11} to 3.9 x 10^{-6}. Three "slow" glitches are identified in PSRs J0631+1036, B1822-09 and B1907+10. Post-glitch recoveries differ greatly from pulsar to pulsar and for different glitches in the same pulsar. Most large glitches show some evidence for exponential post-glitch recovery on timescales of 100 -- 1000 days, but in some cases, e.g., PSR B1758-23, there is little or no recovery. Beside exponential recoveries, permanent increases in slowdown rate are seen for the two large glitches in PSRs B1800-21 and B1823-13. These and several other pulsars also show a linear increase in nudot following the partial exponential recovery, which is similar to the Vela pulsar post-glitch behaviour. Analysis of the whole sample of known glitches show that fractional glitch amplitudes are correlated with characteristic age with a peak at about 10^5 years, but there is a spread of two or three orders of magnitude at all ages. Glitch activity is positively correlated with spin-down rate, again with a wide spread of values.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2009

Hurst parameter analysis of radio pulsar timing noise

We present an analysis of timing residual (noise) of 54 pulsars obtained from 25-m radio telescope at Urumqi Observatory with a time span of 5~8 years, dealing with statistics of the Hurst parameter. The majority of these pulsars were selected to have timing noise that look like white noise rather than smooth curves. The results are compared with artificial series of different constant pairwise covariances. Despite the noise like appearance, many timing residual series showed Hurst parameters significantly deviated from that of independent series. We concluded that Hurst parameter may be capable of detecting dependence in timing residual and of distinguishing chaotic behavior from random processes.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2008

Timing observations of RRAT J1819-1458 at Urumqi Observatory

We report the timing-analysis results obtained for RRAT J1819-1458 from regular timing observations at 1.54 GHz using the Urumqi 25 m radio telescope between 2007 April to 2008 March. RRAT J1819-1458 is a relatively young and highly magnetized neutron star discovered by its sporadic short bursts in the Parkes Multibeam Pulsar Survey data. In 94 hrs of observation data, we detected a total of 162 dispersed bursts of RRAT J1819-1458 with the signal-to-noise ratios (S/Ns) above 5-$σ$ threshold. Among them, 5 bursts clearly show two-component structure. The S/N of the strongest burst is 13.3. The source's DM measured through our data is 196.0 $\pm$0.4 pc cm$^{-3}$. The timing position, frequency and its first derivative were determined using standard pulsar timing techniques on the arrival times of these individual bursts. The accuracy of the solved rotating parameters are improved comparing with that in previous publication. Our timing position with 2-$σ$ error is consistent with the position of its X-ray counterpart CXOU J181934.1-145804. The effect of timing noise and the phase fluctuation of the individual short bursts on the timing residuals is briefly discussed. The distribution of the timing residuals is bimodal, which cannot be explained readily by timing irregularity.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2007

Observations of Six Glitches in PSR B1737-30

Six glitches have been recently observed in the rotational frequency of the young pulsar PSR B1737-30 (J1740-3015) using the 25-m Nanshan telescope of Urumqi Observatory. With a total of 20 glitches in 20 years, it is one of the most frequently glitching pulsars of the about 1750 known pulsars. Glitch amplitudes are very variable with fractional increases in rotation rate ranging from 10^{-9} to 10^{-6}. Inter-glitch intervals are also very variable, but no relationship is observed between interval and the size of the preceding glitch. There is a persistent increase in |\dotν|, opposite in sign to that expected from slowdown with a positive braking index, which may result from changes in the effective magnetic dipole moment of the star during the glitch.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2005

Competition between the BCS superconductivity and ferromagnetic spin fluctuations in MgCNi$_3$

The low temperature specific heat of the superconductor MgCNi$_3$ and a non-superconductor MgC$_{0.85}$Ni$_3$ is investigated in detail. An additional contribution is observed from the data of MgCNi$_3$ but absent in MgC$_{0.85}$Ni$_3$, which is demonstrated to be insensitive to the applied magnetic field even up to 12 Tesla. A detailed discussion on its origin is then presented. By subtracting this additional contribution, the zero field specific heat of MgCNi$_3$ can be well described by the BCS theory with the gap ratio ($Δ/k_BT_c$) determined by the previous tunneling measurements. The conventional s-wave pairing state is further proved by the magnetic field dependence of the specific heat at low temperatures and the behavior of the upper critical field.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2004

Growth and superconducting transition of $Pr_{1-x} Ca_x Ba_2 Cu_3 O_{7-δ}$ ($x\approx0.5$) epitaxial thin films

Pr$_{1-x}$Ca$_x$Ba$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{7-δ}$($x\approx$0.5) thin films have been grown on SrTiO$_3$ and YSZ substrates by the pulsed laser ablation. The substrate temperature dependence of orientation and superconducting poperties were systematically studied. Good quality \textit{c} and {a}-axis orientated films can be obtained on SrTiO$_3$ via changing the substrate temperature solely. On YSZ, films with good \textit{c}-axis orientation can be grown, while it is hard to grow films with good \emph{a}-axis orientation by changing substrate temperature alone. The highest $T_{C0}$ is about 37K, which is found in the films grown on YSZ with a good \emph{c}-axis orientation. For the films grown on STO, however, the highest $T_{C0}$ is about 35.6K with a mixed orientation of \emph{c}-axis and \emph{a}-axis. In most of the superconducting films, the weak temperature dependence of the normal state resistivity, as characterized by small $R(290K)/R(50K)\leq2$ ratios, together with a weak localization behavior just above $T_C$ could be attributed to the essential scattering due to the localized electronic states. The superconducting transitions in a field up to 10 T along \textit{c}-axis have been measured on a \textit{c}-axis oriented film grown on SrTiO$_3$. The zero-temperature in-plane upper critical field $B^{ab}_{C2}$(0) is estimated from the resistivity transition data.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2003

Temperature and magnetic field dependent tunneling spectroscopy of PtIr/Sr$_{0.9}$La$_{0.1}$CuO$_2$ point contact

Low barrier quasiparticle tunneling spectroscopy on Sr$_{0.9}$La$_{0.1}$CuO$_2$ has been studied with PtIr/Sr$_{0.9}$La$_{0.1}$CuO$_2$ point contacts at various temperatures and magnetic fields. No zero-bias conductance peaks are observed. By fitting tunneling conductance to Blonder-Tinkham-Klapwijk theory, the temperature dependent s-wave superconducting gaps are obtained. The present results exclude the possibility of d-wave symmetry for the pair gap in Sr$_{0.9}$La$_{0.1}$CuO$_2$, and do not support the conventional phonon mediated pairing in this system either.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2003

Bulk Evidence for s-Wave Pairing Symmetry in the n-Type Infinite-Layer Cuprate $Sr_{0.9}La_{0.1}CuO_{2}$

Low temperature specific heat of the electron-doped (n-type) infinite-layer cuprate $Sr_{0.9}La_{0.1}CuO_{2}$ has been measured. The quasiparticle density of states (DOS) in the mixed state is found to be consistent with the feature of the s-wave pairing symmetry, agreeing very well with the earlier tunnelling measurement, but being contrary to the d-wave symmetry well confirmed for the hole-doped (p-type) cuprates. Our results indicate that the electronic DOS are mainly contributed by the vortex cores in the present sample being contrast to the p-type cuprates in which the vortex cores are abnormal and contribute very limited low energy DOS as evidenced by many means.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2003

Influence of Carbon Concentration on the Superconductivity in MgCxNi3

The influence of carbon concentration on the superconductivity (SC) in MgC$_{x}$Ni$_3$ has been investigated by measuring the low temperature specific heat combined with first principles electronic structure calculation. It is found that the specific heat coefficient $γ_n=C_{en}/T$ of the superconducting sample ($x\approx1$) in normal state is twice that of the non-superconducting one ($x\approx 0.85$). The comparison of measured $γ_n$ and the calculated electronic density of states (DOS) shows that the effective mass renormalization changes remarkably as the carbon concentration changes. The large mass renormalization for the superconducting sample and the low $T_{c}$(7K) indicate that more than one kind of boson mediated electron-electron interactions exist in MgC$_{x}$Ni$_3$.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2003

Strictly In-Plane Vortex-like Excitations in Pseudogap Region of Underdoped $La_{2-x}Sr_xCuO_4$ Single Crystals

Nernst effect has been measured for an underdoped and an optimally doped $La_{2-x}Sr_xCuO_4$ single crystal with the magnetic field applied along different directions. For both samples, when $H \|$ c, a significant Nernst voltage appears above $T_c$ and keeps measurable up to a high temperature (100 K) as reported by Xu et al.[ Nature 406, 486(2000) ]. However, when $H \|$ a-b plane the Nernst signal drops below the noise level quickly above $T_c$ for the underdoped sample. Moreover, the in-plane Nernst data with field at different angles shows a nice scaling behavior with the c-axis component of the field. All these give strong indication for strictly in-plane vortex-like excitations in pseudo-gap region.

cond-mat.supr-con↗