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Published work

141 published item(s)

preprint2026arXiv

AttenA+: Rectifying Action Inequality in Robotic Foundation Models

Existing robotic foundation models, while powerful, are predicated on an implicit assumption of temporal homogeneity: treating all actions as equally informative during optimization. This "flat" training paradigm, inherited from language modeling, remains indifferent to the underlying physical hierarchy of manipulation. In reality, robot trajectories are fundamentally heterogeneous, where low-velocity segments often dictate task success through precision-demanding interactions, while high-velocity motions serve as error-tolerant transitions. Such a misalignment between uniform loss weighting and physical criticality fundamentally limits the performance of current Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models and World-Action Models (WAM) in complex, long-horizon tasks. To rectify this, we introduce AttenA+, an architecture-agnostic framework that prioritizes kinematically critical segments via velocity-driven action attention. By reweighting the training objective based on the inverse velocity field, AttenA+ naturally aligns the model's learning capacity with the physical demands of manipulation. As a plug-and-play enhancement, AttenA+ can be integrated into existing backbones without structural modifications or additional parameters. Extensive experiments demonstrate that AttenA+ significantly elevates the ceilings of current state-of-the-art models. Specifically, it improves OpenVLA-OFT to 98.6% (+1.5%) on the Libero benchmark and pushes FastWAM to 92.4% (+0.6%) on RoboTwin 2.0. Real-world validation on a Franka manipulator further showcases its robustness and cross-task generalization. Our work suggests that mining the intrinsic structural priors of action sequences offers a highly efficient, physics-aware complement to standard scaling laws, paving a new path for general-purpose robotic control.

preprint2026arXiv

Efficient Sequential Recommendation for Long Term User Interest Via Personalization

Recent years have witnessed success of sequential modeling, generative recommender, and large language model for recommendation. Though the scaling law has been validated for sequential models, it showed inefficiency in computational capacity when considering real-world applications like recommendation, due to the non-linear(quadratic) increasing nature of the transformer model. To improve the efficiency of the sequential model, we introduced a novel approach to sequential recommendation that leverages personalization techniques to enhance efficiency and performance. Our method compresses long user interaction histories into learnable tokens, which are then combined with recent interactions to generate recommendations. This approach significantly reduces computational costs while maintaining high recommendation accuracy. Our method could be applied to existing transformer based recommendation models, e.g., HSTU and HLLM. Extensive experiments on multiple sequential models demonstrate its versatility and effectiveness. Source code is available at \href{https://github.com/facebookresearch/PerSRec}{https://github.com/facebookresearch/PerSRec}.

preprint2026arXiv

Evo-TFS: Evolutionary Time-Frequency Domain-Based Synthetic Minority Oversampling Approach to Imbalanced Time Series Classification

Time series classification is a fundamental machine learning task with broad real-world applications. Although many deep learning methods have proven effective in learning time-series data for classification, they were originally developed under the assumption of balanced data distributions. Once data distribution is uneven, these methods tend to ignore the minority class that is typically of higher practical significance. Oversampling methods have been designed to address this by generating minority-class samples, but their reliance on linear interpolation often hampers the preservation of temporal dynamics and the generation of diverse samples. Therefore, in this paper, we propose Evo-TFS, a novel evolutionary oversampling method that integrates both time- and frequency-domain characteristics. In Evo-TFS, strongly typed genetic programming is employed to evolve diverse, high-quality time series, guided by a fitness function that incorporates both time-domain and frequency-domain characteristics. Experiments conducted on imbalanced time series datasets demonstrate that Evo-TFS outperforms existing oversampling methods, significantly enhancing the performance of time-domain and frequency-domain classifiers.

preprint2026arXiv

Fusion in Your Way: Aligning Image Fusion with Heterogeneous Demands via Direct Preference Optimization

As a key technique in multi-modal processing, infrared and visible image fusion (IVIF) plays a crucial role in integrating complementary spectral information for visual enhancement and downstream vision tasks. Despite remarkable progress, existing methods struggle to flexibly accommodate heterogeneous demands. Achieving adaptive fusion that aligns with various preferences from both human and machine vision remains an open and challenging problem. To address this challenge, we propose DPOFusion, a direct preference optimization (DPO) framework integrating the property-aligned latent diffusion model (PALDM) and the preference-controllable latent diffusion model (PCLDM), enabling task-guided, preference-adaptive IVIF for both human and machine vision. The PALDM leverages a latent fusion prior and a joint conditional loss to generate diverse candidate fusion results with various properties. PCLDM is subsequently fine-tuned via instance direct preference optimization (IDPO), enabling direct control of the final fusion results with heterogeneous preference signals. Experimental results demonstrate that our framework not only attains precise preference alignment among humans, vision-language models, and task-driven networks, but also sets a new benchmark for adaptive fusion quality and task-oriented transferability.

preprint2026arXiv

Learning an Efficient Multi-Turn Dialogue Evaluator from Multiple LLM Judges

Evaluating the conversational abilities of large language models (LLMs) remains a challenging task. Current mainstream approaches primarily rely on the "LLM-as-a-judge" paradigm, where an LLM is prompted to serve as an evaluator to assess dialogue quality. However, such methods often suffer from various biases, which undermine the reliability and consistency of the evaluation results. To mitigate these biases, recent methods employ multiple LLMs as judges and aggregate their judgments to select the optimal assessment. Although effective, this multi-judge approach incurs significant computational overhead during inference. In this paper, we propose an efficient dialogue evaluator that captures the collective wisdom of multiple LLM judges by aggregating their preference knowledge into a single model. Our approach preserves the advantages of diverse multi-judge feedback while drastically reducing the evaluation cost, enabling fast, flexible, and fine-grained dialogue quality assessment. Extensive experiments on seven single rating and pairwise comparison dialogue evaluation benchmarks demonstrate that our method outperforms existing baselines across diverse scenarios, showcasing its efficiency and robustness.

preprint2026arXiv

Resolving the bias-precision paradox with stochastic causal representation learning for personalized medicine

Estimating individualized treatment effects from longitudinal observational data is central to data-driven medicine, yet existing methods face a fundamental limitation: reducing confounding bias often suppresses clinically informative heterogeneity, degrading patient-specific predictions. Here, we identify this tension as a bias-precision paradox in causal representation learning and introduce sampling-based maximum mean discrepancy (sMMD), a stochastic alignment strategy that replaces global adversarial balancing with subset-level matching. We instantiate this approach in a framework for counterfactual outcome prediction with attribution-grounded interpretability. Across two large-scale ICU cohorts (n = 27,783), our framework improves accuracy under distribution shift, reducing error by up to 11.5% and substantially increasing recall in high-risk tasks. Mechanistic analyses show that sMMD selectively preserves clinically decisive variables. In human-AI evaluation, our method outperforms clinicians-in-training and large language models, and improves clinician accuracy by 14.7% while reducing decision time, enabling interpretable, real-time clinical decision support.

preprint2025arXiv

Realization of an untrusted intermediate relay architecture using a quantum dot single-photon source

To fully exploit the potential of quantum technologies, quantum networks are needed to link different systems, significantly enhancing applications in computing, cryptography, and metrology. Central to these networks are quantum relays that can facilitate long-distance entanglement distribution and quantum communication. In this work, we present a modular and scalable quantum relay architecture using a high-quality single-photon source. The proposed network incorporates three untrusted intermediate nodes and is capable of a repetition rate of 304.52 MHz. We use a measurement-device-independent protocol to demonstrate secure key establishment over fibers covering up to 300 kilometers. This study highlights the potential of single-photon sources in quantum relays to enhance information transmission, expand network coverage, and improve deployment flexibility, with promising applications in future quantum networks.

preprint2024arXiv

Exploiting Polarized Material Cues for Robust Car Detection

Car detection is an important task that serves as a crucial prerequisite for many automated driving functions. The large variations in lighting/weather conditions and vehicle densities of the scenes pose significant challenges to existing car detection algorithms to meet the highly accurate perception demand for safety, due to the unstable/limited color information, which impedes the extraction of meaningful/discriminative features of cars. In this work, we present a novel learning-based car detection method that leverages trichromatic linear polarization as an additional cue to disambiguate such challenging cases. A key observation is that polarization, characteristic of the light wave, can robustly describe intrinsic physical properties of the scene objects in various imaging conditions and is strongly linked to the nature of materials for cars (e.g., metal and glass) and their surrounding environment (e.g., soil and trees), thereby providing reliable and discriminative features for robust car detection in challenging scenes. To exploit polarization cues, we first construct a pixel-aligned RGB-Polarization car detection dataset, which we subsequently employ to train a novel multimodal fusion network. Our car detection network dynamically integrates RGB and polarization features in a request-and-complement manner and can explore the intrinsic material properties of cars across all learning samples. We extensively validate our method and demonstrate that it outperforms state-of-the-art detection methods. Experimental results show that polarization is a powerful cue for car detection.

preprint2024arXiv

From Function to Distribution Modeling: A PAC-Generative Approach to Offline Optimization

This paper considers the problem of offline optimization, where the objective function is unknown except for a collection of ``offline" data examples. While recent years have seen a flurry of work on applying various machine learning techniques to the offline optimization problem, the majority of these work focused on learning a surrogate of the unknown objective function and then applying existing optimization algorithms. While the idea of modeling the unknown objective function is intuitive and appealing, from the learning point of view it also makes it very difficult to tune the objective of the learner according to the objective of optimization. Instead of learning and then optimizing the unknown objective function, in this paper we take on a less intuitive but more direct view that optimization can be thought of as a process of sampling from a generative model. To learn an effective generative model from the offline data examples, we consider the standard technique of ``re-weighting", and our main technical contribution is a probably approximately correct (PAC) lower bound on the natural optimization objective, which allows us to jointly learn a weight function and a score-based generative model. The robustly competitive performance of the proposed approach is demonstrated via empirical studies using the standard offline optimization benchmarks.

preprint2024arXiv

Interplay of Quantum Resources in Nonlocality Tests

Nonlocality, evidenced by the violation of Bell inequalities, not only signifies entanglement but also highlights measurement incompatibility in quantum systems. Utilizing the generalized Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt (CHSH) Bell inequality, our high-efficiency optical setup achieves a loophole-free violation of $2.0132$. This result provides a device-independent lower bound on entanglement, quantified as the entanglement of formation at $0.0159$. Moreover, by tuning the parameters of the generalized Bell inequality, we enhance the estimation of measurement incompatibility, which is quantified by an effective overlap of $4.3883 \times 10^{-5}$. To explore the intricate interplay among nonlocality, entanglement, and measurement incompatibility, we generate mixed states, allowing for flexible modulation of entanglement via fast switching among the four Bell states using Pockels cells, achieving a fidelity above $99.10\%$. Intriguingly, our results reveal a counterintuitive relationship where increasing incompatibility initially boosts nonlocality but eventually leads to its reduction. Typically, maximal nonlocality does not coincide with maximal incompatibility. This experimental study sheds light on the optimal management of quantum resources for Bell-inequality-based quantum information processing.

preprint2024arXiv

Local distortion driven magnetic phase switching in pyrochlore $Yb_2(Ti_{1-x}Sn_x)_2O_7$

While it is commonly accepted that the disorder induced by magnetic ion doping in quantum magnets usually generates a rugged free-energy landscape resulting in slow or glassy spin dynamics, the disorder/distortion effects associated with non-magnetic ion sites doping are still illusive. Here, using AC susceptibility measurements, we show that the mixture of Sn/Ti on the non-magnetic ion sites of pyrochlore $Yb_2(Ti_{1-x}Sn_x)_2O_7$ induces an antiferromagnetic ground state despite both parent compounds, $Yb_2Ti_2O_7$, and $Yb_2Sn_2O_7$, order ferromagnetically. Local structure studies through neutron total scattering reveals the local distortion in the non-magnetic ion sites and its strong correlation with the magnetic phase switching. Our study, for the first time, demonstrates the local distortion as induced by the non-magnetic ion site mixture could be a new path to achieve magnetic phase switching, which has been traditionally obtained by external stimuli such as temperature, magnetic field, pressure, strain, light, etc.

preprint2024arXiv

Optical skyrmions and other topological quasiparticles of light

Skyrmions are topologically stable quasiparticles that have been predicted and demonstrated in quantum fields, solid-state physics, and magnetic materials, but only recently observed in electromagnetic fields, triggering fast expanding research across different spectral ranges and applications. Here we review the recent advances in optical skyrmions within a unified framework. Starting from fundamental theories, including classification of skyrmionic states, we describe generation and topological control of different kinds of optical skyrmions in structured and time-dependent optical fields. We further highlight generalized classes of optical topological quasiparticles beyond skyrmions and outline the emerging applications, future trends, and open challenges. A complex vectorial field structure of optical quasiparticles with versatile topological characteristics emerges as an important feature in modern spin-optics, imaging and metrology, optical forces, structured light and topological and quantum technologies.

preprint2023arXiv

Multiform Evolution for High-Dimensional Problems with Low Effective Dimensionality

In this paper, we scale evolutionary algorithms to high-dimensional optimization problems that deceptively possess a low effective dimensionality (certain dimensions do not significantly affect the objective function). To this end, an instantiation of the multiform optimization paradigm is presented, where multiple low-dimensional counterparts of a target high-dimensional task are generated via random embeddings. Since the exact relationship between the auxiliary (low-dimensional) tasks and the target is a priori unknown, a multiform evolutionary algorithm is developed for unifying all formulations into a single multi-task setting. The resultant joint optimization enables the target task to efficiently reuse solutions evolved across various low-dimensional searches via cross-form genetic transfers, hence speeding up overall convergence characteristics. To validate the overall efficacy of our proposed algorithmic framework, comprehensive experimental studies are carried out on well-known continuous benchmark functions as well as a set of practical problems in the hyper-parameter tuning of machine learning models and deep learning models in classification tasks and Predator-Prey games, respectively.

preprint2023arXiv

The Bending of C$_3$: Experimentally Probing the $l$-type Doubling and Resonance

C$_3$, a pure carbon chain molecule that has been identified in different astronomical environments, is considered a good probe of kinetic temperatures through observation of transitions involving its low-lying bending mode ($ν_2$) in its ground electronic state. The present laboratory work aims to investigate this bending mode with multiple quanta of excitation by combining recordings of high resolution optical and infrared spectra of C$_3$ produced in discharge experiments. The optical spectra of rovibronic (A $^1Π_u -$ X $^1Σ_g^+$) transitions have been recorded by laser induced fluorescence spectroscopy using a single longitude mode optical parametric oscillator as narrow bandwidth laser source at the University of Science and Technology of China. 36 bands originating from X(0$v_2$0), $v_2 = 0-5$, are assigned. The mid-infrared spectrum of the rovibrational $ν_3$ band has been recorded by Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy using a globar source on the AILES beamline of the SOLEIL synchrotron facility. The spectrum reveals hot bands involving up to 5 quanta of excitation in $ν_2$. From combining analyses of all the presently recorded spectra and literature data, accurate rotational parameters and absolute energy levels of C$_3$, in particular for states involving the bending mode, are determined. A single PGOPHER file containing all available data involving the X and A states (literature and present study) is used to fit all the data. The spectroscopic information derived from this work enables new interstellar searches for C$_3$, not only in the infrared and optical regions investigated here but also notably in the $ν_2$ band region (around 63 cm$^{-1}$) where vibrational satellites can now be accurately predicted. This makes C$_3$ a universal diagnostic tool to study very different astronomical environments, from dark and dense to translucent clouds.

preprint2022arXiv

A New Perspective on the Effects of Spectrum in Graph Neural Networks

Many improvements on GNNs can be deemed as operations on the spectrum of the underlying graph matrix, which motivates us to directly study the characteristics of the spectrum and their effects on GNN performance. By generalizing most existing GNN architectures, we show that the correlation issue caused by the $unsmooth$ spectrum becomes the obstacle to leveraging more powerful graph filters as well as developing deep architectures, which therefore restricts GNNs' performance. Inspired by this, we propose the correlation-free architecture which naturally removes the correlation issue among different channels, making it possible to utilize more sophisticated filters within each channel. The final correlation-free architecture with more powerful filters consistently boosts the performance of learning graph representations. Code is available at https://github.com/qslim/gnn-spectrum.

preprint2022arXiv

An energy independent scaling of transverse momentum spectra of direct (prompt) photons from two-body processes in high-energy proton-proton collisions

Transverse momentum spectra of direct (prompt) photons from two-body processes in high-energy proton-proton (p+p) collisions are analyzed in this paper. We collected the experimental invariant cross-sections at mid-rapidity in p+p collisions measured by the UA6, CCOR, R806, R110, PHENIX, NA24, CMS, ALICE, and ATLAS Collaborations over a center-of-mass energy range from 24.3 GeV to 13 TeV. In fitting the data, we used different kinds of functions which include the revised Tsallis--Pareto-type function (the TP-like function) at the particle level, the convolution of two TP-like functions at the quark level, and the root-sum-of-squares of two revised Tsallis-like functions in which the quark chemical potentials $μ_i=μ_B/3$ or $μ_i=0$, where $μ_B$ is the baryon chemical potential. We have extracted the values of three main free parameters: the effective temperature $T$, power index $n_0$ (or entropy index $q$), and correction index $a_0$. After analyzing the changing trends of the parameters, we found that $T$, $q$, and $a_0$ increase and $n_0$ decreases with the increase of collision energy. Based on the analyses of transverse momentum spectra, an energy independent scaling, i.e. the $x_T$ scaling, is obtained.

preprint2022arXiv

Cross-Modality Deep Feature Learning for Brain Tumor Segmentation

Recent advances in machine learning and prevalence of digital medical images have opened up an opportunity to address the challenging brain tumor segmentation (BTS) task by using deep convolutional neural networks. However, different from the RGB image data that are very widespread, the medical image data used in brain tumor segmentation are relatively scarce in terms of the data scale but contain the richer information in terms of the modality property. To this end, this paper proposes a novel cross-modality deep feature learning framework to segment brain tumors from the multi-modality MRI data. The core idea is to mine rich patterns across the multi-modality data to make up for the insufficient data scale. The proposed cross-modality deep feature learning framework consists of two learning processes: the cross-modality feature transition (CMFT) process and the cross-modality feature fusion (CMFF) process, which aims at learning rich feature representations by transiting knowledge across different modality data and fusing knowledge from different modality data, respectively. Comprehensive experiments are conducted on the BraTS benchmarks, which show that the proposed cross-modality deep feature learning framework can effectively improve the brain tumor segmentation performance when compared with the baseline methods and state-of-the-art methods.

preprint2022arXiv

Deep Reinforcement Learning for Entity Alignment

Embedding-based methods have attracted increasing attention in recent entity alignment (EA) studies. Although great promise they can offer, there are still several limitations. The most notable is that they identify the aligned entities based on cosine similarity, ignoring the semantics underlying the embeddings themselves. Furthermore, these methods are shortsighted, heuristically selecting the closest entity as the target and allowing multiple entities to match the same candidate. To address these limitations, we model entity alignment as a sequential decision-making task, in which an agent sequentially decides whether two entities are matched or mismatched based on their representation vectors. The proposed reinforcement learning (RL)-based entity alignment framework can be flexibly adapted to most embedding-based EA methods. The experimental results demonstrate that it consistently advances the performance of several state-of-the-art methods, with a maximum improvement of 31.1% on Hits@1.

preprint2022arXiv

Device-independent quantum key distribution with random postselection

Device-independent quantum key distribution (QKD) can permit the superior security even with unknown devices. In practice, however, the realization of device-independent QKD is technically challenging because of its low noise tolerance. In photonic setup, due to the limited detection efficiency, a large amount of the data generates from no-detection events which contain little correlations but contribute high errors. Here we propose the device-independent QKD protocol with random post selection, where the secret keys are extracted only from the post-selected subset of outcomes. This could not open the detection loophole as long as the entropy of the post-selected subset is evaluated from the information of the entire set of data, including both detection and no-detection events. This post selection has the advantage to significantly reduce the error events, thus relaxing the threshold of required detection efficiency. In the model of collective attacks, our protocol can tolerate detector efficiency as low as 68.5%, which goes beyond standard security proofs. The results make a concrete step for the implementation of device-independent QKD in practice.

preprint2022arXiv

Dynamic Schema Graph Fusion Network for Multi-Domain Dialogue State Tracking

Dialogue State Tracking (DST) aims to keep track of users' intentions during the course of a conversation. In DST, modelling the relations among domains and slots is still an under-studied problem. Existing approaches that have considered such relations generally fall short in: (1) fusing prior slot-domain membership relations and dialogue-aware dynamic slot relations explicitly, and (2) generalizing to unseen domains. To address these issues, we propose a novel \textbf{D}ynamic \textbf{S}chema \textbf{G}raph \textbf{F}usion \textbf{Net}work (\textbf{DSGFNet}), which generates a dynamic schema graph to explicitly fuse the prior slot-domain membership relations and dialogue-aware dynamic slot relations. It also uses the schemata to facilitate knowledge transfer to new domains. DSGFNet consists of a dialogue utterance encoder, a schema graph encoder, a dialogue-aware schema graph evolving network, and a schema graph enhanced dialogue state decoder. Empirical results on benchmark datasets (i.e., SGD, MultiWOZ2.1, and MultiWOZ2.2), show that DSGFNet outperforms existing methods.

preprint2022arXiv

Experimental demonstration of genuine tripartite nonlocality under strict locality conditions

Nonlocality captures one of the counterintuitive features of nature that defies classical intuition. Recent investigations reveal that our physical world's nonlocality is at least tripartite; i.e., genuinely tripartite nonlocal correlations in nature cannot be reproduced by any causal theory involving bipartite nonclassical resources and unlimited shared randomness. Here, by allowing the fair sampling assumption and postselection, we experimentally demonstrate such genuine tripartite nonlocality in a network under strict locality constraints that are ensured by spacelike separating all relevant events and employing fast quantum random number generators and high-speed polarization measurements. In particular, for a photonic quantum triangular network we observe a locality-loophole-free violation of the Bell-type inequality by 7.57 standard deviations for a postselected tripartite Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger state of fidelity $(93.13 \pm 0.24)\%$, which convincingly disproves the possibility of simulating genuine tripartite nonlocality by bipartite nonlocal resources with globally shared randomness.

preprint2022arXiv

Hidden local symmetry breaking in a kagome-lattice magnetic Weyl semimetal

Exploring the relationship between intriguing physical properties and structural complexity is a central topic in studying modern functional materials. Co$_{3}$Sn$_{2}$S$_{2}$, a new discovered kagome-lattice magnetic Weyl semimetal, has triggered intense interest owing to the intimate coupling between topological semimetallic states and peculiar magnetic properties. However, the origins of the magnetic phase separation and spin glass state below $T_{C}$ in this ordered compound are two unresolved yet important puzzles in understanding its magnetism. Here, we report the discovery of local symmetry breaking surprisingly co-emerges with the onset of ferromagnetic order in Co$_{3}$Sn$_{2}$S$_{2}$, by a combined use of neutron total scattering and half polarized neutron diffraction. The mismatch of local and average symmetries occurs below $T_{C}$, indicating that Co$_{3}$Sn$_{2}$S$_{2}$ evolves to an intrinsically lattice disordered system when the ferromagnetic order is established. The local symmetry breaking with intrinsic lattice disorder provides new understandings to the puzzling magnetic properties. Our density function theory calculation indicates that the local symmetry breaking is expected to reorient local ferromagnetic moments, unveiling the existence of the ferromagnetic instability associated with the lattice instability. Furthermore, DFT calculation unveils that the local symmetry breaking could affect the Weyl property by breaking mirror plane. Our findings highlight the fundamentally important role that the local symmetry breaking plays in advancing our understanding on the magnetic and topological properties in Co$_{3}$Sn$_{2}$S$_{2}$, which may draw the attention to explore the overlooked local symmetry breaking in Co$_{3}$Sn$_{2}$S$_{2}$, its derivatives, and more broadly in other topological Dirac/Weyl semimetals and kagome-lattice magnets.

preprint2022arXiv

Hybrid Routing Transformer for Zero-Shot Learning

Zero-shot learning (ZSL) aims to learn models that can recognize unseen image semantics based on the training of data with seen semantics. Recent studies either leverage the global image features or mine discriminative local patch features to associate the extracted visual features to the semantic attributes. However, due to the lack of the necessary top-down guidance and semantic alignment for ensuring the model attending to the real attribute-correlation regions, these methods still encounter a significant semantic gap between the visual modality and the attribute modality, which makes their prediction on unseen semantics unreliable. To solve this problem, this paper establishes a novel transformer encoder-decoder model, called hybrid routing transformer (HRT). In HRT encoder, we embed an active attention, which is constructed by both the bottom-up and the top-down dynamic routing pathways to generate the attribute-aligned visual feature. While in HRT decoder, we use static routing to calculate the correlation among the attribute-aligned visual features, the corresponding attribute semantics, and the class attribute vectors to generate the final class label predictions. This design makes the presented transformer model a hybrid of 1) top-down and bottom-up attention pathways and 2) dynamic and static routing pathways. Comprehensive experiments on three widely-used benchmark datasets, namely CUB, SUN, and AWA2, are conducted. The obtained experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

preprint2022arXiv

Intrinsic spin-momentum dynamics of surface electromagnetic waves in complex dispersive system

Spin-momentum locking is an intrinsic property of surface electromagnetic fields and its study has led to the discovery of photonic spin lattices and diverse applications. Previously, dispersion was ignored in the spin-momentum locking, giving rise to abnormal phenomena contradictory to the physical realities. Here, we formulate four dispersive spin-momentum equations for surface waves, revealing universally that the transverse spin vector is locked with the momentum. The locking property obeys the right-hand rule in the dielectric but the left-hand rule in the dispersive metal/magnetic materials. In addition to the dispersion, the structural features can affect the spin-momentum locking significantly. Remarkably, an extraordinary longitudinal spin originating from the coupling polarization ellipticity is uncovered even for the purely polarized state. We further demonstrate the spin-momentum locking properties with diverse photonic topological lattices by engineering the rotating symmetry. The findings open up opportunities for designing robust nanodevices with practical importance in chiral quantum optics.

preprint2022arXiv

Large-Field Contextual Feature Learning for Glass Detection

Glass is very common in our daily life. Existing computer vision systems neglect it and thus may have severe consequences, e.g., a robot may crash into a glass wall. However, sensing the presence of glass is not straightforward. The key challenge is that arbitrary objects/scenes can appear behind the glass. In this paper, we propose an important problem of detecting glass surfaces from a single RGB image. To address this problem, we construct the first large-scale glass detection dataset (GDD) and propose a novel glass detection network, called GDNet-B, which explores abundant contextual cues in a large field-of-view via a novel large-field contextual feature integration (LCFI) module and integrates both high-level and low-level boundary features with a boundary feature enhancement (BFE) module. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our GDNet-B achieves satisfying glass detection results on the images within and beyond the GDD testing set. We further validate the effectiveness and generalization capability of our proposed GDNet-B by applying it to other vision tasks, including mirror segmentation and salient object detection. Finally, we show the potential applications of glass detection and discuss possible future research directions.

preprint2022arXiv

Molecular Contrastive Learning with Chemical Element Knowledge Graph

Molecular representation learning contributes to multiple downstream tasks such as molecular property prediction and drug design. To properly represent molecules, graph contrastive learning is a promising paradigm as it utilizes self-supervision signals and has no requirements for human annotations. However, prior works fail to incorporate fundamental domain knowledge into graph semantics and thus ignore the correlations between atoms that have common attributes but are not directly connected by bonds. To address these issues, we construct a Chemical Element Knowledge Graph (KG) to summarize microscopic associations between elements and propose a novel Knowledge-enhanced Contrastive Learning (KCL) framework for molecular representation learning. KCL framework consists of three modules. The first module, knowledge-guided graph augmentation, augments the original molecular graph based on the Chemical Element KG. The second module, knowledge-aware graph representation, extracts molecular representations with a common graph encoder for the original molecular graph and a Knowledge-aware Message Passing Neural Network (KMPNN) to encode complex information in the augmented molecular graph. The final module is a contrastive objective, where we maximize agreement between these two views of molecular graphs. Extensive experiments demonstrated that KCL obtained superior performances against state-of-the-art baselines on eight molecular datasets. Visualization experiments properly interpret what KCL has learned from atoms and attributes in the augmented molecular graphs. Our codes and data are available at https://github.com/ZJU-Fangyin/KCL.

preprint2022arXiv

Multi-Source Thermal Model Describing Transverse Momentum Spectra of Final-State Particles in High Energy Collisions

In this mini review article, the transverse momentum spectra of final-state particles produced in high energy hadron-hadron, hadron-nucleus, and nucleus-nucleus collisions described by the multi-source thermal model at the quark or parton level is summarized. In the model, the participant or contributor quarks or partons are considered to contribute together to the transverse momentum distribution of final-state particles with different modes of contributions. The concrete mode of contribution is generally determined by the difference of azimuthal angles of contributor partons in their emissions.

preprint2022arXiv

On Exploring Pose Estimation as an Auxiliary Learning Task for Visible-Infrared Person Re-identification

Visible-infrared person re-identification (VI-ReID) has been challenging due to the existence of large discrepancies between visible and infrared modalities. Most pioneering approaches reduce intra-class variations and inter-modality discrepancies by learning modality-shared and ID-related features. However, an explicit modality-shared cue, i.e., body keypoints, has not been fully exploited in VI-ReID. Additionally, existing feature learning paradigms imposed constraints on either global features or partitioned feature stripes, which neglect the prediction consistency of global and part features. To address the above problems, we exploit Pose Estimation as an auxiliary learning task to assist the VI-ReID task in an end-to-end framework. By jointly training these two tasks in a mutually beneficial manner, our model learns higher quality modality-shared and ID-related features. On top of it, the learnings of global features and local features are seamlessly synchronized by Hierarchical Feature Constraint (HFC), where the former supervises the latter using the knowledge distillation strategy. Experimental results on two benchmark VI-ReID datasets show that the proposed method consistently improves state-of-the-art methods by significant margins. Specifically, our method achieves nearly 20$\%$ mAP improvements against the state-of-the-art method on the RegDB dataset. Our intriguing findings highlight the usage of auxiliary task learning in VI-ReID.

preprint2022arXiv

Photonic verification of device-independent quantum key distribution against collective attacks

In this paper, we employ theoretical and experimental efforts and realize a proof-of-principle verification of device-independent QKD based on the photonic setup. On the theoretical side, we enhance the loss tolerance for real device imperfections by combining different approaches, namely, random post-selection, noisy preprocessing, and developed numerical methods to estimate the key rate via the von Neumann entropy. On the experimental side, we develop a high-quality polarization-entangled photon source achieving a state-of-the-art (heralded) detection efficiency about 87.5%. This efficiency outperforms previous photonic experiments involving loophole-free Bell tests. Together, we show that the measured quantum correlations are strong enough to ensure a positive key rate under the fiber length up to 220 m. Our photonic platform can generate entangled photons at a high rate and in the telecom wavelength, which is desirable for high-speed generation over long distances. The results present an important step towards a full demonstration of photonic device-independent QKD.

preprint2022arXiv

Portable ground stations for space-to-ground quantum key distribution

Quantum key distribution (QKD) uses the fundamental principles of quantum mechanics to share unconditionally secure keys between distant users. Previous works based on the quantum science satellite "Micius" have initially demonstrated the feasibility of a global QKD network. However, the practical applications of space-based QKD still face many technical problems, such as the huge size and weight of ground stations required to receive quantum signals. Here, we report space-to-ground QKD demonstrations based on portable receiving ground stations. The weight of the portable ground station is less than 100 kg, the space required is less than 1 m$^{3}$ and the installation time requires no more than 12 hours, all of the weight, required space and deployment time are about two orders of magnitude lower than those for the previous systems. Moreover, the equipment is easy to handle and can be placed on the roof of buildings in a metropolis. Secure keys have been successfully generated from the "Micius" satellite to these portable ground stations at six different places in China, and an average final secure key length is around 50 kb can be obtained during one passage. Our results pave the way for, and greatly accelerate the practical application of, space-based QKD.

preprint2022arXiv

Prompt-Guided Injection of Conformation to Pre-trained Protein Model

Pre-trained protein models (PTPMs) represent a protein with one fixed embedding and thus are not capable for diverse tasks. For example, protein structures can shift, namely protein folding, between several conformations in various biological processes. To enable PTPMs to produce task-aware representations, we propose to learn interpretable, pluggable and extensible protein prompts as a way of injecting task-related knowledge into PTPMs. In this regard, prior PTPM optimization with the masked language modeling task can be interpreted as learning a sequence prompt (Seq prompt) that enables PTPMs to capture the sequential dependency between amino acids. To incorporate conformational knowledge to PTPMs, we propose an interaction-conformation prompt (IC prompt) that is learned through back-propagation with the protein-protein interaction task. As an instantiation, we present a conformation-aware pre-trained protein model that learns both sequence and interaction-conformation prompts in a multi-task setting. We conduct comprehensive experiments on nine protein datasets. Results confirm our expectation that using the sequence prompt does not hurt PTPMs' performance on sequence-related tasks while incorporating the interaction-conformation prompt significantly improves PTPMs' performance on tasks where conformational knowledge counts. We also show the learned prompts can be combined and extended to deal with new complex tasks.

preprint2022arXiv

Rethinking Offensive Text Detection as a Multi-Hop Reasoning Problem

We introduce the task of implicit offensive text detection in dialogues, where a statement may have either an offensive or non-offensive interpretation, depending on the listener and context. We argue that reasoning is crucial for understanding this broader class of offensive utterances and release SLIGHT, a dataset to support research on this task. Experiments using the data show that state-of-the-art methods of offense detection perform poorly when asked to detect implicitly offensive statements, achieving only ${\sim} 11\%$ accuracy. In contrast to existing offensive text detection datasets, SLIGHT features human-annotated chains of reasoning which describe the mental process by which an offensive interpretation can be reached from each ambiguous statement. We explore the potential for a multi-hop reasoning approach by utilizing existing entailment models to score the probability of these chains and show that even naive reasoning models can yield improved performance in most situations. Furthermore, analysis of the chains provides insight into the human interpretation process and emphasizes the importance of incorporating additional commonsense knowledge.

preprint2022arXiv

Ruling out real-valued standard formalism of quantum theory

Standard quantum theory was formulated with complex-valued Schrodinger equations, wave functions, operators, and Hilbert spaces. Previous work attempted to simulate quantum systems using only real numbers by exploiting an enlarged Hilbert space. A fundamental question arises: are complex numbers really necessary in the standard formalism of quantum theory? To answer this question, a quantum game has been developed to distinguish standard quantum theory from its real-number analog by revealing a contradiction in the maximum game scores between a high-fidelity multi-qubit quantum experiment and players using only real-number quantum theory. Here, using superconducting qubits, we faithfully experimentally implement the quantum game based on entanglement swapping with a state-of-the-art fidelity of 0.952(1), which beats the real-number bound of 7.66 by 43 standard deviations. Our results disprove the real-number formulation and establish the indispensable role of complex numbers in the standard quantum theory.

preprint2022arXiv

Spatiotemporal continuous estimates of daily 1-km PM2.5 from 2000 to present under the Tracking Air Pollution in China (TAP) framework

High spatial resolution PM2.5 data covering a long time period are urgently needed to support population exposure assessment and refined air quality management. In this study, we provided complete-coverage PM2.5 predictions with a 1-km spatial resolution from 2000 to the present under the Tracking Air Pollution in China (TAP, http://tapdata.org.cn/) framework. To support high spatial resolution modelling, we collected PM2.5 measurements from both national and local monitoring stations. To correctly reflect the temporal variations in land cover characteristics that affected the local variations in PM2.5, we constructed continuous annual geoinformation datasets, including the road maps and ensemble gridded population maps, in China from 2000 to 2021. We also examined various model structures and predictor combinations to balance the computational cost and model performance. The final model fused 10-km TAP PM2.5 predictions from our previous work, 1-km satellite aerosol optical depth retrievals and land use parameters with a random forest model. Our annual model had an out-of-bag R2 ranging between 0.80 and 0.84, and our hindcast model had a by-year cross-validation R2 of 0.76. This open-access 1-km resolution PM2.5 data product with complete coverage successfully revealed the local-scale spatial variations in PM2.5 and could benefit environmental studies and policy-making.

preprint2022arXiv

StepGame: A New Benchmark for Robust Multi-Hop Spatial Reasoning in Texts

Inferring spatial relations in natural language is a crucial ability an intelligent system should possess. The bAbI dataset tries to capture tasks relevant to this domain (task 17 and 19). However, these tasks have several limitations. Most importantly, they are limited to fixed expressions, they are limited in the number of reasoning steps required to solve them, and they fail to test the robustness of models to input that contains irrelevant or redundant information. In this paper, we present a new Question-Answering dataset called StepGame for robust multi-hop spatial reasoning in texts. Our experiments demonstrate that state-of-the-art models on the bAbI dataset struggle on the StepGame dataset. Moreover, we propose a Tensor-Product based Memory-Augmented Neural Network (TP-MANN) specialized for spatial reasoning tasks. Experimental results on both datasets show that our model outperforms all the baselines with superior generalization and robustness performance.

preprint2022arXiv

The effect of $f$-$c$ hybridization on the $γ\rightarrowα$ phase transition of cerium studied by lanthanum doping

The hybridization between the localized 4$f$ level ($f$) with conduction ($c$) states in $γ$-Ce upon cooling has been previously revealed in single crystalline thin films experimentally and theoretically, whereas its influence on the $γ\rightarrowα$ phase transition was not explicitly verified, due to the fact that the phase transition happened in the bulk-layer, leaving the surface in the $γ$ phase. Here in our work, we circumvent this issue by investigating the effect of alloying addition of La on Ce, by means of crystal structure, electronic transport and ARPES measurements, together with a phenomenological periodic Anderson model and a modified Anderson impurity model. Our current researches indicate that the weakening of $f$-$c$ hybridization is the major factor in the suppression of $γ\rightarrowα$ phase transition by La doping. The consistency of our results with the effects of other rare earth and actinide alloying additions on the $γ\rightarrowα$ phase transition of Ce is also discussed. Our work demonstrates the importance of the interaction of $f$ and $c$ electrons in understanding the unconventional phase transition in Ce, which is intuitive for further researches on other rare earth and actinide metals and alloys with similar phase transition behaviors.

preprint2022arXiv

Trajectory Tracking Control of the Bionic Joint Actuated by Pneumatic Artificial Muscle Based on Robust Modeling

To simply and effectively realize the trajectory tracking control of a bionic joint actuated by a single pneumatic artificial muscle (PAM), a cascaded control strategy is proposed based on the robust modeling method. Firstly, the relationship between the input voltage of the proportional directional control valve and the inner driving pressure of PAM is expressed as a nonlinear model analytically. Secondly, the nonlinear relationship between the driving pressure input of PAM and the angular position output of the bionic joint is described as a second-order linear time-invariant model (LTI) accompanied by parametric perturbations, equivalently, and then the parameters of the model are identified by the robust modeling method. Then, a hybrid model is established based on the two models (the nonlinear model and the LTI model) and corresponding to it, a cascaded controller is developed, the outer loop of which is an H-infinite controller for the angular position tracking designed by loop-shaping design procedure (LSDP) and the inner loop is a nonlinear controller based on the feedback linearization theory for the PAM driving pressure control. Finally, the experiment is accomplished within the joint rotation range of 90 degrees and with the working frequency upper bound of 1.25 rad/s. And the joint with the developed cascaded controller tracks given reference trajectories with steady-state errors smaller than 2%. Results show that the trajectory tracking control of a highly nonlinear system is highly efficient using the proposed strategy in the case of relatively low work frequency.

preprint2021arXiv

Authentication of Metropolitan Quantum Key Distribution Network with Post-quantum Cryptography

Quantum key distribution (QKD) provides information theoretically secures key exchange requiring authentication of the classic data processing channel via pre-sharing of symmetric private keys. In previous studies, the lattice-based post-quantum digital signature algorithm Aigis-Sig, combined with public-key infrastructure (PKI) was used to achieve high-efficiency quantum security authentication of QKD, and its advantages in simplifying the MAN network structure and new user entry were demonstrated. This experiment further integrates the PQC algorithm into the commercial QKD system, the Jinan field metropolitan QKD network comprised of 14 user nodes and 5 optical switching nodes. The feasibility, effectiveness and stability of the post-quantum cryptography (PQC) algorithm and advantages of replacing trusted relays with optical switching brought by PQC authentication large-scale metropolitan area QKD network were verified. QKD with PQC authentication has potential in quantum-secure communications, specifically in metropolitan QKD networks.

preprint2021arXiv

Automatic Comic Generation with Stylistic Multi-page Layouts and Emotion-driven Text Balloon Generation

In this paper, we propose a fully automatic system for generating comic books from videos without any human intervention. Given an input video along with its subtitles, our approach first extracts informative keyframes by analyzing the subtitles, and stylizes keyframes into comic-style images. Then, we propose a novel automatic multi-page layout framework, which can allocate the images across multiple pages and synthesize visually interesting layouts based on the rich semantics of the images (e.g., importance and inter-image relation). Finally, as opposed to using the same type of balloon as in previous works, we propose an emotion-aware balloon generation method to create different types of word balloons by analyzing the emotion of subtitles and audios. Our method is able to vary balloon shapes and word sizes in balloons in response to different emotions, leading to more enriched reading experience. Once the balloons are generated, they are placed adjacent to their corresponding speakers via speaker detection. Our results show that our method, without requiring any user inputs, can generate high-quality comic pages with visually rich layouts and balloons. Our user studies also demonstrate that users prefer our generated results over those by state-of-the-art comic generation systems.

preprint2021arXiv

Budget Feasible Mechanisms on Matroids

Motivated by many practical applications, in this paper we study {\em budget feasible mechanisms} where the goal is to procure independent sets from matroids. More specifically, we are given a matroid $\mathcal{M}=(E,\mathcal{I})$ where each ground (indivisible) element is a selfish agent. The cost of each element (i.e., for selling the item or performing a service) is only known to the element itself. There is a buyer with a budget having additive valuations over the set of elements $E$. The goal is to design an incentive compatible (truthful) budget feasible mechanism which procures an independent set of the matroid under the given budget that yields the largest value possible to the buyer. Our result is a deterministic, polynomial-time, individually rational, truthful and budget feasible mechanism with $4$-approximation to the optimal independent set. Then, we extend our mechanism to the setting of matroid intersections in which the goal is to procure common independent sets from multiple matroids. We show that, given a polynomial time deterministic blackbox that returns $α-$approximation solutions to the matroid intersection problem, there exists a deterministic, polynomial time, individually rational, truthful and budget feasible mechanism with $(3α+1)-$approximation to the optimal common independent set.

preprint2021arXiv

Coherent optical communications using coherence-cloned Kerr soliton microcombs

Dissipative Kerr soliton microcomb has been recognized as a promising on-chip multi-wavelength laser source for fiber optical communications, as its comb lines possess frequency and phase stability far beyond independent lasers. In the scenarios of coherent optical transmission and interconnect, a highly beneficial but rarely explored target is to re-generate a Kerr soliton microcomb at the receiver side as local oscillators that conserve the frequency and phase property of the incoming data carriers, so that to enable coherent detection with minimized optical and electrical compensations. Here, by using the techniques of pump laser conveying and two-point locking, we implement re-generation of a Kerr soliton microcomb that faithfully clones the frequency and phase coherence of another microcomb sent from 50 km away. Moreover, leveraging the coherence-cloned soliton microcombs as carriers and local oscillators, we demonstrate terabit coherent data interconnect, wherein traditional digital processes for frequency offset estimation is totally dispensed with, and carrier phase estimation is substantially simplified via slowed-down phase estimation rate per channel and joint phase estimation among multiple channels. Our work reveals that, in addition to providing a multitude of laser tones, regulating the frequency and phase of Kerr soliton microcombs among transmitters and receivers can significantly improve coherent communication in terms of performance, power consumption, and simplicity.

preprint2021arXiv

Densely Nested Top-Down Flows for Salient Object Detection

With the goal of identifying pixel-wise salient object regions from each input image, salient object detection (SOD) has been receiving great attention in recent years. One kind of mainstream SOD methods is formed by a bottom-up feature encoding procedure and a top-down information decoding procedure. While numerous approaches have explored the bottom-up feature extraction for this task, the design on top-down flows still remains under-studied. To this end, this paper revisits the role of top-down modeling in salient object detection and designs a novel densely nested top-down flows (DNTDF)-based framework. In every stage of DNTDF, features from higher levels are read in via the progressive compression shortcut paths (PCSP). The notable characteristics of our proposed method are as follows. 1) The propagation of high-level features which usually have relatively strong semantic information is enhanced in the decoding procedure; 2) With the help of PCSP, the gradient vanishing issues caused by non-linear operations in top-down information flows can be alleviated; 3) Thanks to the full exploration of high-level features, the decoding process of our method is relatively memory efficient compared against those of existing methods. Integrating DNTDF with EfficientNet, we construct a highly light-weighted SOD model, with very low computational complexity. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed model, comprehensive experiments are conducted on six widely-used benchmark datasets. The comparisons to the most state-of-the-art methods as well as the carefully-designed baseline models verify our insights on the top-down flow modeling for SOD. The code of this paper is available at https://github.com/new-stone-object/DNTD.

preprint2021arXiv

Entanglement of two quantum memories via fibers over dozens of kilometres

Quantum internet will enable a number of revolutionary applications. It relies on entanglement of remote quantum memories over long distances. Despite enormous progresses so far, the maximal physical separation achieved between two nodes is 1.3 km, and challenges for long distance remain. Here we make a significant step forward by entangling two atomic ensembles in one lab via photon transmission through metropolitan-scale fibers. We use cavity enhancement to create bright atom-photon entanglement, and harness quantum frequency conversion to shift the atomic wavelength to telecom. We realize entanglement over 22 km field-deployed fibers via two-photon interference, and entanglement over 50 km coiled fibers via single-photon interference. Our experiment can be extended to physically separated nodes with similar distance as a functional segment for atomic quantum networks, thus paving the way towards establishing atomic entanglement over many nodes and over much longer distance.

preprint2021arXiv

Experimental Realization of Device-Independent Quantum Randomness Expansion

Randomness expansion where one generates a longer sequence of random numbers from a short one is viable in quantum mechanics but not allowed classically. Device-independent quantum randomness expansion provides a randomness resource of the highest security level. Here, we report the first experimental realization of device-independent quantum randomness expansion secure against quantum side information established through quantum probability estimation. We generate $5.47\times10^8$ quantum-proof random bits while consuming $4.39\times10^8$ bits of entropy, expanding our store of randomness by $1.08\times10^8$ bits at a latency of about $13.1$ h, with a total soundness error $4.6\times10^{-10}$. Device-independent quantum randomness expansion not only enriches our understanding of randomness but also sets a solid base to bring quantum-certifiable random bits into realistic applications.

preprint2021arXiv

Experimental Side-Channel-Free Quantum Key Distribution

Quantum key distribution can provide unconditionally secure key exchange for remote users in theory. In practice, however, in most quantum key distribution systems, quantum hackers might steal the secure keys by listening to the side channels in the source, such as the photon frequency spectrum, emission time, propagation direction, spatial angular momentum, and so on. It is hard to prevent such kinds of attacks because side channels may exist in any of the encoding space whether the designers take care of or not. Here we report an experimental realization of a side-channel-free quantum key distribution protocol which is not only measurement-device-independent, but also immune to all side-channel attacks in the source. We achieve a secure key rate of 4.80e-7 per pulse through 50 km fiber spools.

preprint2021arXiv

Ferromagnetic Double Perovskite Semiconductors with Tunable Properties

We successfully dope the magnetically silent double perovskite semiconductor Sr2GaSbO6 to induce ferromagnetism and tune its band gap, with Ga3+ partially substituted by the magnetic trivalent cation Mn3+, in a rigid cation ordering with Sb5+. Our new ferromagnetic semiconducting Sr2Ga1-xMnxSbO6 double perovskite, which crystallizes in tetragonal symmetry (space group I4/m) and has tunable ferromagnetic ordering temperature and band gap, suggests that magnetic ion doping of double perovskites is a productive avenue towards obtaining materials for application in next-generation oxide-based spintronic devices.

preprint2021arXiv

Global Gridded Daily CO$_2$ Emissions

Precise and high-resolution carbon dioxide (CO$_2$) emission data is of great importance of achieving the carbon neutrality around the world. Here we present for the first time the near-real-time Global Gridded Daily CO$_2$ Emission Datasets (called GRACED) from fossil fuel and cement production with a global spatial-resolution of 0.1$^\circ$ by 0.1$^\circ$ and a temporal-resolution of 1-day. Gridded fossil emissions are computed for different sectors based on the daily national CO$_2$ emissions from near real time dataset (Carbon Monitor), the spatial patterns of point source emission dataset Global Carbon Grid (GID), Emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR) and spatiotemporal patters of satellite nitrogen dioxide (NO$_2$) retrievals. Our study on the global CO$_2$ emissions responds to the growing and urgent need for high-quality, fine-grained near-real-time CO2 emissions estimates to support global emissions monitoring across various spatial scales. We show the spatial patterns of emission changes for power, industry, residential consumption, ground transportation, domestic and international aviation, and international shipping sectors between 2019 and 2020. This help us to give insights on the relative contributions of various sectors and provides a fast and fine-grained overview of where and when fossil CO$_2$ emissions have decreased and rebounded in response to emergencies (e.g. COVID-19) and other disturbances of human activities than any previously published dataset. As the world recovers from the pandemic and decarbonizes its energy systems, regular updates of this dataset will allow policymakers to more closely monitor the effectiveness of climate and energy policies and quickly adapt.

preprint2021arXiv

Multi-scale Information Assembly for Image Matting

Image matting is a long-standing problem in computer graphics and vision, mostly identified as the accurate estimation of the foreground in input images. We argue that the foreground objects can be represented by different-level information, including the central bodies, large-grained boundaries, refined details, etc. Based on this observation, in this paper, we propose a multi-scale information assembly framework (MSIA-matte) to pull out high-quality alpha mattes from single RGB images. Technically speaking, given an input image, we extract advanced semantics as our subject content and retain initial CNN features to encode different-level foreground expression, then combine them by our well-designed information assembly strategy. Extensive experiments can prove the effectiveness of the proposed MSIA-matte, and we can achieve state-of-the-art performance compared to most existing matting networks.

preprint2021arXiv

Quantum key distribution over 658 km fiber with distributed vibration sensing

Twin-field quantum key distribution (TF-QKD) promises ultra-long secure key distribution which surpasses the rate distance limit and can reduce the number of the trusted nodes in long-haul quantum network. Tremendous efforts have been made towards implementation of TF-QKD, among which, the secure key with finite size analysis can distribute more than 500 km in the lab and in the field. Here, we demonstrate the sending-or-not-sending TF-QKD experimentally, achieving a secure key distribution with finite size analysis over 658 km ultra-low-loss optical fiber, improve the secure distance record by around 100 km. Meanwhile, in a TF-QKD system, any phase fluctuation due to temperature variation and ambient variation during the channel must be recorded and compensated, and all these phase information can then be utilized to sense the channel vibration perturbations. With our QKD system, we recovered the external vibrational perturbations on the fiber generated by an artificial vibroseis and successfully located the perturbation position with a resolution better than 1 km. Our results not only set a new distance record of QKD, but also demonstrate that the redundant information of TF-QKD can be used for remote sensing of the channel vibration, which can find applications in earthquake detection and landslide monitoring besides secure communication.

preprint2021arXiv

Quantum Random Number Generation with Uncharacterized Laser and Sunlight

The entropy or randomness source is an essential ingredient in random number generation. Quantum random number generators generally require well modeled and calibrated light sources, such as a laser, to generate randomness. With uncharacterized light sources, such as sunlight or an uncharacterized laser, genuine randomness is practically hard to be quantified or extracted owing to its unknown or complicated structure. By exploiting a recently proposed source-independent randomness generation protocol, we theoretically modify it by considering practical issues and experimentally realize the modified scheme with an uncharacterized laser and a sunlight source. The extracted randomness is guaranteed to be secure independent of its source and the randomness generation speed reaches 1 Mbps, three orders of magnitude higher than the original realization. Our result signifies the power of quantum technology in randomness generation and paves the way to high-speed semi-self-testing quantum random number generators with practical light sources.

preprint2021arXiv

Replica-exchange Nosé-Hoover dynamics for Bayesian learning on large datasets

In this paper, we present a new practical method for Bayesian learning that can rapidly draw representative samples from complex posterior distributions with multiple isolated modes in the presence of mini-batch noise. This is achieved by simulating a collection of replicas in parallel with different temperatures and periodically swapping them. When evolving the replicas' states, the Nosé-Hoover dynamics is applied, which adaptively neutralizes the mini-batch noise. To perform proper exchanges, a new protocol is developed with a noise-aware test of acceptance, by which the detailed balance is reserved in an asymptotic way. While its efficacy on complex multimodal posteriors has been illustrated by testing over synthetic distributions, experiments with deep Bayesian neural networks on large-scale datasets have shown its significant improvements over strong baselines.

preprint2021arXiv

Skyrmions in synthetic antiferromagnets and their nucleation via electrical current and ultrafast laser illumination

Magnetic skyrmions are topological spin textures that hold great promise as nanoscale information carriers in non-volatile memory and logic devices. While room-temperature magnetic skyrmions and their current-induced manipulation were recently demonstrated, the stray field resulting from their finite magnetization as well as their topological charge limit their minimum size and reliable motion in tracks. Antiferromagnetic (AF) skyrmions allow these limitations to be lifted owing to their vanishing magnetization and net zero topological charge, promising room-temperature, ultrasmall skyrmions, fast dynamics, and insensitivity to external magnetic fields. While room-temperature AF spin textures have been recently demonstrated, the observation and controlled nucleation of AF skyrmions operable at room temperature in industry-compatible synthetic antiferromagnetic (SAF) material systems is still lacking. Here we demonstrate that isolated skyrmions can be stabilized at zero field and room temperature in a fully compensated SAF. Using X-ray microscopy techniques, we are able to observe the skyrmions in the different SAF layers and demonstrate their antiparallel alignment. The results are substantiated by micromagnetic simulations and analytical models using experimental parameters, which confirm the chiral SAF skyrmion spin texture and allow the identification of the physical mechanisms that control the SAF skyrmion size and stability. We also demonstrate the local nucleation of SAF skyrmions via local current injection as well as ultrafast laser excitations at zero field. These results will enable the utilization of SAF skyrmions in skyrmion-based devices.

preprint2021arXiv

Slot Self-Attentive Dialogue State Tracking

An indispensable component in task-oriented dialogue systems is the dialogue state tracker, which keeps track of users' intentions in the course of conversation. The typical approach towards this goal is to fill in multiple pre-defined slots that are essential to complete the task. Although various dialogue state tracking methods have been proposed in recent years, most of them predict the value of each slot separately and fail to consider the correlations among slots. In this paper, we propose a slot self-attention mechanism that can learn the slot correlations automatically. Specifically, a slot-token attention is first utilized to obtain slot-specific features from the dialogue context. Then a stacked slot self-attention is applied on these features to learn the correlations among slots. We conduct comprehensive experiments on two multi-domain task-oriented dialogue datasets, including MultiWOZ 2.0 and MultiWOZ 2.1. The experimental results demonstrate that our approach achieves state-of-the-art performance on both datasets, verifying the necessity and effectiveness of taking slot correlations into consideration.

preprint2020arXiv

A Modal-Space Method for Online Power System Steady-State Stability Monitoring

This paper proposes a novel approach to estimate the steady-state angle stability limit (SSASL) by using the nonlinear power system dynamic model in the modal space. Through two linear changes of coordinates and a simplification introduced by the steady-state condition, the nonlinear power system dynamic model is transformed into a number of single-machine-like power systems whose power-angle curves can be derived and used for estimating the SSASL. The proposed approach estimates the SSASL of angles at all machines and all buses without the need for manually specifying the scenario, i.e. setting sink and source areas, and also without the need for solving multiple nonlinear power flows. Case studies on 9-bus and 39-bus power systems demonstrate that the proposed approach is always able to capture the aperiodic instability in an online environment, showing promising performance in the online monitoring of the steady-state angle stability over the traditional power flow-based analysis.

preprint2020arXiv

Antiferromagnetism and crystalline-electric field excitations in tetragonal NaCeO2

We investigate the crystal structure, magnetic properties, and crystalline-electric field of tetragonal, $I4_1/amd$, NaCeO$_2$. In this compound, Ce$^{3+}$ ions form a tetragonally elongated diamond lattice coupled by antiferromagnetic interactions ($Θ_{CW} = -7.69$ K) that magnetically order below $T_N = 3.18$ K. The Ce$^{3+}$ $J = 5/2$ crystalline-electric field-split multiplet is studied via inelastic neutron scattering to parameterize a $J_{eff} = 1/2$ ground state doublet comprised of states possessing mixed $|m_z \rangle$ character. Neutron powder diffraction data reveal the onset of $A$-type antiferromagnetism with $μ=0.57(2)$ $μ_B$ moments aligned along the $c$-axis. The magnetic structure is consistent with the expectations of a frustrated Heisenberg $J_1$-$J_2$ model on the elongated diamond lattice with effective exchange values $J_1 > 4 J_2$ and $J_1 > 0$.

preprint2020arXiv

Color Erasure Detectors Enable Chromatic Interferometry

By engineering and manipulating quantum entanglement between incoming photons and experimental apparatus, we construct single-photon detectors which cannot distinguish between photons of very different wavelengths. These color erasure detectors enable a new kind of intensity interferometry, with potential applications in microscopy and astronomy. We demonstrate chromatic interferometry experimentally, observing robust interference using both coherent and incoherent photon sources.

preprint2020arXiv

Complex magnetic phases in polar tetragonal intermetallic NdCoGe$_3$

Polar materials can host a variety of topologically significant magnetic phases, which often emerge from a modulated magnetic ground state. Relatively few noncentrosymmetric tetragonal materials have been shown to host topological spin textures and new candidate materials are necessary to expand the current theoretical models. This manuscript reports on the anisotropic magnetism in the polar, tetragonal material NdCoGe$_3$ via thermodynamic and neutron diffraction measurements. The previously reported $H$-$T$ phase diagram is updated to include several additional phases, which exist for both $H$ = 0 and with an applied field H$\perp$ c. Neutron diffraction data reveal that the magnetic structures below $T_{N1}$ = 3.70 K and $T_{N2}$ = 3.50 K are incommensurate, with a ground state magnetic order that is incommensurate in all directions with the propagation vector $\vec{k}$ = (0.494, 0.0044, 0.385) at 1.8 K. A unique magnetic structure solution is not achievable, but the possible single and multi-$\vec{k}$ spin models are discussed. These results demonstrate that NdCoGe3 hosts complicated magnetic order derived from modulated magnetic moments.

preprint2020arXiv

COVID-19 causes record decline in global CO2 emissions

The considerable cessation of human activities during the COVID-19 pandemic has affected global energy use and CO2 emissions. Here we show the unprecedented decrease in global fossil CO2 emissions from January to April 2020 was of 7.8% (938 Mt CO2 with a +6.8% of 2-σ uncertainty) when compared with the period last year. In addition other emerging estimates of COVID impacts based on monthly energy supply or estimated parameters, this study contributes to another step that constructed the near-real-time daily CO2 emission inventories based on activity from power generation (for 29 countries), industry (for 73 countries), road transportation (for 406 cities), aviation and maritime transportation and commercial and residential sectors emissions (for 206 countries). The estimates distinguished the decline of CO2 due to COVID-19 from the daily, weekly and seasonal variations as well as the holiday events. The COVID-related decreases in CO2 emissions in road transportation (340.4 Mt CO2, -15.5%), power (292.5 Mt CO2, -6.4% compared to 2019), industry (136.2 Mt CO2, -4.4%), aviation (92.8 Mt CO2, -28.9%), residential (43.4 Mt CO2, -2.7%), and international shipping (35.9Mt CO2, -15%). Regionally, decreases in China were the largest and earliest (234.5 Mt CO2,-6.9%), followed by Europe (EU-27 & UK) (138.3 Mt CO2, -12.0%) and the U.S. (162.4 Mt CO2, -9.5%). The declines of CO2 are consistent with regional nitrogen oxides concentrations observed by satellites and ground-based networks, but the calculated signal of emissions decreases (about 1Gt CO2) will have little impacts (less than 0.13ppm by April 30, 2020) on the overserved global CO2 concertation. However, with observed fast CO2 recovery in China and partial re-opening globally, our findings suggest the longer-term effects on CO2 emissions are unknown and should be carefully monitored using multiple measures.

preprint2020arXiv

Discriminating Quantum Correlations with Networking Quantum Teleportation

The Bell inequality, and its substantial experimental violation, offers a seminal paradigm for showing that the world is not in fact locally realistic. Here, going beyond the scope of Bell's inequality on physical states, we show that quantum teleportation can be used to quantitatively characterize quantum correlations of physical processes. The validity of the proposed formalism is demonstrated by considering the problem of teleportation through a linear three-node quantum network. A hierarchy is derived between the Bell nonlocality, nonbilocality, steering and nonlocality-steering hybrid correlations based on a process fidelity constraint. The proposed framework can be directly extended to reveal the nonlocality structure of teleportation through any linear many-node quantum network. The formalism provides a faithful identification of quantum teleportation and demonstrates the use of quantum-information processing as a means of quantitatively discriminating quantum correlations.

preprint2020arXiv

Fixed point indices and fixed words at infinity of selfmaps of graphs

Indices of fixed point classes play a central role in Nielsen fixed point theory. Jiang-Wang-Zhang proved that for selfmaps of graphs and surfaces, the index of any fixed point class has an upper bound called its characteristic. In this paper, we study the difference between the index and the characteristic for selfmaps of graphs. First, for free groups, we extend attracting fixed words at infinity of automorphisms into that of injective endomorphisms. Then, by using relative train track technique, we show that the difference mentioned above is quite likely to be the number of equivalence classes of attracting fixed words of the endomorphism induced on the fundamental group. Since both of attracting fixed words and the existed characteristic are totally determined by endomorphisms themselves, we give a new algebraic approach to estimate indices of fixed point classes of graph selfmaps. As consequence, we obtain an upper bound for attracting fixed words of injective endomorphisms of free groups, generalizing the one for automorphisms due to Gaboriau-Jaeger-Levitt-Lustig. Furthermore, we give a simple approach to roughly detecting whether fixed words exist or not.

preprint2020arXiv

GFCN: A New Graph Convolutional Network Based on Parallel Flows

In view of the huge success of convolution neural networks (CNN) for image classification and object recognition, there have been attempts to generalize the method to general graph-structured data. One major direction is based on spectral graph theory and graph signal processing. In this paper, we study the problem from a completely different perspective, by introducing parallel flow decomposition of graphs. The essential idea is to decompose a graph into families of non-intersecting one dimensional (1D) paths, after which, we may apply a 1D CNN along each family of paths. We demonstrate that the our method, which we call GraphFlow, is able to transfer CNN architectures to general graphs. To show the effectiveness of our approach, we test our method on the classical MNIST dataset, synthetic datasets on network information propagation and a news article classification dataset.

preprint2020arXiv

Monolithic photonic chips for multi-channel frequency mixers and single photon detectors

Lithium niobate photonic chip could realize diverse optical engineering for various applications benefiting from its excellent optical performances. In this letter, we demonstrate monolithic photonic chips for multi-channel sum-frequency conversion based on reverse-proton-exchange periodically poled lithium niobate waveguides, with the different channels showing uniform and excellent conversion efficiencies. To obtain a robust device and provide a convenient interface for applications, the integrated chip is fiber coupled with two fiber arrays. The packaged chip then forms the core of a multi-channel up conversion single photon detector. In each channel the input signal interacts with a 1950-nm single frequency pump laser and the sum frequency output is spectrally filtered and detected by a silicon avalanche photodiode. Average detection efficiency (DE) of 23.2 % and noise count rate (NCR) of 557 counts per second (cps) are achieved, with a standard deviation of 2.73 % and 48 cps over the 30 channels, as well as optical isolation (OI) between nearby channels of more than 71 dB, which are excellent for the extensive applications of monolithic photonic chips in fields including deep space laser communication, high-rate quantum key distribution and single-photon imaging.

preprint2020arXiv

Permutation Phase and Gentile Statistics

This paper presents a new way to construct single-valued many-body wavefunctions of identical particles with intermediate exchange phases between Fermi and Bose statistics. It is demonstrated that the exchange phase is not a representation character but the \textit{word metric} of the permutation group, beyond the anyon phase from the braiding group in two dimensions. By constructing this type of wavefunction from the direct product of single-particle states, it is shown that a finite \textit{capacity q} -- the maximally allowed particle occupation of each quantum state, naturally arises. The relation between the permutation phase and capacity is given, interpolating between fermions and bosons in the sense of both exchange phase and occupation number. This offers a quantum mechanics foundation for \textit{Gentile statistics} and new directions to explore intermediate statistics and anyons.

preprint2020arXiv

Satellite-based estimates of decline and rebound in China's CO$_2$ emissions during COVID-19 pandemic

Changes in CO$_2$ emissions during the COVID-19 pandemic have been estimated from indicators on activities like transportation and electricity generation. Here, we instead use satellite observations together with bottom-up information to track the daily dynamics of CO$_2$ emissions during the pandemic. Unlike activity data, our observation-based analysis can be independently evaluated and can provide more detailed insights into spatially-explicit changes. Specifically, we use TROPOMI observations of NO$_2$ to deduce ten-day moving averages of NO$_x$ and CO$_2$ emissions over China, differentiating emissions by sector and province. Between January and April 2020, China's CO$_2$ emissions fell by 11.5% compared to the same period in 2019, but emissions have since rebounded to pre-pandemic levels owing to the fast economic recovery in provinces where industrial activity is concentrated.

preprint2020arXiv

Secure quantum key distribution with realistic devices

In principle, quantum key distribution (QKD) offers information-theoretic security based on the laws of physics. In practice, however, the imperfections of realistic devices might introduce deviations from the idealized models used in security analyses. Can quantum code-breakers successfully hack real systems by exploiting the side channels? Can quantum code-makers design innovative counter-measures to foil quantum code-breakers? This article reviews theoretical and experimental progress in the practical security aspects of quantum code-making and quantum code-breaking. After numerous attempts, researchers now thoroughly understand and are able to manage the practical imperfections. Recent advances, such as the measurement-device-independent protocol, have closed the critical side channels in the physical implementations, paving the way for secure QKD with realistic devices.

preprint2020arXiv

Self-Attentive Hawkes Processes

Asynchronous events on the continuous time domain, e.g., social media actions and stock transactions, occur frequently in the world. The ability to recognize occurrence patterns of event sequences is crucial to predict which typeof events will happen next and when. A de facto standard mathematical framework to do this is the Hawkes process. In order to enhance expressivity of multivariate Hawkes processes, conventional statistical methods and deep recurrent networks have been employed to modify its intensity function. The former is highly interpretable and requires small size of training data but relies on correct model design while the latter has less dependency on prior knowledge and is more powerful in capturing complicated patterns. We leverage pros and cons of these models and propose a self-attentive Hawkes process(SAHP). The proposed method adapts self-attention to fit the intensity function of Hawkes processes. This design has two benefits:(1) compared with conventional statistical methods, the SAHP is more powerful to identify complicated dependency relationships between temporal events; (2)compared with deep recurrent networks, the self-attention mechanism is able to capture longer historical information, and is more interpretable because the learnt attention weight tensor shows contributions of each historical event. Experiments on four real-world datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

preprint2020arXiv

Spring Festival points the way to cleaner air in China

Human migration during the Chinese Spring Festival (SF) is the largest collective human activity of its kind in the modern era-involving about one-tenth of the world population and over six percent of the earth's land surface area. The festival results in a drop of air pollutant emissions that causes dramatic changes of atmospheric composition over China's most polluted regions. Based on satellite and in-situ measurements for the years 2005-2019 over 50 cities in eastern China, we find that the atmospheric NO2 pollution dropped by ~40% during the SF week, and fine particulate matter (PM2.5) decreased by ~30% in the following week, reflecting the effectiveness of precursor emission controls on the mitigation of secondary PM2.5 formation. However, although human activity and emissions are at the lowest level, air pollution over eastern China during the SF still far exceeds that over other worldwide pollution hotspots. Our analyses suggest that measures based solely on end-of-pipe controls and industry upgrades may not suffice to meet air quality goals. Further cleaning of the air in China depends fundamentally on sustainable advances in both heavy industry upgrades and clean energy transition.

preprint2020arXiv

Superfluidity and pairing phenomena in ultracold atomic Fermi gases in one-dimensional optical lattices, Part II: Effects of population imbalance

In this paper, we study the effect of population imbalance and its interplay with pairing strength and lattice effect in atomic Fermi gases in a one-dimensional optical lattice. We compute various phase diagrams as the system undergoes BCS-BEC crossover, using the same pairing fluctuation theory as in Part I. We find widespread pseudogap phenomena beyond the BCS regime and intermediate temperature superfluid states for relatively low population imbalances. The Fermi surface topology plays an important role in the behavior of $T_\text{c}$. For large $d$ and/or small $t$, which yield an open Fermi surface, superfluidity can be readily destroyed by a small amount of population imbalance $p$. The superfluid phase, especially in the BEC regime, can exist only for a highly restricted volume of the parameter space. Due to the continuum-lattice mixing, population imbalance gives rise to a new mechanism for pair hopping, as assisted by excessive majority fermions, which may lead to significant enhancement of $T_\text{c}$ on the BEC side of the Feshbach resonance, and also render $T_\text{c}$ approaching a constant asymptote in the BEC limit, when it exists. Furthermore, we find that not all minority fermions will be paired up in BEC limit, unlike the 3D continuum case. These predictions can be tested in future experiments.

preprint2020arXiv

Testing the Safety of Self-driving Vehicles by Simulating Perception and Prediction

We present a novel method for testing the safety of self-driving vehicles in simulation. We propose an alternative to sensor simulation, as sensor simulation is expensive and has large domain gaps. Instead, we directly simulate the outputs of the self-driving vehicle's perception and prediction system, enabling realistic motion planning testing. Specifically, we use paired data in the form of ground truth labels and real perception and prediction outputs to train a model that predicts what the online system will produce. Importantly, the inputs to our system consists of high definition maps, bounding boxes, and trajectories, which can be easily sketched by a test engineer in a matter of minutes. This makes our approach a much more scalable solution. Quantitative results on two large-scale datasets demonstrate that we can realistically test motion planning using our simulations.

preprint2020arXiv

Towards satellite-based quantum-secure time transfer

High-precision time synchronization for remote clocks plays an important role in fundamental science and real-life applications. However, the current time synchronization techniques have been shown to be vulnerable to sophisticated adversaries. There is a compelling need for fundamentally new methods to distribute high-precision time information securely. Here we propose a satellite-based quantum-secure time transfer (QSTT) scheme based on two-way quantum key distribution (QKD) in free-space, and experimentally verify the key technologies of the scheme via the Micius quantum satellite. In QSTT, a quantum signal (e.g., single photon) is used as the carrier for both the time transfer and the secret-key generation, offering quantum-enhanced security for transferring time signal and time information. We perform a satellite-to-ground time synchronization using single-photon-level signals and achieve a quantum bit error rate of less than 1%, a time data rate of 9 kHz and a time-transfer precision of 30 ps. These results offer possibilities towards an enhanced infrastructure of time-transfer network, whose security stems from quantum physics.

preprint2020arXiv

Tuning quantum transport by controlling spin reorientations in Dirac semimetal candidates Eu$_{1-x}$Sr$_{x}$MnSb$_{2}$

Magnetic topological semimetals have attracted intense attention recently since these materials carry a great promise for potential applications in novel spintronic devices. Here, we report an intimate interplay between lattice, Eu magnetic order and topological semimetallic behavior in Eu$_{1-x}$Sr$_{x}$MnSb$_{2}$ driven by nonmagnetic Sr doping on magnetic Eu site. Different types of Eu spin reorientations are controllable by the Sr concentration, temperature or magnetic field, and coupled to the quantum transport properties of Dirac fermions generated by the 2D Sb layers. Our study opens a new pathway to achieving exotic magnetic order and topological semimetallic state via controlling spin reorientation. The effective strategy of substituting rare-earth site by nonmagnetic element demonstrated here may be applicable to the AMnCh$_{2}$ (A=rare-earth elements; Ch=Bi/Sb) family and a wide variation of other layered compounds involving spatially separated rare-earth and transition metal layers.

preprint2020arXiv

Unconventional High Temperature Superconductivity in Cubic Zinc-blende Transition Metal Compounds

We consider possible high temperature superconductivity (high-T$_c$) in transition metal compounds with a cubic zinc-blende lattice structure. When the electron filling configuration in the d-shell is close to d$^7$, all three t$_{2g}$ orbitals are near half filling with strong nearest neighbor antiferromagnetic (AFM) superexchange interactions. We argue that upon doping, this electronic environment can be one of "genes" to host unconventional high T$_c$ with a time reversal symmetry broken $d_{2z^2-x^2-y^2} \pm i d_{x^2-y^2}$ pairing symmetry. With gappless nodal points along the diagonal directions, this state is a direct three dimensional analogue to the two dimensional $B_{1g}$ d-wave state in cuprates. We suggest that such a case may be realized in electron doped CoN, such as CoN$_{1-x}$O$_x$ and (H, Li)$_{1-x}$CoN.

preprint2020arXiv

Variational Self-attention Model for Sentence Representation

This paper proposes a variational self-attention model (VSAM) that employs variational inference to derive self-attention. We model the self-attention vector as random variables by imposing a probabilistic distribution. The self-attention mechanism summarizes source information as an attention vector by weighted sum, where the weights are a learned probabilistic distribution. Compared with conventional deterministic counterpart, the stochastic units incorporated by VSAM allow multi-modal attention distributions. Furthermore, by marginalizing over the latent variables, VSAM is more robust against overfitting. Experiments on the stance detection task demonstrate the superiority of our method.

preprint2019arXiv

Compact all-fiber polarization-independent up-conversion single-photon detector

We demonstrate a compact all-fiber polarization-independent up-conversion single-photon detector based on integrated reverse proton exchanged periodically poled lithium niobate waveguides. The horizontally and vertically polarized components of randomly polarized signals are separated with a fiber-coupled polarization beam splitter, launched into two orthogonally polarized polarization maintaining fibers and fetched into two adjacent independent waveguides on the same device. The up-converted outputs from both waveguide channels are then combined with a multi-mode fiber combiner and detected by a silicon detector. With this configuration, the polarization-independent single-photon counting at 1.55 um is achieved with a system detection efficiency of 29.3%, a dark count rate of 1600 counts per second, and a polarization dependent loss of 0.1dB. This compact all-fiber system is robust and has great application potential in practical quantum key distribution systems.

preprint2019arXiv

Current-Induced Helicity Reversal of a Single Skyrmionic Bubble Chain in a Nanostructured Frustrated Magnet

Helicity indicates the in-plane magnetic-moment swirling direction of a skyrmionic configuration. The ability to reverse the helicity of a skyrmionic bubble via purely electrical means has been predicted in frustrated magnetic systems, however its experimental observation has remained challenging. Here, we experimentally demonstrate the current-driven helicity reversal of the skyrmionic bubble in a nanostructured frustrated Fe3Sn2 magnet. The critical current density required to trigger the helicity reversal is 109 - 1010 A/m2, with a corresponding pulse-width varying from 1 μs to 100 ns. Computational simulations reveal that both the pinning effect and dipole-dipole interaction play a crucial role in the helicity-reversal process.

preprint2019arXiv

Overview to the Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (Insight-HXMT) Satellite

As China's first X-ray astronomical satellite, the Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (HXMT), which was dubbed as Insight-HXMT after the launch on June 15, 2017, is a wide-band (1-250 keV) slat-collimator-based X-ray astronomy satellite with the capability of all-sky monitoring in 0.2-3 MeV. It was designed to perform pointing, scanning and gamma-ray burst (GRB) observations and, based on the Direct Demodulation Method (DDM), the image of the scanned sky region can be reconstructed. Here we give an overview of the mission and its progresses, including payload, core sciences, ground calibration/facility, ground segment, data archive, software, in-orbit performance, calibration, background model, observations and some preliminary results.

preprint2019arXiv

Sending-or-Not-Sending with Independent Lasers: Secure Twin-Field Quantum Key Distribution Over 509 km

Twin field quantum key distribution promises high key rates at long distance to beat the rate distance limit. Here, applying the sending or not sending TF QKD protocol, we experimentally demonstrate a secure key distribution breaking the absolute key rate limit of repeaterless QKD over 509 km, 408 km ultra-low loss optical fibre and 350 km standard optical fibre. Two independent lasers are used as the source with remote frequency locking technique over 500 km fiber distance; Practical optical fibers are used as the optical path with appropriate noise filtering; And finite key effects are considered in the key rate analysis. The secure key rates obtained at different distances are more than 5 times higher than the conditional limit of repeaterless QKD, a bound value assuming the same detection loss in the comparison. The achieved secure key rate is also higher than that a traditional QKD protocol running with a perfect repeaterless QKD device and even if an infinite number of sent pulses. Our result shows that the protocol and technologies applied in this experiment enable TF QKD to achieve high secure key rate at long distribution distance, and hence practically useful for field implementation of intercity QKD.

preprint2019arXiv

Single-photon computational 3D imaging at 45 km

Long-range active imaging has a variety of applications in remote sensing and target recognition. Single-photon LiDAR (light detection and ranging) offers single-photon sensitivity and picosecond timing resolution, which is desirable for high-precision three-dimensional (3D) imaging over long distances. Despite important progress, further extending the imaging range presents enormous challenges because only weak echo photons return and are mixed with strong noise. Herein, we tackled these challenges by constructing a high-efficiency, low-noise confocal single-photon LiDAR system, and developing a long-range-tailored computational algorithm that provides high photon efficiency and super-resolution in the transverse domain. Using this technique, we experimentally demonstrated active single-photon 3D-imaging at a distance of up to 45 km in an urban environment, with a low return-signal level of $\sim$1 photon per pixel. Our system is feasible for imaging at a few hundreds of kilometers by refining the setup, and thus represents a significant milestone towards rapid, low-power, and high-resolution LiDAR over extra-long ranges.

preprint2018arXiv

STM and DFT studies of CO2 adsorption on Cu(100)-O surface

We characterized CO2 adsorption and diffusion on the missing row reconstructed Cu(100)-O surface using a combination of scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and density functional theory (DFT) calculations with dispersion. We deposited CO2 molecules in situ at 5K, which allowed us to unambiguously identify individual CO2 molecules and their adsorption sites. Based on a comparison of experimental and DFT-generated STM images, we find that the CO2 molecules sit in between the O atoms in the missing row reconstructed Cu(100)-O surface. The CO2 molecules are easily perturbed by the STM tip under typical imaging conditions, suggesting that the molecules are weakly bound to the surface. The calculated adsorption energy, vibrational modes, and diffusion barriers of the CO2 molecules also indicate weak adsorption, in qualitative agreement with the experiments. A comparison of tunneling spectroscopy and DFT-calculated density of states shows that the primary change near the Fermi level is associated with changes to the surface states with negligible contribution from the CO2 molecular states.

preprint2016arXiv

All-fiber upconversion high spectral resolution wind lidar using a Fabry-Perot interferometer

An all-fiber, micro-pulse and eye-safe high spectral resolution wind lidar (HSRWL) at 1550nm is proposed and demonstrated by using a pair of upconversion single-photon detectors and a fiber Fabry-Perot scanning interferometer (FFP-SI). In order to improve the optical detection efficiency, both the transmission spectrum and the reflection spectrum of the FFP-SI are used for spectral analyses of the aerosol backscatter and the reference laser pulse. The reference signal is tapped from the outgoing laser and served as a zero velocity indicator. The Doppler shift is retrieved from a frequency response function Q, which is defined as the ratio of difference of the transmitted signal and the reflected signal to their sum. Taking advantages of high signal-to-noise ratio of the detectors and high spectral resolution of the FFP-SI, the Q spectra of the aerosol backscatter are reconstructed along the line-of-sight (LOS) of the telescope. By applying a least squares fit procedure to the measured Q spectra, the center frequencies and the bandwidths are obtained simultaneously. And then the Doppler shifts are determined relative to the center frequency of the reference signal. To eliminate the influence of temperature fluctuations on the FFP-SI, the FFP-SI is cased in a chamber with temperature stability of 0.001 during the measurement. Continuous LOS wind observations are carried out on two days at Hefei (31.843 N, 117.265 E), China. In the meantime, LOS wind measurements from the HSRWL show good agreement with the results from an ultrasonic wind sensor (Vaisala windcap WMT52). Due to the computational expensive of the convolution operation of the Q function, an empirical method is adopted to evaluate the quality of the measurements. The standard deviation of the wind speed is 0.76 m/s at the 1.8 km. The standard deviation of the retrieved bandwidth variation is 2.07 MHz at the 1.8 km.

preprint2016arXiv

Band gap renormalization and work function tuning in MoSe2/hBN/Ru(0001) heterostructures

Here we report the successful growth of MoSe2 on single layer hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) on Ru(0001) substrate by using molecular beam epitaxy. We investigated the electronic structures of MoSe2 using scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy. Surprisingly, we found that the quasi-particle gap of the MoSe2 on hBN/Ru is about 0.25 eV smaller than those on graphene or graphite substrates. We attribute this result to the strong interaction between hBN/Ru which causes residual metallic screening from the substrate. The surface of MoSe2 exhibits Moiré pattern that replicates the Moiré pattern of hBN/Ru. In addition, the electronic structure and the work function of MoSe2 are modulated electrostatically with an amplitude of ~ 0.13 eV. Most interestingly, this electrostatic modulation is spatially in phase with the Moiré pattern of hBN on Ru(0001) whose surface also exhibits a work function modulation of the same amplitude.

preprint2016arXiv

Dipolar matter-wave solitons in two-dimensional anisotropic discrete lattices

We numerically demonstrate two-dimensional (2D) matter-wave solitons in the disk-shaped dipolar Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) trapped in strongly anisotropic optical lattices (OLs) in a disk's plane. The considered OLs are square lattices which can be formed by interfering two pairs of plane waves with different intensities. The hopping rates of the condensates between two adjacent lattices in the orthogonal directions are different, which gives rise to a linearly anisotropic system. We find that when the polarized orientation of the dipoles is parallel to disk's plane with the same direction, the combined effects of the linearly anisotropy and the nonlocal nonlinear anisotropy strongly influence the formations, as well as the dynamics of the lattice solitons. Particularly, the isotropy-pattern solitons (IPSs) are found when these combined effects reach a balance. Motion, collision and rotation of the IPSs are also studied in detail by means of systematic simulations. We further find that these IPSs can move freely in the 2D anisotropic discrete system, hence giving rise to an anisotropic effective mass. Four types of collisions between the IPSs are identified. By rotating an external magnetic field up to a critical angular velocity, the IPSs can still remain localized and play as a breather. Finally, the influences from the combined effects between the linear and the nonlocal nonlinear anisotropy with consideration of the contact/local nonlinearity are discussed too.

preprint2016arXiv

Experimental measurement-device-independent quantum random number generation

The randomness from a quantum random number generator (QRNG) relies on the accurate characterization of its devices. However, device imperfections and inaccurate characterizations can result in wrong entropy estimation and bias in practice, which highly affects the genuine randomness generation and may even induce the disappearance of quantum randomness in an extreme case. Here we experimentally demonstrate a measurement-device-independent (MDI) QRNG based on time-bin encoding to achieve certified quantum randomness even when the measurement devices are uncharacterized and untrusted. The MDI-QRNG is randomly switched between the regular randomness generation mode and a test mode, in which four quantum states are randomly prepared to perform measurement tomography in real-time. With a clock rate of 25 MHz, the MDI-QRNG generates a final random bit rate of 5.7 Kbps. Such implementation with an all-fiber setup provides an approach to construct a fully-integrated MDI-QRNG with trusted but error-prone devices in practice.

preprint2016arXiv

Experimental quantum data locking

Classical correlation can be locked via quantum means--quantum data locking. With a short secret key, one can lock an exponentially large amount of information, in order to make it inaccessible to unauthorized users without the key. Quantum data locking presents a resource-efficient alternative to one-time pad encryption which requires a key no shorter than the message. We report experimental demonstrations of quantum data locking scheme originally proposed by DiVincenzo et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 067902 (2004)] and a loss-tolerant scheme developed by Fawzi, Hayde, and Sen [J. ACM. 60, 44 (2013)]. We observe that the unlocked amount of information is larger than the key size in both experiments, exhibiting strong violation of the incremental proportionality property of classical information theory. As an application example, we show the successful transmission of a photo over a lossy channel with quantum data (un)locking and error correction.

preprint2016arXiv

High-flux water desalination with interfacial salt sieving effect in nanoporous carbon composite membranes

Nanoporous carbon composite membranes, comprising a layer of porous carbon fiber structures with an average channel width of 30-60 nm grown on a porous ceramic substrate, are found to exhibit robust desalination effect with high freshwater flux. In three different membrane processes of vacuum membrane distillation, reverse osmosis and forward osmosis, the carbon composite membrane showed 100% salt rejection with 3.5 to 20 times higher freshwater flux compared to existing polymeric membranes. Thermal accounting experiments found that at least 80% of the freshwater pass through the carbon composite membrane with no phase change. Molecular dynamics simulations revealed a unique salt rejection mechanism. When seawater is interfaced with either vapor or the surface of carbon, one to three interfacial atomic layers contain no salt ions. Below the liquid entry pressure, the salt solution is stopped at the openings to the porous channels and forms a meniscus, while the surface layer of freshwater can feed the surface diffusion flux that is fast-transported on the surfaces of the carbon fibers, driven by the chemical potential gradient. As the surface-transported water does not involve a phase change, hence that component involves no energy expenditure in the form of latent heat.

preprint2016arXiv

Integrated four-channel all-fiber up-conversion single-photon-detector with adjustable efficiency and dark count

Up-conversion single photon detector (UCSPD) has been widely used in many research fields including quantum key distribution (QKD), lidar, optical time domain reflectrometry (OTDR) and deep space communication. For the first time in laboratory, we have developed an integrated four-channel all-fiber UCSPD which can work in both free-running and gate modes. This compact module can satisfy different experimental demands with adjustable detection efficiency and dark count. We have characterized the key parameters of the UCSPD system.

preprint2016arXiv

Measurement device independent quantum key distribution over 404 km optical fibre

Quantum key distribution (QKD) can provide unconditional secure communication between two distant parties. Although the significance of QKD is undisputed, its feasibility has been questioned because of certain limitations in the practical application of real-life QKD systems. It is a common belief the lack of perfect single-photon source and the existence of detection loss will handicap the feasibility of QKD by creating security loopholes and distance limitations. The measurement device independent QKD (MDIQKD) with decoy-state method removes the security threats from both the imperfect single-photon source and the detection loss. Lengthening the distance and improving the key rate of QKD with such a superior method is thus the central issue in the practical application of QKD. Here, we report the results of MDIQKD over 404 km of ultralow-loss optical fibre and 311 km of standard optical fibre by employing an optimized four-intensity decoy-state method. This record-breaking implementation of MDIQKD method not only provides a new distance record for both MDIQKD and all types of QKD systems, more significantly, it achieves a distance that the traditional BB84 QKD would not be able to achieve with the same detection devices even with ideal single-phone sources. For the first time, our work demonstrates that with the MDIQKD method, imperfect devices can achieve better results than what ideal sources could have achieved. This work represents a significant step towards proving and developing a feasible long-distance QKD.

preprint2016arXiv

Mechanism Design with Exchangeable Allocations

We investigate mechanism design without payments when agents have different types of preferences. Contrary to most settings in the literature where agents have the same preference, e.g. in the facility location games all agents would like to stay close to (or away from) the facility, we demonstrate the limitation of mechanism design without payments when agents have different preferences by introducing exchanging phases. We consider two types of exchanging phases. The first model is called central exchanges where the exchanges are performed by a central authority. The other model is called individual exchanges where agents exchange their outcomes by themselves. By using facility location games as an example, we provide a truthful mechanism that optimizes social welfare in central exchanges. We also provide a universally truthful randomized mechanism that achieves at least a half of the optimal social welfare in individual exchanges.

preprint2016arXiv

Micro-pulse upconversion Doppler lidar for wind and visibility detection in the atmospheric boundary layer

For the first time, a versatile, eyesafe, compact and direct detection Doppler lidar is developed using upconversion single-photon detection method. An all-fiber and polarization maintaining architecture is realized to guarantee the high optical coupling efficiency and the system stability. Using integrated-optic components, the conservation of etendue of the optical receiver is achieved by manufacturing a fiber-coupled periodically poled Lithium niobate waveguide and an all-fiber Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI). The so-called double-edge direct detection is implemented using a single-channel FPI and a single upconversion detector, incorporating time-division multiplexing method. The relative error of the system is lower than 0.1% over 9 weeks. To show the robust of the system, atmospheric wind and visibility over 48 hours are detected in the boundary layer. In the intercomparison experiments, lidar shows good agreement with the ultrasonic wind sensor (Vaisala windcap WMT52), with standard deviation of 1.04 m/s in speed and 12.3° in direction.

preprint2016arXiv

Modelling the Multi-band Afterglow of GRB 091127: Evidence of a Hard Electron Energy Spectrum with an Injection Break

The afterglow of GRBs is believed to originate from the synchrotron emission of shock-accelerated electrons produced by the interaction between the outflow and the external medium. The accelerated electrons are usually assumed to follow a power law energy distribution with an index of $p$. Observationally, although most GRB afterglows have a $p$ larger than 2, there are still a few GRBs suggestive of a hard ($p<2$) electron spectrum. GRB 091127, with well-sampled broad-band afterglow data, shows evidence of a hard electron spectrum and strong spectral evolution, with a spectral break moving from high to lower energies. The spectral break evolves very fast and cannot be explained by the cooling break in the standard afterglow model, unless evolving microphysical parameters are assumed. Besides, the multi-band afterglow light curves show an achromatic break at around 33 ks. Based on the model of a hard electron spectrum with an injection break, we interpret the observed spectral break as the synchrotron frequency corresponding to the injection break, and the achromatic break as a jet break caused by the jet-edge effect. It is shown that the spectral evolution and the multi-band afterglow light curves of GRB 091127 can be well reproduced by this model.

preprint2016arXiv

Observation of quantum fingerprinting beating the classical limit

Quantum communication has historically been at the forefront of advancements, from fundamental tests of quantum physics to utilizing the quantum-mechanical properties of physical systems for practical applications. In the field of communication complexity, quantum communication allows the advantage of an exponential reduction in the information transmitted over classical communication to accomplish distributed computational tasks. However, to date, demonstrating this advantage in a practical setting continues to be a central challenge. Here, we report an experimental demonstration of a quantum fingerprinting protocol that for the first time surpasses the ultimate classical limit to transmitted information. Ultra-low noise superconducting single-photon detectors and a stable fibre-based Sagnac interferometer are used to implement a quantum fingerprinting system that is capable of transmitting less information than the classical proven lower bound over 20 km standard telecom fibre for input sizes of up to two Gbits. The results pave the way for experimentally exploring the advanced features of quantum communication and open a new window of opportunity for research in communication complexity and testing the foundations of physics.

preprint2016arXiv

Quantum teleportation with independent sources over an optical fibre network

Quantum teleportation faithfully transfers a quantum state between distant nodes in a network, enabling revolutionary information processing applications. Here we report teleporting quantum states over a 30 km optical fiber network with the input single photon state and the EPR state prepared independently. By buffering photons in 10 km coiled optical fiber, we perform Bell state measurement after entanglement distribution. With active feed-forward operation, the average quantum state fidelity and quantum process fidelity are measured to be 0.85 and 0.77, exceeding classical limits of 0.67 and 0.5, respectively. The statistical hypothesis test shows that the probability of a classical process to predict an average state fidelity no less than the one observed in our experiment is less than 2.4E-14, confirming the quantum nature of our quantum teleportation experiment. Our experiment marks a critical step towards the realization of quantum internet in the future.

preprint2016arXiv

Revenue Maximizing Envy-Free Pricing in Matching Markets with Budgets

We study envy-free pricing mechanisms in matching markets with $m$ items and $n$ budget constrained buyers. Each buyer is interested in a subset of the items on sale, and she appraises at some single-value every item in her preference-set. Moreover, each buyer has a budget that constraints the maximum affordable payment, while she aims to obtain as many items as possible of her preference-set. Our goal is to compute an envy-free pricing allocation that maximizes the revenue, i.e., the total payment charged to the buyers. This pricing problem is hard to approximate better than $Ω({\rm min} \{n,m\}^{1/2-ε})$ for any $ε>0$, unless $P=NP$. The hardness result is due to the presence of the matching constraints given that the simpler multi-unit case can be approximated up to a constant factor of $2$. The goal of this paper is to circumvent the hardness result by restricting ourselves to specific settings of valuations and budgets. Two particularly significant scenarios are: each buyer has a budget that is greater than her single-value valuation, and each buyer has a budget that is lower than her single-value valuation. Surprisingly, in both scenarios we are able to achieve a $1/4$-approximation to the optimal envy-free revenue. The algorithms utilize a novel version of the Ausebel ascending price auction. These results may suggest that, although it is difficult to approximate the optimal revenue in general, ascending price auctions could achieve relatively good revenue in most of the practical settings.

preprint2016arXiv

Structure and magnetic properties of {\it Ln}MnSbO ({\it Ln} = La and Ce) and CeMnAsO

Neutron powder diffraction (NPD) study of \textit{Ln}MnSbO (\textit{Ln }$=$ La or Ce) reveals differences between the magnetic ground state of the two compounds due to the strong Ce-Mn coupling compared to La-Mn. The two compounds adopt the \textit{P4/nmm} space group down to 2 K and whereas magnetization measurements do not show obvious anomaly at high temperatures, NPD reveals a C-type antiferromagnetic (AFM) order below $T_{\mathrm{N}} = 255 $ K for LaMnSbO and 240 K for CeMnSbO. While the magnetic structure of LaMnSbO is preserved to base temperature, a sharp transition at $T_{\mathrm{SR}} = 4.5 $K is observed in CeMnSbO due to a spin-reorientation (SR) transition of the Mn$^{\mathrm{2+}}$ magnetic moments from pointing along the $c$-axis to the \textit{ab}-plane. The SR transition in CeMnSbO is accompanied by a simultaneous long-range AFM ordering of the Ce moments which indicates that the Mn SR transition is driven by the Ce-Mn coupling. The ordered moments are found to be somewhat smaller than those expected for Mn$^{\mathrm{2+}}$ ($S = 5/2$) in insulators, but large enough to suggest that these compounds belong to the class of local-moment antiferromagnets. The lower $T_{\mathrm{N\thinspace }}$ found in these two compounds compared to the As-based counterparts ($T_{\mathrm{N}} = 317$ for LaMnAsO, $T_{\mathrm{N}} = 347$ K for CeMnAsO) indicates that the Mn-$Pn$ ($Pn=$ As or Sb) hybridization that mediates the superexchange Mn-$Pn$-Mn coupling is weaker for the Sb-based compounds.

preprint2015arXiv

Coexistence of Scattering Enhancement and Suppression by Plasmonic Cavity Modes in Loaded Dimer Gap-Antennas

Plasmonic nanoantenna is of promising applications in optical sensing, single-molecular detection, and enhancement of optical nonlinear effect, surface optical spectroscopy, photochemistry, photoemission, photovoltaics, etc. Here we show that in a carefully-designed dimer gap-antenna made by two metallic nanorods, the longitudinal plasmon antenna mode (AM) of bonding dipoles can compete with the transverse plasmonic cavity modes (CMs), yielding dramatically enhanced or suppressed scattering efficiency, depending on the CMs symmetry characteristics (e.g., the radial order n and the azimuthal quantum number m ). More specifically, it is demonstrated that an appropriately loaded gap layer enables substantial excitation of toroidal moment and its strong interaction with the AM dipole moment, resulting in Fano- or electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT)-like profile in the scattering spectrum. However, for CMs with nonzero azimuthal number, the spectrum features a cumulative signature of the respective AM and CM resonances. We supply both detailed near-field and far-field analysis for these phenomena, showing that the modal overlap and phase relationship between the fundamental moments of different order play a crucial role. A classical coupled oscillator model is proposed which clearly reproduces the coexistence of scattering enhancement and suppression. Finally, we show that the resonance bands of the AM and CMs can be tuned by adjusting the geometry parameters and the permittivity of the load. Our results may be useful in plasmonic cloaking, spin-polarized directional light emission, ultra-sensitive optical sensing, and plasmon-mediated photoluminescence.

preprint2015arXiv

Collective dark states controlled transmission in plasmonic slot waveguide with a stub coupled to a cavity dimer

We report collective dark states controlled transmission in metal-dielectric-metal waveguides with a stub coupled to two twin cavities, namely, plasmonic waveguide-stub-dimer systems. In absence of one individual cavity in the dimer, plasmon induced transparency (PIT) is possible when the cavity and the stub have the same resonance frequency. However, it is shown that the hybridized modes in the dimer collectively generate two dark states which make the stub-dimer "invisible" to the straight waveguide, splitting the original PIT peak into two in the transmission spectrum. Simultaneously, the original PIT peak becomes a dip due to dark state interaction, yielding anti-PIT-like modulation of the transmission. With full-wave electromagnetic simulation, we demonstrate that this transition is controlled by the dimer-stub separation and the dimer-stub relative position. All results are analytically described by the temporal coupled mode theory. Our results may be useful in designing densely integrated optical circuits, and in optical sensing and switching applications.

preprint2015arXiv

Experimental measurements of fundamental and high-order spoof surface plasmon polariton modes on ultrathin metal strips

Propagation of spoof surface plasmon polaritons (spoof SPPs) on comb-shaped ultrathin metal strips made of aluminum foil and printed copper circuit are studied experimentally and numerically. With a near field scanning technique, electric field distributions on these metal strips are measured directly. The dispersion curves of spoof SPPs are thus obtained by means of Fourier transform of the field distributions in the real space for every frequency. Both fundamental and second order modes are investigated and the measured dispersions agree well with numerical ones calculated by the finite element method. Such direct measurements of the near field characteristics provide complete information of these spoof SPPs, enabling full exploitation of their properties associated with the field confinement in a subwavelength scale.

preprint2015arXiv

Experimental Passive Round-Robin Differential Phase-Shift Quantum Key Distribution

In quantum key distribution (QKD), the bit error rate is used to estimate the information leakage and hence determines the amount of privacy amplification --- making the final key private by shortening the key. In general, there exists a threshold of the error rate for each scheme, above which no secure key can be generated. This threshold puts a restriction on the environment noises. For example, a widely used QKD protocol --- BB84 --- cannot tolerate error rates beyond 25%. A new protocol, round-robin differential phase shifted (RRDPS) QKD, essentially removes this restriction and can in principle tolerate more environment disturbance. Here, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a passive RRDPS QKD scheme. In particular, our 500 MHz passive RRDPS QKD system is able to generate a secure key over 50 km with a bit error rate as high as 29%. This scheme should find its applications in noisy environment conditions.

preprint2015arXiv

Experimental round-robin differential phase-shift quantum key distribution

In conventional quantum key distribution (QKD) protocols, security is guaranteed by estimating the amount of leaked information through monitoring signal disturbance, which, in practice, is generally caused by environmental noise and device imperfections rather than eavesdropping. Such estimation therefore tends to overrate the amount of leaked information in practice, leads to a fundamental threshold of the bit error rate. The threshold becomes a bottleneck of the development of practical QKD systems. In classical communication, according to Shannon's communication theory, information can transform through a noisy channel even if the background noise is very strong compare to the signal and hence the threshold of the bit error rate tends to 50%. One might wonder whether a QKD scheme can also tolerate error rate as high as 50%. The question is answered affirmatively with the recent work of round-robin differential phase-shift (RRDPS) protocol, which breaks through the fundamental threshold of the bit error rate and indicates another potential direction in the field of quantum cryptography. The key challenge to realize the RRDPS scheme lies on the measurement device, which requires a variable-delay interferometer. The delay needs to be chosen from a set of predetermined values randomly. Such measurement can be realized by switching between many interferometers with different delays at a high speed in accordance with the system repetition rate. The more delay values can be chosen from, the higher error rate can be tolerated. By designing an optical system with multiple switches and employing an active phase stabilization technology, we successfully construct a variable-delay interferometer with 128 actively selectable delays. With this measurement, we experimentally demonstrate the RRDPS QKD protocol and obtain a final key rate of 15.54 bps via a total loss of 18 dB and 8.9% error rate.

preprint2015arXiv

Exploring the low redshift universe: two parametric models for effective pressure

Astrophysical observations have put unprecedentedly tight constraints on cosmological theories. The $Λ$CDM model, mathematically simple and fits observational data-sets well, is preferred for explaining the behavior of universe. But many basic features of the dark sectors are still unknown, which leaves rooms for various nonstandard cosmological hypotheses. As the pressure of cosmological constant dark energy is unvarying, ignoring contributions from radiation and curvature terms at low redshift, the effective pressure keeps constant. In this paper, we propose two parametric models for non-constant effective pressure in order to study the tiny deviation from $Λ$CDM at low redshift. We recover our phenomenological models in the scenarios of quintessence and phantom fields, and explore the behavior of scalar field and potential. We constrain our model parameters with SNe Ia and BAO observations, and detect subtle hints of $ω_{de}<-1$ from the data fitting results of both models, which indicates possibly a phantom dark energy scenario at present.

preprint2015arXiv

Fixed subgroups are compressed in surface groups

For a compact surface $Σ$ (orientable or not, and with boundary or not) we show that the fixed subgroup, $\operatorname{Fix} B$, of any family $B$ of endomorphisms of $π_1(Σ)$ is compressed in $π_1(Σ)$ i.e., $\operatorname{rk}((\operatorname{Fix} B)\cap H)\leq \operatorname{rk}(H)$ for any subgroup $\operatorname{Fix} B \leq H \leq π_1(Σ)$. On the way, we give a partial positive solution to the inertia conjecture, both for free and for surface groups. We also investigate direct products, $G$, of finitely many free and surface groups, and give a characterization of when $G$ satisfies that $\operatorname{rk}(\operatorname{Fix} ϕ) \leq \operatorname{rk}(G)$ for every $ϕ\in Aut(G)$.

preprint2015arXiv

Genuine High-Order Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Steering

Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) steering demonstrates that two parties share entanglement even if the measurement devices of one party are untrusted. Here, going beyond this bipartite concept, we develop a novel formalism to explore a large class of EPR steering from generic multipartite quantum systems of arbitrarily high dimensionality and degrees of freedom, such as graph states and hyperentangled systems. All of these quantum characteristics of genuine high-order EPR steering can be efficiently certified with few measurement settings in experiments. We faithfully demonstrate for the first time such generality by experimentally showing genuine four-partite EPR steering and applications to universal one-way quantum computing. Our formalism provides a new insight into the intermediate type of genuine multipartite Bell non-locality and potential applications to quantum of untrusted measurement devices.

preprint2015arXiv

High-efficiency and low-jitter Silicon single-photon avalanche diodes based on nanophotonic absorption enhancement

Silicon single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD) is a core device for single-photon detection in the visible and the near-infrared range, and widely used in many applications. However, due to limits of the structure design and device fabrication for current silicon SPADs, the key parameters of detection befficiency and timing jitter are often forced to compromise. Here, we propose a nanostructured silicon SPAD, which achieves high detection efficiency with excellent timing jitter simultaneously over a broad spectral range. The optical and electric simulations show significant performance enhancement compared with conventional silicon SPAD devices. This nanostructured devices can be easily fabricated and thus well suited for practical applications.

preprint2015arXiv

Many-Anyons Wavefunction, State Capacity and Gentile Statistics

The many-anyons wavefunction is constructed via the superposition of all the permutations on the direct product of single anyon states and its interchange properties are examined. The phase of permutation is not a representation but the word metric of the permutation group . Amazingly the interchange phase yields a finite capacity of one quantum state interpolating between Fermion and Boson and the mutual exchange phase has no explicit effect on statistics. Finite capacity of quantum state is defined as Gentile statistics and it is different from the fractional exclusion statistics. Some discussion on the general model is also given.

preprint2015arXiv

Measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution over untrustful metropolitan network

Quantum cryptography holds the promise to establish an information-theoretically secure global network. All field tests of metropolitan-scale quantum networks to date are based on trusted relays. The security critically relies on the accountability of the trusted relays, which will break down if the relay is dishonest or compromised. Here, we construct a measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution (MDIQKD) network in a star topology over a 200 square kilometers metropolitan area, which is secure against untrustful relays and against all detection attacks. In the field test, our system continuously runs through one week with a secure key rate ten times larger than previous result. Our results demonstrate that the MDIQKD network, combining the best of both worlds --- security and practicality, constitutes an appealing solution to secure metropolitan communications.

preprint2015arXiv

Microwave band gap and cavity mode in spoof-insulator-spoof waveguide with multiscale structured surface

We propose a multiscale spoof-insulator-spoof (SIS) waveguide by introducing periodic geometry modulation in the wavelength scale to a SIS waveguide made of perfect electric conductor. The MSIS consists of multiple SIS subcells. The dispersion relationship of the fundamental guided mode of the spoof surface plasmon polaritons (SSPPs) is studied analytically within the small gap approximation. It is shown that the multiscale SIS possesses microwave band gap (MBG) due to the Bragg scattering. The "gap maps" in the design parameter space are provided. We demonstrate that the geometry of the subcells can efficiently adjust the effective refraction index of the elementary SIS and therefore further control the width and the position of the MBG. The results are in good agreement with numerical calculations by the finite element method (FEM). For finite-sized MSIS of given geometry in the millimeter scale, FEM calculations show that the first-order symmetric SSPP mode has zero transmission in the MBG within frequency range from 4.29 GHz to 5.1 GHz. A cavity mode is observed inside the gap at 4.58 GHz, which comes from a designer "point defect" in the multiscale SIS waveguide. Furthermore, ultrathin MSIS waveguides are shown to have both symmetric and antisymmetric modes with their own MBGs, respectively. The deep-subwavelength confinement and the great degree to control the propagation of SSPPs in such structures promise potential applications in miniaturized microwave device.

preprint2015arXiv

Neutron-scattering measurements of the spin excitations in LaFeAsO and Ba(Fe$_{0.953}$Co$_{0.047}$)$_{2}$As$_{2}$: Evidence for a sharp enhancement of spin fluctuations by nematic order

Inelastic neutron scattering was employed to investigate the impact of electronic nematic order on the magnetic spectra of LaFeAsO and Ba(Fe$_{0.953}$Co$_{0.047}$)$_{2}$As$_{2}$. These materials are ideal to study the paramagnetic-nematic state, since the nematic order, signaled by the tetragonal-to-orthorhombic transition at $T_{\rm S}$, sets in well above the stripe antiferromagnetic ordering at $T_{\rm N}$. We find that the temperature-dependent dynamic susceptibility displays an anomaly at $T_{\rm S}$ followed by a sharp enhancement in the spin-spin correlation length, revealing a strong feedback effect of nematic order on the low-energy magnetic spectrum. Our findings can be consistently described by a model that attributes the structural/nematic transition to magnetic fluctuations, and unveils the key role played by nematic order in promoting the long-range stripe antiferromagnetic order in iron pnictides.

preprint2015arXiv

Photon-counting Brillouin optical time-domain reflectometry based on up-conversion detector and fiber Fabry-Perot scanning interferometer

A direct-detection Brillouin optical time-domain reflectometry (BOTDR) is proposed and demonstrated by using an up-conversion single-photon detector and a fiber Fabry-Perot scanning interferometer (FFP-SI). Taking advantage of high signal-to-noise ratio of the detector and high spectrum resolution of the FFP-SI, the Brillouin spectrum along a polarization maintaining fiber (PMF) is recorded on a multiscaler with a small data size directly. In contrast with conventional BOTDR adopting coherent detection, photon-counting BOTDR is simpler in structure and easier in data processing. In the demonstration experiment, characteristic parameters of the Brillouin spectrum including its power, spectral width and frequency center are analyzed simultaneously along a 10 km PMF at different temperature and stain conditions.

preprint2015arXiv

Spin reorientation and Ce-Mn coupling in antiferromagnetic oxypnictide CeMnAsO

Structure and magnetic properties of high-quality polycrystlline CeMnAsO, a parent compound of the "1111"-type oxypnictides, have been investigated using neutron powder diffraction and magnetization measurements. We find that CeMnAsO undergoes a C-type antiferromagnetic order with Mn$^{2+}$ ($S=5/2$) moments pointing along the \textit{c}-axis below a relatively high Néel temperature of $T_{\rm N} = 345$ K. Below $T_{\rm SR} = 35$ K, two instantaneous transitions occur where the Mn moments reorient from the $c$-axis to the \textit{ab}-plane preserving the C-type magnetic order, and Ce moments undergo long-range AFM ordering with antiparallel moments pointing in the \textit{ab}-plane. Another transition to a noncollinear magnetic structure occurs below 7 K. The ordered moments of Mn and Ce at 2 K are 3.32(4) $μ_{B}$ and 0.81(4)$μ_{B}$, respectively. We find that CeMnAsO primarily falls into the category of a local-moment antiferromagnetic insulator in which the nearest-neighbor interaction ($J_{1}$) is dominant with $J_{2}<J_{1}/2$ in the context of $J_{1}-J_{2}-J_{c}$ model. The spin reorientation transition driven by the coupling between rare earth Ce and transition metal seems to be common to Mn, Fe and Cr ions, but not to Co and Ni ions in the iso-structural oxypnictides. A schematic illustration of magnetic structures in Mn and Ce sublattices in CeMnAsO is proposed.

preprint2015arXiv

Unsupervised Video Analysis Based on a Spatiotemporal Saliency Detector

Visual saliency, which predicts regions in the field of view that draw the most visual attention, has attracted a lot of interest from researchers. It has already been used in several vision tasks, e.g., image classification, object detection, foreground segmentation. Recently, the spectrum analysis based visual saliency approach has attracted a lot of interest due to its simplicity and good performance, where the phase information of the image is used to construct the saliency map. In this paper, we propose a new approach for detecting spatiotemporal visual saliency based on the phase spectrum of the videos, which is easy to implement and computationally efficient. With the proposed algorithm, we also study how the spatiotemporal saliency can be used in two important vision task, abnormality detection and spatiotemporal interest point detection. The proposed algorithm is evaluated on several commonly used datasets with comparison to the state-of-art methods from the literature. The experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach to spatiotemporal visual saliency detection and its application to the above vision tasks

preprint2014arXiv

Core-Shell Structured Dielectric-Metal Circular Nanodisk Antenna: Gap Plasmon Assisted Magnetic Toroid-like Cavity Modes

Plasmonic nanoantennas, the properties of which are essentially determined by their resonance modes, are of interest both fundamentally and for various applications. Antennas with various shapes, geometries and compositions have been demonstrated, each possessing unique properties and potential applications. Here, we propose the use of a sidewall coating as an additional degree of freedom to manipulate plasmonic gap cavity modes in strongly coupled metallic nanodisks. It is demonstrated that for a dielectric middle layer with a thickness of a few tens of nanometers and a sidewall plasmonic coating of more than ten nanometers, the usual optical magnetic resonance modes are eliminated, and only magnetic toroid-like modes are sustainable in the infrared and visible regime. All of these deep-subwavelength modes can be interpreted as an interference effect from the gap surface plasmon polaritons. Our results will be useful in nanoantenna design, high-Q cavity sensing, structured light-beam generation, and photon emission engineering.

preprint2014arXiv

Efficiency of Truthful and Symmetric Mechanisms in One-sided Matching

We study the efficiency (in terms of social welfare) of truthful and symmetric mechanisms in one-sided matching problems with {\em dichotomous preferences} and {\em normalized von Neumann-Morgenstern preferences}. We are particularly interested in the well-known {\em Random Serial Dictatorship} mechanism. For dichotomous preferences, we first show that truthful, symmetric and optimal mechanisms exist if intractable mechanisms are allowed. We then provide a connection to online bipartite matching. Using this connection, it is possible to design truthful, symmetric and tractable mechanisms that extract 0.69 of the maximum social welfare, which works under assumption that agents are not adversarial. Without this assumption, we show that Random Serial Dictatorship always returns an assignment in which the expected social welfare is at least a third of the maximum social welfare. For normalized von Neumann-Morgenstern preferences, we show that Random Serial Dictatorship always returns an assignment in which the expected social welfare is at least $\frac{1}{e}\frac{ν(\opt)^2}{n}$, where $ν(\opt)$ is the maximum social welfare and $n$ is the number of both agents and items. On the hardness side, we show that no truthful mechanism can achieve a social welfare better than $\frac{ν(\opt)^2}{n}$.

preprint2014arXiv

Experimental Passive Decoy-State Quantum Key Distribution

The decoy-state method is widely used in practical quantum key distribution systems to replace ideal single photon sources with realistic light sources by varying intensities. Instead of active modulation, the passive decoy-state method employs built-in decoy states in a parametric down-conversion photon source, which can decrease the side channel information leakage in decoy state preparation and hence increase the security. By employing low dark count up-conversion single photon detectors, we have experimentally demonstrated the passive decoy-state method over a 50-km-long optical fiber and have obtained a key rate of about 100 bit/s. Our result suggests that the passive decoy-state source is a practical candidate for future quantum communication implementation.

preprint2014arXiv

Field Test of Measurement-Device-Independent Quantum Key Distribution

A main type of obstacles of practical applications of quantum key distribution (QKD) network is various attacks on detection. Measurement-device-independent QKD (MDIQKD) protocol is immune to all these attacks and thus a strong candidate for network security. Recently, several proof-of-principle demonstrations of MDIQKD have been performed. Although novel, those experiments are implemented in the laboratory with secure key rates less than 0.1 bps. Besides, they need manual calibration frequently to maintain the system performance. These aspects render these demonstrations far from practicability. Thus, justification is extremely crucial for practical deployment into the field environment. Here, by developing an automatic feedback MDIQKD system operated at a high clock rate, we perform a field test via deployed fiber network of 30 km total length, achieving a 16.9 bps secure key rate. The result lays the foundation for a global quantum network which can shield from all the detection-side attacks.

preprint2014arXiv

Games on graphs: A minor modification of payoff scheme makes a big difference

Various social dilemma games that follow different strategy updating rules have been studied on many networks.The reported results span the entire spectrum, from significantly boosting,to marginally affecting,to seriously decreasing the level of cooperation.Experimental results that are qualitatively different from theoretical prediction have also been reported.It is widely believed that the results are largely determined by three elements,including payoff matrices of the underlying 2*2 games,the way that the strategic states of the players are updated and the structure of the networks.Here we discuss the impact of a seemly non-essential mechanism -- what we refer to as a "payoff scheme". Specifically, in each round after the states of all of the players are determined,the payoff scheme is how each player's payoff is calculated.In addition to the two conventions in which either the accumulated or the averaged payoff is calculated from playing with all of the neighboring players,we here study the effects of calculating the payoff from pairing up with one random player from among the neighboring players. Based on probability theory, in a situation of uncorrelated events, the average payoff that involves all of the neighbors should,in principal,be equivalent to the payoff from pairing up with one neighbor.However,our simulation of games on graphs shows that, in many cases,the two payoff schemes lead to qualitatively different levels of cooperation.This finding appears to provide a possible explanation for a wide spectrum of observed behaviors in the literature.We have also observed that results from the randomly-pairing-one mechanism are more robust than the involving-all-neighbours mechanism because,in the former case, neither the other three main elements nor the initial states of the players have a large impact on the final level of cooperation compared with in the latter case.

preprint2014arXiv

Long-range micro-pulse aerosol lidar at 1.5 um with an up-conversion single-photon detector

A micro-pulse lidar at eye-safe wavelength is constructed based on an up-conversion single-photon detector. The ultralow noise detector enables using integration technique to improve the signal-to-noise ratio of the atmospheric backscattering even at daytime. With the pulse energy of 110uJ, the pulse repetition rate of 15 kHz, the optical antenna diameter of 100 mm and integration time of 5 minutes, a horizontal detection range of 7 km is realized. In the demonstration experiment, atmospheric visibility over 24 hours is monitored continuously, with results in accordance with the weather forecasts.

preprint2014arXiv

Magnetic excitations and anomalous spin wave broadening in multiferroic FeV2O4

We report on the different roles of two orbital-active Fe$^{2+}$ at the A site and V$^{3+}$ at the B site in the magnetic excitations and on the anomalous spin wave broadening in FeV$_{2}$O$_{4}$. FeV$_{2}$O$_{4}$ exhibits three structural transitions and successive paramagnetic (PM)-collinear ferrimagnetic (CFI)-noncollinear ferrimagnetic (NCFI) transitions. The high-temperature tetragonal/PM -orthorhombic/CFI transition is accompanied by the appearance of an energy gap with a high magnitude in the magnetic excitations due to strong spin-orbit coupling induced anisotropy at the Fe$^{2+}$ site. While there is no measurable increase in the energy gap from the orbital ordering of V$^{3+}$ at the orthorhombic/CFI-tetragonal/NCFI transition, anomalous spin wave broadening is observed in the orthorhombic/CFI state due to V$^{3+}$ spin fluctuations at the B site. The spin wave broadening is also observed at the zone boundary without softening, which is discussed in terms of magnon-phonon coupling.

preprint2014arXiv

Measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution over 200 km

Measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution (MDIQKD) protocol is immune to all attacks on detection and guarantees the information-theoretical security even with imperfect single photon detectors. Recently, several proof-of-principle demonstrations of MDIQKD have been achieved. Those experiments, although novel, are implemented through limited distance with a key rate less than 0.1 bps. Here, by developing a 75 MHz clock rate fully-automatic and highly-stable system, and superconducting nanowire single photon detectors with detection efficiencies more than 40%, we extend the secure transmission distance of MDIQKD to 200 km and achieve a secure key rate of three orders of magnitude higher. These results pave the way towards a quantum network with measurement-device-independent security.

preprint2014arXiv

Multifractal analyses of daily rainfall time series in Pearl River basin of China

The multifractal properties of daily rainfall time series at the stations in Pearl River basin of China over periods of up to 45 years are examined using the universal multifractal approach based on the multiplicative cascade model and the multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis (MF-DFA). The results from these two kinds of multifractal analyses show that the daily rainfall time series in this basin have multifractal behavior in two different time scale ranges. It is found that the empirical multifractal moment function $K(q)$ of the daily rainfall time series can be fitted very well by the universal mulitifractal model (UMM). The estimated values of the conservation parameter $H$ from UMM for these daily rainfall data are close to zero indicating that they correspond to conserved fields. After removing the seasonal trend in the rainfall data, the estimated values of the exponent $h(2)$ from MF-DFA indicate that the daily rainfall time series in Pearl River basin exhibit no long-term correlations. It is also found that $K(2)$ and elevation series are negatively correlated. It shows a relationship between topography and rainfall variability.

preprint2014arXiv

Resonance modes in stereometamaterial of square split ring resonators connected by sharing the gap

Stereometamaerials can fully utilize the 3D degrees of freedom to exploit the coupling and hybridization between multiple split ring resonators (SRRs), enabling more extraordinary resonances and properties over their planar counterparts. Here we propose and numerically study a kind of structure based on connected SRRs sharing their gap in a rotational fashion. It is shown that there are three typical resonance modes in such cage-like SRR (C-SRR) stereometamaterial in the communication and near infrared range. In the order of increasing energy, these modes can be essentially ascribed to magnetic torodial dipole, magnetic dipole, and a mixture of electric-dipole and magnetic toroidal dipole. We show that the latter two are derived from the second-order mode in the corresponding individual SRR, while the first one from the fundamental one. The highest energy mode remains relatively "dark" in an individual C-SRR due to the high-order feature and the rotational symmetry. However, they are all easily excitable in a C-SRR array, offering multiband filtering functionality.

preprint2014arXiv

Single Quantum Emitters in Monolayer Semiconductors

Single quantum emitters (SQEs) are at the heart of quantum optics and photonic quantum information technologies. To date, all demonstrated solid-state single-photon sources are confined in three-dimensional materials. Here, we report a new class of SQEs based on excitons that are spatially localized by defects in two-dimensional tungsten-diselenide monolayers. The optical emission from these SQEs shows narrow linewidths of ~0.13 meV, about two orders of magnitude smaller than that of delocalized valley excitons. Second-order correlation measurements reveal strong photon anti-bunching, unambiguously establishing the single photon nature of the emission. The SQE emission shows two non-degenerate transitions, which are cross-linearly polarized. We assign this fine structure to two excitonic eigen-modes whose degeneracy is lifted by a large ~0.71 meV coupling, likely due to the electron-hole exchange interaction in presence of anisotropy. Magneto-optical measurements also reveal an exciton g-factor of ~8.7, several times larger than that of delocalized valley excitons. In addition to their fundamental importance, establishing new SQEs in 2D quantum materials could give rise to practical advantages in quantum information processing, such as efficient photon extraction and high integratability and scalability.

preprint2013arXiv

217 km long distance photon-counting optical time-domain reflectometry based on ultra-low noise up-conversion single photon detector

We demonstrate a photon-counting optical time-domain reflectometry with 42.19 dB dynamic range using an ultra-low noise up-conversion single photon detector. By employing the long wave pump technique and a volume Bragg grating, we reduce the noise of our up-conversion single photon detector, and achieve a noise equivalent power of -139.7 dBm/sqrt(Hz). We perform the OTDR experiments using a fiber of length 216.95 km, and show that our system can identify defects along the entire fiber length with a distance resolution better than 10 cm in a measurement time of 13 minutes.

preprint2013arXiv

Experimental unconditionally secure bit commitment

Bit commitment is a fundamental cryptographic task that guarantees a secure commitment between two mutually mistrustful parties and is a building block for many cryptographic primitives, including coin tossing, zero-knowledge proofs, oblivious transfer and secure two-party computation. Unconditionally secure bit commitment was thought to be impossible until recent theoretical protocols that combine quantum mechanics and relativity were shown to elude previous impossibility proofs. Here we implement such a bit commitment protocol. In the experiment, the committer performs quantum measurements using two quantum key distribution systems and the results are transmitted via free-space optical communication to two agents separated with more than 20 km. The security of the protocol relies on the properties of quantum information and relativity theory. We show that, in each run of the experiment, a bit is successfully committed with less than 5.68*10^-2 cheating probability. Our result demonstrates unconditionally secure bit commitment and the experimental feasibility of relativistic quantum communication.

preprint2013arXiv

Formation of singularities in one-dimensional Chaplygin gas

In this paper we investigate the formation and propagation of singularities for the system for one-dimensional Chaplygin gas. In particular, under suitable assumptions we construct a physical solution with a new type of singularities called "Delta-like" solution for this kind of quasilinear hyperbolic system with linearly degenerate characteristics. By careful analysis, we study the behavior of the solution in a neighborhood of a blowup point. The formation of this new kind of singularities is due to the envelope of the different families of characteristics instead of the same family of characteristics in the traditional situation. This shows that the blowup phenomenon of solution for the system with linearly degenerate characteristics is quite different from the situation of shock formation for the system with genuinely nonlinear characteristics. Different initial data can lead to kinds of different Delta-like singularities: the Delta-like singularity with point-shape and Delta-like singularity with line-shape.

preprint2013arXiv

Magnetic structures and the Ce-Fe coupling induced Fe spin reorientation in CeFeAsO single crystal

Neutron and synchrotron resonant X-ray magnetic scattering (RXMS) complemented by heat capacity and resistivity measurements reveal the evolution of the magnetic structures of Fe and Ce sublattices in single crystal CeFeAsO. The RXMS of magnetic reflections at the Ce $L_{\rm II}$-edge shows a magnetic transition that is specific to the Ce antiferromagnetic long-range ordering at $T_\texttt{Ce}\approx$ 4 K with short-range Ce ordering above $T_\texttt{Ce}$, whereas neutron diffraction measurements of a few magnetic reflections indicate a transition at $T^{*}\approx$ 12 K with unusual order parameter. Detailed order parameter measurements on several magnetic reflections by neutrons show a weak anomaly at 4 K which we associate with the Ce ordering. The successive transitions at $T_\texttt{Ce}$ and $T^{*}$ can also be clearly identified by two anomalies in heat capacity and resistivity measurements. The higher transition temperature at $T^{*}\approx$ 12 K is mainly ascribed to Fe spin reorientation transition, below which Fe spins rotate uniformly and gradually in the \textit{ab} plane. The Fe spin reorientation transition and short-range Ce ordering above $T_\texttt{Ce}$ reflect the strong Fe-Ce couplings prior to long-range ordering of the Ce. The evolution of the intricate magnetic structures in CeFeAsO going through $T^{*}$ and $T_\texttt{Ce}$ is proposed.

preprint2013arXiv

Magnetoelastic coupling and charge correlation lengths in a twin domain of Ba(Fe$_{1-x}$Co$_{x}$)$_{2}$As$_{2}$ ($x=0.047$): A high-resolution X-ray diffraction study

The interplay between structure, magnetism and superconductivity in single crystal Ba(Fe$_{1-x}$Co$_{x}$)$_{2}$As$_{2}$ (x=0.047) has been studied using high-resolution X-ray diffraction by monitoring charge Bragg reflections in each twin domain separately. The emergence of the superconducting state is correlated with the suppression of the orthorhombic distortion around \emph{T}$_\texttt{C}$, exhibiting competition between orthorhombicity and superconductivity. Above \emph{T}$_\texttt{S}$, the in-plane charge correlation length increases with the decrease of temperature, possibly induced by nematic fluctuations in the paramagnetic tetragonal phase. Upon cooling, anomalies in the in-plane charge correlation lengths along $a$ ($ξ_{a}$) and $b$ axes ($ξ_{b}$) are observed at \emph{T}$_\texttt{S}$ and also at \emph{T}$_\texttt{N}$ indicative of strong magnetoelastic coupling. The in-plane charge correlation lengths are found to exhibit anisotropic behavior along and perpendicular to the in-plane component of stripe-type AFM wave vector (101)$_{\rm O}$ below around \emph{T}$_\texttt{N}$. The temperature dependence of the out-of-plane charge correlation length shows a single anomaly at \emph{T}$_\texttt{N}$, reflecting the connection between Fe-As distance and Fe local moment. The origin of the anisotropic in-plane charge correlation lengths $ξ_{a}$ and $ξ_{b}$ is discussed on the basis of the antiphase magnetic domains and their dynamic fluctuations.

preprint2013arXiv

Ultralow noise up-conversion detector and spectrometer at telecom band

We demonstrate upconversion single-photon detection for the 1550-nm band using a PPLN waveguide, long-wavelength pump, and narrowband filtering using a volume Bragg grating. We achieve total-system detection efficiency of around 30% with noise at the dark-count level of a silicon APD. Based on the new detector, a single-pixel up-conversion infrared spectrometer with a noise equivalent power of -142 dBm was demonstrated, which was better than liquid nitrogen cooled InGaAs arrary.

preprint2013arXiv

Upconversion single photon detection near 2 um

We have demonstrated upconversion detection at the single photon level in the 2 um spectral window using a pump wavelength near 1550nm, a periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) waveguide, and a volume Bragg grating (VBG) to reduce noise. We achieve a system photon detection efficiency of 10%, with a noise count rate of 24,500 counts per second, competitive with other 2 um single photon detection technologies. This detector has potential applications in environmental gas monitoring, life science, and classical and quantum communication.

preprint2012arXiv

Experimental measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution

Throughout history, every advance in encryption has been defeated by advances in hacking with severe consequences. Quantum cryptography holds the promise to end this battle by offering unconditional security when ideal single-photon sources and detectors are employed. Unfortunately, ideal devices never exist in practice and device imperfections have become the targets of various attacks. By developing up-conversion single-photon detectors with high efficiency and low noise, we build up a measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution (MDI-QKD) system, which is immune to all hacking strategies on detection. Meanwhile, we employ the decoy-state method to defeat attacks on non-ideal source. By closing the loopholes in both source and detection, our practical system, which generates more than 25 kbit secure key over a 50-km fiber link, provides an ultimate solution for communication security.

preprint2011arXiv

Developments of a 2D Position Sensitive Neutron Detector

Chinese Spallation Neutron Source (CSNS), one project of the 12th five-year-plan scheme of China, is under construction in Guangdong province. Three neutron spectrometers will be installed at the first phase of the project, where two-dimensional position sensitive thermal neutron detectors are required. Before the construction of the neutron detector, a prototype of two-dimensional 200 mmx200 mm Multi-wire Proportional Chamber (MWPC) with the flowing gas of Ar/CO2 (90/10) has been constructed and tested with the 55Fe X-Ray using part of the electronics in 2009, which showed a good performance. Following the test in 2009, the neutron detector has been constructed with the complete electronics and filled with the 6atm.3He + 2.5atm.C3H8 gas mixture in 2010. The neutron detector has been primarily tested with an Am/Be source. In this paper, some new developments of the neutron detector including the design of the high pressure chamber, the optimization of the gas purifying system and the gas filling process will be reported. The results and discussion are also presented in this paper.

preprint2011arXiv

Tight contact structures on some bounded Seifert manifolds with minimal convex boundary

We classify positive tight contact structures, up to isotopy fixing the boundary, on the manifolds $N=M(D^{2}; r_1, r_2)$ with minimal convex boundary of slope $s$ and Giroux torsion 0 along $\partial N$, where $r_1,r_2\in (0,1)\cap\mathbb{Q}$, in the following cases: (1) $s\in(-\infty, 0)\cup[2, +\infty)$; (2) $s\in[0, 1)$ and $r_1,r_2\in [1/2,1)$; (3) $s\in[1, 2)$ and $r_1,r_2\in(0,1/2)$; (4) $s=\infty$ and $r_1=r_2=1/2$. We also classify positive tight contact structures, up to isotopy fixing the boundary, on $M(D^2;1/2,1/2)$ with minimal convex boundary of arbitrary slope and Giroux torsion greater than 0 along the boundary.

preprint2010arXiv

An operator approach to the rational solutions of the classical Yang-Baxter equation

Motivated by the study of the operator forms of the constant classical Yang-Baxter equation given by Semonov-Tian-Shansky, Kupershmidt and the others, we try to construct the rational solutions of the classical Yang-Baxter equation with parameters by certain linear operators. The fact that the rational solutions of the CYBE for the simple complex Lie algebras can be interpreted in term of certain linear operators motivates us to give the notion of $\mathcal O$-operators such that these linear operators are the $\mathcal O$-operators associated to the adjoint representations. Such a study can be generalized to the Lie algebras with nondegenerate symmetric invariant bilinear forms. Furthermore we give a construction of a rational solution of the CYBE from an $\mathcal O$-operator associated to the coadjoint representation and an arbitrary representation with a trivial product in the representation space respectively.

preprint2010arXiv

Experimental demonstration of a heralded entanglement source

The heralded generation of entangled states is a long-standing goal in quantum information processing, because it is indispensable for a number of quantum protocols. Polarization entangled photon pairs are usually generated through spontaneous parametric down-conversion, but the emission is probabilistic. Their applications are generally accompanied by post-selection and destructive photon detection. Here, we report a source of entanglement generated in an event-ready manner by conditioned detection of auxiliary photons. This scheme benefits from the stable and robust properties of spontaneous parametric down-conversion and requires only modest experimental efforts. It is flexible and allows the preparation efficiency to be significantly improved by using beamsplitters with different transmission ratios. We have achieved a fidelity better than 87% and a state preparation efficiency of 45% for the source. This could offer promise in essential photonics-based quantum information tasks, and particularly in enabling optical quantum computing by reducing dramatically the computational overhead.

preprint2010arXiv

Teleportation-Based Controlled-NOT Gate for Fault-Tolerant Quantum Computation

Quantum computers promise dramatic speed ups for many computational tasks. For large-scale quantum computation however, the inevitable coupling of physical qubits to the noisy environment imposes a major challenge for a real-life implementation. A scheme introduced by Gottesmann and Chuang can help to overcome this difficulty by performing universal quantum gates in a fault-tolerant manner. Here, we report a non-trivial demonstration of this architecture by performing a teleportation-based two-qubit controlled-NOT gate through linear optics with a high-fidelity six-photon interferometer. The obtained results clearly prove the involved working principles and the entangling capability of the gate. Our experiment represents an important step towards the feasibility of realistic quantum computers and could trigger many further applications in linear optics quantum information processing.

preprint2010arXiv

Teleportation-based realization of an optical quantum two-qubit entangling gate

In recent years, there has been heightened interest in quantum teleportation, which allows for the transfer of unknown quantum states over arbitrary distances. Quantum teleportation not only serves as an essential ingredient in long-distance quantum communication, but also provides enabling technologies for practical quantum computation. Of particular interest is the scheme proposed by Gottesman and Chuang [Nature \textbf{402}, 390 (1999)], showing that quantum gates can be implemented by teleporting qubits with the help of some special entangled states. Therefore, the construction of a quantum computer can be simply based on some multi-particle entangled states, Bell state measurements and single-qubit operations. The feasibility of this scheme relaxes experimental constraints on realizing universal quantum computation. Using two different methods we demonstrate the smallest non-trivial module in such a scheme---a teleportation-based quantum entangling gate for two different photonic qubits. One uses a high-fidelity six-photon interferometer to realize controlled-NOT gates and the other uses four-photon hyper-entanglement to realize controlled-Phase gates. The results clearly demonstrate the working principles and the entangling capability of the gates. Our experiment represents an important step towards the realization of practical quantum computers and could lead to many further applications in linear optics quantum information processing.

preprint2009arXiv

Ultrafast optical spin echo for electron spins in semiconductors

Spin-based quantum computing and magnetic resonance techniques rely on the ability to measure the coherence time, T2, of a spin system. We report on the experimental implementation of all-optical spin echo to determine the T2 time of a semiconductor electron-spin system. We use three ultrafast optical pulses to rotate spins an arbitrary angle and measure an echo signal as the time between pulses is lengthened. Unlike previous spin-echo techniques using microwaves, ultrafast optical pulses allow clean T2 measurements of systems with dephasing times T2* fast in comparison to the timescale for microwave control. This demonstration provides a step toward ultrafast optical dynamic decoupling of spin-based qubits.

preprint2008arXiv

Hong-Ou-Mandel dip using photon pairs from a PPLN waveguide

We experimentally observed a Hong-Ou-Mandle dip with photon pairs generated in a periodically poled reverse-proton-exchange lithium niobate waveguide with an integrated mode demultiplexer at a wavelength of 1.5 um. The visibility of the dip in the experiment was 80% without subtraction of any noise terms at a peak pump power of 4.4 mW. The new technology developed in the experiment can find various applications in the research field of linear optics quantum computation in fiber or quantum optical coherence tomography with near infrared photon pairs.

preprint2007arXiv

Experimental realization of one-way quantum computing with two-photon four-qubit cluster states

We report an experimental realization of one-way quantum computing on a two-photon four-qubit cluster state. This is accomplished by developing a two-photon cluster state source entangled both in polarization and spatial modes. With this special source, we implemented a highly efficient Grover's search algorithm and high-fidelity two qubits quantum gates. Our experiment demonstrates that such cluster states could serve as an ideal source and a building block for rapid and precise optical quantum computation.

preprint2007arXiv

Quantum key distribution over 40 dB channel loss using superconducting single photon detectors

Quantum key distribution (QKD) offers an unconditionally secure means of communication based on the laws of quantum mechanics. Currently, a major challenge is to achieve a QKD system with a 40 dB channel loss, which is required if we are to realize global scale QKD networks using communication satellites. Here we report the first QKD experiment in which secure keys were distributed over 42 dB channel loss and 200 km of optical fibre. We employed the differential phase shift quantum key distribution (DPS-QKD) protocol implemented with a 10-GHz clock frequency, and superconducting single photon detectors (SSPD) based on NbN nanowire. The SSPD offers a very low dark count rate (a few Hz) and small timing jitter (60 ps full width at half maximum). These characteristics allowed us to construct a 10-GHz clock QKD system and thus distribute secure keys over channel loss of 42 dB. In addition, we achieved a 17 kbit/s secure key rate over 105 km of optical fibre, which is two orders of magnitude higher than the previous record, and a 12.1 bit/s secure key rate over 200 km of optical fibre, which is the longest terrestrial QKD yet demonstrated. The keys generated in our experiment are secure against both general collective attacks on individual photons and a specific collective attack on multi-photons, known as a sequential unambiguous state discrimination (USD) attack.

preprint2006arXiv

Demonstration of efficient scheme for generation of "Event Ready" entangled photon pairs from single photon source

We present a feasible and efficient scheme, and its proof-of-principle demonstration, of creating entangled photon pairs in an event-ready way using only simple linear optical elements and single photons. The quality of entangled photon pair produced in our experiment is confirmed by a strict violation of Bell's inequality. This scheme and the associated experimental techniques present an important step toward linear optics quantum computation.

preprint2005arXiv

All-Versus-Nothing Violation of Local Realism by Two-Photon, Four-Dimensional Entanglement

We develop and exploit a source of two-photon four-dimensional entanglement to report the first two-particle all-versus-nothing test of local realism with a linear optics setup, but without resorting to a non-contextuality ssumption. Our experimental results are in well agreement with quantum mechanics while in extreme contradiction with local realism. Potential applications of our experiment are briefly discussed.