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Published work

86 published item(s)

preprint2026arXiv

Amplitude analysis and branching fraction measurement of $J/ψ\to Λ\barΣ^0η+\mathrm{c.c}$

Based on a sample of $(10087\pm44)\times10^{6}$ $J/ψ$ events collected with the BESIII detector, a partial-wave analysis of $ J/ψ\to Λ\bar{ Σ}^0η+\mathrm{c.c} $ is performed for the first time. The dominant contributions are found to be excited $Λ$ states with $J^P=1/2^-$ and $J^P=1/2^+$ in the $ηΛ$ mass spectra. The measured masses and widths are $M=1668.8\pm3.1\pm21.2$ MeV/$c^2$ and $Γ=52.7\pm4.2\pm17.8$ MeV for the $Λ(1670)$, and $M=1881.5\pm16.5\pm20.3$ MeV/$c^2$ and $Γ=82.4\pm18.2\pm8.9$ MeV for the $Λ(1810)$, respectively. The branching fraction is determined to be $ \mathcal{B}(J/ψ\to Λ\bar{ Σ}^0η+\mathrm{c.c}) $ = $(3.44 \pm 0.11 \pm 0.13) \times 10^{-5}$. The first uncertainties are statistical and the second systematic.

preprint2026arXiv

BARL: Bilateral Alignment in Representation and Label Spaces for Semi-Supervised Volumetric Medical Image Segmentation

Semi-supervised medical image segmentation (SSMIS) seeks to match fully supervised performance while sharply reducing annotation cost. Mainstream SSMIS methods rely on \emph{label-space consistency}, yet they overlook the equally critical \emph{representation-space alignment}. Without harmonizing latent features, models struggle to learn representations that are both discriminative and spatially coherent. To this end, we introduce \textbf{Bilateral Alignment in Representation and Label spaces (BARL)}, a unified framework that couples two collaborative branches and enforces alignment in both spaces. For label-space alignment, inspired by co-training and multi-scale decoding, we devise \textbf{Dual-Path Regularization (DPR)} and \textbf{Progressively Cognitive Bias Correction (PCBC)} to impose fine-grained cross-branch consistency while mitigating error accumulation from coarse to fine scales. For representation-space alignment, we conduct region-level and lesion-instance matching between branches, explicitly capturing the fragmented, complex pathological patterns common in medical imagery. Extensive experiments on four public benchmarks and a proprietary CBCT dataset demonstrate that BARL consistently surpasses state-of-the-art SSMIS methods. Ablative studies further validate the contribution of each component. Code will be released soon.

preprint2026arXiv

Can Multimodal Large Language Models Understand Pathologic Movements? A Pilot Study on Seizure Semiology

Multimodal Large Language Models (MLLMs) have demonstrated robust capabilities in recognizing everyday human activities, yet their potential for analyzing clinically significant involuntary movements in neurological disorders remains largely unexplored. This pilot study evaluates the capability of MLLMs for automated recognition of pathological movements in seizure videos. We assessed the zero-shot performance of state-of-the-art MLLMs on 20 ILAE-defined semiological features across 90 clinical seizure recordings. MLLMs outperformed fine-tuned Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) and Vision Transformer (ViT) baseline models on 13 of 18 features without task-specific training, demonstrating particular strength in recognizing salient postural and contextual features while struggling with subtle, high-frequency movements. Feature-targeted signal enhancement (facial cropping, pose estimation, audio denoising) improved performance on 10 of 20 features. Expert evaluation showed that 94.3 percent of MLLM-generated explanations for correctly predicted cases achieved at least 60 percent faithfulness scores, aligning with epileptologist reasoning. These findings demonstrate the potential of adapting general-purpose MLLMs for specialized clinical video analysis through targeted preprocessing strategies, offering a path toward interpretable, efficient diagnostic assistance. Our code is publicly available at https://github.com/LinaZhangUCLA/PathMotionMLLM.

preprint2026arXiv

Cross section measurement of $e^{+}e^{-}\rightarrow π^{0}π^{0}ψ(3686)$ from $\sqrt{s}=$ 4.008 GeV to 4.951 GeV

Using data samples with a total integrated luminosity of $22.1~\rm fb^{-1}$ at center-of-mass energies between 4.008 and 4.951~GeV collected with the BESIII detector, the cross sections of $e^{+}e^{-}\rightarrow π^{0}π^{0}ψ(3686)$ process are measured. The obtained cross sections are found to be approximately one-half of those of $e^{+}e^{-}\rightarrow π^{+}π^{-}ψ(3686)$, consistent with the isospin symmetry expectation. A coherent fit to the dressed cross sections is performed, with the $Y(4230)$~parameters fixed at the values measured in $e^{+}e^{-}\rightarrow π^{+}π^{-}ψ(3686)$. The significances of the $Y(4390)$ and $Y(4660)$ are both larger than $5σ$, and their masses and widths are consistent with the previous measurement in the $e^{+}e^{-}\rightarrow π^{+}π^{-}ψ(3686)$ process.

preprint2026arXiv

First Measurement of the Absolute Branching Fraction of $η_c \to γγ$

We apply a tag-and-probe method to precisely measure the absolute branching fraction of the decay $η_c \to γγ$ with the BESIII experiment at BEPCII. Starting with a large initial sample of $2712.4\pm 14.3$ million $ψ(3686)$ events, a sample of 0.16 million $η_c$ events are tagged via the golden channel $ψ(3686)\to π^0 h_c$, $h_c\to γη_c$, effectively avoiding interference effects. The absolute branching fraction of $η_c \to γγ$ is measured for the first time to be $\mathcal{B}(η_c \to γγ) = (2.45 \pm 0.48_{\rm stat.} \pm 0.09_{\rm syst.}) \times 10^{-4}$. Using the world average value of the total width of the $η_c$, the partial decay width of $η_c \to γγ$ is calculated to be $Γ(η_c \to γγ) = (7.48 \pm 1.48_{\rm stat.} \pm 0.30_{\rm syst.})~{\rm keV}$.

preprint2026arXiv

First Observation of $D^{0(+)}\to \bar Kωe^+ν_e$ and Determination of the Branching Fraction of $\bar K_1(1270)\to \bar K ω$

Using 20.3~fb$^{-1}$ of $e^+e^-$ annihilation data collected at a center-of-mass energy of 3.773~GeV with the BESIII detector, we report the first observation of the semileptonic decays $D^0\to K^-ωe^+ν_e$ and $D^+\to K_S^0ωe^+ν_e$ with significances of $8.0σ$ and $5.8σ$, respectively, including systematic uncertainties. Their decay branching fractions are measured to be ${\cal B}(D^0\to K^-ωe^+ν_e)=(9.3^{+2.1}_{-1.9}\pm 0.7)\times10^{-5}$ and ${\cal B}(D^+\to K_S^0ωe^+ν_e)=(6.6^{+2.0}_{-1.8}\pm 0.6)\times10^{-5}$. Combining with the latest measurements of $D^{0(+)}\to K^-π^+π^{-(0)} e^+ν_e$ and assuming $\bar{K}_1(1270)$ to be the sole mediating resonance in all processes, the branching ratios are determined to be $\frac{Γ(K_1(1270)^-\to K^-π^+π^-)}{Γ(K_1(1270)^-\to K^-ω)} = 3.4^{+0.8}_{-0.7} \pm 0.3$ and $\frac{Γ(\bar{K}_1(1270)^0\to K^-π^+π^0)}{Γ(\bar{K}_1(1270)^0\to \bar{K}^0ω)} = 9.6^{+3.0}_{-2.7} \pm 0.8$. The combined branching fraction is determined to be $\mathcal B(\bar{K}_1(1270)\to \bar{K}ω) = (7.5\pm 1.3 \pm 0.5)\%$, which is the most precise measurement from a collider experiment. The first uncertainties are statistical, and the second are systematic.

preprint2026arXiv

GLM-4.5V and GLM-4.1V-Thinking: Towards Versatile Multimodal Reasoning with Scalable Reinforcement Learning

We present GLM-4.1V-Thinking, GLM-4.5V, and GLM-4.6V, a family of vision-language models (VLMs) designed to advance general-purpose multimodal understanding and reasoning. In this report, we share our key findings in the development of the reasoning-centric training framework. We first develop a capable vision foundation model with significant potential through large-scale pre-training, which arguably sets the upper bound for the final performance. We then propose Reinforcement Learning with Curriculum Sampling (RLCS) to unlock the full potential of the model, leading to comprehensive capability enhancement across a diverse range of tasks, including STEM problem solving, video understanding, content recognition, coding, grounding, GUI-based agents, and long document interpretation. In a comprehensive evaluation across 42 public benchmarks, GLM-4.5V achieves state-of-the-art performance on nearly all tasks among open-source models of similar size, and demonstrates competitive or even superior results compared to closed-source models such as Gemini-2.5-Flash on challenging tasks including Coding and GUI Agents. Meanwhile, the smaller GLM-4.1V-9B-Thinking remains highly competitive-achieving superior results to the much larger Qwen2.5-VL-72B on 29 benchmarks. We open-source both GLM-4.1V-9B-Thinking and GLM-4.5V. We further introduce the GLM-4.6V series, open-source multimodal models with native tool use and a 128K context window. A brief overview is available at https://z.ai/blog/glm-4.6v. Code, models and more information are released at https://github.com/zai-org/GLM-V.

preprint2026arXiv

GLM-5V-Turbo: Toward a Native Foundation Model for Multimodal Agents

We present GLM-5V-Turbo, a step toward native foundation models for multimodal agents. As foundation models are increasingly deployed in real environments, agentic capability depends not only on language reasoning, but also on the ability to perceive, interpret, and act over heterogeneous contexts such as images, videos, webpages, documents, GUIs. GLM-5V-Turbo is built around this objective: multimodal perception is integrated as a core component of reasoning, planning, tool use, and execution, rather than as an auxiliary interface to a language model. This report summarizes the main improvements behind GLM-5V-Turbo across model design, multimodal training, reinforcement learning, toolchain expansion, and integration with agent frameworks. These developments lead to strong performance in multimodal coding, visual tool use, and framework-based agentic tasks, while preserving competitive text-only coding capability. More importantly, our development process offers practical insights for building multimodal agents, highlighting the central role of multimodal perception, hierarchical optimization, and reliable end-to-end verification.

preprint2026arXiv

How Order-Sensitive Are LLMs? OrderProbe for Deterministic Structural Reconstruction

Large language models (LLMs) excel at semantic understanding, yet their ability to reconstruct internal structure from scrambled inputs remains underexplored. Sentence-level restoration is ill-posed for automated evaluation because multiple valid word orders often exist. We introduce OrderProbe, a deterministic benchmark for structural reconstruction using fixed four-character expressions in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, which have a unique canonical order and thus support exact-match scoring. We further propose a diagnostic framework that evaluates models beyond recovery accuracy, including semantic fidelity, logical validity, consistency, robustness sensitivity, and information density. Experiments on twelve widely used LLMs show that structural reconstruction remains difficult even for frontier systems: zero-shot recovery frequently falls below 35%. We also observe a consistent dissociation between semantic recall and structural planning, suggesting that structural robustness is not an automatic byproduct of semantic competence.

preprint2026arXiv

Machine-learned potential for amorphous Indium-Tin-Oxide alloys

Machine-learned potential-driven molecular dynamics (MLMD) simulations are of great value in guiding the design and optimization of memory devices. Amorphous indium-tin-oxide (ITO) is widely used as transparent conducting oxide for flat-panel display and solar cell applications, and also as a capping layer in phase-change-materials-based reconfigurable color display devices. However, atomistic simulations of ITO using ab initio molecular dynamics (AIMD) are limited to systems of a few hundred atoms due to expensive computational costs, which prevents the device-scale modelling of real-world applications. In this work, we develop a machine-learned potential for ITO and its parent phase In2O3 based on the Gaussian approximation potential (GAP) framework. We generate a comprehensive training dataset using an iterative training protocol. Our MLMD simulations of crystalline, liquid and melt-quenched amorphous ITO models are in great agreement with the AIMD reference. In particular, the ML potential well captures the minority atomic interaction, such as Sn-Sn bonds, which have poor statistics in small-scale AIMD simulations. We demonstrate that the MLMD simulations are 3-4 orders of magnitude faster than AIMD. The training dataset and the fitted GAP potentials for ITO and In2O3 are openly accessible.

preprint2026arXiv

Measurements of the absolute branching fractions of the $Λ_{c}^{+}$ hadronic decays

Based on 4.5 fb$^{-1}$ of $e^+e^-$ collision data collected at center-of-mass energies between 4599.53 MeV and 4698.82 MeV with the BESIII detector, the absolute branching fractions of twelve $Λ_{c}^{+}$ hadronic decay modes are measured with a double-tag technique. A global least-square fit is implemented simultaneously among different decay modes at different energy points. This paper gives the most precise results on the branching fractions of different decay modes to date, with precision improved by a factor of 2 to 3. Among them, the branching fraction of $Λ_{c}^{+}\to pK^{-}π^+$ is determined to be $(6.61\pm0.11\pm0.12)\%$, where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second is systematic. In addition, the $e^+e^-\toΛ_c^+\barΛ_c^-$ Born cross sections and the effective form factors ($|G_{\rm eff}|$) at different energy points have been determined with the highest precision to date.

preprint2026arXiv

Measurements of the branching fractions of $χ_{cJ}\to 2K^+ 2K^- ω$ and $ϕK^+ K^- ω$ decays

Using a data sample of $(2712.4 \pm 14.3) \times 10^{6}$ $ψ(3686)$ events collected with the BESIII detector operating at the BEPCII collider, we report the first observation of the decays $χ_{cJ}\to 2K^+ 2K^- ω$ and $χ_{cJ}\to ϕK^{+}K^{-} ω$ ($J = 0,1,2$) via the radiative transitions $ψ(3686) \to γχ_{cJ}$. The branching fractions of these decays are measured for the first time, and the statistical significance for each signal exceeds $10σ$.

preprint2026arXiv

Observation of Polarization and Determination of Electric and Magnetic Moments of $Ξ(1530)^0$ in $ψ(3686)\toΞ(1530)^0\barΞ(1530)^0$

Using the data sample of $2.7\times10^9$ $ψ(3686)$ events collected with the BESIII detector at the BEPCII collider, we present an observation of the $Ξ(1530)^0$ polarization in the decay $ψ(3686)\toΞ(1530)^0\barΞ(1530)^0$ with a significance larger than $20σ$ compared with all other tested hypotheses. The helicity amplitudes for the process $ψ(3686)\toΞ(1530)^0\barΞ(1530)^0$ and the moduli of form factors including electric charge, magnetic dipole, electric quadrupole, and magnetic octupole are measured for the first time by performing an angular distribution analysis. Additionally, the polarization correlations between $Ξ(1530)^0$ and $\barΞ(1530)^0$ are measured.

preprint2026arXiv

Search for a dark baryon in the $Ξ^-\rightarrowπ^-+{\rm invisible}$ decay

A search for a dark baryon is performed for the first time in the two-body decay $Ξ^-\rightarrowπ^-+{\rm invisible}$ using $(10.087\pm0.044)\times10^{9}$ $J/ψ$ events collected at a center-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s}=3.097\,\mbox{GeV}$ with the BESIII detector at the BEPCII collider. No significant signal is observed, and the 90% (95%) confidence level upper limits on the branching fraction $B(Ξ^-\rightarrowπ^-+{\rm invisible})$ are determined to be $4.2\times10^{-5}$ ($5.2\times10^{-5}$), $6.9\times10^{-5}$ ($8.4\times10^{-5}$), $6.5\times10^{-4}$ ($7.6\times10^{-4}$), $1.1\times10^{-4}$ ($1.3\times10^{-4}$) and $4.5\times10^{-5}$ ($5.5\times10^{-5}$), under the dark baryon mass hypotheses of 1.07$\,\mbox{GeV}/c^2$, 1.10$\,\mbox{GeV}/c^2$, $m_Λ$ (1.116$\,\mbox{GeV}/c^2$), 1.13$\,\mbox{GeV}/c^2$, and 1.16$\,\mbox{GeV}/c^2$, respectively. The constraints obtained on the Wilson coefficients $C_{u s, s}^L$ and $C_{u s, s}^R$ are more stringent than the previous limits derived from the LHC searches for the colored mediators.

preprint2026arXiv

Semantic-Enriched Latent Visual Reasoning

Multimodal latent-space reasoning aims to replace explicit thinking with images by performing visual reasoning directly in a compact latent space. However, existing approaches largely rely on visual supervision and produce latent representations that lack sufficient semantic richness, limiting their ability to support diverse region-level reasoning tasks. In this work, we introduce Semantic-Enriched Latent Visual Reasoning (SLVR), a two-stage learning framework that enriches latent representations with attribute-level visual semantics and aligns them with diverse reasoning objectives. In the first stage, SLVR learns semantically enriched region-centric latents under fine-grained attribute supervision. In the second stage, we design Multi-query Group Relative Policy Optimization (M-GRPO) to align latent representations across multiple queries grounded in the same region. To support this framework, we construct SLV-Set, comprising approximately 400K region-level attribute annotations and 800K multi-query question answering samples, and introduce SV-QA, a benchmark that evaluates latent reasoning under semantic variation. Experiments demonstrate that SLVR improves the robustness and semantic consistency of latent visual reasoning compared to existing baselines.

preprint2026arXiv

Think, then Score: Decoupled Reasoning and Scoring for Video Reward Modeling

Recent advances in generative video models are increasingly driven by post-training and test-time scaling, both of which critically depend on the quality of video reward models (RMs). An ideal reward model should predict accurate rewards that align with human preferences across diverse scenarios. However, existing paradigms face a fundamental dilemma: \textit{Discriminative RMs} regress rewards directly on features extracted by multimodal large language models (MLLMs) without explicit reasoning, making them prone to shortcut learning and heavily reliant on massive data scaling for generalization. In contrast, \textit{Generative RMs} with Chain-of-Thought (CoT) reasoning exhibit superior interpretability and generalization potential, as they leverage fine-grained semantic supervision to internalize the rationales behind human preferences. However, they suffer from inherent optimization bottlenecks due to the coupling of reasoning and scoring within a single autoregressive inference chain. To harness the generalization benefits of CoT reasoning while mitigating the training instability of coupled reasoning and scoring, we introduce DeScore, a training-efficient and generalizable video reward model. DeScore employs a decoupled ``think-then-score'' paradigm: an MLLM first generates an explicit CoT, followed by a dedicated discriminative scoring module consisting of a learnable query token and a regression head that predicts the final reward. DeScore is optimized via a two-stage framework: (1) a discriminative cold start incorporating a random mask mechanism to ensure robust scoring capabilities, and (2) a dual-objective reinforcement learning stage that independently refines CoT reasoning quality and calibrates the final reward, ensuring that higher-quality reasoning directly translates to superior model performance.

preprint2026arXiv

Thinking in Text and Images: Interleaved Vision--Language Reasoning Traces for Long-Horizon Robot Manipulation

Long-horizon robotic manipulation requires plans that are both logically coherent and geometrically grounded. Existing Vision-Language-Action policies usually hide planning in latent states or expose only one modality: text-only chain-of-thought encodes causal order but misses spatial constraints, while visual prediction provides geometric cues but often remains local and semantically underconstrained. We introduce Interleaved Vision--Language Reasoning (IVLR), a policy framework built around \trace{}, an explicit intermediate representation that alternates textual subgoals with visual keyframes over the full task horizon. At test time, a single native multimodal transformer self-generates this global semantic-geometric trace from the initial observation and instruction, caches it, and conditions a closed-loop action decoder on the trace, original instruction, and current observation. Because standard robot datasets lack such traces, we construct pseudo-supervision by temporally segmenting demonstrations and captioning each stage with a vision-language model. Across simulated benchmarks for long-horizon manipulation and visual distribution shift, \method{} reaches 95.5\% average success on LIBERO, including 92.4\% on LIBERO-Long, and 59.4\% overall success on SimplerEnv-WidowX. Ablations show that both modalities are necessary: without traces, LIBERO-Long success drops to 37.7\%; text-only and vision-only traces reach 62.0\% and 68.4\%, while the full interleaved trace reaches 92.4\%. Stress tests with execution perturbations and masked trace content show moderate degradation, suggesting that the trace can tolerate local corruption and moderate execution drift, but remains limited under stale or incorrect global plans.

preprint2026arXiv

Thinking with Deltas: Incentivizing Reinforcement Learning via Differential Visual Reasoning Policy

Reinforcement Learning with Verifiable Rewards (RLVR) has significantly advanced reasoning capabilities in Large Language Models. However, adapting RLVR to multimodal domains suffers from a critical \textit{perception-reasoning decoupling}. Existing paradigms, driven by text-centric outcome rewards, reasoning in language medium, inadvertently encourage models to bypass visual perception. We empirically validate this through blind experiments: state-of-the-art policies maintain or surprisingly improve performance even when visual inputs are entirely removed. This reveals that these models degenerate into \textit{blind reasoners}, exploiting linguistic priors to generate plausible answers instead of attending to visual evidence. In response, we propose \textbf{Thinking with Deltas}, a framework driven by a \textbf{Differential Visual Reasoning Policy (DVRP)}. DVRP introduces intrinsic supervision via visual triplets, comprising original, masked, and perturbed inputs. It optimizes the model to maximize reasoning divergence from masked inputs (enforcing \textit{visual sensitivity}) while minimizing divergence from perturbed inputs (ensuring \textit{visual robustness}). By aligning reasoning variations strictly with the \textit{Delta} of visual information, DVRP inherently bolsters visual understanding capabilities and significantly outperforms state-of-the-art methods on both general and medical benchmarks, without requiring external annotations or auxiliary tools.

preprint2026arXiv

VisionReward: Fine-Grained Multi-Dimensional Human Preference Learning for Image and Video Generation

Visual generative models have achieved remarkable progress in synthesizing photorealistic images and videos, yet aligning their outputs with human preferences across critical dimensions remains a persistent challenge. Though reinforcement learning from human feedback offers promise for preference alignment, existing reward models for visual generation face limitations, including black-box scoring without interpretability and potentially resultant unexpected biases. We present VisionReward, a general framework for learning human visual preferences in both image and video generation. Specifically, we employ a hierarchical visual assessment framework to capture fine-grained human preferences, and leverages linear weighting to enable interpretable preference learning. Furthermore, we propose a multi-dimensional consistent strategy when using VisionReward as a reward model during preference optimization for visual generation. Experiments show that VisionReward can significantly outperform existing image and video reward models on both machine metrics and human evaluation. Notably, VisionReward surpasses VideoScore by 17.2% in preference prediction accuracy, and text-to-video models with VisionReward achieve a 31.6% higher pairwise win rate compared to the same models using VideoScore. All code and datasets are provided at https://github.com/THUDM/VisionReward.

preprint2026arXiv

WHU-PCPR: A cross-platform heterogeneous point cloud dataset for place recognition in complex urban scenes

Point Cloud-based Place Recognition (PCPR) demonstrates considerable potential in applications such as autonomous driving, robot localization and navigation, and map update. In practical applications, point clouds used for place recognition are often acquired from different platforms and LiDARs across varying scene. However, existing PCPR datasets lack diversity in scenes, platforms, and sensors, which limits the effective development of related research. To address this gap, we establish WHU-PCPR, a cross-platform heterogeneous point cloud dataset designed for place recognition. The dataset differentiates itself from existing datasets through its distinctive characteristics: 1) cross-platform heterogeneous point clouds: collected from survey-grade vehicle-mounted Mobile Laser Scanning (MLS) systems and low-cost Portable helmet-mounted Laser Scanning (PLS) systems, each equipped with distinct mechanical and solid-state LiDAR sensors. 2) Complex localization scenes: encompassing real-time and long-term changes in both urban and campus road scenes. 3) Large-scale spatial coverage: featuring 82.3 km of trajectory over a 60-month period and an unrepeated route of approximately 30 km. Based on WHU-PCPR, we conduct extensive evaluation and in-depth analysis of several representative PCPR methods, and provide a concise discussion of key challenges and future research directions. The dataset and benchmark code are available at https://github.com/zouxianghong/WHU-PCPR.

preprint2023arXiv

Large enhancement of spin-orbit torques under a MHz modulation due to phonon-magnon coupling

The discovery of spin-orbit torques (SOTs) generated through the spin Hall or Rashba effects provides an alternative write approach for magnetic random-access memory (MRAM), igniting the development of spin-orbitronics in recent years. Quantitative characterization of SOTs highly relies on the SOT-driven ferromagnetic resonance (ST-FMR), where a modulated microwave current is used to generate ac SOTs and the modulation-frequency is usually less than 100 kHz (the limit of conventional lock-in amplifiers). Here we have investigated the SOT of typical SOT material/ferromagnet bilayers in an extended modulation-frequency range, up to MHz, by developing the ST-FMR measurement. Remarkably, we found that the measured SOTs are enhanced about three times in the MHz range, which cannot be explained according to present SOT theory. We attribute the enhancement of SOT to additional magnon excitations due to phonon-magnon coupling, which is also reflected in the slight changes of resonant field and linewidth in the acquired ST-FMR spectra, corresponding to the modifications of effective magnetization and damping constant, respectively. Our results indicate that the write current of SOT-MRAM may be reduced with the assistant of phonon-magnon coupling.

preprint2022arXiv

A Sample-Based Algorithm for Approximately Testing $r$-Robustness of a Digraph

One of the intensely studied concepts of network robustness is $r$-robustness, which is a network topology property quantified by an integer $r$. It is required by mean subsequence reduced (MSR) algorithms and their variants to achieve resilient consensus. However, determining $r$-robustness is intractable for large networks. In this paper, we propose a sample-based algorithm to approximately test $r$-robustness of a digraph with $n$ vertices and $m$ edges. For a digraph with a moderate assumption on the minimum in-degree, and an error parameter $0<ε\leq 1$, the proposed algorithm distinguishes $(r+εn)$-robust graphs from graphs which are not $r$-robust with probability $(1-δ)$. Our algorithm runs in $\exp(O((\ln{\frac{1}{εδ}})/ε^2))\cdot m$ time. The running time is linear in the number of edges if $ε$ is a constant.

preprint2022arXiv

Cluster Detection Capabilities of the Average Nearest Neighbor Ratio and Ripley's K Function on Areal Data: an Empirical Assessment

Spatial clustering detection methods are widely used in many fields including epidemiology, ecology, biology, physics, and sociology. In these fields, areal data is often of interest; such data may result from spatial aggregation (e.g. the number disease cases in a county) or may be inherent attributes of the areal unit as a whole (e.g. the habitat suitability of conserved land parcel). This study aims to assess the performance of two spatial clustering detection methods on areal data: the average nearest neighbor (ANN) ratio and Ripley's K function. These methods are designed for point process data, but their ease of implementation in GIS software (e.g., in ESRI ArcGIS) and the lack of analogous methods for areal data have contributed to their use for areal data. Despite the popularity of applying these methods to areal data, little research has explored their properties in the areal data context. In this paper we conduct a simulation study to evaluate the performance of each method for areal data under various areal structures and types of spatial dependence. These studies find that traditional approach to hypothesis testing using the ANN ratio or Ripley's K function results in inflated empirical type I rates when applied to areal data. We demonstrate that this issue can be remedied for both approaches by using Monte Carlo methods which acknowledge the areal nature of the data to estimate the distribution of the test statistic under the null hypothesis. While such an approach is not currently implemented in ArcGIS, it can be easily done in R using code provided by the authors.

preprint2022arXiv

Detailed analysis on the reflection component for the black hole candidate MAXI J1348-630

The black hole candidate MAXI J1348-630 was discovered on January 26th, 2019, with the Gas Slit Camera (GSC) on-board \textit{MAXI}. We report a detailed spectral analysis of this source by using the archived data of \textit{NuSTAR}. A total of 9 observations covered the complete outburst evolution of MAXI J1348-630 from the hard state to the soft state and finally back to the hard state. Additionally, the intermediate state is found in the transition from the hard state to the soft state. We use the state-of-art reflection model \verb'relxill' family to fit all the 9 spectra, and the spectra from two focal plane module detectors of \textit{NuSTAR} are jointly fitted for each observation. In particular, we concentrate on the results of the black hole spin parameter and the inclination of the accretion disk. Based on the analysis of the inner radius of the accretion disk, we obtain the spin parameter $a_* =0.78_{-0.04}^{+0.04}$, and the inclination angle of the inner disk $i = 29.2_{-0.5}^{+0.3}$ degrees. Furthermore, we also find that when the black hole is in the hard state, the accretion disk would show a significant truncation. The high iron abundance and ionization of the accretion disk obtained in the fitting results can be possibly explained by the high density of the accretion disk.

preprint2022arXiv

Direct Hydrogen Production from Water/Seawater by Irradiation/Vibration-Activated Using Defective Ferroelectric BaTiO3-x Nanoparticles

Hydrogen is a promising fossil-fuel alternative fuel owing to its environmentally neutral emissions and high energy density. However, the need for purified water and external power are critical hindrances to implementation of hydrogen production. The present work reveals the potential to overcome these shortcomings through piezo-photocatalysis of seawater using BaTiO3-x (BTO) nanoparticles. This material was made piezoelectrically active by annealing under different atmospheres, including O2, N2, Ar, and H2, the latter of which caused Ti4+ to Ti(4-x)+ multiple reductions and structural expansions that stabilized piezoelectric tetragonal BTO domains. The resultant defect equilibria combine ionic and electron effects, including Ti redox reactions, charge-compensating surface oxygen vacancy formation, and color centre alterations. Further, variety of experimental techniques revealed the effects of reduction on the energy band structure. A strong piezoelectric effect and the presence of self-polarization were confirmed by piezoresponse force microscopy, while simulation work clarified the role of vibration on band bending deriving from the former. The performance data contrasted H2 evolution using deionized (DI) water, simulated seawater, and natural seawater subjected to photocatalysis, piezocatalysis, and piezo-photocatalysis. An efficient H2 evolution rate of 132.4 micromol/g/h was achieved from DI water using piezo-photocatalysis for 5 h. In contrast, piezocatalysis for 2 h followed by piezo-photocatalysis for 3 h resulted in H2 evolution rates of 100.7 micromol/g/h for DI water, 63.4 micromol/g/h for simulated seawater, and 48.7 micromol/g/h for natural seawater. This work provides potential new strategies for large-scale green H2 production using abundant natural resources with conventional piezoelectric material while leveraging the effects of ions dissolved in seawater.

preprint2022arXiv

Dissolved gas monitoring probe without liquid-gas separation under strong electromagnetic interference

Rapid and direct monitoring of dissolved gases in liquids under strong electromagnetic interference is very important. Electronic gas sensors that can be placed into liquids are difficult to work reliably under strong electromagnetic fields. The existing optical monitoring techniques for dissolved gases all require gas-liquid separation, and are conducted in gas phase, which have poor timeliness. In this paper, a dissolved gas monitoring probe without liquid-gas separation under strong electromagnetic interference is proposed. We take transformer oil-dissolved acetylene monitoring as an example, an oil-core photonic crystal fiber photothermal interferometry probe is proposed and demonstrates the feasibility of trace oil-dissolved acetylene directly monitoring without oil-gas separation. The minimum detection limit reaches 1.4 ppm, and the response time is about 70 minutes. Due to the good insulation performance and the compact size, the all-fiber probe provides applicability to be placed into transformer oil and perform on-line monitoring under strong electromagnetic interference.

preprint2022arXiv

Exploiting Dynamic and Fine-grained Semantic Scope for Extreme Multi-label Text Classification

Extreme multi-label text classification (XMTC) refers to the problem of tagging a given text with the most relevant subset of labels from a large label set. A majority of labels only have a few training instances due to large label dimensionality in XMTC. To solve this data sparsity issue, most existing XMTC methods take advantage of fixed label clusters obtained in early stage to balance performance on tail labels and head labels. However, such label clusters provide static and coarse-grained semantic scope for every text, which ignores distinct characteristics of different texts and has difficulties modelling accurate semantics scope for texts with tail labels. In this paper, we propose a novel framework TReaderXML for XMTC, which adopts dynamic and fine-grained semantic scope from teacher knowledge for individual text to optimize text conditional prior category semantic ranges. TReaderXML dynamically obtains teacher knowledge for each text by similar texts and hierarchical label information in training sets to release the ability of distinctly fine-grained label-oriented semantic scope. Then, TReaderXML benefits from a novel dual cooperative network that firstly learns features of a text and its corresponding label-oriented semantic scope by parallel Encoding Module and Reading Module, secondly embeds two parts by Interaction Module to regularize the text's representation by dynamic and fine-grained label-oriented semantic scope, and finally find target labels by Prediction Module. Experimental results on three XMTC benchmark datasets show that our method achieves new state-of-the-art results and especially performs well for severely imbalanced and sparse datasets.

preprint2022arXiv

Fully Self-Supervised Learning for Semantic Segmentation

In this work, we present a fully self-supervised framework for semantic segmentation(FS^4). A fully bootstrapped strategy for semantic segmentation, which saves efforts for the huge amount of annotation, is crucial for building customized models from end-to-end for open-world domains. This application is eagerly needed in realistic scenarios. Even though recent self-supervised semantic segmentation methods have gained great progress, these works however heavily depend on the fully-supervised pretrained model and make it impossible a fully self-supervised pipeline. To solve this problem, we proposed a bootstrapped training scheme for semantic segmentation, which fully leveraged the global semantic knowledge for self-supervision with our proposed PGG strategy and CAE module. In particular, we perform pixel clustering and assignments for segmentation supervision. Preventing it from clustering a mess, we proposed 1) a pyramid-global-guided (PGG) training strategy to supervise the learning with pyramid image/patch-level pseudo labels, which are generated by grouping the unsupervised features. The stable global and pyramid semantic pseudo labels can prevent the segmentation from learning too many clutter regions or degrading to one background region; 2) in addition, we proposed context-aware embedding (CAE) module to generate global feature embedding in view of its neighbors close both in space and appearance in a non-trivial way. We evaluate our method on the large-scale COCO-Stuff dataset and achieved 7.19 mIoU improvements on both things and stuff objects

preprint2022arXiv

Growth conditions for global exponential stability and exp-ISS of time-delay systems under point-wise dissipation

For time-delay systems, it is known that global asymptotic stability is guaranteed by the existence of a Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional that dissipates in a point-wise manner along solutions, namely whose dissipation rate involves only the current value of the solution's norm. So far, the extension of this result to global exponential stability (GES) holds only for systems ruled by a globally Lipschitz vector field and remains largely open for the input-to-state stability (ISS) property. In this paper, we rely on the notion of exponential ISS to extend the class of systems for which GES or ISS can be concluded from a point-wise dissipation. Our results in turn show that these properties still hold in the presence of a sufficiently small additional term involving the whole state history norm. We provide explicit estimates of the tolerable magnitude of this extra term and show through an example how it can be used to assess robustness with respect to modeling uncertainties.

preprint2022arXiv

Is Global Asymptotic Stability Necessarily Uniform for Time-Delay Systems?

For time-invariant finite-dimensional systems, it is known that global asymptotic stability (GAS) is equivalent to uniform global asymptotic stability (UGAS), in which the decay rate and transient overshoot of solutions are requested to be uniform on bounded sets of initial states. This paper investigates this relationship for time-invariant delay systems. We show that UGAS and GAS are equivalent for this class of systems under the assumption of robust forward completeness, i.e. under the assumption that the reachable set from any bounded set of initial states on any finite time horizon is bounded. We also show that, if the state space is a space in a particular family of Sobolev or Holder spaces, then GAS is equivalent to UGAS and that robust forward completeness holds. Based on these equivalences, we provide a novel Lyapunov characterization of GAS (and UGAS) in the aforementioned spaces.

preprint2022arXiv

Memory-efficient Segmentation of High-resolution Volumetric MicroCT Images

In recent years, 3D convolutional neural networks have become the dominant approach for volumetric medical image segmentation. However, compared to their 2D counterparts, 3D networks introduce substantially more training parameters and higher requirement for the GPU memory. This has become a major limiting factor for designing and training 3D networks for high-resolution volumetric images. In this work, we propose a novel memory-efficient network architecture for 3D high-resolution image segmentation. The network incorporates both global and local features via a two-stage U-net-based cascaded framework and at the first stage, a memory-efficient U-net (meU-net) is developed. The features learnt at the two stages are connected via post-concatenation, which further improves the information flow. The proposed segmentation method is evaluated on an ultra high-resolution microCT dataset with typically 250 million voxels per volume. Experiments show that it outperforms state-of-the-art 3D segmentation methods in terms of both segmentation accuracy and memory efficiency.

preprint2022arXiv

Recursive Least Squares Advantage Actor-Critic Algorithms

As an important algorithm in deep reinforcement learning, advantage actor critic (A2C) has been widely succeeded in both discrete and continuous control tasks with raw pixel inputs, but its sample efficiency still needs to improve more. In traditional reinforcement learning, actor-critic algorithms generally use the recursive least squares (RLS) technology to update the parameter of linear function approximators for accelerating their convergence speed. However, A2C algorithms seldom use this technology to train deep neural networks (DNNs) for improving their sample efficiency. In this paper, we propose two novel RLS-based A2C algorithms and investigate their performance. Both proposed algorithms, called RLSSA2C and RLSNA2C, use the RLS method to train the critic network and the hidden layers of the actor network. The main difference between them is at the policy learning step. RLSSA2C uses an ordinary first-order gradient descent algorithm and the standard policy gradient to learn the policy parameter. RLSNA2C uses the Kronecker-factored approximation, the RLS method and the natural policy gradient to learn the compatible parameter and the policy parameter. In addition, we analyze the complexity and convergence of both algorithms, and present three tricks for further improving their convergence speed. Finally, we demonstrate the effectiveness of both algorithms on 40 games in the Atari 2600 environment and 11 tasks in the MuJoCo environment. From the experimental results, it is shown that our both algorithms have better sample efficiency than the vanilla A2C on most games or tasks, and have higher computational efficiency than other two state-of-the-art algorithms.

preprint2022arXiv

Recursive Least Squares for Training and Pruning Convolutional Neural Networks

Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have succeeded in many practical applications. However, their high computation and storage requirements often make them difficult to deploy on resource-constrained devices. In order to tackle this issue, many pruning algorithms have been proposed for CNNs, but most of them can't prune CNNs to a reasonable level. In this paper, we propose a novel algorithm for training and pruning CNNs based on the recursive least squares (RLS) optimization. After training a CNN for some epochs, our algorithm combines inverse input autocorrelation matrices and weight matrices to evaluate and prune unimportant input channels or nodes layer by layer. Then, our algorithm will continue to train the pruned network, and won't do the next pruning until the pruned network recovers the full performance of the old network. Besides for CNNs, the proposed algorithm can be used for feedforward neural networks (FNNs). Three experiments on MNIST, CIFAR-10 and SVHN datasets show that our algorithm can achieve the more reasonable pruning and have higher learning efficiency than other four popular pruning algorithms.

preprint2022arXiv

Remarks on Different Notions on Output Stability for Nonlinear Delay Systems

Motivated by the regulator theory and adaptive controls, several notions on output stability in the framework of input-to-state stability (iss) were introduced for finite-dimensional systems. It turned out that these output stability notions are intrinsically different, reflecting different manners of how state variables may affect the transient behavior of output variables. In this work, we consider these output stability properties for delay systems. Our main objective is to illustrate how the various notions are related for delay systems and to provide the Razumikhin criteria for the output stability properties. The main results are also critical in developing the converse Lyapunov theorems of the output stability properties for delay systems

preprint2022arXiv

Resilient Consensus for Multi-Agent Systems under Adversarial Spreading Processes

This paper addresses novel consensus problems for multi-agent systems operating in an unreliable environment where adversaries are spreading. The dynamics of the adversarial spreading processes follows the susceptible-infected-recovered (SIR) model, where the infection induces faulty behaviors in the agents and affects their state values. Such a problem setting serves as a model of opinion dynamics in social networks where consensus is to be formed at the time of pandemic and infected individuals may deviate from their true opinions. To ensure resilient consensus among the noninfectious agents, the difficulty is that the number of infectious agents changes over time. We assume that a local policy maker announces the local level of infection in real-time, which can be adopted by the agent for its preventative measures. It is demonstrated that this problem can be formulated as resilient consensus in the presence of the socalled mobile malicious models, where the mean subsequence reduced (MSR) algorithms are known to be effective. We characterize sufficient conditions on the network structures for different policies regarding the announced infection levels and the strength of the epidemic. Numerical simulations are carried out for random graphs to verify the effectiveness of our approach.

preprint2022arXiv

Restricted Black-box Adversarial Attack Against DeepFake Face Swapping

DeepFake face swapping presents a significant threat to online security and social media, which can replace the source face in an arbitrary photo/video with the target face of an entirely different person. In order to prevent this fraud, some researchers have begun to study the adversarial methods against DeepFake or face manipulation. However, existing works focus on the white-box setting or the black-box setting driven by abundant queries, which severely limits the practical application of these methods. To tackle this problem, we introduce a practical adversarial attack that does not require any queries to the facial image forgery model. Our method is built on a substitute model persuing for face reconstruction and then transfers adversarial examples from the substitute model directly to inaccessible black-box DeepFake models. Specially, we propose the Transferable Cycle Adversary Generative Adversarial Network (TCA-GAN) to construct the adversarial perturbation for disrupting unknown DeepFake systems. We also present a novel post-regularization module for enhancing the transferability of generated adversarial examples. To comprehensively measure the effectiveness of our approaches, we construct a challenging benchmark of DeepFake adversarial attacks for future development. Extensive experiments impressively show that the proposed adversarial attack method makes the visual quality of DeepFake face images plummet so that they are easier to be detected by humans and algorithms. Moreover, we demonstrate that the proposed algorithm can be generalized to offer face image protection against various face translation methods.

preprint2022arXiv

The Spin of New Black Hole Candidate: MAXI J1803-298 Observed by NuSTAR and NICER

MAXI J1803-298, a newly-discovered Galactic transient and black hole candidate, was first detected by \emph{MAXI}/GSC on May 1st, 2021. In this paper, we present a detailed spectral analysis of MAXI J1803-298. Utilizing the X-ray reflection fitting method, we perform a joint fit to the spectra of MAXI J1803-298, respectively, observed by \emph{NuSTAR} and \emph{NICER}/XTI on the same day over the energy range between 0.7-79.0 keV, and found its spin (and the inclination angle i) can be constrained to be close to an extreme value, 0.991 ($i\sim$ $70 ^{\circ}$), at 68\% confidence interval. The results suggest that MAXI J1803-298 may be a fast-rotating black hole with a large inclination angle.

preprint2022arXiv

Thermodynamics of PNJL at zero temperature in a strong magnetic field

In this paper, the deconfinement and chiral restoration transitions in strong magnetic field is realized at zero temperature in the Polyakov Nambu$-$Jona-Lasinio model. We provide the thermodynamic treatment to mimic the deconfinement phase transition at zero temperature together with the entangled scalar and vector interactions coupled with the Polyakov loop. The magnetic catalysis is found by a rising behavior of the critical chemical potential for the first-order deconfinement phase transition. While the magnetic catalysis on the chiral restoration could convert to inverse magnetic catalysis under the running coupling interaction ansatz. Furthermore, the stronger magnetic field makes the possible quarkyonic phase window to be enlarged under the running coupling interaction.

preprint2021arXiv

A Differential Testing Approach for Evaluating Abstract Syntax Tree Mapping Algorithms

Abstract syntax tree (AST) mapping algorithms are widely used to analyze changes in source code. Despite the foundational role of AST mapping algorithms, little effort has been made to evaluate the accuracy of AST mapping algorithms, i.e., the extent to which an algorihtm captures the evolution of code. We observe that a program element often has only one best-mapped program element. Based on this observation, we propose a hierarchical approach to automatically compare the similarity of mapped statements and tokens by different algorithms. By performing the comparison, we determine if each of the compared algorithms generates inaccurate mappings for a statement or its tokens. We invite 12 external experts to determine if three commonly used AST mapping algorithms generate accurate mappings for a statement and its tokens for 200 statements. Based on the experts' feedback,we observe that our approach achieves a precision of 0.98--1.00 and a recall of 0.65--0.75. Furthermore, we conduct a large-scale study with a dataset of ten Java projects, containing a total of 263,165 file revisions. Our approach determines that GumTree, MTDiff and IJM generate inaccurate mappings for 20%--29%, 25%--36% and 21%--30% of the file revisions, respectively. Our experimental results show that state-of-art AST mapping agorithms still need improvements.

preprint2021arXiv

Dirac Nodal Lines and Nodal Loops in a Topological Kagome Superconductor CsV$_3$Sb$_5$

The intertwining of charge order, superconductivity and band topology has promoted the AV$_3$Sb$_5$ (A=K, Rb, Cs) family of materials to the center of attention in condensed matter physics. Underlying those mysterious macroscopic properties such as giant anomalous Hall conductivity (AHC) and chiral charge density wave is their nontrivial band topology. While there have been numerous experimental and theoretical works investigating the nontrivial band structure and especially the van Hove singularities, the exact topological phase of this family remains to be clarified. In this work, we identify CsV$_3$Sb$_5$ as a Dirac nodal line semimetal based on the observation of multiple Dirac nodal lines and loops close to the Fermi level. Combining photoemission spectroscopy and density functional theory, we identify two groups of Dirac nodal lines along $k_z$ direction and one group of Dirac nodal loops in the A-H-L plane. These nodal loops are located at the Fermi level within the instrumental resolution limit. Importantly, our first-principle analyses indicate that these nodal loops may be a crucial source of the mysterious giant AHC observed. Our results not only provide a clear picture to categorize the band structure topology of this family of materials, but also suggest the dominant role of topological nodal loops in shaping their transport behavior.

preprint2021arXiv

Estimating the spin of the black hole candidate MAXI J1659-152 with the X-ray continuum-fitting method

As a transient X-ray binary, MAXI J1659-152 contains a black hole candidate as its compact star. MAXI J1659-152 was discovered on 2010 September 25 during its only known outburst. Previously-published studies of this outburst indicate that MAXI J1659-152 may have an extreme retrograde spin, which, if confirmed, would provide an important clue as to the origin of black hole spin. In this paper, utilizing updated dynamical binary-system parameters (i.e. the black hole mass, the orbital inclination and the source distance) provided by \cite{Torres2021}, we analyze 65 spectra of MAXI J1659-152 from \emph{RXTE}/PCA, in order to assess the spin parameter. With a final selection of 9 spectra matching our $f_{\mathrm{sc}} \lesssim 25 \%$, soft-state criteria, we apply a relativistic thin disk spectroscopic model \texttt{kerrbb2} over 3.0-45.0 keV. We find that inclination angle correlates inversely with spin, and, considering the possible values for inclination angle, we constrain spin to be $-1 < a_{*} \lesssim 0.44$ at 90\% confidence interval via X-ray continuum-fitting. We can only rule out an extreme prograde (positive) spin. We confirm that an extreme retrograde solution is possible and is not ruled out by considering accretion torques given the young age of the system.

preprint2021arXiv

Improving Reinforcement Learning with Human Assistance: An Argument for Human Subject Studies with HIPPO Gym

Reinforcement learning (RL) is a popular machine learning paradigm for game playing, robotics control, and other sequential decision tasks. However, RL agents often have long learning times with high data requirements because they begin by acting randomly. In order to better learn in complex tasks, this article argues that an external teacher can often significantly help the RL agent learn. OpenAI Gym is a common framework for RL research, including a large number of standard environments and agents, making RL research significantly more accessible. This article introduces our new open-source RL framework, the Human Input Parsing Platform for Openai Gym (HIPPO Gym), and the design decisions that went into its creation. The goal of this platform is to facilitate human-RL research, again lowering the bar so that more researchers can quickly investigate different ways that human teachers could assist RL agents, including learning from demonstrations, learning from feedback, or curriculum learning.

preprint2021arXiv

Spectral Analysis of New Black Hole Candidate AT2019wey Observed by NuSTAR

AT2019wey is a new galactic X-ray binary that was first discovered as an optical transient by the Australia Telescope Large Area Survey (ATLAS) on December 7, 2019. AT2019wey consists of a black hole candidate as well as a low-mass companion star ($M_{\text {star }} \lesssim 0.8 M_{\odot}$) and is likely to have a short orbital period ($P_{\text {orb }} \lesssim 8$ h). Although AT2019wey began activation in the X-ray band during almost the entire outburst on March 8, 2020, it did not enter the soft state during the entire outburst. In this study, we present a detailed spectral analysis of AT2019wey in the low/hard state during its X-ray outburst on the basis of Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array \emph observations. We obtain tight constraints on several of its important physical parameters by applying the State-of-art \texttt{relxill} relativistic reflection model family. In particular, we determine that the measured inner radius of the accretion disk is most likely to have extended to the innermost stable circular orbit (ISCO) radius, i.e., $R_{\text{in}}=1.38^{+0.23}_{-0.16}~R_{\text{ISCO}}$. Hence, assuming $R_{\text{in}}$=$R_{\text{ISCO}}$, we find the spin of AT2019wey to be $a_{*}\sim$ $0.97$, which is close to the extreme and an inner disk inclination angle of ~$i\sim$ $22 ^{\circ}$. Additionally, according to our adopted models, AT2019wey tends to have a relatively high iron abundance of $A_{\mathrm{Fe}}\sim$ 5 $A_{\mathrm{Fe}, \odot}$ and a high disk ionization state of $\log ξ\sim$ 3.4.

preprint2021arXiv

Ultrafast time- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy with widely tunable probe photon energy of 5.3-7.0 eV for investigating dynamics of three-dimensional materials

Time- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (TrARPES) is a powerful technique for capturing the ultrafast dynamics of charge carriers and revealing photo-induced phase transitions in quantum materials. However, the lack of widely tunable probe photon energy, which is critical for accessing the dispersions at different out-of-plane momentum $k_z$ in TrARPES measurements, has hindered the ultrafast dynamics investigation of 3D quantum materials such as Dirac or Weyl semimetals. Here we report the development of a TrARPES system with a highly tunable probe photon energy from 5.3 to 7.0 eV. The tunable probe photon energy is generated by the fourth harmonic generation of a tunable wavelength femtosecond laser source by combining a $β$-BaB$_2$O$_4$ (BBO) crystal and a KBe$_2$BO$_3$F$_2$ (KBBF) crystal. High energy resolution of 29 - 48 meV and time resolution of 280 - 320 fs are demonstrated on 3D topological materials ZrTe$_5$ and Sb$_2$Te$_3$. Our work opens up new opportunities for exploring ultrafast dynamics in 3D quantum materials.

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

Entire Space Multi-Task Modeling via Post-Click Behavior Decomposition for Conversion Rate Prediction

Recommender system, as an essential part of modern e-commerce, consists of two fundamental modules, namely Click-Through Rate (CTR) and Conversion Rate (CVR) prediction. While CVR has a direct impact on the purchasing volume, its prediction is well-known challenging due to the Sample Selection Bias (SSB) and Data Sparsity (DS) issues. Although existing methods, typically built on the user sequential behavior path ``impression$\to$click$\to$purchase'', is effective for dealing with SSB issue, they still struggle to address the DS issue due to rare purchase training samples. Observing that users always take several purchase-related actions after clicking, we propose a novel idea of post-click behavior decomposition. Specifically, disjoint purchase-related Deterministic Action (DAction) and Other Action (OAction) are inserted between click and purchase in parallel, forming a novel user sequential behavior graph ``impression$\to$click$\to$D(O)Action$\to$purchase''. Defining model on this graph enables to leverage all the impression samples over the entire space and extra abundant supervised signals from D(O)Action, which will effectively address the SSB and DS issues together. To this end, we devise a novel deep recommendation model named Elaborated Entire Space Supervised Multi-task Model ($ESM^{2}$). According to the conditional probability rule defined on the graph, it employs multi-task learning to predict some decomposed sub-targets in parallel and compose them sequentially to formulate the final CVR. Extensive experiments on both offline and online environments demonstrate the superiority of $ESM^{2}$ over state-of-the-art models. The source code and dataset will be released.

preprint2020arXiv

Finding Optimal Points for Expensive Functions Using Adaptive RBF-Based Surrogate Model Via Uncertainty Quantification

Global optimization of expensive functions has important applications in physical and computer experiments. It is a challenging problem to develop efficient optimization scheme, because each function evaluation can be costly and the derivative information of the function is often not available. We propose a novel global optimization framework using adaptive Radial Basis Functions (RBF) based surrogate model via uncertainty quantification. The framework consists of two iteration steps. It first employs an RBF-based Bayesian surrogate model to approximate the true function, where the parameters of the RBFs can be adaptively estimated and updated each time a new point is explored. Then it utilizes a model-guided selection criterion to identify a new point from a candidate set for function evaluation. The selection criterion adopted here is a sample version of the expected improvement (EI) criterion. We conduct simulation studies with standard test functions, which show that the proposed method has some advantages, especially when the true surface is not very smooth. In addition, we also propose modified approaches to improve the search performance for identifying global optimal points and to deal with the higher dimension scenarios.

preprint2020arXiv

Half-Magnetic Topological Insulator

Topological magnets are a new family of quantum materials providing great potential to realize emergent phenomena, such as quantum anomalous Hall effect and axion-insulator state. Here we present our discovery that stoichiometric ferromagnet MnBi8Te13 with natural heterostructure MnBi2Te4-(Bi2Te3)3 is an unprecedented half-magnetic topological insulator, with the magnetization existing at the MnBi2Te4 surface but not at the opposite surface terminated by triple Bi2Te3 layers. Our angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy measurements unveil a massive Dirac gap at the MnBi2Te4 surface, and gapless Dirac cone on the other side. Remarkably, the Dirac gap (~28 meV) at MnBi2Te4 surface decreases monotonically with increasing temperature and closes right at the Curie temperature, thereby representing the first smoking-gun spectroscopic evidence of magnetization-induced topological surface gap among all known magnetic topological materials. We further demonstrate theoretically that the half-magnetic topological insulator is desirable to realize the half-quantized surface anomalous Hall effect, which serves as a direct proof of the general concept of axion electrodynamics in condensed matter systems.

preprint2020arXiv

Last-mile Delivery: Optimal Locker Location Under Multinomial Logit Choice Model

One innovative solution to the last-mile delivery problem is the self-service locker system. Motivated by a real case in Singapore, we consider a POP-Locker Alliance who operates a set of POP-stations and wishes to improve the last-mile delivery by opening new locker facilities. We propose a quantitative approach to determine the optimal locker location with the objective to maximize the overall service provided by the alliance. Customer's choices regarding the use of facilities are explicitly considered. They are predicted by a multinomial logit model. We then formulate the location problem as a multi-ratio linear-fractional 0-1 program and provide two solution approaches. The first one is to reformulate the original problem as a mixed-integer linear program, which is further strengthened using conditional McCormick inequalities. This approach is an exact method, developed for small-scale problems. For large-scale problems, we propose a Suggest-and-Improve framework with two embedded algorithms. Numerical studies indicated that our framework is an efficient approach that yields high-quality solutions. Finally, we conducted a case study. The results highlighted the importance of considering the customers' choices. Under different parameter values of the multinomial logit model, the decisions could be completely different. Therefore, the parameter value should be carefully estimated in advance.

preprint2020arXiv

Privacy-Preserving Distributed Projection LMS for Linear Multitask Networks

We develop a privacy-preserving distributed projection least mean squares (LMS) strategy over linear multitask networks, where agents' local parameters of interest or tasks are linearly related. Each agent is interested in not only improving its local inference performance via in-network cooperation with neighboring agents, but also protecting its own individual task against privacy leakage. In our proposed strategy, at each time instant, each agent sends a noisy estimate, which is its local intermediate estimate corrupted by a zero-mean additive noise, to its neighboring agents. We derive a sufficient condition to determine the amount of noise to add to each agent's intermediate estimate to achieve an optimal trade-off between the network mean-square-deviation and an inference privacy constraint. We propose a distributed and adaptive strategy to compute the additive noise powers, and study the mean and mean-square behaviors and privacy-preserving performance of the proposed strategy. Simulation results demonstrate that our strategy is able to balance the trade-off between estimation accuracy and privacy preservation.

preprint2020arXiv

Redshift Evolution of the Fundamental Plane Relation in the IllustrisTNG Simulation

We investigate the fundamental plane (FP) evolution of early-type galaxies in the IllustrisTNG-100 simulation (TNG100) from redshift $z=0$ to $z=2$. We find that a tight plane relation already exists as early as $z=2$. Its scatter stays as low as $\sim 0.08$ dex across this redshift range. Both slope parameters $b$ and $c$ (where $R \propto σ^b I^c$ with $R$, $σ$, and $I$ being the typical size, velocity dispersion, and surface brightness) of the plane evolve mildly since $z=2$, roughly consistent with observations. The FP residual $\rm Res$ ($\equiv\,a\,+\,b\log σ\,+\,c\log I\,-\,\log R$, where $a$ is the zero point of the FP) is found to strongly correlate with stellar age, indicating that stellar age can be used as a crucial fourth parameter of the FP. However, we find that $4c+b+2=δ$, where $δ\sim 0.8$ for FPs in TNG, rather than zero as is typically inferred from observations. This implies that a tight power-law relation between the dynamical mass-to-light ratio $M_{\rm dyn}/L$ and the dynamical mass $M_{\rm dyn}$ (where $M_{\rm dyn}\equiv 5σ^2R/G$, with $G$ being the gravitational constant) is not present in the TNG100 simulation. Recovering such a relation requires proper mixing between dark matter and baryons, as well as star formation occurring with correct efficiencies at the right mass scales. This represents a powerful constraint on the numerical models, which has to be satisfied in future hydrodynamical simulations.

preprint2020arXiv

Resilient Consensus Against Mobile Malicious Agents

This paper addresses novel consensus problems in the presence of adversaries that can move within the network and induce faulty behaviors in the attacked agents. By adopting several mobile adversary models from the computer science literature, we develop protocols which can mitigate the influence of such malicious agents. The algorithms follow the class of mean subsequence reduced (MSR) algorithms, under which agents ignore the suspicious values received from neighbors during their state updates. Different from the static adversary models, even after the adversaries move away, the infected agents may remain faulty in their values, whose effects must be taken into account. We develop conditions on the network structures for both the complete and non-complete graph cases, under which the proposed algorithms are guaranteed to attain resilient consensus. Extensive simulations are carried out over random graphs to verify the effectiveness of our approach under uncertainties in the systems.

preprint2020arXiv

Rethinking Road Surface 3D Reconstruction and Pothole Detection: From Perspective Transformation to Disparity Map Segmentation

Potholes are one of the most common forms of road damage, which can severely affect driving comfort, road safety and vehicle condition. Pothole detection is typically performed by either structural engineers or certified inspectors. This task is, however, not only hazardous for the personnel but also extremely time-consuming. This paper presents an efficient pothole detection algorithm based on road disparity map estimation and segmentation. We first generalize the perspective transformation by incorporating the stereo rig roll angle. The road disparities are then estimated using semi-global matching. A disparity map transformation algorithm is then performed to better distinguish the damaged road areas. Finally, we utilize simple linear iterative clustering to group the transformed disparities into a collection of superpixels. The potholes are then detected by finding the superpixels, whose values are lower than an adaptively determined threshold. The proposed algorithm is implemented on an NVIDIA RTX 2080 Ti GPU in CUDA. The experiments demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of our proposed road pothole detection algorithm, where an accuracy of 99.6% and an F-score of 89.4% are achieved.

preprint2020arXiv

The diffuse gamma-ray emission toward the Galactic mini starburst W43

In this paper we report the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) detection of the gamma-ray emission toward the young star forming region W43. Using the latest source catalog and diffuse background models, the extended gamma-ray excess is detected with a significance of about 16 $σ$. The gamma-ray emission has a spectrum with a photon index of $2.3 \pm 0.1$. We also performed a detailed analysis of the gas content in this region by taking into account the opacity correction to the HI gas column density. The total cosmic-ray (CR) proton energy is estimated to be on the order of $10^{48}\ \rm erg,$ assuming the gamma-ray are produced from the interaction of the accelerated protons and nuclei with the ambient gas. Comparing this region to the other star formation regions in our Galaxy, we find that the CR luminosity is better correlated with the wind power than the star formation rate (SFR). This result suggests that CRs are primarily accelerated by stellar wind in these systems

preprint2019arXiv

Dense Cores, Filaments and Outflows in the S255IR Region of High Mass Star Formation

We investigate at a high angular resolution the spatial and kinematic structure of the S255IR high mass star-forming region, which demonstrated recently the first disk-mediated accretion burst in the massive young stellar object. The observations were performed with ALMA in Band 7 at an angular resolution $ \sim 0.1^{\prime\prime}$, which corresponds to $ \sim 180 $ AU. The 0.9 mm continuum, C$^{34}$S(7-6) and CCH $N=4-3$ data show a presence of very narrow ($ \sim 1000 $ AU), very dense ($n\sim 10^7$ cm$^{-3}$) and warm filamentary structures in this area. At least some of them represent apparently dense walls around the high velocity molecular outflow with a wide opening angle from the S255IR-SMA1 core, which is associated with the NIRS3 YSO. This wide-angle outflow surrounds a narrow jet. At the ends of the molecular outflow there are shocks, traced in the SiO(8-7) emission. The SiO abundance there is enhanced by at least 3 orders of magnitude. The CO(3-2) and SiO(8-7) data show a collimated and extended high velocity outflow from another dense core in this area, SMA2. The outflow is bent and consists of a chain of knots, which may indicate periodic ejections possibly arising from a binary system consisting of low or intermediate mass protostars. The C$^{34}$S emission shows evidence of rotation of the parent core. Finally, we detected two new low mass compact cores in this area (designated as SMM1 and SMM2), which may represent prestellar objects.

preprint2019arXiv

In-plane antiferromagnetic moments in axion topological insulator candidate EuIn$_2$As$_2$

Topological insulator with antiferromagnetic order can serve as an ideal platform for the realization of axion electrodynamics. In this paper, we report a systematic study of the axion topological insulator candidate EuIn$_2$As$_2$. A linear energy dispersion across the Fermi level confirms the existence of the proposed hole-type Fermi pocket. Spin-flop transitions occur with magnetic fields applied within the $ab$-plane while are absent for fields parallel to the $c$-axis. Anisotropic magnetic phase diagrams are observed and the orientation of the ground magnetic moment is found to be within the $ab$-plane. The magnetoresistivity for EuIn$_2$As$_2$ behaves non-monotonic as a function of field strength. It exhibits angular dependent evolving due to field-driven and temperature-driven magnetic states. These results indicate that the magnetic states of EuIn$_2$As$_2$ strongly affect the transport properties as well as the topological nature.

preprint2019arXiv

Observation of Rydberg exciton polaritons and their condensate in a perovskite cavity

The condensation of half-light half-matter exciton polaritons in semiconductor optical cavities is a striking example of macroscopic quantum coherence in a solid state platform. Quantum coherence is possible only when there are strong interactions between the exciton polaritons provided by their excitonic constituents. Rydberg excitons with high principle value exhibit strong dipole-dipole interactions in cold atoms. However, polaritons with the excitonic constituent that is an excited state, namely Rydberg exciton polaritons (REPs), have not yet been experimentally observed. Here, for the first time, we observe the formation of REPs in a single crystal CsPbBr3 perovskite cavity without any external fields. These polaritons exhibit strong nonlinear behavior that leads to a coherent polariton condensate with a prominent blue shift. Furthermore, the REPs in CsPbBr3 are highly anisotropic and have a large extinction ratio, arising from the perovskite's orthorhombic crystal structure. Our observation not only sheds light on the importance of many-body physics in coherent polariton systems involving higher-order excited states, but also paves the way for exploring these coherent interactions for solid state quantum optical information processing.

preprint2018arXiv

Observation of acoustic spin

Unlike optical waves, acoustic waves in fluids are described by scalar pressure fields, and therefore are considered spinless. Here, we demonstrate experimentally the existence of spin in acoustics. In the interference of two acoustic waves propagating perpendicularly to each other, we observed the spin angular momentum in free space as a result of the rotation of local particle velocity. We successfully measured the acoustic spin, and spin induced torque acting on a lossy acoustic meta-atom that results from absorption of the spin angular momentum. The acoustic spin is also observed in the evanescent field of a guided mode traveling along a metamaterial waveguide. We found spin-momentum locking in acoustic waves whose propagation direction is determined by the sign of spin. The observed acoustic spin could open a new door in acoustics and their applications for the control of wave propagation and particle rotation.

preprint2016arXiv

Coherence-Driven Topological Transition in Quantum Metamaterials

We introduce and theoretically demonstrate a quantum metamaterial made of dense ultracold neutral atoms loaded into an inherently defect-free artificial crystal of light, immune to well-known critical chal- lenges inevitable in conventional solid-state platforms. We demonstrate an all-optical control on ultrafast time scales over the photonic topological transition of the isofrequency contour from an open to close topology at the same frequency. This atomic lattice quantum metamaterial enables a dynamic manipula- tion of the decay rate of a probe quantum emitter by more than an order of magnitude. This proposal may lead to practically lossless, tunable and topologically-reconfigurable quantum metamaterials, for single- or few-photon-level applications as varied as quantum sensing, quantum information processing, and quantum simulations using metamaterials.

preprint2016arXiv

Heart Rate Variability and Respiration Signal as Diagnostic Tools for Late Onset Sepsis in Neonatal Intensive Care Units

Apnea-bradycardia is one of the major clinical early indicators of late-onset sepsis occurring in approximately 7% to 10% of all neonates and in more than 25% of very low birth weight infants in NICU. The objective of this paper was to determine if HRV, respiration and their relationships help to diagnose infection in premature infants via non-invasive ways in NICU. Therefore, we implement Mono-Channel (MC) and Bi-Channel (BC) Analysis in two groups: sepsis (S) vs. non-sepsis (NS). Firstly, we studied RR series not only by linear methods: time domain and frequency domain, but also by non-linear methods: chaos theory and information theory. The results show that alpha Slow, alpha Fast and Sample Entropy are significant parameters to distinguish S from NS. Secondly, the question about the functional coupling of HRV and nasal respiration is addressed. Local linear correlation coefficient r2t,f has been explored, while non-linear regression coefficient h2 was calculated in two directions. It is obvious that r2t,f within the third frequency band (0.2<f<0.4 Hz) and h2 in two directions were complementary approaches to diagnose sepsis. Thirdly, feasibility study is carried out on the candidate parameters selected from MC and BC respectively. We discovered that the proposed test based on optimal fusion of 6 features shows good performance with the largest AUC and a reduced probability of false alarm (PFA).

preprint2016arXiv

Large-Scale Multi-Stream Quickest Change Detection via Shrinkage Post-Change Estimation

The quickest change detection problem is considered in the context of monitoring large-scale independent normal distributed data streams with possible changes in some of the means. It is assumed that for each individual local data stream, either there are no local changes, or there is a "big" local change that is larger than a pre-specified lower bound. Two different kinds of scenarios are studied: one is the sparse post-change case when the unknown number of affected data streams is much smaller than the total number of data streams, and the other is when all local data streams are affected simultaneously although not necessarily identically. We propose a systematic approach to develop efficient global monitoring schemes for quickest change detection by combining hard thresholding with linear shrinkage estimators to estimating all post-change parameters simultaneously. Our theoretical analysis demonstrates that the shrinkage estimation can balance the tradeoff between the first-order and second-order terms of the asymptotic expression on the detection delays, and our numerical simulation studies illustrate the usefulness of shrinkage estimation and the challenge of Monte Carlo simulation of the average run length to false alarm in the context of online monitoring large-scale data streams.

preprint2016arXiv

Measuring Asymmetric Opinions on Online Social Interrelationship with Language and Network Features

Instead of studying the properties of social relationship from an objective view, in this paper, we focus on individuals' subjective and asymmetric opinions on their interrelationships. Inspired by the theories from sociolinguistics, we investigate two individuals' opinions on their interrelationship with their interactive language features. Eliminating the difference of personal language style, we clarify that the asymmetry of interactive language feature values can indicate individuals' asymmetric opinions on their interrelationship. We also discuss how the degree of opinions' asymmetry is related to the individuals' personality traits. Furthermore, to measure the individuals' asymmetric opinions on interrelationship concretely, we develop a novel model synthetizing interactive language and social network features. The experimental results with Enron email dataset provide multiple evidences of the asymmetric opinions on interrelationship, and also verify the effectiveness of the proposed model in measuring the degree of opinions' asymmetry.

preprint2016arXiv

Structure vs. Language: Investigating the Multi-factors of Asymmetric Opinions on Online Social Interrelationship with a Case Study

Though current researches often study the properties of online social relationship from an objective view, we also need to understand individuals' subjective opinions on their interrelationships in social computing studies. Inspired by the theories from sociolinguistics, the latest work indicates that interactive language can reveal individuals' asymmetric opinions on their interrelationship. In this work, in order to explain the opinions' asymmetry on interrelationship with more latent factors, we extend the investigation from single relationship to the structural context in online social network. We analyze the correlation between interactive language features and the structural context of interrelationships. The structural context of vertex, edges and triangles in social network are considered. With statistical analysis on Enron email dataset, we find that individuals' opinions (measured by interactive language features) on their interrelationship are related to some of their important structural context in social network. This result can help us to understand and measure the individuals' opinions on their interrelationship with more intrinsic information.

preprint2016arXiv

Study on flexible and organizable time-resolved measurement system and technology for multi-pulsed electron beam parameter

The proof test and debugging of the multi-pulsed electron accelerator, Dragon-2,requires a thorough comprehension of the quality of the beams. This puts forward a rigid requirement on the measurement system that it should have the ability that not only differentiates the three pulses on the whole but also tells the details of each pulse.In the measurements, beam energy is converted by a target to the Optical Transition Radiation (OTR) light, the information carried by which provides a good approach to measure beam profile and divergence simultaneously. Combining with this characteristic of OTR light, the concept of dual-imaging method is adopted in the design of optical imaging system. To avoid interference of the system optical parameters with one another, the original system is separated into two parts by functions, one for beam profile measurements and the other for divergence measurements. Correspondingly a splitter is interposed immediately after the OTR target which splits the light into two parts in perpendicular directions, one part forming a beam spot, and the remaining becoming polarized through a polarizer and imaged by an OTR lens and forming a beam divergence pattern. Again the use of splitters helps the light beam enter different framing camera for different use.With a time resolution of 2ns, the system can provide 8 frames of beam details within any one of the three pulses,at the same time as acquiring the quality of the three pulses on the whole.

preprint2016arXiv

Thresholded Multivariate Principal Component Analysis for Multi-channel Profile Monitoring

Monitoring multichannel profiles has important applications in manufacturing systems improvement, but it is non-trivial to develop efficient statistical methods due to two main challenges. First, profiles are high-dimensional functional data with intrinsic inner- and inter-channel correlations, and one needs to develop a dimension reduction method that can deal with such intricate correlations for the purpose of effective monitoring. The second, and probably more fundamental, challenge is that the functional structure of multi-channel profiles might change over time, and thus the dimension reduction method should be able to automatically take into account the potential unknown change. To tackle these two challenges, we propose a novel thresholded multivariate principal component analysis (PCA) method for multi-channel profile monitoring. Our proposed method consists of two steps of dimension reduction: It first applies the functional PCA to extract a reasonable large number of features under the normal operational (in-control) state, and then use the soft-thresholding techniques to further select significant features capturing profile information in the out-of-control state. The choice of tuning parameter for soft-thresholding is provided based on asymptotic analysis, and extensive simulation studies are conducted to illustrate the efficacy of our proposed thresholded PCA methodology.

preprint2015arXiv

Active coupling control in densely packed subwavelength waveguides via dark mode

The ever growing need for energy-efficient and fast communications is driving the development of highly integrated photonic circuits where controlling light at the nanoscale becomes the most critical aspect of information transfer . Directional couplers, two interacting optical waveguides placed in close proximity, are important building blocks in these integrated photonics circuits and have been employed as optical modulators and switches for high speed communication, data processing and integrated quantum operations. However, active control over the coupling between closely packed waveguides is highly desirable and yet remains a critical barrier towards ultra small footprint devices. A general approach to achieve active control in waveguide systems is to exploit optical nonlinearities enabled by a strong control pulse. However these devices suffer from the nonlinear absorption induced by the intense control pulse as the signal and its control propagate in the same waveguide. Here we experimentally demonstrate a unique scheme based on adiabatic elimination (AE) concept that effectively manipulates the coupling between densely packed waveguides. We demonstrate active coupling control between two closely packed waveguides by tuning the mode index of an in-between decoupled waveguide. This is achieved via a dark mode and thus leaves the signal unaffected by the induced losses. Such a scheme is a promising candidate for ultra-dense integrated nano-photonics such as on-chip ultrafast modulators and tunable filters for optical communication and quantum computing.

preprint2015arXiv

Chemical assembly of atomically thin transistors and circuits in a large scale

Next-generation electronics calls for new materials beyond silicon for increased functionality, performance, and scaling in integrated circuits. Carbon nanotubes and semiconductor nanowires are at the forefront of these materials, but have challenges due to the complex fabrication techniques required for large-scale applications. Two-dimensional (2D) gapless graphene and semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) have emerged as promising electronic materials due to their atomic thickness, chemical stability and scalability. Difficulties in the assembly of 2D electronic structures arise in the precise spatial control over the metallic and semiconducting atomic thin films. Ultimately, this impedes the maturity of integrating atomic elements in modern electronics. Here, we report the large-scale spatially controlled synthesis of the single-layer semiconductor molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) laterally in contact with conductive graphene. Transition electron microscope (TEM) studies reveal that the single-layer MoS2 nucleates at the edge of the graphene, creating a lateral 2D heterostructure. We demonstrate such chemically assembled 2D atomic transistors exhibit high transconductance (10 uS), on-off ratios (10^6), and mobility (20 cm^2 V^-1 s^-1). We assemble 2D logic circuits, such as a heterostructure NMOS inverter with a high voltage gain, up to 70, enabled by the precise site selectivity from atomically thin conducting and semiconducting crystals. This scalable chemical assembly of 2D heterostructures may usher in a new era in two-dimensional electronic circuitry and computing.

preprint2015arXiv

Monolayer Excitonic Laser

Recently, two-dimensional (2D) materials have opened a new paradigm for fundamental physics explorations and device applications. Unlike gapless graphene, monolayer transition metal dichalcogenide (TMDC) has new optical functionalities for next generation ultra-compact electronic and opto-electronic devices. When TMDC crystals are thinned down to monolayers, they undergo an indirect to direct bandgap transition, making it an outstanding 2D semiconductor. Unique electron valley degree of freedom, strong light matter interactions and excitonic effects were observed. Enhancement of spontaneous emission has been reported on TMDC monolayers integrated with photonic crystal and distributed Bragg reflector microcavities. However, the coherent light emission from 2D monolayer TMDC has not been demonstrated, mainly due to that an atomic membrane has limited material gain volume and is lack of optical mode confinement. Here, we report the first realization of 2D excitonic laser by embedding monolayer tungsten disulfide (WS2) in a microdisk resonator. Using a whispering gallery mode (WGM) resonator with a high quality factor and optical confinement, we observed bright excitonic lasing in visible wavelength. The Si3N4/WS2/HSQ sandwich configuration provides a strong feedback and mode overlap with monolayer gain. This demonstration of 2D excitonic laser marks a major step towards 2D on-chip optoelectronics for high performance optical communication and computing applications.

preprint2015arXiv

Ongoing star formation in the proto-cluster IRAS 22134+5834

IRAS 22134+5834 was observed in the centimeter with (E)VLA, 3~mm with CARMA, 2~mm with PdBI, and 1.3~mm with SMA, to study the continuum emission as well as the molecular lines, that trace different physical conditions of the gas to study the influence of massive YSOs on nearby starless cores, and the possible implications in the clustered star formation process. The multi-wavelength centimeter continuum observations revealed two radio sources within the cluster, VLA1 and VLA2. VLA1 is considered to be an optically thin UCHII region with a size of 0.01~pc and sits at the edge of the near-infrared (NIR) cluster. The flux of ionizing photons of the VLA1 corresponds to a B1 ZAMS star. VLA2 is associated with an infrared point source and has a negative spectral index. We resolved six millimeter continuum cores at 2~mm, MM2 is associated with the UCHII region VLA1, and other dense cores are distributed around the UCH{\sc ii} region. Two high-mass starless clumps (HMSC), HMSC-E (east) and HMSC-W (west), are detected around the NIR cluster with N$_2$H$^+$(1--0) and NH$_3$ emission, and show different physical and chemical properties. Two N$_2$D$^+$ cores are detected on an NH$_3$ filament close to the UCHII region, with a projected separation of $\sim$8000~AU at the assumed distance of 2.6~kpc. The kinematic properties of the molecular line emission confirm the expansion of the UCHII region and that the molecular cloud around the near infrared (NIR) cluster is also expanding. Our multi-wavelength study has revealed different generations of star formation in IRAS 22134+5834. The formed intermediate- to massive stars show strong impact on nearby starless clumps. We propose that while the stellar wind from the UCHII region and the NIR cluster drives the large scale bubble, the starless clumps and HMPOs formed at the edge of the cluster.

preprint2015arXiv

Optical Selection Rule based on Valley-Exciton Locking for 2D Valleytronics

Optical selection rule fundamentally determines the optical transition between energy states in a variety of physical systems from hydrogen atoms to bulk crystals such as GaAs. It is important for optoelectronic applications such as lasers, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and quantum computation. Recently, single layer transition metal dichalcogenide (TMDC) exhibits valleys in momentum space with nontrivial Berry curvature and excitons with large binding energy. However, it is unclear how the unique valley degree of freedom combined with the strong excitonic effect influences the optical excitation. Here we discover a new set of optical selection rules in monolayer WS2,imposed by valley and exciton angular momentum. We experimentally demonstrated such a principle for second harmonic generation (SHG) and two-photon luminescence (TPL). Moreover, the two-photon induced valley populations yield net circular polarized photoluminescence after a sub-ps interexciton relaxation (2p->1s) and last for 8 ps. The discovery of this new optical selection rule in valleytronic 2D system not only largely extend information degrees but sets a foundation in control of optical transitions that is crucial to valley optoeletronic device applications such as 2D valley-polarized light emitting diodes (LED), optical switches and coherent control for quantum computing.

preprint2015arXiv

Research on Brightness Measurement of Intense Electron Beam

The mostly research fasten on high emission density of injector to study electron beam's brightness in LIA. Using the injector(2MeV) was built to research brightness of multi-pulsed high current(KA) electron beam, and researchs three measurement method (the pepper-pot method, beam collimator without magnetic field, beam collimator with magnetic field method) to detect beam's brightness with time-resolved measurement system.

preprint2015arXiv

Subspace selection for projection maximization with matroid constraints

Suppose that there is a ground set which consists of a large number of vectors in a Hilbert space. Consider the problem of selecting a subset of the ground set such that the projection of a vector of interest onto the subspace spanned by the vectors in the chosen subset reaches the maximum norm. This problem is generally NP-hard, and alternative approximation algorithms such as forward regression and orthogonal matching pursuit have been proposed as heuristic approaches. In this paper, we investigate bounds on the performance of these algorithms by introducing the notions of elemental curvatures. More specifically, we derive lower bounds, as functions of these elemental curvatures, for performance of the aforementioned algorithms with respect to that of the optimal solution under uniform and non-uniform matroid constraints, respectively. We show that if the elements in the ground set are mutually orthogonal, then these algorithms are optimal when the matroid is uniform and they achieve at least $1/2$-approximations of the optimal solution when the matroid is non-uniform.

preprint2014arXiv

Measure electron beam energy with the time-resolved beam parameters measurement system and magnetic analyzer mode

Time-resolved beam parameters measurement system can be achieve electron beam energy in LIA. In this paper introduce work principle and method of time-resolved beam parameters measurement system. Show the experiment layout of energy measuring. The principle of magnetic analyzer was described, with the bending radius of 300 mm and the bending angle of 60 degree after hard-edge approximation, The measured energy is about 18MeV, the maximum energy variation is 2%.

preprint2014arXiv

Observation of Piezoelectricity in Monolayer Molybdenum Disulfide

Piezoelectricity offers precise and robust conversion between electricity and mechanical force. Here we report the first experimental evidence of piezoelectricity in a single layer of molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) crystal as a result of inversion symmetry breaking of the atomic structure, with measured piezoelectric coefficient e11 = 2.9e-10 C/m. Through the angular dependence of electro-mechanical coupling, we uniquely determined the two-dimensional (2D) crystal orientation. We observed that only MoS2 membranes with odd number of layers exhibited piezoelectricity, in sharp contrast to the conventional materials. The piezoelectricity discovered in single molecular membrane promises scaling down of nano-electro-mechanical systems (NEMS) to single atomic unit cell - the ultimate material limit.

preprint2014arXiv

Parity-Time Synthetic Laser

Parity-time (PT) symmetry is a fundamental notion in quantum field theories. It has opened a new paradigm for non-Hermitian Hamiltonians ranging from quantum mechanics, electronics, to optics. In the realm of optics, optical loss is responsible for power dissipation, therefore typically degrading device performance such as attenuation of a laser beam. By carefully exploiting optical loss in the complex dielectric permittivity, however, recent exploration of PT symmetry revolutionizes our understandings in fundamental physics and intriguing optical phenomena such as exceptional points and phase transition that are critical for high-speed optical modulators. The interplay between optical gain and loss in photonic PT synthetic matters offers a new criterion of positively utilizing loss to efficiently manipulate gain and its associated optical properties. Instead of simply compensating optical loss in conventional lasers, for example, it is theoretically proposed that judiciously designed delicate modulation of optical loss and gain can lead to PT synthetic lasing that fundamentally broadens laser physics. Here, we report the first experimental demonstration of PT synthetic lasers. By carefully exploiting the interplay between gain and loss, we achieve degenerate eigen modes at the same frequency but with complex conjugate gain and loss coefficients. In contrast to conventional ring cavity lasers with multiple modes, the PT synthetic micro-ring laser exhibits an intrinsic single mode lasing: the non-threshold PT broken phase inherently associated in such a photonic system squeezes broadband optical gain into a single lasing mode regardless of the gain spectral bandwidth. This chip-scale semiconductor platform provides a unique route towards fundamental explorations of PT physics and next generation of optoelectronic devices for optical communications and computing.

preprint2014arXiv

Probing Excitonic Dark States in Single-layer Tungsten Disulfide

Transition metal dichalcogenide (TMDC) monolayer has recently emerged as an important two-dimensional semiconductor with promising potentials for electronic and optoelectronic devices. Unlike semi-metallic graphene, layered TMDC has a sizable band gap. More interestingly, when thinned down to a monolayer, TMDC transforms from an indirect bandgap to a direct bandgap semiconductor, exhibiting a number of intriguing optical phenomena such as valley selective circular dichroism, doping dependent charged excitons, and strong photocurrent responses. However, the fundamental mechanism underlying such a strong light-matter interaction is still under intensive investigation. The observed optical resonance was initially considered to be band-to-band transitions. In contrast, first-principle calculations predicted a much larger quasiparticle band gap size and an optical response that is dominated by excitonic effects. Here, we report experimental evidence of the exciton dominance mechanism by discovering a series of excitonic dark states in single-layer WS2 using two-photon excitation spectroscopy. In combination with GW-BSE theory, we find the excitons are Wannier excitons in nature but possess extraordinarily large binding energy (~0.7 eV), leading to a quasiparticle band gap of 2.7 eV. These strongly bound exciton states are observed stable even at room temperature. We reveal an exciton series in significant deviation from hydrogen models, with a novel inverse energy dependence on the orbital angular momentum. These excitonic energy levels are experimentally found robust against environmental perturbations. The discovery of excitonic dark states and exceptionally large binding energy not only sheds light on the importance of many-electron effects in this two-dimensional gapped system, but also holds exciting potentials for the device application of TMDC monolayers and their heterostructures.

preprint2013arXiv

CO observation of the Galactic bubble N4

We presented a study on the Galactic bubble N4 using the 13.7 m millimeter telescope of Purple Mountain Observatory at the Qinghai Station. N4 is one of the science demonstration regions for the Milky Way Imaging Scroll Painting (WMISP). Simultaneous observations of $^{12}$CO (J = 1$-$0), $^{13}$CO (J = 1$-$0) and C$^{18}$O (J = 1$-$0) line emission towards N4 were carried out. We analyzed the spectral profile and the distribution of the molecular gas. Morphologically, the CO emissions correlate well with Spitzer IRAC 8.0 $μ$m emission. The channel map and velocity-position diagram shows that N4 is more likely an inclined expanding ring than a spherical bubble. We calculated the physical parameters of N4 including the mass, size, column density and optical depth. Some massive star candidates were discovered in the region of N4 using (J, J$-$H) color-magnitude diagram. We found an energy source candidate for the expansion of N4, a massive star with a mass of ${\sim} 15\,M_{\odot}$ and an age of $\sim$ 1 Myr. There exists infall motion signature in N4, which can be a good candidate of infall area. Combined mm and infrared data, we think there may exists triggered star formation in N4.

preprint2013arXiv

In-plane and out-of-plane correlations in Ho(1-x)YxMnO3

Strong magnetic-ferroelectric coupling in hexagonal HoMnO3 has been observed previously at spin reorientation temperature between P6'3cm' and the P6'3cm' magnetic phases. In contrast, YMnO3 has only a single magnetic phase (P6'3cm') and no sign of strong magnetic-ferroelectric coupling. In order to investigate the P6'3cm' to P6'3c'm spin reorientation transition, single crystals of Ho(1-x)YxMnO3 at varying compositions were grown. Neutron scattering measurements reveal quasielastic scattering in the YMnO3-like phase (P6'3c'm) centered on the Bragg peak corresponding to HoMnO3-like phase (P6'3cm') and vice versa. This scattering may be due to short-lived fluctuations into the "wrong" magnetic phase at domain boundaries. These results suggest that there is strong phase competition between the P6'3cm' and P6'3c'm phases even in pure YMnO3, and this competition may play an important role in the magnetic-ferroelectric coupling observed in HoMnO3.

preprint2013arXiv

The Geometry of Fusion Inspired Channel Design

This paper is motivated by the problem of integrating multiple sources of measurements. We consider two multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) channels, a primary channel and a secondary channel, with dependent input signals. The primary channel carries the signal of interest, and the secondary channel carries a signal that shares a joint distribution with the primary signal. The problem of particular interest is designing the secondary channel matrix, when the primary channel matrix is fixed. We formulate the problem as an optimization problem, in which the optimal secondary channel matrix maximizes an information-based criterion. An analytical solution is provided in a special case. Two fast-to-compute algorithms, one extrinsic and the other intrinsic, are proposed to approximate the optimal solutions in general cases. In particular, the intrinsic algorithm exploits the geometry of the unit sphere, a manifold embedded in Euclidean space. The performances of the proposed algorithms are examined through a simulation study. A discussion of the choice of dimension for the secondary channel is given.

preprint2012arXiv

Different Evolutionary Stages in the Massive Star Forming Region W3 Main Complex

We observed three high-mass star-forming regions in the W3 high-mass star formation complex with the Submillimeter Array and IRAM 30 m telescope. These regions, i.e. W3 SMS1 (W3 IRS5), SMS2 (W3 IRS4) and SMS3, are in different evolutionary stages and are located within the same large-scale environment, which allows us to study rotation and outflows as well as chemical properties in an evolutionary sense. While we find multiple mm continuum sources toward all regions, these three sub-regions exhibit different dynamical and chemical properties, which indicates that they are in different evolutionary stages. Even within each subregion, massive cores of different ages are found, e.g. in SMS2, sub-sources from the most evolved UCHII region to potential starless cores exist within 30 000 AU of each other. Outflows and rotational structures are found in SMS1 and SMS2. Evidence for interactions between the molecular cloud and the HII regions is found in the 13CO channel maps, which may indicate triggered star formation.

preprint2011arXiv

Dissecting high-mass star-forming regions; tracing back their complex formation history

We present near-infrared JHKs imaging as well as K-band multi-object spectroscopy of the massive stellar content of W3 Main using LUCI at the LBT. We confirm 13 OB stars by their absorption line spectra in W3 Main and spectral types between O5V and B4V have been found. Three massive Young Stellar Objects are identified by their emission line spectra and near-infrared excess. From our spectrophotometric analysis of the massive stars and the nature of their surrounding HII regions we derive the evolutionary sequence of W3 Main and we find evidence of an age spread of at least 2-3 Myr. While the most massive star (IRS2) is already evolved, indications for high-mass pre--main-sequence evolution is found for another star (IRS N1), deeply embedded in an ultra compact HII region, in line with the different evolutionary phases observed in the corresponding HII regions. We have detected the photospheres of OB stars from the more evolved diffuse HII region to the much younger UCHII regions, suggesting that the OB stars have finished their formation and cleared away their possible circumstellar disks very fast. Only in the hyper-compact HII region (IRS5), the early type stars are still surrounded by circumstellar material.

preprint2011arXiv

Tunable Oscillations in the Purkinje Neuron

In this paper, we study the dynamics of slow oscillations in Purkinje neurons in vitro, and derive a strong association with a forced parametric oscillator model. We demonstrate the precise rhythmicity of the oscillations in Purkinje neurons, as well as a dynamic tunability of this oscillation using a photo-switchable compound. We show that this slow oscillation can be induced in every Purkinje neuron, having periods ranging between 10-25 seconds. Starting from a Hodgkin-Huxley model, we also demonstrate that this oscillation can be externally modulated, and that the neurons will return to their intrinsic firing frequency after the forced oscillation is concluded. These results signify an additional functional role of tunable oscillations within the cerebellum, as well as a dynamic control of a time scale in the brain in the range of seconds.

preprint2010arXiv

A generalized Monte Carlo loop algorithm for frustrated Ising models

We introduce a Generalized Loop Move (GLM) update for Monte Carlo simulations of frustrated Ising models on two-dimensional lattices with bond-sharing plaquettes. The GLM updates are designed to enhance Monte Carlo sampling efficiency when the system's low-energy states consist of an extensive number of degenerate or near-degenerate spin configurations, separated by large energy barriers to single spin flips. Through implementation on several frustrated Ising models, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the GLM updates in cases where both degenerate and near-degenerate sets of configurations are favored at low temperatures. The GLM update's potential to be straightforwardly extended to different lattices and spin interactions allow it to be readily adopted on many other frustrated Ising models of physical relevance.

preprint2010arXiv

Metropolitan all-pass and inter-city quantum communication network

We have demonstrated a metropolitan all-pass quantum communication network in field fiber for four nodes. Any two nodes of them can be connected in the network to perform quantum key distribution (QKD). An optical switching module is presented that enables arbitrary 2-connectivity among output ports. Integrated QKD terminals are worked out, which can operate either as a transmitter, a receiver, or even both at the same time. Furthermore, an additional link in another city of 60 km fiber (up to 130 km) is seamless integrated into this network based on a trusted relay architecture. On all the links, we have implemented protocol of decoy state scheme. All of necessary electrical hardware, synchronization, feedback control, network software, execution of QKD protocols are made by tailored designing, which allow a completely automatical and stable running. Our system has been put into operation in Hefei in August 2009, and publicly demonstrated during an evaluation conference on quantum network organized by the Chinese Academy of Sciences on August 29, 2009. Real-time voice telephone with one-time pad encoding between any two of the five nodes (four all-pass nodes plus one additional node through relay) is successfully established in the network within 60km.

preprint2007arXiv

Treatment of Linear and Nonlinear Dielectric Property of Molecular Monolayer and Submonolayer with Microscopic Dipole Lattice Model: I. Second Harmonic Generation and Sum-Frequency Generation

In the currently accepted models of the nonlinear optics, the nonlinear radiation was treated as the result of an infinitesimally thin polarization sheet layer, and a three layer model was generally employed. The direct consequence of this approach is that an apriori dielectric constant, which still does not have a clear definition, has to be assigned to this polarization layer. Because the Second Harmonic Generation (SHG) and the Sum-Frequency Generation vibrational Spectroscopy (SFG-VS) have been proven as the sensitive probes for interfaces with the submonolayer coverage, the treatment based on the more realistic discrete induced dipole model needs to be developed. Here we show that following the molecular optics theory approach the SHG, as well as the SFG-VS, radiation from the monolayer or submonolayer at an interface can be rigorously treated as the radiation from an induced dipole lattice at the interface. In this approach, the introduction of the polarization sheet is no longer necessary. Therefore, the ambiguity of the unaccounted dielectric constant of the polarization layer is no longer an issue. Moreover, the anisotropic two dimensional microscopic local field factors can be explicitly expressed with the linear polarizability tensors of the interfacial molecules. Based on the planewise dipole sum rule in the molecular monolayer, crucial experimental tests of this microscopic treatment with SHG and SFG-VS are discussed. Many puzzles in the literature of surface SHG and SFG spectroscopy studies can also be understood or resolved in this framework. This new treatment may provide a solid basis for the quantitative analysis in the surface SHG and SFG studies.