Effect of vacancies on magnetic behaviors of Cu-doped 6H-SiC

Magnetism in Cu-doped, Cu \(\rm _{Si}\) –V \(\rm _{Si}\) codoped, or Cu \(\rm _{Si}\) –V \(\rm _{C}\) codoped 6H-SiC are investigated using the first principle. The total density of states for the ferromagnetic Cu \(\rm _{Si}\) at doping concentration of 0.926 at. \(\%\) shows half-metallic behavior, which leads to the total magnetic moment of 2.84  \(\rm \mu _{B}\) per supercell. The total magnetic moment increases with increasing Cu content. The long-range ferromagnetic interaction between Cu atoms can be attributed to the C-mediated double exchange through the strong \(3d\) ? \(2p\) interaction between Cu and neighboring C ones. It is important to note that both V \(\rm _{Si}\) and V \(\rm _{C}\) play a negative role in ferromagnetic coupling between Cu ions. So, to obtain a larger magnetic moment from Cu-doped 6H–SiC, we should try to avoid the appearance of V \(\rm _{Si}\) and V \(\rm _{C}\) during the process of sample preparation. Our theoretical calculations give a valuable insight on how to get a large magnetic moment from Cu-doped 6H–SiC.     

Comprehensive Bayesian analysis of rare (semi)leptonic and radiative \varvec{B} decays

The available data on \(|\Delta B| = |\Delta S| = 1\) decays are in good agreement with the Standard Model when permitting subleading power corrections of about \(15\,\%\) at large hadronic recoil. Constraining new-physics effects in \(\mathcal {C}_{7}^{\mathrm {}}\) , \(\mathcal {C}_{9}^{\mathrm {}}\) , \(\mathcal {C}_{10}^{\mathrm {}}\) , the data still demand the same size of power corrections as in the Standard Model. In the presence of chirality-flipped operators, all but one of the power corrections reduce substantially. The Bayes factors are in favor of the Standard Model. Using new lattice inputs for \(B\rightarrow K^*\) form factors and under our minimal prior assumption for the power corrections, the favor shifts toward models with chirality-flipped operators. We use the data to further constrain the hadronic form factors in \(B\rightarrow K\) and \(B\rightarrow K^*\) transitions.     

Semiclassical strings in supergravity PFT

In this paper, we introduce the bulk viscosity in the formalism of modified gravity theory in which the gravitational action contains a general function \(f(R,T)\) , where \(R\) and \(T\) denote the curvature scalar and the trace of the energy–momentum tensor, respectively, within the framework of a flat Friedmann–Robertson–Walker model. As an equation of state for a prefect fluid, we take \(p=(\gamma -1)\rho \) , where \(0 \le \gamma \le 2\) and a viscous term as a bulk viscosity due to the isotropic model, of the form \(\zeta =\zeta _{0}+\zeta _{1}H\) , where \(\zeta _{0}\) and \(\zeta _{1}\) are constants, and \(H\) is the Hubble parameter. The exact non-singular solutions to the corresponding field equations are obtained with non-viscous and viscous fluids, respectively, by assuming a simplest particular model of the form of \(f(R,T) = R+2f(T)\) , where \(f(T)=\alpha T\) ( \(\alpha \) is a constant). A big-rip singularity is also observed for \(\gamma <0\) at a finite value of cosmic time under certain constraints. We study all possible scenarios with the possible positive and negative ranges of \(\alpha \) to analyze the expansion history of the universe. It is observed that the universe accelerates or exhibits a transition from a decelerated phase to an accelerated phase under certain constraints of \(\zeta _0\) and \(\zeta _1\) . We compare the viscous models with the non-viscous one through the graph plotted between the scale factor and cosmic time and find that the bulk viscosity plays a major role in the expansion of the universe. A similar graph is plotted for the deceleration parameter with non-viscous and viscous fluids and we find a transition from decelerated to accelerated phase with some form of bulk viscosity.     

How bosonic is a pair of fermions?

Composite particles made of two fermions can be treated as ideal elementary bosons as long as the constituent fermions are sufficiently entangled. In that case, the Pauli principle acting on the parts does not jeopardise the bosonic behaviour of the whole. An indicator for bosonic quality is the composite boson normalisation ratio \(\chi _{N+1}/\chi _{N}\) of a state of \(N\) composites. This quantity is prohibitively complicated to compute exactly for realistic two-fermion wavefunctions and large composite numbers \(N\) . Here, we provide an efficient characterisation in terms of the purity \(P\) and the largest eigenvalue \(\lambda _1\) of the reduced single-fermion state. We find the states that extremise \(\chi _N\) for given \(P\) and \(\lambda _1\) , and we provide easily evaluable, saturable upper and lower bounds for the normalisation ratio. Our results strengthen the relationship between the bosonic quality of a composite particle and the entanglement of its constituents.     

Antineutrino science in KamLAND

The primary goal of KamLAND is a search for the oscillation of \({\bar{\nu }}_\mathrm{e}\) ’s emitted from distant power reactors. The long baseline, typically 180 km, enables KamLAND to address the oscillation solution of the “solar neutrino problem” with \({\bar{\nu }}_{e} \) ’s under laboratory conditions. KamLAND found fewer reactor \({\bar{\nu }}_{e} \) events than expected from standard assumptions about \(\overline{\nu }_e\) propagation at more than 9 \(\sigma \) confidence level (C.L.). The observed energy spectrum disagrees with the expected spectral shape at more than 5 \(\sigma \) C.L., and prefers the distortion from neutrino oscillation effects. A three-flavor oscillation analysis of the data from KamLAND and KamLAND + solar neutrino experiments with CPT invariance, yields \(\Delta m_{21}^2 \) = [ \(7.54_{-0.18}^{+0.19} \times \) 10 \(^{-5}\) eV \(^{2}\) , \(7.53_{-0.18}^{+0.19} \times \) 10 \(^{-5}\) eV \(^{2}\) ], tan \(^{2}\theta _{12}\) = [ \(0.481_{-0.080}^{+0.092} \) , \(0.437_{-0.026}^{+0.029} \) ], and sin \(^{2}\theta _{13}\) = [ \(0.010_{-0.034}^{+0.033} \) , \(0.023_{-0.015}^{+0.015} \) ]. All solutions to the solar neutrino problem except for the large mixing angle region are excluded. KamLAND also demonstrated almost two cycles of the periodic feature expected from neutrino oscillation effects. KamLAND performed the first experimental study of antineutrinos from the Earth’s interior so-called geoneutrinos (geo \({\bar{\nu }}_{e} \) ’s), and succeeded in detecting geo \({\bar{\nu }}_{e} \) ’s produced by the decays of \(^{238}\) U and \(^{232}\) Th within the Earth. Assuming a chondritic Th/U mass ratio, we obtain \(116_{-27}^{+28} {\bar{\nu }}_{e}\) events from \(^{238}\) U and \(^{232}\) Th, corresponding a geo \({\bar{\nu }}_{e}\) flux of \(3.4_{-0.8}^{+0.8}\times \) 10 \(^{6}\) cm \(^{-2}\)  s \(^{-1}\) at the KamLAND location. We evaluate various bulk silicate Earth composition models using the observed geo \({\bar{\nu }}_{e} \) rate.     

Pesin’s Entropy Formula for Systems Between C^1 and C^{1+\alpha }

In this article we give a new observation of Pesin’s entropy formula, motivated from Mañé’s proof of (Ergod Theory Dyn Sys 1:95–102, 1981). Let \(M\) be a compact Riemann manifold and \(f:\,M\rightarrow M\) be a \(C^1\) diffeomorphism on \(M\) . If \(\mu \) is an \(f\) -invariant probability measure which is absolutely continuous relative to Lebesgue measure and nonuniformly-H \(\ddot{\text {o}}\) lder-continuous(see Definition 1.1), then we have Pesin’s entropy formula, i.e., the metric entropy \(h_\mu (f)\) satisfies $$\begin{aligned} h_{\mu }(f)=\int \sum _{\lambda _i(x)> 0}\lambda _i(x)d\mu , \end{aligned}$$ where \(\lambda _1(x)\ge \lambda _2(x)\ge \cdots \ge \lambda _{dim\,M}(x)\) are the Lyapunov exponents at \(x\) with respect to \(\mu .\) Nonuniformly-H \(\ddot{\text {o}}\) lder-continuous is a new notion from probabilistic perspective weaker than \(C^{1+\alpha }.\)      

Parameter estimation of a nonlinear magnetic universe from observations

The cosmological model consisting of a nonlinear magnetic field obeying the Lagrangian \(\mathcal {L}= \gamma F^{\alpha },\, F\) being the electromagnetic invariant, coupled to a Robertson-Walker geometry is tested with observational data of Type Ia Supernovae, Long Gamma-Ray Bursts and Hubble parameter measurements. The statistical analysis show that the inclusion of nonlinear electromagnetic matter is enough to produce the observed accelerated expansion, with not need of including a dark energy component. The electromagnetic matter with abundance \(\varOmega _B\) , gives as best fit from the combination of all observational data sets \(\varOmega _B=0.562^{+0.037}_{-0.038}\) for the scenario in which \(\alpha =-1, \varOmega _B=0.654^{+0.040}_{-0.040}\) for the scenario with \(\alpha =-1/4\) and \(\varOmega _B=0.683^{+0.039}_{-0.043}\) for the one with \(\alpha =-1/8\) . These results indicate that nonlinear electromagnetic matter could play the role of dark energy, with the theoretical advantage of being a mensurable field.     

Quantum Measures on Finite Effect Algebras with the Riesz Decomposition Properties

One kind of generalized measures called quantum measures on finite effect algebras, which fulfil the grade-2 additive sum rule, is considered. One basis of vector space of quantum measures on a finite effect algebra with the Riesz decomposition property (RDP for short) is given. It is proved that any diagonally positive symmetric signed measure \(\lambda \) on the tensor product \(E\otimes E\) can determine a quantum measure \(\mu \) on a finite effect algebra \(E\) with the RDP such that \(\mu (x)=\lambda (x\otimes x)\) for any \(x\in E\) . Furthermore, some conditions for a grade-2 additive measure \(\mu \) on a finite effect algebra \(E\) are provided to guarantee that there exists a unique diagonally positive symmetric signed measure \(\lambda \) on \(E\otimes E\) such that \(\mu (x)=\lambda (x\otimes x)\) for any \(x\in E\) . At last, it is showed that any grade- \(t\) quantum measure on a finite effect algebra \(E\) with the RDP is essentially established by the values on a subset of \(E\) .     

Refractive index changes and nuclear activation upon irradiation of lithium niobate crystals with different low-mass,high-energy ions

Refractive index changes \(\Delta n\) in lithium niobate crystals upon irradiation with high-energy protons, deuterons, \(^3\) He, and \(^4\alpha \) particles (up to 14 MeV/nucleon) are created, and the accompanying, unwanted nuclear activation is investigated. The measurements give answers to the question which ion is the best choice depending on the requirements: largest values of \(\Delta n\) are achieved with \(^4\alpha \) particles, low nuclear activation with deuterons, or the best tradeoff between \(\Delta n\) and activation with \(^3\) He, respectively.     

A flexible scintillation light apparatus for rare event searches

Compelling experimental evidences of neutrino oscillations and their implication that neutrinos are massive particles have given neutrinoless double beta decay ( \(\beta \beta 0\nu \) ) a central role in astroparticle physics. In fact, the discovery of this elusive decay would be a major breakthrough, unveiling that neutrino and antineutrino are the same particle and that the lepton number is not conserved. It would also impact our efforts to establish the absolute neutrino mass scale and, ultimately, understand elementary particle interaction unification. All current experimental programs to search for \(\beta \beta 0\nu \) are facing with the technical and financial challenge of increasing the experimental mass while maintaining incredibly low levels of spurious background. The new concept described in this paper could be the answer which combines all the features of an ideal experiment: energy resolution, low cost mass scalability, isotope choice flexibility and many powerful handles to make the background negligible. The proposed technology is based on the use of arrays of silicon detectors cooled to 120 K to optimize the collection of the scintillation light emitted by ultra-pure crystals. It is shown that with a 54 kg array of natural CaMoO \(_4\) scintillation detectors of this type it is possible to yield a competitive sensitivity on the half-life of the \(\beta \beta 0\nu \) of \(^{100}\) Mo as high as \(\sim \) \(10^{24}\)  years in only 1 year of data taking. The same array made of \(^{40}\) Ca \(^{\mathrm {nat}}\) MoO \(_4\) scintillation detectors (to get rid of the continuous background coming from the two neutrino double beta decay of \(^{48}\) Ca) will instead be capable of achieving the remarkable sensitivity of \(\sim \) \(10^{25}\)  years on the half-life of \(^{100}\) Mo \(\beta \beta 0\nu \) in only 1 year of measurement.     

Tracy–Widom at High Temperature

We investigate the marginal distribution of the bottom eigenvalues of the stochastic Airy operator when the inverse temperature \(\beta \) tends to \(0\) . We prove that the minimal eigenvalue, whose fluctuations are governed by the Tracy–Widom \(\beta \) law, converges weakly, when properly centered and scaled, to the Gumbel distribution. More generally we obtain the convergence in law of the marginal distribution of any eigenvalue with given index \(k\) . Those convergences are obtained after a careful analysis of the explosion times process of the Riccati diffusion associated to the stochastic Airy operator. We show that the empirical measure of the explosion times converges weakly to a Poisson point process using estimates proved in Dumaz and Virág (Ann Inst H Poincaré Probab Statist 49(4):915–933, 2013). We further compute the empirical eigenvalue density of the stochastic Airy ensemble on the macroscopic scale when \(\beta \rightarrow 0\) . As an application, we investigate the maximal eigenvalues statistics of \(\beta _N\) -ensembles when the repulsion parameter \(\beta _N\rightarrow 0\) when \(N\rightarrow +\infty \) . We study the double scaling limit \(N\rightarrow +\infty , \beta _N \rightarrow 0\) and argue with heuristic and numerical arguments that the statistics of the marginal distributions can be deduced following the ideas of Edelman and Sutton (J Stat Phys 127(6):1121–1165, 2007) and Ramírez et al. (J Am Math Soc 24:919–944, 2011) from our later study of the stochastic Airy operator.     

Near-Extreme Eigenvalues and the First Gap of Hermitian Random Matrices

We study the phenomenon of “crowding” near the largest eigenvalue \(\lambda _\mathrm{max}\) of random \(N \times N\) matrices belonging to the Gaussian Unitary Ensemble of random matrix theory. We focus on two distinct quantities: (i) the density of states (DOS) near \(\lambda _\mathrm{max}\) , \(\rho _\mathrm{DOS}(r,N)\) , which is the average density of eigenvalues located at a distance \(r\) from \(\lambda _\mathrm{max}\) and (ii) the probability density function of the gap between the first two largest eigenvalues, \(p_\mathrm{GAP}(r,N)\) . In the edge scaling limit where \(r = \mathcal{O}(N^{-1/6})\) , which is described by a double scaling limit of a system of unconventional orthogonal polynomials, we show that \(\rho _\mathrm{DOS}(r,N)\) and \(p_\mathrm{GAP}(r,N)\) are characterized by scaling functions which can be expressed in terms of the solution of a Lax pair associated to the Painlevé XXXIV equation. This provides an alternative and simpler expression for the gap distribution, which was recently studied by Witte et al. in Nonlinearity 26:1799, 2013. Our expressions allow to obtain precise asymptotic behaviors of these scaling functions both for small and large arguments.     

Effects of cerium dopant concentration on structural properties and photocatalytic activity of electrospun Ce-doped TiO2 nanofibers

Electrospun \(\hbox {TiO}_2\) and Ce-doped \(\hbox {TiO}_2\) nanofibers were prepared with 0.5, 2.0 and 8.0 % weight Ce. The structural properties and phase composition were characterized using high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM), X-ray diffraction and X-ray absorption near edge spectroscopy (XANES) at the Ti K-edge. The undoped nanofibers are composed of an assembly of \(\hbox {TiO}_2\) nanoparticles and their crystal structure is a mixture of anatase and rutile phases with an anatase:rutile volume ratio close to 3:1. As Ce is introduced, the nanoparticles decrease in size and the rutile phase volume decreases. Ce \(\hbox {L}_3\) -edge XANES probed the local structure of Ce dopants. At 0.5 % Ce, most Ce ions are incorporated in the \(\hbox {Ce}^{3+}\) charge state but, at 2 % Ce, the majority are \(\hbox {Ce}^{4+}\) . Visible light absorption indicated that \(\hbox {Ce}^{3+}\) act as shallow acceptors that only participate in absorption of wavelengths below 420 nm but \(\hbox {Ce}^{4+}\) impurity states are associated with absorption of wavelengths up to 550 nm. Photocatalytic performance of the nanofibers was assessed by measuring the degradation of adsorbed Rhodamine B in aqueous solution under visible and ultraviolet light. The 0.5 % Ce-doped \(\hbox {TiO}_2\) nanofiber showed the best visible-light photocatalytic activity, which is probably due to the majority presence of \(\hbox {Ce}^{3+}\) . At higher Ce concentration, the photocatalytic reaction rate was lower than undoped nanofibers, indicating that recombination at the \(\hbox {Ce}^{4+}\) sites is rate limiting.     

Split supersymmetry under GUT and current dark matter constraints

There are four types of two-Higgs doublet models under a discrete \(Z_2\) symmetry imposed to avoid tree-level flavor-changing neutral current, i.e. type-I, type-II, type-X, and type-Y models. We investigate the possibility to discriminate the four models in the light of the flavor physics data, including \(B_s\) – \(\bar{B}_s\) mixing, \(B_{s,d} \rightarrow \mu ^+ \mu ^-\) , \(B\rightarrow \tau \nu \) and \(\bar{B} \rightarrow X_s \gamma \) decays, the recent LHC Higgs data, the direct search for charged Higgs at LEP, and the constraints from perturbative unitarity and vacuum stability. After deriving the combined constraints on the Yukawa interaction parameters, we have shown that the correlation between the mass eigenstate rate asymmetry \(A_{\Delta \Gamma }\) of \(B_{s} \rightarrow \mu ^+ \mu ^-\) and the ratio \(R=\mathcal{B}(B_{s} \rightarrow \mu ^+ \mu ^-)_\mathrm{exp}/ \mathcal{B}(B_{s} \rightarrow \mu ^+ \mu ^-)_\mathrm{SM}\) could be a sensitive probe to discriminate the four models with future precise measurements of the observables in the \(B_{s} \rightarrow \mu ^+ \mu ^-\) decay at LHCb.     

Maximal Distance Travelled by N Vicious Walkers Till Their Survival

We consider N Brownian particles moving on a line starting from initial positions \(\mathbf{{u}}\equiv \{u_1,u_2,\ldots u_N\}\) such that \(0 . Their motion gets stopped at time \(t_s\) when either two of them collide or when the particle closest to the origin hits the origin for the first time. For \(N=2\) , we study the probability distribution function \(p_1(m|\mathbf{{u}})\) and \(p_2(m|\mathbf{{u}})\) of the maximal distance travelled by the \(1^{\text {st}}\) and \(2^{\text {nd}}\) walker till \(t_s\) . For general N particles with identical diffusion constants \(D\) , we show that the probability distribution \(p_N(m|\mathbf{u})\) of the global maximum \(m_N\) , has a power law tail \(p_i(m|\mathbf{{u}}) \sim {N^2B_N\mathcal {F}_{N}(\mathbf{u})}/{m^{\nu _N}}\) with exponent \(\nu _N =N^2+1\) . We obtain explicit expressions of the function \(\mathcal {F}_{N}(\mathbf{u})\) and of the N dependent amplitude \(B_N\) which we also analyze for large N using techniques from random matrix theory. We verify our analytical results through direct numerical simulations.     

Toward a Mathematical Holographic Principle

In work started in [17] and continued in this paper our objective is to study selectors of multivalued functions which have interesting dynamical properties, such as possessing absolutely continuous invariant measures. We specify the graph of a multivalued function by means of lower and upper boundary maps \(\tau _{1}\) and \(\tau _{2}.\) On these boundary maps we define a position dependent random map \(R_{p}=\{\tau _{1},\tau _{2};p,1-p\},\) which, at each time step, moves the point \(x\) to \(\tau _{1}(x)\) with probability \(p(x)\) and to \(\tau _{2}(x)\) with probability \(1-p(x)\) . Under general conditions, for each choice of \(p\) , \(R_{p}\) possesses an absolutely continuous invariant measure with invariant density \(f_{p}.\) Let \(\varvec{\tau }\) be a selector which has invariant density function \(f.\) One of our objectives is to study conditions under which \(p(x)\) exists such that \(R_{p}\) has \(f\) as its invariant density function. When this is the case, the long term statistical dynamical behavior of a selector can be represented by the long term statistical behavior of a random map on the boundaries of \(G.\) We refer to such a result as a mathematical holographic principle. We present examples and study the relationship between the invariant densities attainable by classes of selectors and the random maps based on the boundaries and show that, under certain conditions, the extreme points of the invariant densities for selectors are achieved by bang-bang random maps, that is, random maps for which \(p(x)\in \{0,1\}.\)      

Analyticity of \eta \pi isospin-violating form factors and the \tau \rightarrow \eta \pi \nu second-class decay

We consider the evaluation of the \(\eta \pi \) isospin-violating vector and scalar form factors relying on a systematic application of analyticity and unitarity, combined with chiral expansion results. It is argued that the usual analyticity properties do hold (i.e. no anomalous thresholds are present) in spite of the instability of the \(\eta \) meson in QCD. Unitarity relates the vector form factor to the \(\eta \pi \rightarrow \pi \pi \) amplitude: we exploit progress in formulating and solving the Khuri–Treiman equations for \(\eta \rightarrow 3\pi \) and in experimental measurements of the Dalitz plot parameters to evaluate the shape of the \(\rho \) -meson peak. Observing this peak in the energy distribution of the \(\tau \rightarrow \eta \pi \nu \) decay would be a background-free signature of a second-class amplitude. The scalar form factor is also estimated from a phase dispersive representation using a plausible model for the \(\eta \pi \) elastic scattering \(S\) -wave phase shift and a sum rule constraint in the inelastic region. We indicate how a possibly exotic nature of the \(a_0(980)\) scalar meson manifests itself in a dispersive approach. A remark is finally made on a second-class amplitude in the \(\tau \rightarrow \pi \pi \nu \) decay.     

Phase Transitions in Layered Systems

We consider the Ising model on \(\mathbb Z\times \mathbb Z\) where on each horizontal line \(\{(x,i), x\in \mathbb Z\}\) , called “layer”, the interaction is given by a ferromagnetic Kac potential with coupling strength \(J_{ \gamma }(x,y)={ \gamma }J({ \gamma }(x-y))\) , where \(J(\cdot )\) is smooth and has compact support; we then add a nearest neighbor ferromagnetic vertical interaction of strength \({ \gamma }^{A}\) , where \(A\ge 2\) is fixed, and prove that for any \(\beta \) larger than the mean field critical value there is a phase transition for all \({ \gamma }\) small enough.     

The Colored Hofstadter Butterfly for the Honeycomb Lattice

We rely on a recent method for determining edge spectra and we use it to compute the Chern numbers for Hofstadter models on the honeycomb lattice having rational magnetic flux per unit cell. Based on the bulk-edge correspondence, the Chern number \(\sigma _\mathrm{H}\) is given as the winding number of an eigenvector of a \(2 \times 2\) transfer matrix, as a function of the quasi-momentum \(k\in (0,2\pi )\) . This method is computationally efficient (of order \(\mathcal {O}(n^4)\) in the resolution of the desired image). It also shows that for the honeycomb lattice the solution for \(\sigma _\mathrm{H}\) for flux \(p/q\) in the \(r\) -th gap conforms with the Diophantine equation \(r=\sigma _\mathrm{H}\cdot p+ s\cdot q\) , which determines \(\sigma _\mathrm{H}\mod q\) . A window such as \(\sigma _\mathrm{H}\in (-q/2,q/2)\) , or possibly shifted, provides a natural further condition for \(\sigma _\mathrm{H}\) , which however turns out not to be met. Based on extensive numerical calculations, we conjecture that the solution conforms with the relaxed condition \(\sigma _\mathrm{H}\in (-q,q)\) .