Formation of stray grains during directional solidification of a superalloy AM3

Stray grains were found during the preparation of single crystal superalloy AM3 by seeding technique and the researching on the competitive growth of bi-crystal. Stray grains were mainly observed at the diverging 〈001〉 corner of the mold wall. Therefore, increasing orientation deviation angle would intensify the possibility of the formation of stray grains. This was because the solute was inclined to enrich at the diverging 〈001〉 corner of mold wall, leading to the relatively large undercooling, and accordingly resulted in the formation of stray grains.     

Quantum Marginal Inequalities and the Conjectured Entropic Inequalities

A conjecture – the modified super-additivity inequality of relative entropy – was proposed in Zhang et al. (Phys. Lett. A 377:1794–1796, 2013): There exist three unitary operators \(U_{A}\in \mathrm {U}(\mathcal {H}_{A}), U_{B}\in \mathrm {U}(\mathcal {H}_{B})\) , and \(U_{AB}\in \mathrm {U}(\mathcal {H}_{A}\otimes \mathcal {H}_{B})\) such that $$\mathrm{S}\left(U_{AB}\rho_{AB}U^{\dagger}_{AB}||\sigma_{AB}\right)\geqslant \mathrm{S}\left(U_{A}\rho_{A}U^{\dagger}_{A}||\sigma_{A}\right) + \mathrm{S}\left(U_{B}\rho_{B}U^{\dagger}_{B}||\sigma_{B}\right), $$ where the reference state σ is required to be full-ranked. A numerical study on the conjectured inequality is conducted in this note. The results obtained indicate that the modified super-additivity inequality of relative entropy seems to hold for all qubit pairs.     

Quantum State Transfer Between Any Pair of Qubits in a Quantum Network via Optical Fibers

We propose scheme for transferring quantum state between any pair of nodes in a quantum network. Each node consists of an atom and a cavity, with the atom acting as the quantum bit. Any two adjacent nodes are connected by an optical fiber. During the operation neither the atomic system nor the fibers are excited, which is important in view of decoherence. Under certain conditions, the probability that the cavities are excited is negligible. The method has an inherent robustness against the fluctuation perturbations in the classical control parameters and the randomness in the atomic position. The scheme can be generalized to implement quantum phase gate between any two remote qubits.     

Quantum structure emerging from the transformation design of the Dirac equation

It is shown that a quantum structure can be created by a set of chosen constraint conditions that emerge from the transformation design of the Dirac equation in general relativity. As an explanation, the constraints that cause novel bound states with the quantization rule of a 2D Coulomb system are presented. The discussion in this paper provides a systematic way to look for constraints that generate a required quantization rule.     

Attacks and Improvement on “Quantum Direct Communication with Mutual Authentication”

In 2009, Yen et al. [Quantum Inf. Comput. 9(5–6):376–394, 2009] proposed a quantum direct communication along with an authentication protocol using Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen states. This study points out several attacks on Yen et al.’s protocol, in which a malicious Trent can launch either an intercept-resend attack to reveal the secret information of a sender or an impersonation attack to impersonate a sender to send forged secret information to a receiver. Furthermore, an outsider can launch a modification attack to modify the secret information of a sender. A possible solution is proposed herein to avoid these security attacks.     

A Spherical Symmetrical Spacetime Solution in Finsler Gravity

Several physical principles of Finsler gravity are proposed in this paper, and I apply the principles to construct a Finsler gravity action, which satisfy the condition that the action can be reduced to the General Relativity action once the metric is independent from the tangent vector. I also get a spacetime solution in Finsler spacetime with the tangent vector y _φ , moreover the solution indicates that the metric relies on the property of test particle in Finsler spacetime.     

Free vibration and stability of a cantilever beam attached to an axially moving base immersed in fluid

Free vibration and stability are investigated for a cantilever beam attached to an axially moving base in fluid. The equations of motion of the slender cantilever beam affiliated to an axially moving base at a known rate while immersed in an incompressible fluid are derived first. An “axially added mass coefficient” is taken into account in the obtained equations. Then, a coordinate transformation is introduced to fix the boundaries. Based on the Galerkin approach, the natural frequencies of the beam system are numerically analyzed. The effects of moving speed of the base and several other system parameters on the dynamics and stability of the beam are discussed in detail. It is found that when the moving speed exceeds a certain value the beam becomes unstable and the instability type is sensitive to the system parameters. When the values of system parameters, such as mass ratio and axially added mass coefficient, are big enough, however, no instabilities are detected. The variations of the lowest unstable critical moving speed with respect to several key parameters are also investigated.     

Study on the electromechanical coupling coefficient of Rayleigh-type surface acoustic waves in semi-infinite piezoelectrics/non-piezoelectrics superlattices

The electromechanical coupling coefficient of Rayleigh-type surface acoustic waves in semi-infinite piezoelectrics/non-piezoelectrics superlattices is investigated by the transfer matrix method. Research results show the high electromechanical coupling coefficient can be obtained in these systems. The optimization design of it is also discussed fully. It is significantly influenced by electrical boundary conditions on interfaces, thickness ratios of piezoelectric and non-piezoelectric layers, and material parameters (such as velocities of pure longitudinal and transversal bulk waves in non-piezoelectric layers). In order to obtain higher electromechanical coupling coefficient, shorted interfaces, non-piezoelectric materials with large velocities of longitudinal and transversal bulk waves, and proper thickness ratios should be chosen.     

Comparison of Cut Path Deviation Between CO2 and Diode Lasers in Float-Glass Cutting

Laser cutting of glass using the controlled fracture technique leads to cut path deviation at the leading and trailing edges of the float glass sheet. In this technique, thermal stresses are used to induce the crack, and the material is separated along the cutting path by extending the crack. We show that the cut path deviation is partly due to high magnitudes of thermal stresses generated near the sheet edges. The absorption of intense radiation from the CO₂ and diode laser beams in the glass causes local temperature increases and consequently generates different thermal fields and stress distributions due to surface and volumetric heat absorption. In this paper, we report the effect of the CO₂ and diode laser wavelength interaction with the float glass and its effect on the magnitudes of thermal stresses generated near the edges of the glass sheet. We simulate the distribution of the thermal stress and temperature using finite-element analysis software Abaqus and validate it against the experimental data. We show that the CO₂ laser produces a lower surface quality and a larger cut path deviation at the leading and trailing edges of the glass sheet as compared to the diode laser.     

Tunable long-distance light transportation along Au nanoparticle chains: promising for optical interconnect

Tunable light resonance transportation along a single long Au hemisphere nanoparticles (NPs) chain was studied. The realistic experimentally determined gold dielectric function was used for the simulation of Au localized surface plasmon polariton (LSPPs) effect. The resonance light energy with minimized attenuation and its bandwidth were quantitatively analyzed by inducing the effective mass which was observed to increase only with the length of Au NPs between the source and the test point. The geometric ratio g/r of NP size and gap were investigated at 5 µm far of NPs with different gaps from 0 to 70 nm. Strongest resonance can be achieved with g/r = 1.2 by the factor of 1.5 than the connected NPs. This resonance mode falls in the wavelength λ = 555 nm (green light), which is exactly the maximum sensitivity of a light-adapted eye of human beings.