Search

Quantum spin liquids (QSLs) represent a novel state where spins are highly entangled but do not order even at zero temperature due to strong quantum fluctuations. Such a state is mostly studied in Heisenberg models defined on geometrically frustrated lattices. Here, we turn to a new triangular-lattice antiferromagnet PrMgAl$_{11}$O$_{19}$, in which the interactions are believed to be of Ising type. Magnetic susceptibility measured with an external field along the $c$ axis is two orders of magnitude larger than that with a field in the $ab$ plane, displaying an ideal easy-axis behavior. Meanwhile, there is no magnetic phase transition or spin freezing observed down to 1.8 K. Ultralow-temperature specific heat measured down to 50 mK does not capture any phase transition either, but a hump at 4.5 K, below which the magnetic specific heat exhibits a quasi-quadratic temperature dependence that is consistent with a Dirac QSL state. Inelastic neutron scattering technique is also employed to elucidate the nature of its ground state. In the magnetic excitation spectra, there is a gapless broad continuum at the base temperature 55~mK, in favor of the realization of a gapless QSL. Our results provide a scarce example for the QSL behaviors observed in an Ising-type magnet, which can serve as a promising platform for future research on QSL physics based on an Ising model., Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures

In heavy-fermion systems with $f$ electrons, there is an intricate interplay between Kondo screening and magnetic correlations, which can give rise to various exotic phases. Recently, similar interplay appears to also occur in $d$-electron systems, but the underlying mechanism remains elusive. Here, using inelastic neutron scattering, we investigate the temperature evolution of the low-energy spin waves in a metallic van der Waals ferromagnet Fe$_{3-x}$GeTe$_{2}$ (Curie temperature $T_{\rm C}\sim160$ K), where the Kondo-lattice behavior emerges in the ferromagnetic phase below a characteristic temperature $T^*\sim90$ K. We observe that the magnon damping constant diverges at both low and high temperatures, exhibiting a minimum coincidentally around $T^*$. Such an observation is analogous to the resistivity minimum as due to the single-impurity Kondo effect. This unusual behavior is described by a formula that combines logarithmic and power terms, representing the dominant contributions from Kondo screening and thermal fluctuations, respectively. Furthermore, we find that the magnon damping increases with momentum below $T_{\rm C}$. These findings can be explained by considering spin-flip electron-magnon scattering, which serves as a magnonic analog of the Kondo-impurity scattering, and thus provides a measure of the Kondo coupling through magnons. Our results provide critical insights into how Kondo coupling manifests itself in a system with magnetic ordering and shed light on the coexistence of and interplay between magnetic order and Kondo effect in itinerant 3$d$-electron systems., Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures

Magnon polarons are novel elementary excitations possessing hybrid magnonic and phononic signatures, and are responsible for many exotic spintronic and magnonic phenomena. Despite long-term sustained experimental efforts in chasing for magnon polarons, direct spectroscopic evidence of their existence is hardly observed. Here, we report the direct observation of magnon polarons using neutron spectroscopy on a multiferroic Fe$_{2}$Mo$_{3}$O$_{8}$ possessing strong magnon-phonon coupling. Specifically, below the magnetic ordering temperature, a gap opens at the nominal intersection of the original magnon and phonon bands, leading to two separated magnon-polaron bands. Each of the bands undergoes mixing, interconverting and reversing between its magnonic and phononic components. We attribute the formation of magnon polarons to the strong magnon-phonon coupling induced by Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction. Intriguingly, we find that the band-inverted magnon polarons are topologically nontrivial. These results uncover exotic elementary excitations arising from the magnon-phonon coupling, and offer a new route to topological states by considering hybridizations between different types of fundamental excitations., Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, published in Nature Communications

Fractional magnetisation plateaus, in which the magnetisation is pinned at a fraction of its saturated value within a range of external magnetic field, are spectacular macroscopic manifestations of the collective quantum behaviours. One prominent example of the plateau phase is found in spin-1/2 triangular-lattice antiferromagnets featuring strong geometrical frustration, and is often interpreted as quantum-fluctuation-stabilised state in magnetic field via the "order-by-disorder" mechanism. Here, we observe an unprecedented 1/3 magnetisation plateau between 5.2 and 7.4 T at 2 K in a spin-1 antiferromagnet Na$_3$Ni$_2$BiO$_6$ with a honeycomb lattice, where conventionally no geometrical frustration is anticipated. By carrying out elastic neutron scattering measurements, we propose the spin structure of the plateau phase to be an unusual partial spin-flop ferrimagnetic order, transitioning from the zigzag antiferromagnetic order in zero field. Our theoretical calculations show that the plateau phase is stabilised by the bond-anisotropic Kitaev interaction. These results provide a new paradigm for the exploration of rich quantum phases in frustrated magnets and exotic Kitaev physics in high-spin systems., Comment: Submitted version, 10 pages, 5 figures. Final version has been published in Nature Physics

Applying large language models (LLMs) to modern power systems presents a promising avenue for enhancing decision-making and operational efficiency. However, this action may also incur potential security threats, which have not been fully recognized so far. To this end, this article analyzes potential threats incurred by applying LLMs to power systems, emphasizing the need for urgent research and development of countermeasures.

Most existing data-driven power system short-term voltage stability assessment (STVSA) approaches presume class-balanced input data. However, in practical applications, the occurrence of short-term voltage instability following a disturbance is minimal, leading to a significant class imbalance problem and a consequent decline in classifier performance. This work proposes a Transformer-based STVSA method to address this challenge. By utilizing the basic Transformer architecture, a stability assessment Transformer (StaaT) is developed {as a classification model to reflect the correlation between the operational states of the system and the resulting stability outcomes}. To combat the negative impact of imbalanced datasets, this work employs a conditional Wasserstein generative adversarial network with gradient penalty (CWGAN-GP) for synthetic data generation, aiding in the creation of a balanced, representative training set for the classifier. Semi-supervised clustering learning is implemented to enhance clustering quality, addressing the lack of a unified quantitative criterion for short-term voltage stability. {Numerical tests on the IEEE 39-bus test system extensively demonstrate that the proposed method exhibits robust performance under class imbalances up to 100:1 and noisy environments, and maintains consistent effectiveness even with an increased penetration of renewable energy}. Comparative results reveal that the CWGAN-GP generates more balanced datasets than traditional oversampling methods and that the StaaT outperforms other deep learning algorithms. This study presents a compelling solution for real-world STVSA applications that often face class imbalance and data noise challenges., Comment: Accepted by Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

We study the motion of a hole with internal degrees of freedom, introduced to the zigzag magnetic ground state of Na$_2$IrO$_3$, by using the self-consistent Born approximation. We find that the low, intermediate, and high-energy spectra are primarily attributed to the singlet, triplet, and quintet hole contributions, respectively. The spectral functions exhibit distinct features such as the electron-like dispersion of low-energy states near the $\Gamma$ point, the maximum M-point intensity of mid-energy states, and the hole-like dispersion of high-energy states. These features are robust and almost insensitive to the exchange model and Hund's coupling, and are in qualitative agreement with the angular-resolved photoemission spectra observed in Na$_2$IrO$_3$. Our results reveal that the interference between internal degrees of freedom in different sublattices plays an important role in inducing the complex dispersions.

Quantum Federated Learning (QFL) is an emerging interdisciplinary field that merges the principles of Quantum Computing (QC) and Federated Learning (FL), with the goal of leveraging quantum technologies to enhance privacy, security, and efficiency in the learning process. Currently, there is no comprehensive survey for this interdisciplinary field. This review offers a thorough, holistic examination of QFL. We aim to provide a comprehensive understanding of the principles, techniques, and emerging applications of QFL. We discuss the current state of research in this rapidly evolving field, identify challenges and opportunities associated with integrating these technologies, and outline future directions and open research questions. We propose a unique taxonomy of QFL techniques, categorized according to their characteristics and the quantum techniques employed. As the field of QFL continues to progress, we can anticipate further breakthroughs and applications across various industries, driving innovation and addressing challenges related to data privacy, security, and resource optimization. This review serves as a first-of-its-kind comprehensive guide for researchers and practitioners interested in understanding and advancing the field of QFL., Comment: Survey of quantum federated learning (QFL)

Recently, a SU(4) $\pi$-flux Hubbard model on the honeycomb lattice has been proposed to study the spin-orbit excitations of $\alpha$-ZrCl$_3$ [Phys.~Rev.~Lett. 121.097201~(2017)]. Based on this model with a zigzag edge, we show the edge defects can induce edge flat bands that result in a SU(4) edge ferromagnetism. We develop an effective one-dimensional interaction Hamiltonian to study the corresponding SU(4) spin excitations. Remarkably, SU(4) spin excitations of the edge ferromagnet appear as a continuum covering the entire energy region rather than usual magnons. Through further entanglement entropy analysis, we suggest that the continuum consists of fractionalized spin excitations from the disappeared magnons, except for that from the particle-hole Stoner excitations. Moreover, in ribbon systems with finite widths, the disappeared magnons can be restored in the gap formed by the finite-size effect and the optical branch of the restored magnons are found to be topological nontrivial.

We introduce the spin entanglement entropy (EE) to characterize spin excitations. The scalings of EEs are elaborated as $\ln N$, $\ln N+D_k$ and $2\ln N+D$ for the single-magnon states, two-magnon bound states and two-magnon continuum, respectively, based on the Bethe ansatz solutions of the ferromagnetic spin chain with $N$ sites. The $\ln N$ divergence for the bound states reveals the two magnons emerge as a new quasiparticle. More importantly, the nonzero intercepts ($D_k,D$) embody the many-body effects of two-magnon states. In particular, an exact relation between the intercept of EEs and an observable quantity, the two-magnon distance, is established for the bound states. In such a case, we quantify the two-magnon confinement in a spin system by the increasing entanglement with the distance as a particle physics analogue. Moreover, the EEs can also be used to study the evolution of the excitations. When the bound states are immersed in the continuum in the alternating chain, they undergo an oscillating confinement-deconfinement crossover, shown by the oscillations of the EEs and two-magnon distance with the chain length., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures

As one of the most promising Kitaev quantum-spin-liquid (QSL) candidates, $\alpha$-RuCl$_3$ has received a great amount of attention. However, its ground state exhibits a long-range zigzag magnetic order, which defies the QSL phase. Nevertheless, the magnetic order is fragile and can be completely suppressed by applying an external magnetic field. Here, we explore the evolution of magnetic excitations of $\alpha$-RuCl$_3$ under an in-plane magnetic field, by carrying out inelastic neutron scattering measurements on high-quality single crystals. Under zero field, there exist spin-wave excitations near the $M$ point and a continuum near the $\mit\Gamma$ point, which are believed to be associated with the zigzag magnetic order and fractional excitations of the Kitaev QSL state, respectively. By increasing the magnetic field, the spin-wave excitations gradually give way to the continuous excitations. On the verge of the critical field $\mu_0H_{\rm c}=7.5$ T, the former vanish and only the latter is left, indicating the emergence of a pure QSL state. By further increasing the field strength, the excitations near the $\mit\Gamma$ point become more intense. By following the gap evolution of the excitations near the $\mit\Gamma$ point, we are able to establish a phase diagram composed of three interesting phases, including a gapped zigzag order phase at low fields, possibly-gapless QSL phase near $\mu_0H_{\rm c}$, and gapped partially polarized phase at high fields. These results demonstrate that an in-plane magnetic field can drive $\alpha$-RuCl$_3$ into a long-sought QSL state near the critical field., Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures

Dimerized magnets forming alternating Heisenberg chains exhibit quantum coherence and entanglement and thus can find potential applications in quantum information and computation. However, magnetic systems typically undergo thermal decoherence at finite temperatures. Here, we show inelastic neutron scattering results on an alternating antiferromagnetic-ferromagnetic chain compound Na$_2$Cu$_2$TeO$_6$ that the excited quasiparticles can counter thermal decoherence and maintain strong correlations at elevated temperatures. At low temperatures, we observe clear dispersive singlet-triplet excitations arising from the dimers formed along the crystalline $b$-axis. The excitation gap is of $\sim$18 meV and the bandwidth is about half of the gap. The band top energy has a weak modulation along the [100] direction, indicative of a small interchain coupling. The gap increases while the bandwidth decreases with increasing temperature, leading to a strong reduction in the available phase space for the triplons. As a result, the Lorentzian-type energy broadening becomes highly asymmetric as the temperature is raised. These results are associated with a strongly correlated state resulting from hard-core constraint and quasiparticle interactions. We consider these results to be not only evidence for strong correlations at finite temperatures in Na$_2$Cu$_2$TeO$_6$, but also for the universality of the strongly correlated state in a broad range of quantum magnetic systems., Comment: Published in PRB, 8 pages, 6 figures

Disorder is important in the study of quantum spin liquids, but its role on the spin dynamics remains elusive. Here, we explore the disorder effect by investigating the magnetic-field dependence of the low-energy magnetic excitations in a triangular-lattice frustrated magnet YbZnGaO$_4$ with inelastic neutron scattering. With an intermediate field of 2.5 T applied along the $c$-axis, the broad continuum at zero field becomes more smeared both in energy and momentum. With a field up to 10 T, which fully polarizes the magnetic moments, we observe clear spin-wave excitations with a gap of $\sim$1.4 meV comparable to the bandwidth. However, the spectra are significantly broadened. The excitation spectra both at zero and high fields can be reproduced by performing classical Monte Carlo simulations which take into account the disorder effect arising from the random site mixing of nonmagnetic Zn$^{2+}$ and Ga$^{3+}$ ions. These results elucidate the critical role of disorder in broadening the magnetic excitation spectra and mimicking the spin-liquid features in frustrated quantum magnets., Comment: Published in PRB, 10 pages, 3 figures

$\alpha$-RuCl$_3$ has been studied extensively because of its proximity to the Kitaev quantum-spin-liquid (QSL) phase and the possibility of approaching it by tuning the competing interactions. Here we present the first polarized inelastic neutron scattering study on $\alpha$-RuCl$_3$ single crystals to explore the scattering continuum around the $\Gamma$ point at the Brillouin zone center, which was hypothesized to be resulting from the Kitaev QSL state but without concrete evidence. With polarization analyses, we find that while the spin-wave excitations around the M point vanish above the transition temperature $T_{\rm N}$, the pure magnetic continuous excitations around the $\Gamma$ point are robust against temperature. Furthermore, by calculating the dynamical spin-spin correlation function using the cluster perturbation theory, we derive magnetic dispersion spectra based on the $K$-$\Gamma$ model, which involves with a ferromagnetic Kitaev interaction of -7.2 meV and an off-diagonal interaction of 5.6 meV. We find this model can reproduce not only the spin-wave excitation spectra around the M point, but also the non-spin-wave continuous magnetic excitations around the $\Gamma$ point. These results provide evidence for the existence of fractional excitations around the $\Gamma$ point originating from the Kitaev QSL state, and further support the validity of the $K$-$\Gamma$ model as the effective minimal spin model to describe $\alpha$-RuCl$_3$., Comment: Published in Chinese Physics Letters as Express Letter, 8 pages, 4 figures

In the local or itinerant extreme, magnetic excitations can be described by the Heisenberg model which treats electron spins as localized moments, or by the itinerant-electron model where the exchange interaction between electrons leads to unequal numbers of electrons with up and down spins. However, it has been elusive when both local moments and itinerant electrons are present in the intermediate range. Using inelastic neutron scattering, we provide direct spectroscopic evidence on the coexistence of and interplay between local moments and itinerant electrons in a van der Waals metallic ferromagnet Fe$_{2.72}$GeTe$_{2}$, which can sustain tunable room-temperature ferromagnetism down to the monolayer limit. We find that there exist ferromagnetic spin-wave excitations dispersing from the zone center at low energies resulting from local moments, and a column-like broad continuum at the zone boundary at high energies up to over 100 meV resulting from itinerant electrons. Unlike the two-dimensional crystal structure, the low-energy mode exhibits a three-dimensional nature, and the high-energy mode also has an out-of-plane dependence. Both modes persist well above the Curie temperature of 160 K. Our neutron spectroscopic data reveal that the low-energy spin waves at 100 K are more coherent than those at 4 K, which is evidence of the weakening of the Kondo screening at high temperatures. These results unambiguously demonstrate the coexistence of local moments and itinerant electrons, and the Kondo effect between these two components in Fe$_{2.72}$GeTe$_{2}$. Such behaviors are generally expected in heavy-fermion systems with heavy $f$ electrons but rarely clearly observed in materials with light $d$ electrons. These findings shed light on the understanding of magnetism in transition-metal compounds., Comment: Main text 15 pages, 5 figures. Supplementary Materials available on PRX

We introduce an entanglement entropy analysis to quantitatively identify the confinement and deconfinement of the spinons in the spin excitations of quantum magnets. Our proposal is implemented by the parton construction of a honeycomb-lattice antiferromagnet exhibiting high-energy anomalous spectra. To obtain the quasiparticles of spin excitations for entanglement entropy calculations, we develop an effective Hamiltonian using the random phase approximation. We elaborate quantitatively the deconfinement-to-confinement transition of spinons in the anomalous spectra with the increase of the Hubbard interaction, indicating the avoided fractionalization of magnons in the strong interaction regime. Meanwhile, the Higgs mode at the {\Gamma}0 point is fractionalized into four degenerate spinon pairs, although it appears as a sharp well-defined peak in the spectra. Our work extends our understanding of the deconfinement of the spinon and its coexistence with the magnon in quantum magnets., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures

Topological magnons are bosonic analogues of topological fermions in electronic systems. They have been studied extensively by theory but rarely realized by experiment. Here, by performing inelastic neutron scattering measurements on single crystals of a two-dimensional ferromagnet CrBr$_3$, which was classified as Dirac magnon semimetal featured by the linear bands crossing at the Dirac points, we fully map out the magnetic excitation spectra, and reveal that there is an apparent gap of $\sim$3.5~meV between the acoustic and optical branches of the magnons at the K point. By collaborative efforts between experiment and theoretical calculations using a five-orbital Hubbard model obtained from first-principles calculations to derive the exchange parameters, we find that a Hamiltonian with Heisenberg exchange interactions, next-nearest-neighbor Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) interaction, and single-ion anisotropy is more appropriate to describe the system. Calculations using the model show that the lower and upper magnon bands separated by the gap exhibit Chern numbers of $\pm1$. These results indicate that CrBr$_3$ is a topological magnon insulator, where the nontrivial gap is a result of the DM interaction., Comment: Version as published in PRB Letter, main text 7 pages, supplementary materials 6 pages

Quantum spin liquids (QSLs) are an exotic state of matter that is subject to extensive research. However, the relationship between the ubiquitous disorder and the QSL behaviors is still unclear. Here, by performing comparative experimental studies on two kagom\'{e}-lattice QSL candidates, Tm$_3$Sb$_3$Zn$_2$O$_{14}$ and Tm$_3$Sb$_3$Mg$_2$O$_{14}$, which are isostructural to each other but with strong and weak structural disorder, respectively, we show unambiguously that the disorder can induce spin-liquid-like features. In particular, both compounds show dominant antiferromagnetic interactions with a Curie-Weiss temperature of -17.4 and -28.7 K for Tm$_3$Sb$_3$Zn$_2$O$_{14}$ and Tm$_3$Sb$_3$Mg$_2$O$_{14}$, respectively, but remain disordered down to about 0.05 K. Specific heat results suggest the presence of gapless magnetic excitations characterized by a residual linear term. Magnetic excitation spectra obtained by inelastic neutron scattering (INS) at low temperatures display broad continua. All these observations are consistent with those of a QSL. However, we find in Tm$_3$Sb$_3$Zn$_2$O$_{14}$ which has strong disorder resulting from the random mixing of the magnetic Tm$^{3+}$ and nonmagnetic Zn$^{2+}$, that the low-energy magnetic excitations observed in the specific heat and INS measurements are substantially enhanced, compared to those of Tm$_3$Sb$_3$Mg$_2$O$_{14}$ which has much less disorder. We believe that the effective spins of the Tm$^{3+}$ ions in the Zn$^{2+}$/Mg$^{2+}$ sites give rise to the low-energy magnetic excitations, and the amount of the random occupancy determines the excitation strength. These results provide direct evidence of the mimicry of a QSL caused by disorder., Comment: Version as published in PRB, 5 figures, 11 pages

The elementary excitations from the conventional magnetic ordered states, such as ferromagnets and antiferromagnets, are magnons. Here, we elaborate a case where the well-defined magnons are absent completely and the spin excitation spectra exhibit an entire continuum in the itinerant edge ferromagnetic state of graphene arising from the flatband edge electronic states. Based on the further studies of the entanglement entropy and finite-size analysis, we show that the continuum other than the Stoner part results from the spin-1/2 spinons deconfined from magnons. The spinon continuum in a magnetically ordered state is ascribed to a ferromagnetic Luttinger liquid in this edge ferromagnet. The investigation is carried out by using the numerical exact diagonalization method with a projection of the interacting Hamiltonian onto the flat band., Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures

We perform thermodynamic and inelastic neutron scattering (INS) measurements to study the lattice dynamics (phonons) of a cubic collinear antiferromagnet Cu$_3$TeO$_6$ which hosts topological spin excitations (magnons). While the specific heat and thermal conductivity results show that the thermal transport is dominated by phonons, the deviation of the thermal conductivity from a pure phononic model indicates that there is a strong coupling between magnons and phonons. In the INS measurements, we find a mode in the excitation spectra at 4.5 K, which exhibits a slight downward dispersion around the Brillouin zone center. This mode disappears above the N\'{e}el temperature, and thus cannot be a phonon. Furthermore, the dispersion is distinct from that of a magnon. Instead, it can be explained by the magnon-polaron mode, which is new collective excitations resulting from the hybridization between magnons and phonons. We consider the suppression of the thermal conductivity and emergence of the magnon-polaron mode to be evidence for magnon-phonon coupling in Cu$_3$TeO$_6$., Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, formula Cu3TeO6 updated in the title and abstract

Combined heat and power systems facilitate efficient interactions between individual energy sectors for higher renewable energy accommodation. However, the feasibility of operational strategies is difficult to guarantee due to the presence of substantial uncertainties pertinent to renewable energy and multi-energy loads. This paper proposes a novel efficient robust dispatch model of combined heat and power systems based on extensions of disturbance invariant sets. The approach has high computational efficiency and provides flexible and robust strategies with an adjustable level of conservativeness. In particular, the proposed robust dispatch method obtains operational strategies by solving a nominal uncertainty-free dispatch problem, whose complexity is identical to a deterministic problem. The robustness against uncertainties is enhanced by endowing the nominal dispatch model with properly tightened constraints considering time-variant uncertainty sets. Towards this end, a novel direct constraint tightening algorithm is developed based on the dual norm to calculate multi-period tightened constraints efficiently without linear programming iterations. Furthermore, the budget uncertainty set is newly combined with constraint tightening to flexibly adjust the conservativeness level of robust solutions. The effectiveness of the proposed robust method is demonstrated in simulation studies of a test system in terms of computational efficiency, decision robustness and cost optimality., Comment: 8 pages, 12 figures

Dirac matters provide a platform for exploring the interplay of their carriers with other quantum phenomena. Sr$_{1-x}$Mn$_{1-y}$Sb$_2$ has been proposed to be a magnetic Weyl semimetal and provides an excellent platform to study the coupling between Weyl fermions and magnons. Here, we report comprehensive inelastic neutron scattering (INS) measurements on single crystals of Sr$_{1-x}$Mn$_{1-y}$Sb$_2$, which have been well characterized by magnetization and magnetotransport measurements, both of which demonstrate that the material is a topologically nontrivial semimetal. The INS spectra clearly show a spin gap of $\sim6$ meV. The dispersion in the magnetic Mn layer extends up to about 76 meV, while that between the layers has a narrow band width of 6 meV. We find that the linear spin-wave theory using a Heisenberg spin Hamiltonian can reproduce the experimental spectra with the following parameters: a nearest-neighbor ($SJ_1\sim28.0$ meV) and next-nearest-neighbor in-plane exchange interaction ($SJ_2\sim9.3$ meV) , interlayer exchange coupling ($SJ_c\sim-0.1$ meV), and spin anisotropy constant ($SD\sim-0.07$ meV). Despite the coexistence of Weyl fermions and magnons, we find no clear evidence that the magnetic dynamics are influenced by the Weyl fermions in Sr$_{1-x}$Mn$_{1-y}$Sb$_2$, possibly because that the Weyl fermions and magnons reside in the Sb and Mn layers separately, and the interlayer coupling is weak due to the quasi-two-dimensional nature of the material, as also evident from the small $SJ_c$ of -0.1 meV., Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures

High penetration of residential photovoltaic (PV) in low-voltage distribution networks (LVDN) makes the unbalance issue more sever due to the asymmetry of generation/load characteristic in different phases, and may lead to infeasible operation of the whole network. Phase switching device (PSD), which can switch the connected phase of a residential load as required, is viable and efficient equipment to help address this issue. This paper, based on three-phase power flow (TUPF) formulation, aims to investigate the benefit of PSD on improving the operation feasibility of LVDN. The linear model of TUPF with PSD is presented to effectively take the flexible device into account, which can be conveniently used to seek the PSD positions that lead to a viable operation strategy of the original problem when infeasibility is reported by the traditional iteration-based algorithm. Case study based on a practical LVDN in Australia demonstrates the efficacy of the proposed method., Comment: Accepted and presented at The 8th International Conference on Renewable Power Generation (IET RPG 2019)

As rooftop solar PVs installed by residential customers penetrate in low voltage distribution network (LVDN), some issues, e.g. over/under voltage and unbalances, which may undermine the network's operational performance, need to be effectively addressed. To mitigate unbalances in LVDN, dynamic switching devices (PSDs) and static var compensator (SVC) are two equipment that are cost-effective and efficient. However, most existing research on operating PSDs are based on inflexible heuristic algorithms or without considering the network formulation, which may lead to strategies that violate operational requirements. Moreover, few pieces of literature have been reported on mitigating unbalances in LVDN via SVC and PSDs together. This paper, after presenting the dispatch model of SVC, formulates the decision-making process as a mixed-integer non-convex programming (MINCP) problem considering all practical operational requirements. To efficiently solve the challenging problem, the MINCP is reformulated as a mixed-integer second order-cone programming (MISOCP) problem based on either exact reformulations or accurate approximations, making it possible to employ efficient off-the-shelf solvers. Simulations based on a modified IEEE system and a practical system in Australia demonstrates the efficiency of the proposed method in mitigating unbalances in LVDN., Comment: 8 Pages, 12 figures

We elaborate the first theoretical realization of two dimensional itinerant topological magnons, based on the quarter filled Haldane-Hubbard model with a nearly-flat electron band. By using the exact diagonalization method with a projection onto this band, we obtain the spin wave excitations over the itinerant ferromagnetic ground state. In the flatband limit, the excitation exhibits similar dispersion to the free electron band with Dirac magnons. The nonflatness of the electron band opens a topological gap at Dirac points and leads to an acoustic magnon band with a nonzero Chern number. We further show that tuning the sublattice Hubbard interactions or the next-nearest-neighbor hopping can induce a topological transition characterized by the gap closing and reopening, and the existence of the in-gap magnons on magnetic domain walls. We find an exact set of bases for magnons in the flatband limit constructed from sublattice particle-hole vectors and derive an effective model to explore the origin of the topological magnon which is attributed to the ``mass inversion mechanism''.

Security and privacy in Direct Load Control (DLC) is a fundamental challenge in smart grids. In this paper, we propose a blockchain-based framework to increase security and privacy of DLC. We propose a method whereby participating nodes share their data with the distribution company in an anonymous and secure manner. To reduce the associated overhead for data dissemination, we propose a hash-based transaction generation method. We also outline the DLC process for managing the load in consumer site. Qualitative analysis demonstrates the security and privacy of the proposed method.

Blockchain is increasingly being used as a distributed, anonymous, trustless framework for energy trading in smart grids. However, most of the existing solutions suffer from reliance on Trusted Third Parties (TTP), lack of privacy, and traffic and processing overheads. In our previous work, we have proposed a Secure Private Blockchain-based framework (SPB) for energy trading to address the aforementioned challenges. In this paper, we present a proof-on-concept implementation of SPB on the Ethereum private network to demonstrates SPB's applicability for energy trading. We benchmark SPB's performance against the relevant state-of-the-art. The implementation results demonstrate that SPB incurs lower overheads and monetary cost for end users to trade energy compared to existing solutions.

We study the spin-1 excitation spectra of the flatband ferromagnetic phases in interacting topological insulators. As a paradigm, we consider a quarter filled square lattice Hubbard model whose free part is the $\pi$ flux state with topologically nontrivial and nearly-flat electron bands, which can realize either the Chern or $Z_2$ Hubbard model. By using the numerical exact diagonalization method with a projection onto the nearly-flat band, we obtain the ferromagnetic spin-1 excitation spectra for both the Chern and $Z_2$ Hubbard models, consisting of spin waves and Stoner continuum. The spectra exhibit quite distinct dispersions for both cases, in particular the spin wave is gapless for the Chern Hubbard model, while gapped for the $Z_2$ Hubbard model. Remarkably, in both cases, the nonflatness of the free electron bands introduces dips in the lower boundary of the Stoner continuum. It significantly renormalizes the energies of the spin waves around these dips downward and leads to roton-like spin excitations. We elaborate that it is the softening of the roton-like modes that destabilizes the ferromagnetic phase, and determine the parameter region where the ferromagnetic phase is stable., Comment: Accepted by PRB