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We introduce Temporal Ensemble Logic (TEL), a monadic, first-order modal logic for linear-time temporal reasoning. TEL includes primitive temporal constructs such as ``always up to $t$ time later'' ($\Box_t$), ``sometimes before $t$ time in the future'' ($\Diamond_t$), and ``$t$-time later'' $\varphi_t$. TEL has been motivated from the requirement for rigor and reproducibility for cohort specification and discovery in clinical and population health research, to fill a gap in formalizing temporal reasoning in biomedicine. Existing logical frameworks such as linear temporal logic are too restrictive to express temporal and sequential properties in biomedicine, or too permissive in semantic constructs, such as in Halpern-Shoham logic, to serve this purpose. In this paper, we first introduce TEL in a general set up, with discrete and dense time as special cases. We then focus on the theoretical development of discrete TEL on the temporal domain of positive integers $\mathbb{N}^+$, denoted as ${\rm TEL}_{\mathbb{N}^+}$. ${\rm TEL}_{\mathbb{N}^+}$ is strictly more expressive than the standard monadic second order logic, characterized by B\"{u}chi automata. We present its formal semantics, a proof system, and provide a proof for the undecidability of the satisfiability of ${\rm TEL}_{\mathbb{N}^+}$. We also include initial results on expressiveness and decidability fragments for ${\rm TEL}_{\mathbb{N}^+}$, followed by application outlook and discussions., Comment: 47 pages, 2 figures

We theoretically study diverse exceptional points (EPs) in an experimentally feasible magno-optomechanics consisting of an optomechanical subsystem coupled to a magnomechanical subsystem via physically direct contact. By adiabatically eliminating both the cavity and the Kittel mode, dissipative and parity-time symmetric exceptional points can be observed. When only the cavity mode is eliminated, a second (third) -order pseudo-Hermitian EP emerges for nondegenerate (degenerate) mechanical modes. The distinct dynamical behavior of two mechanical modes around these EPs are further studied. Our proposal provides a promising way to engineer diverse EPs and quantify non-Hermitian phase transition with exceptional dynamical behavior in magno-optomechanics., Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures

We propose how to achieve nonreciprocal quantum phase transition in a spinning microwave magnonic system composed of a spinning microwave resonator coupled with an yttrium iron garnet sphere with magnon Kerr effect. Sagnac-Fizeau shift caused by the spinning of the resonator brings about a significant modification in the critical driving strengths for second- and one-order quantum phase transitions, which means that the highly controllable quantum phase can be realized by the spinning speed of the resonator. More importantly, based on the difference in the detunings of the counterclockwise and clockwise modes induced by spinning direction of the resonator, the phase transition in this system is nonreciprocal, that is, the quantum phase transition occurs when the system is driven in one direction but not the other. Our work offers an alternative path to engineer and design nonreciprocal magnonic devices., Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures

In the last few years, much attention has been paid to exceptional surfaces (ESs) owing to various important physical phenomena and potential applications. However, high-order ESs in pseudo-Hermitian systems have not been reported until now. Here, we study the high-order ES in a pseudo-Hermitian superconducting (SC) circuit system. In our proposal, the SC circuit system is composed of three circularly coupled SC cavities, where the gain and loss are balanced. According to the eigenvalue properties of the pseudo-Hermitian Hamiltonian, we derive the general pseudo-Hermitian conditions for the ternary SC system. In the special pseudo-Hermitian case with parity-time symmetry, all third-order exceptional points (EP3s) of the SC system form a third-order exceptional line in the parameter space. Under the general pseudo-Hermitian conditions, more EP3s are found, and all EP3s are located on a surface, i.e., a third-order exceptional surface is constructed. Moreover, we also investigate the eigenvalues of the pseudo-Hermitian SC circuit around EP3s. Our work opens up a door for exploring high-order ESs and related applications in pseudo-Hermitian systems., Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures

Motivated by recent realizations of two-dimensional (2D) superconducting-qubit lattices, we propose a protocol to simulate Hofstadter butterfly with synthetic gauge fields in superconducting circuits. Based on the existing 2D superconducting-qubit lattices, we construct a generalized Hofstadter model on zigzag lattices, which has a fractal energy spectrum similar to the original Hofstadter butterfly. By periodically modulating the resonant frequencies of qubits, we engineer a synthetic gauge field to mimic the generalized Hofstadter Hamiltonian. A spectroscopic method is used to demonstrate the Hofstadter butterfly from the time evolutions of experimental observables. We numerically simulate the dynamics of the system with realistic parameters, and the results show a butterfly spectrum clearly. Our proposal provides a promising way to realize the Hofstadter butterfly on the latest 2D superconducting-qubit lattices and will stimulate the quantum simulation of novel properties induced by magnetic fields in superconducting circuits.

Strong long-distance spin-spin coupling is desperately demanded for solid-state quantum information processing, but it is still challenged. Here, we propose a hybrid quantum system, consisting of a coplanar waveguide (CPW) resonator weakly coupled to a single nitrogen-vacancy spin in diamond and a yttrium-iron-garnet (YIG) nanosphere holding Kerr magnons, to realize strong long-distance spin-spin coupling. With a strong driving field on magnons, the Kerr effect can squeeze magnons, and thus the coupling between the CPW resonator and the squeezed magnons is {\it exponentially enhanced}, which produces two cavity-magnon polaritons, i.e., the high-frequency polariton (HP) and low-frequency polariton (LP). When the enhanced cavity-magnon coupling approaches the critical value, the spin is fully decoupled from the HP, while the coupling between the spin and the LP is significantly improved. In the dispersive regime, a strong spin-spin coupling is achieved with accessible parameters. The coupling distance can be up to centimeter scale, limited by the cavity size. Our proposal provides a pave way to manipulate solid spins with cavity-magnon polaritons., Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures

We show how to generate Bell states and $N$-partite $W$ states of long-distance superconducting (SC) qubits in a SC waveguide quantum electrodynamical (QED) system, where SC qubits are coupled to an open microwave transmission line. In the two-qubit case, the Bell state of two long-distance qubits can be a dark state of the system by choosing appropriate system parameters. If one proper microwave pulse drives one of two qubits, the two qubits will evolve from their ground states to a Bell state. Further, we extend this scheme to the multi-qubit case. We show that $W$ states of $N$ long-distance qubits can also be generated. Because both the Bell and $W$ states are decoupled from the waveguide (i.e., dark states of the system), they are steady and have very long lifetimes in the ideal case without decoherence of qubits. In contrast to the ideal case, the presence of decoherence of qubits limits the lifetimes of the Bell and $W$ states. Our study provides a novel scheme for generating Bell states and $N$-partite $W$ states in SC waveguide QED, which can be used to entangle long-distance nodes in waveguide quantum networks., Comment: 12 pages, 9 figures

We show how to enhance the detection sensitivity of magnon Kerr nonlinearity (MKN) in cavity magnonics. The considered cavity-magnon system consists of a three-dimensional microwave cavity containing two yttrium iron garnet (YIG) spheres, where the two magnon modes (one has the MKN, while the other is linear) in YIG spheres are simultaneously coupled to microwave photons. To obtain the effective gain of the cavity mode, we feed two input fields into the cavity. By choosing appropriate parameters, the coherent perfect absorption of the two input fields occurs, and the cavity-magnon system can be described by an effective non-Hermitian Hamiltonian. Under the pseudo-Hermitian conditions, the effective Hamiltonian can host the third-order exceptional point (EP3), where the three eigenvalues of the Hamiltonian coalesce into one. When the magnon frequency shift $\Delta_K$ induced by the MKN is much smaller than the linewidths $\Gamma$ of the peaks in the transmission spectrum of the cavity (i.e., $\Delta_K\ll \Gamma$), the magnon frequency shift can be amplified by the EP3, which can be probed via the output spectrum of the cavity. The scheme we present provides an alternative approach to measure the MKN in the region $\Delta_K\ll \Gamma$ and has potential applications in designing low-power nonlinear devices based on the MKN., Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures

Strong long-distance spin-magnon coupling is essential for solid-state quantum information processing and single qubit manipulation. Here, we propose an approach to realize strong spin-magnon coupling in a hybrid optomechanical cavity-spin-magnon system, where the optomechanical system, consisting of two cavities coupled to a common high-frequency mechanical resonator, acts as quantum interface. By eliminating the mechanical mode, a position-position coupling and two-mode squeezing of two cavities are induced. In the squeezing presentation, the spin-photon, magnon-photon and photon-photon coupling strengths are exponentially amplified, thus lower- and upper-branch polaritons (LBP and UBP) are generated by strongly coupled squeezed modes of two cavities. Utilizing the critical property of the LBP, the coupling between the spin qubit (magnon) and LBP is greatly enhanced, while the coupling between the spin qubit (magnon) and UBP is fully suppressed. In the dispersive regime, strong and tunable spin-magnon coupling is induced by the virtual LBP, allowing quantum state exchange between them. Our proposal provides a promising platform to construct magnon-based hybrid systems and realize solid-state quantum information processing with optomechanical interfaces., Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures

Very recently, dissipative coupling was discovered, which develops and broadens methods for controlling and utilizing light-matter interactions. Here, we propose a scheme to generate the tripartite $W$ state in a dissipatively coupled system, where one qubit and two resonators simultaneously interact with a common reservoir. With appropriate parameters, we find the $W$ state is a dark state of the system. By driving the qubit, the dissipatively coupled system will evolve from the ground state to the tripartite $W$ state. Because the initial state is the ground state of the system and no measurement is required, our scheme is easy to implement in experiments. Moreover, the $W$ state decouples from the common reservoir and thus has a very long lifetime. This scheme is applicable to a wide class of dissipatively coupled systems, and we specifically illustrate how to prepare the $W$ state in a hybrid qubit-photon-magnon system by using this scheme., Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures

Higher-order exceptional points (EPs) in non-Hermitian systems have attracted great interest due to their advantages in sensitive enhancement and distinct topological features. However, realization of such EPs is still challenged because more fine-tuning parameters is generically required in quantum systems, compared to the second-order EP (EP2). Here, we propose a non-Hermitian three-mode optomechanical system in the blue-sideband regime for predicting the third-order EP (EP3). By deriving the pseudo-Hermitian condition for the proposed system, one cavity with loss and the other one with gain must be required. Then we show EP3 or EP2 can be observed when the mechanical resonator (MR) is neutral, loss or gain. For the neutral MR, we find both two degenerate or two non-degenerate EP3s can be predicted by tuning system parameters in the parameter space, while four non-degenerate EP2s can be observed when the system parameters derivate from EP3s, which is distinguished from the previous study in the red-detuned optomechanical system. For the gain (loss) MR, we find only two degenerate EP3s or EP2s can be predicted by tuning enhanced coupling strength. Our proposal provides a potential way to predict higher-order EPs or multiple EP2s and study multimode quantum squeezing around EPs using the blue-detuned non-Hermitian optomechanical systems., Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures

We have studied nuclear fusion reactions from the Coulomb explosion of deuterium clusters induced by high-intensity laser beams within a transport approach. By incorporating the D+D $\rightarrow$ n + He$^3$ channel as inelastic collisions based on the stochastic method, we have calibrated the neutron yield from the simulation in a box system with that from the reaction rate equation. After justifying the Coulomb explosion of a single cluster by comparing results with available theoretical limits, we have then investigated the dynamics from Coulomb explosions of systems with different cluster numbers and different deuteron numbers in clusters. We find that the kinetic energy spectrum of deuterons at the final stage is different from that when neutrons are abundantly produced, corresponding to significantly different reaction rates. We also extrapolate the neutron yield result from small systems to large systems based on an intuitive parameterized form and compare with the available experimental result. The present framework can be extended by incorporating more channels, and useful for further studies of nuclear fusion reactions in plasma systems at higher energies reached in more recent experiments., Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures

Transport models are the main method to obtain physics information from low to relativistic-energy heavy-ion collisions. The Transport Model Evaluation Project (TMEP) has been pursued to test the robustness of transport model predictions in reaching consistent conclusions from the same type of physical model. Calculations under controlled conditions of physical input and set-up were performed with various participating codes. These included both calculations of nuclear matter in a box with periodic boundary conditions, and more realistic calculations of heavy-ion collisions. In this intermediate review, we summarize and discuss the present status of the project. We also provide condensed descriptions of the 26 participating codes, which contributed to some part of the project. These include the major codes in use today. We review the main results of the studies completed so far. They show, that in box calculations the differences between the codes can be well understood and a convergence of the results can be reached. These studies also highlight the systematic differences between the two families of transport codes, known as BUU and QMD type codes. However, when the codes were compared in full heavy-ion collisions using different physical models, as recently for pion production, they still yielded substantially different results. This calls for further comparisons of heavy-ion collisions with controlled models and of box comparisons of important ingredients, like momentum-dependent fields, which are currently underway. We often indicate improved strategies in performing transport simulations and thus provide guidance to code developers. Results of transport simulations of heavy-ion collisions from a given code will have more significance if the code can be validated against benchmark calculations such as the ones summarized in this review., Comment: 114 pages, 14 figures, 479 references, accepted for publication in Progress of Particle and Nuclear Phsics

We propose an experimentally realizable nonreciprocal magnonic device at the single-magnon level by exploiting magnon blockade in a magnon-based hybrid system. The coherent qubit-magnon coupling, mediated by virtual photons in a microwave cavity, leads to the energy-level anharmonicity of the composite modes. In contrast, the corresponding dissipative counterpart, induced by traveling microwaves in a waveguide, yields inhomogeneous broadenings of the energy levels. As a result, the cooperative effects of these two kinds of interactions give rise to the emergence of the direction-dependent magnon blockade. We show that this can be demonstrated by studying the equal-time second-order correlation function of the magnon mode. Our study opens an avenue to engineer nonreciprocal magnonic devices in the quantum regime involving only a small number of magnons., Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures

Strong long-range coupling between distant spins is crucial for spin-based quantum information processing. However, achieving such a strong spin-spin coupling remains challenging. Here we propose to realize a strong coupling between two distant spins via the Kerr effect of magnons in a yttrium-iron-garnet nanosphere. By applying a microwave field on this nanosphere, the Kerr effect of magnons can induce the magnon squeezing, so that the coupling between the spin and the squeezed magnons can be exponentially enhanced. This in turn allows the spin-magnon distance to increase from nano- to micrometer scale. By considering the virtual excitation of the squeezed magnons in the dispersive regime, strong spin-spin coupling mediated by the squeezed magnons can be achieved, and a remote quantum-state transfer, as well as the nonlocal two-qubit ISWAP gate with high fidelity becomes implementable. Our approach offers a feasible scheme to perform quantum information processing among distant spins., Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures

While remarkable advances have been made in Computed Tomography (CT), most of the existing efforts focus on imaging enhancement while reducing radiation dose. How to harmonize CT image data captured using different scanners is vital in cross-center large-scale radiomics studies but remains the boundary to explore. Furthermore, the lack of paired training image problem makes it computationally challenging to adopt existing deep learning models. %developed for CT image standardization. %this problem more challenging. We propose a novel deep learning approach called CVH-CT for harmonizing CT images captured using scanners from different vendors. The generator of CVH-CT uses a self-attention mechanism to learn the scanner-related information. We also propose a VGG feature-based domain loss to effectively extract texture properties from unpaired image data to learn the scanner-based texture distributions. The experimental results show that CVH-CT is clearly better than the baselines because of the use of the proposed domain loss, and CVH-CT can effectively reduce the scanner-related variability in terms of radiomic features.

We performed a systematic search for X-ray bursts of the SGR J1935+2154 using the Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor continuous data dated from Jan 2013 to October 2021. Eight bursting phases, which consist of a total of 353 individual bursts, are identified. We further analyze the periodic properties of our sample using the Lomb-Scargle periodogram. The result suggests that those bursts exhibit a period of ~ 238 days with a ~ 63.2% duty cycle. Based on our analysis, we further predict two upcoming active windows of the X-ray bursts. Since July 2021, the beginning date of our first prediction has been confirmed by the ongoing X-ray activities of the SGR J1935+2154., Comment: ApJL published; 16 pages, 11 figures, 3 tables

While remarkable advances have been made in Computed Tomography (CT), capturing CT images with non-standardized protocols causes low reproducibility regarding radiomic features, forming a barrier on CT image analysis in a large scale. RadiomicGAN is developed to effectively mitigate the discrepancy caused by using non-standard reconstruction kernels. RadiomicGAN consists of hybrid neural blocks including both pre-trained and trainable layers adopted to learn radiomic feature distributions efficiently. A novel training approach, called Dynamic Window-based Training, has been developed to smoothly transform the pre-trained model to the medical imaging domain. Model performance evaluated using 1401 radiomic features show that RadiomicGAN clearly outperforms the state-of-art image standardization models.

We study the parity-symmetry-breaking quantum phase transition (QPT) in a cavity magnonic system driven by a parametric field, where the magnons in a ferrimagnetic yttrium-iron-garnet sphere strongly couple to a microwave cavity. With appropriate parameters, this cavity magnonic system can exhibit a rich phase diagram, including the parity-symmetric phase, parity-symmetry-broken phase, and bistable phase. When increasing the drive strength beyond a critical threshold, the cavity magnonic system undergoes either a first- or second-order nonequilibrium QPT from the parity-symmetric phase with microscopic excitations to the parity-symmetry-broken phase with macroscopic excitations, depending on the parameters of the system. Our work provides an alternate way to engineer the QPT in a hybrid quantum system containing the spin ensemble in a ferri- or ferromagnetic material with strong exchange interactions., Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures

We propose an experimentally accessible superconducting quantum circuit, consisting of two coplanar waveguide resonators (CWRs), to enhance the microwave squeezing via parametric down-conversion (PDC). In our scheme, the two CWRs are nonlinearly coupled through a superconducting quantum interference device embedded in one of the CWRs. This is equivalent to replacing the transmission line in a flux-driven Josephson parametric amplifier (JPA) by a CWR, which makes it possible to drive the JPA by a quantized microwave field. Owing to this design, the PDC coefficient can be considerably increased to be about tens of megahertz, satisfying the strong-coupling condition. Using the Heisenberg-Langevin approach, we numerically show the enhancement of the microwave squeezing in our scheme. In contrast to the JPA, our proposed system becomes stable around the critical point and can generate stronger transient squeezing. In addition, the strong-coupling PDC can be used to engineer the photon blockade., Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures

Exceptional points (EPs) are exotic degeneracies of non-Hermitian systems, where the eigenvalues and the corresponding eigenvectors simultaneously coalesce in parameter space, and these degeneracies are sensitive to tiny perturbations on the system. Here we report an experimental observation of the EP in a hybrid quantum system consisting of dense nitrogen (P1) centers in diamond coupled to a coplanar-waveguide resonator. These P1 centers can be divided into three subensembles of spins, and cross relaxation occurs among them. As a new method to demonstrate this EP, we pump a given spin subensemble with a drive field to tune the magnon-photon coupling in a wide range. We observe the EP in the middle spin subensemble coupled to the resonator mode, irrespective of which spin subensemble is actually driven. This robustness of the EP against pumping reveals the key role of the cross relaxation in P1 centers. It offers a novel way to convincingly prove the existence of the cross-relaxation effect via the EP., Comment: 16 pages, 10 figures

The dilation method is a practical way to experimentally simulate non-Hermitian, especially $\cal PT$-symmetric quantum systems. However, the time-dependent dilation problem cannot be explicitly solved in general. In this paper, we present a simple yet non-trivial exactly solvable dilation problem with two dimensional time-dependent $\cal PT$-symmetric Hamiltonian. Our system is initially set in the unbroken $\cal PT$-symmetric phase and later goes across the so-called exceptional point and enters the broken $\cal PT$-symmetric phase. For this system, the dilated Hamiltonian and the evolution of $\cal PT$-symmetric system are analytically worked out. Our result clearly showed that the exceptional points do not have much physical relevance in a \textit{time-dependent} system., Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, close to the published version

Accompanied by an X-ray burst, the fast radio burst (FRB) FRB 200428 was recently confirmed as originating from the Galactic magnetar soft gamma repeater (SGR) SGR J1935+2154. Just before and after FRB 200428 was detected, the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) had been monitoring SGR J1935+2154 for eight hours. From UTC 2020 April 27 23:55:00 to 2020 April 28 00:50:37, FAST detected no pulsed radio emission from SGR J1935+2154, while Fermi/Gamma-ray Burst Monitor registered 34 bursts in the X/soft $\gamma$-ray band, forming a unique sample of X-ray bursts in the absence of FRBs. After a comprehensive analysis on light curves, time-integrated, and time-resolved spectral properties of these FRB-absent X-ray bursts, we compare this sample with the FRB-associated X-ray burst detected by Insight-HXMT, INTEGRAL, and Konus-Wind. The FRB-associated burst distinguishes itself from other X-ray bursts by its nonthermal spectrum and a higher spectral peak energy, but otherwise is not atypical. We also compare the cumulative energy distribution of our X-ray burst sample with that of first repeating FRB source, FRB 121102, with the calibration of FRB 200428-X-ray burst association. We find a similarity between the two, offering indirect support of the magnetar origin of cosmological FRBs. The event rate density of magnetar bursts is about $\sim 150$ times higher than the FRB event rate density at the energy of FRB 200428. This again suggests that, if all FRBs originate from magnetars, only a small fraction of X-ray bursts are associated with FRBs., Comment: 18 pages, 3 tables, 8 figures. Published in the Astrophysical Journal Letter on January 12, 2021

A cavity quantum electrodynamical (QED) system beyond the strong-coupling regime is expected to exhibit intriguing quantum phenomena. Here we report a direct measurement of the photon-dressed qubit transition frequencies up to four photons by harnessing the same type of state transitions in an ultrastrongly coupled circuit-QED system realized by inductively coupling a superconducting flux qubit to a coplanar-waveguide resonator. This demonstrates a convincing observation of the photon-dressed Bloch-Siegert shift in the ultrastrongly coupled quantum system. Moreover, our results show that the photon-dressed Bloch-Siegert shift becomes more pronounced as the photon number increases, which is a characteristic of the quantum Rabi model., Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures

We study the quantum phase transition (QPT) in a non-Hermitian Tavis-Cummings (TC) model of experimentally accessible parameters, which is engineered with two drive fields applied to an ensemble of two-level systems (TLSs) and a cavity, respectively. When the two drive fields satisfy a given parameter-matching condition, the coupled cavity-TLS ensemble system can be described by an effective standard TC Hamiltonian in the rotating frame. In this ideal Hermitian case, the engineered TC model can exhibit the super-radiant QPT with spin conservation at an experimentally accessible critical coupling strength, but the QPT is, however, spoiled by the decoherence. We find that in this non-Hermitian case, the QPT can be recovered by introducing a gain in the cavity to balance the loss of the TLS ensemble. Also, the spin-conservation law is found to be violated due to the decoherence of the system. Our study offers an experimentally realizable approach to implementing QPT in the non-Hermitian TC model., Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures

Computed tomography (CT) plays an important role in lung malignancy diagnostics and therapy assessment and facilitating precision medicine delivery. However, the use of personalized imaging protocols poses a challenge in large-scale cross-center CT image radiomic studies. We present an end-to-end solution called STAN-CT for CT image standardization and normalization, which effectively reduces discrepancies in image features caused by using different imaging protocols or using different CT scanners with the same imaging protocol. STAN-CT consists of two components: 1) a novel Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN) model that is capable of effectively learning the data distribution of a standard imaging protocol with only a few rounds of generator training, and 2) an automatic DICOM reconstruction pipeline with systematic image quality control that ensure the generation of high-quality standard DICOM images. Experimental results indicate that the training efficiency and model performance of STAN-CT have been significantly improved compared to the state-of-the-art CT image standardization and normalization algorithms., Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures