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Dirac cones are essential features of the electronic band structure of materials like graphene and topological insulators (TIs). Lately, this avenue has found a growing interest in classical wave physics by using engineered artificial lattices. Here, we demonstrate an acoustic 3D honeycomb lattice that features a Dirac hierarchy comprising an eightfold bulk Dirac cone, a 2D fourfold surface state Dirac cone, and a 1D twofold hinge state Dirac cone. The lifting of the Dirac degeneracy in each hierarchy authorizes the 3D lattice to appear as a first-order TI with 2D topological surface states, a second-order TI exhibiting 1D hinge states, and a third-order TI of 0D midgap corner states. Analytically we discuss the topological origin of the surface, hinge, and corner states, which are all characterized by out-of-plane and in-plane winding numbers. Our study offers new routes to control sound and vibration for acoustic steering and guiding, on-chip ultrasonic energy concentration, and filtering to name a few. L. Y. Z. acknowledges support from the CONEX-Plus programme funded by Universidad Carlos III de Madrid and the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Grant Agreement No. 801538. J. C. acknowledges the support from the European Research Council (ERC) through the Starting Grant No. 714577 PHONOMETA and from the MINECO through a Ramón y Cajal grant (Grant No. RYC-2015-17156).

International audience; Dirac degeneracies are essential ingredients to control topological charge exchanges between bands and trigger the unique edge transport properties of topological materials. In addition, when Dirac cones are tilted, exotic phenomena can emerge such as anomalous Hall effect or unconventional Klein tunneling. However, the unique topological transport properties arising from the opening of tilted Dirac cone degeneracies have been left completely uncharted. Here, we demonstrate a new form of Dirac degeneracy that occurs in mechanical granular graphene (MGG): a tilted double Dirac cone, composed of two counter-tilted type-I Dirac cones. Different from the reported C6 systems, we show that the tilted double Dirac cone is present in a C2 granular graphene. Remarkably, a pair of anisotropic helical edge waves appears when the degeneracy is lifted. This leads to an anisotropic quantum spin-Hall topological insulator that possesses unique wave propagation properties, including anisotropic edge dispersion and direction-dependent edge-bulk mode conversion.

International audience; In this work, we study the propagation of sound waves in a honeycomb waveguide network loaded with Helmholtz resonators (HRs). By using a plane wave approximation in each waveguide we obtain a first-principle modeling of the network, which is an exact mapping to the graphene tight-binding Hamiltonian. We show that additional Dirac points appear in the band diagram when HRs are introduced at the network nodes. It allows to break the inversion (sub-lattice) symmetry by tuning the resonators, leading to the appearence of edge modes that reflect the configuration of the zigzag boundaries. Besides, the dimerization of the resonators also permits the formation of interface modes located in the band gap, and these modes are found to be robust against symmetry preserving defects. Our results and the proposed networks reveal the additional degree of freedom bestowed by the local resonance in tuning the properties of not only acoustical graphene-like structures but also of more complex systems.

Seasonal soil freeze-thaw events may enhance soil nitrogen transformation and thus stimulate nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions in cold regions. However, the mechanisms of soil N2O emission during the freeze-thaw cycling in the field remain unclear. We evaluated N2O emissions and soil biotic and abiotic factors in maize and paddy fields over 20 months in Northeast China, and the structural equation model (SEM) was used to determine which factors affected N2O production during non-growing season. Our results verified that the seasonal freeze-thaw cycles mitigated the available soil nitrogen and carbon limitation during spring thawing period, but simultaneously increased the gaseous N2O-N losses at the annual time scale under field condition. The N2O-N cumulative losses during the non-growing season amounted to 0.71 and 0.55 kg N ha−1 for the paddy and maize fields, respectively, and contributed to 66 and 18% of the annual total. The highest emission rates (199.2–257.4 µg m−2 h−1) were observed during soil thawing for both fields, but we did not observe an emission peak during soil freezing in early winter. Although the pulses of N2O emission in spring were short-lived (18 d), it resulted in approximately 80% of the non-growing season N2O-N loss. The N2O burst during the spring thawing was triggered by the combined impact of high soil moisture, flush available nitrogen and carbon, and rapid recovery of microbial biomass. SEM analysis indicated that the soil moisture, available substrates including NH4+ and dissolved organic carbon (DOC), and microbial biomass nitrogen (MBN) explained 32, 36, 16 and 51% of the N2O flux variation, respectively, during the non-growing season. Our results suggested that N2O emission during the spring thawing make a vital contribution of the annual nitrogen budget, and the vast seasonally frozen and snow-covered croplands will have high potential to exert a positive feedback on climate change considering the sensitive response of nitrogen biogeochemical cycling to the freeze-thaw disturbance.

The excessive nitrogen (N) fertilizer input coupled with flood irrigation might result in higher N leaching and lower nitrogen recovery efficiency (NRE). Under an intensive rice system in the Ningxia irrigation region, China, environmental friendly N management practices are heavily needed to balance the amount of N input for optimum crop production while minimize the nitrogen loss. The objective of this study was to determine the influences of side-dressing (SD) technique in mechanical transplanting systems on the NRE, N leaching losses and rice yield in anthropogenic-alluvial soil during two rice growing seasons (2010–2011). Four fertilizer N treatments were established, including conventional urea rate (CU, 300 kg ha −1 yr −1 ); higher SD of controlled-release N fertilizer rate (SD1, 176 kg ha −1 yr −1 ); lower SD of controlled-release N fertilizer rate (SD2, 125 kg ha −1 yr −1 ); and control (CK, no N fertilizer). Field lysimeters were used to quantify drainage from undisturbed soil during six rice growing stages. Meanwhile, the temporal variations of total nitrigen (TN), NO 3 − -N, and NH 4 + -N concentrations in percolation water were examined. The results showed that SD1 substantially improved NRE and reduced N leaching losses while maintaining rice yields. Across two years, the averaged NRE under SD1 treatment increased by 25.5% as relative to CU, but yet the rice yield was similar between two treatments. On average, the nitrogen loss defined as TN, NH 4 + -N, and NO 3 − -N under the SD1 treatment reduced by 27.4, 37.2 and 24.1%, respectively, when compared with CU during the study periods. Although the SD2 treatment could further reduce N leaching loss to some extent, this technique would sharply decline rice yield, with the magnitude of as high as 21.0% relative to CU treatment. Additionally, the average NRE under SD2 was 11.2% lower than that under SD1 treatment. Overall, the present study concluded that the SD technique is an effective strategy to reduce N leaching and increase NRE, thus potentially mitigate local environmental threat. We propose SD1 as a novel alternative fertilizer technique under an irrigated rice-based system in Ningxia irrigation region when higher yields are under consideration.

Based on the winter wheat-summer maize rotation field experiment, the effects of biochar and organic fertilizer on saline-alkali soil N

Granular crystals are spatially periodic structures of elastic particles arranged in crystal lattices. The interactions between particles take place via their elastic interconnections, which are of much smaller dimensions and weights than the beads. This induces propagation of elastic waves in granular structures at significantly slower velocities than in the individual grains. In addition, due to the existence of non-central shear forces, rotations of particles can be initiated, leading to extra phononic modes in the crystals. In the manuscript, wave dynamics in two-dimensional monolayer granular crystals with either out-of-plane or in-plane particle motion is studied. The phononic properties are investigated, including Dirac points, zero-frequency modes, zero-group-velocity modes and their transformation into slow propagating phononic modes. Furthermore, in the presence of edges/boundaries, zero-frequency and extremely slow elastic edge waves can be also predicted in mechanical granular honeycomb crystals (granular graphene). In addition, topological properties of rotational edge waves in a granular graphene are theoretically demonstrated. By inducing topological transition, which turns the topological order of granular graphene from trivial to nontrivial, topological edge transport in the granular graphene can be observed. The developed theories could promote the potential applications of designed granular structures with novel elastic wave propagation properties., Les cristaux granulaires sont des structures périodiques de particules disposées en réseau cristallin. Les interactions entre ces billes peuvent être modélisées par leurs contacts, qui ont des dimensions et des masses effectives beaucoup plus petites que celles des billes. Ceci induit une propagation d'ondes élastiques dans les structures granulaires avec des vitesses significativement plus lentes que dans le matériau des grains individuels. En outre, en raison de forces de cisaillement non centrales, les rotations de particules peuvent être initiées, conduisant à des modes de phononiques supplémentaires dans ces cristaux. Dans ce manuscrit, on étudie la propagation d’ondes dans les cristaux granulaires monocouche bidimensionnels avec un mouvement des particules hors-plan ou dans le plan. Les propriétés phononiques sont étudiées, y compris les points de Dirac, les modes de fréquence nulle, les modes à vitesse de groupe nulle et leur transformation en modes de propagation lente. En outre, en présence de bords, on peut prévoir également des ondes de bord élastiques à fréquence nulle et extrêmement lentes dans des cristaux granulaires en « nid d'abeille » (graphène granulaire). En outre, les propriétés topologiques des ondes de bord rotationelles-transverses dans un graphène granulaire sont théoriquement démontrées. En induisant une transition topologique, qui transforme l'ordre topologique du graphène granulaire de trivial en non trivial, on peut observer le transport de bord topologique dans le graphène granulaire. Les théories développées pourraient mener potentiellement à des applications sur le contrôle des ondes élastiques par des structures granulaires.