Search

The magnetised near detector (ND280) of the T2K long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment has been recently upgraded aiming to satisfy the requirement of reducing the systematic uncertainty from measuring the neutrinonucleus interaction cross section, which is the largest systematic uncertainty in the search for leptonic charge-parity symmetry violation. A key component of the upgrade is SuperFGD, a 3D segmented plastic scintillator detector made of approximately 2,000,000 optically-isolated 1 cm3 cubes. It will provide a 3D image of GeV neutrino interactions by combining tracking and stopping power measurements of final state particles with sub-nanosecond time resolution. The performance of SuperFGD is characterized by the precision of its response to charged particles as well as the systematic effects that might affect the physics measurements. Hence, a detailed Geant4 based optical simulation of the SuperFGD building block, i.e. a plastic scintillating cube read out by three wavelength shifting fibers, has been developed and validated with the different datasets collected in various beam tests. In this manuscript the description of the optical model as well as the comparison with data are reported., Comment: 31 pages, 15 figures

Magneto-transport measurements of Pr$_4$Ni$_3$O$_{10}$ single crystals performed under externally applied pressures up to 73 GPa in diamond anvil cells with either KBr or Nujol oil as pressure media yield signatures of superconductivity with a maximum onset temperature of approximately 31 K. True zero resistance was not observed, consistent with a non-percolating superconducting volume fraction. Magnetization measurements provided corroborating evidence of superconductivity, with a pressure-dependent diamagnetic signal occurring below the onset temperature, and an estimate from the absolute value of the susceptibility suggests a superconducting volume fraction on the order of 10%. We observe sample-to-sample variations in the magnitude and pressure dependence of Tc as well as a dependence on the configuration of electrical contacts on a given sample. Possible causes of this behavior may be significant inhomogeneities in the pressure and/or damage to the samples induced by the pressure media as well as inhomogeneities in the crystals themselves. The results imply that our as-grown Pr$_4$Ni$_3$O$_{10}$ single crystals are not bulk superconductors but that there is a minority structure present within the crystals that is indeed superconducting.

Traditional control methods effectively manage robot operations using models like motion equations but face challenges with issues of contact and friction, leading to unstable and imprecise controllers that often require manual tweaking. Reinforcement learning, however, has developed as a capable solution for developing robust robot controllers that excel in handling contact-related challenges. In this work, we introduce a deep reinforcement learning approach to tackle the soft-capture phase for free-floating moving targets, mainly space debris, amidst noisy data. Our findings underscore the crucial role of tactile sensors, even during the soft-capturing phase. By employing deep reinforcement learning, we eliminate the need for manual feature design, simplifying the problem and allowing the robot to learn soft-capture strategies through trial and error. To facilitate effective learning of the approach phase, we have crafted a specialized reward function that offers clear and insightful feedback to the agent. Our method is trained entirely within the simulation environment, eliminating the need for direct demonstrations or prior knowledge of the task. The developed control policy shows promising results, highlighting the necessity of using tactile sensor information. The code and simulation results are available at Soft_Capture_Tactile repo., Comment: This paper is accepted and presented in CASE2024

The macroscopic model for a neutron star (NS) as a liquid drop at the equilibrium is used to extend the Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff (TOV) equations taking into account the gradient terms responsible for the system surface. The parameters of the Schwarzschild metric in the spherical case are found with these surface corrections in the leading (zero) order of the leptodermic approximation $a/R<<1$, where $a$ is the NS effective-surface (ES) thickness, and $R$ is the effective NS radius. The energy density $\mathcal{E}$ is considered in a general form including the functions of the particle number density and of its gradient terms. The macroscopic gravitational potential $\Phi(\rho)$ is taken into account in the simplest form as expansion in powers of $\rho-\overline{\rho} $, where $\overline{\rho}$ is the saturation density, up to second order, in terms of its contributions to th separation particle energy and incompressibility. Density distributions $\rho$ across the NS ES in the normal direction to the ES, which are derived in the simple analytical form at the same leading approximation, was used for the derivation of the modified TOV (MTOV) equations by accounting for their NS surface corrections. The MTOV equations are analytically solved at first order and the results are compared with the standard TOV approach of the zero order., Comment: 24 pages, 9 figures, 1 table. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2403.01445

Haloscope is one of the typical installations to detect the electromagnetic responses (EMRs) of axion field in radio-frequency (rf) band. Given what the detection by the existing Haloscope-type detector (HTD) biased only by a high stationary magnetic field, is just the second axion-photon energy converted effect and thus the detectable signal is still significantly weak, here we propose a feasible approach to upgrade the existing HTD by additionally applying a transverse rf modulated magnetic field for generating the first-order axion-photon energy converted signal. Accordingly, we argue that the detection sensitivity of the upgrading HTD (UHTD) could be enhanced feasibly by a few orders of magnitude, compared with those achieved by the existing HTDs. The feasibility of the proposed UHTD is also discussed., Comment: 22 pages,3 figures

The 21 cm transition from neutral Hydrogen promises to be the best observational probe of the Epoch of Reionisation (EoR). This has led to the construction of low-frequency radio interferometric arrays, such as the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA), aimed at systematically mapping this emission for the first time. Precision calibration, however, is a requirement in 21 cm radio observations. Due to the spatial compactness of HERA, the array is prone to the effects of mutual coupling, which inevitably lead to non-smooth calibration errors that contaminate the data. When unsmooth gains are used in calibration, intrinsically spectrally-smooth foreground emission begins to contaminate the data in a way that can prohibit a clean detection of the cosmological EoR signal. In this paper, we show that the effects of mutual coupling on calibration quality can be reduced by applying custom time-domain filters to the data prior to calibration. We find that more robust calibration solutions are derived when filtering in this way, which reduces the observed foreground power leakage. Specifically, we find a reduction of foreground power leakage by 2 orders of magnitude at k=0.5.

Interferometric experiments designed to detect the highly redshifted 21-cm signal from neutral hydrogen are producing increasingly stringent constraints on the 21-cm power spectrum, but some k-modes remain systematics-dominated. Mutual coupling is a major systematic that must be overcome in order to detect the 21-cm signal, and simulations that reproduce effects seen in the data can guide strategies for mitigating mutual coupling. In this paper, we analyse 12 nights of data from the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array and compare the data against simulations that include a computationally efficient and physically motivated semi-analytic treatment of mutual coupling. We find that simulated coupling features qualitatively agree with coupling features in the data; however, coupling features in the data are brighter than the simulated features, indicating the presence of additional coupling mechanisms not captured by our model. We explore the use of fringe-rate filters as mutual coupling mitigation tools and use our simulations to investigate the effects of mutual coupling on a simulated cosmological 21-cm power spectrum in a "worst case" scenario where the foregrounds are particularly bright. We find that mutual coupling contaminates a large portion of the "EoR Window", and the contamination is several orders-of-magnitude larger than our simulated cosmic signal across a wide range of cosmological Fourier modes. While our fiducial fringe-rate filtering strategy reduces mutual coupling by roughly a factor of 100 in power, a non-negligible amount of coupling cannot be excised with fringe-rate filters, so more sophisticated mitigation strategies are required., Comment: 19 pages, 12 figures, submitted to MNRAS

In this research, we introduce a deep reinforcement learning-based control approach to address the intricate challenge of the robotic pre-grasping phase under microgravity conditions. Leveraging reinforcement learning eliminates the necessity for manual feature design, therefore simplifying the problem and empowering the robot to learn pre-grasping policies through trial and error. Our methodology incorporates an off-policy reinforcement learning framework, employing the soft actor-critic technique to enable the gripper to proficiently approach a free-floating moving object, ensuring optimal pre-grasp success. For effective learning of the pre-grasping approach task, we developed a reward function that offers the agent clear and insightful feedback. Our case study examines a pre-grasping task where a Robotiq 3F gripper is required to navigate towards a free-floating moving target, pursue it, and subsequently position itself at the desired pre-grasp location. We assessed our approach through a series of experiments in both simulated and real-world environments. The source code, along with recordings of real-world robot grasping, is available at Fanuc_Robotiq_Grasp., Comment: This is a preprint for the work submitted to the ICRA 2024 conference

The macroscopic model is formulated for a neutron star (NS) as a perfect liquid drop at the equilibrium. We use the leptodermic approximation $a/R\ll 1$, where $a$ is the crust thickness of the effective NS surface (ES), and $R$ is the mean radius of the ES curvature. Within the approximate Schwarzschild metric solution to the general relativity theory equations for the spherically symmetric systems, the macroscopic gravitation is taken into account in terms of the total separation particle energy and incompressibility. Density distribution $\rho$ across the ES in the normal direction to the ES was obtained analytically for a general form of the energy density $\mathcal{E}(\rho)$. For the typical crust thickness, and effective radius, one finds the leading expression for the density $\rho$. NS masses are analytically calculated as a sum of the volume and surface terms, taking into account the radial curvature of the metric space, in reasonable agreement with the recently measured masses for several neutron stars. We derive the simple macroscopic equation of state (EoS) with the surface correction. The analytical and numerical solutions to Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff equations for the pressure are in good agreement with the volume part of our EoS., Comment: 32 pages, 8 figures

A central paradigm of non-equilibrium physics concerns the dynamics of heterogeneity and disorder, impacting processes ranging from the behavior of glasses to the emergent functionality of active matter. Understanding these complex mesoscopic systems requires probing the microscopic trajectories associated with irreversible processes, the role of fluctuations and entropy growth, and the timescales on which non-equilibrium responses are ultimately maintained. Approaches that illuminate these processes in model systems may enable a more general understanding of other heterogeneous non-equilibrium phenomena, and potentially define ultimate speed and energy cost limits for information processing technologies. Here, we apply ultrafast single shot x-ray photon correlation spectroscopy to resolve the non-equilibrium, heterogeneous, and irreversible mesoscale dynamics during a light-induced phase transition. This approach defines a new way of capturing the nucleation of the induced phase, the formation of transient mesoscale defects at the boundaries of the nuclei, and the eventual annihilation of these defects, even in systems with complex polarization topologies. A non-equilibrium response spanning >10 orders of magnitude in timescales is observed, with multistep behavior similar to the plateaus observed in supercooled liquids and glasses. We show how the observed time-dependent long-time correlations can be understood in terms of the stochastic dynamics of domain walls, encoded in effective waiting-time distributions with power-law tails. This work defines new possibilities for probing the non-equilibrium and correlated dynamics of disordered and heterogeneous media.

We report the discovery of a novel form of Ruddlesden-Popper (RP) oxide, which stands as the first example of long-range, coherent polymorphism in this class of inorganic solids. Rather than the well-known, uniform stacking of perovskite blocks ubiquitously found in RP phases, this newly discovered polymorph of the bilayer RP phase $La_{3}Ni_{2}O_{7}$adopts a novel stacking sequence in which single and trilayer blocks of $NiO_{6}$ octahedra alternate in a 1313 sequence. Crystals of this new polymorph are described in space group Cmmm, although we note evidence for a competing Imcm variant. Transport measurements at ambient pressure reveal metallic character with evidence of a charge density wave transition with onset at T = 134 K, which lies intermediate between that of the standard 2222 polymorph of $La_{3}Ni_{2}O_{7}$ (space group Amam) and the trilayer RP phase, $La_{4}Ni_{3}O_{10}$. The discovery of such polymorphism could reverberate to the expansive range of science and applications that rely on RP materials, particularly the recently reported signatures of superconductivity with $T_{c}$ as high as 80 K above 14 GPa in bilayer $La_{3}Ni_{2}O_{7}$., Comment: 37 pages, 10 figures

Relativistic corrections have been made in the non-relativistic antisymmetrized molecular dynamics (AMD) simulations to apply to the high energy neutron production in the $^{12}$C+$^{12}$C and $^{16}$O+$^{12}$C collisions at incident energies of 290 and 400 MeV/nucleon. The corrections are made in kinematics alone and no nucleon-nucleon inelastic scatterings nor meson productions are taken into account, and AMD with the relativistic corrections is called semi-relativistic AMD. The three-nucleon collision (3NC) and Fermi boost in the collision processes are taken into account in the non-relativistic AMD. Since the relativistic corrections tend to compensate in each other, the difference between the semi-relativistic and non-relativistic results become small. High energy tails of the available experimental neutron double differential cross sections, especially at larger angles, are well reproduced by AMD with the 3NC term both with non-relativistic and semi-relativistic simulations. These results indicate that the high energy neutrons are dominantly produced by the 3NC process in this incident energy range.

CEPC will use 650 MHz cavities for the collider. Each collider cryomodule contains six 650 MHz 2-cell cavities, which is totally new. Therefore, new helium vessel and tuner are designed for the 650 MHz 2-cell cavity. Also, a test cryomodule, which consists of two 650 MHz 2-cell cavities, has begun as the first step to the full scale cryomodule. This paper mainly focuses on the structure design of Helium vessel and tuner for the 2-cell cavity., Comment: 3pages,10figures

Quantum materials display rich and myriad types of magnetic, electronic, and structural ordering, often with these ordering modes either competing with one another or 'intertwining', that is, reinforcing one another. Low dimensional quantum materials, influenced strongly by competing interactions and/or geometric frustration, are particularly susceptible to such ordering phenomena and thus offer fertile ground for understanding the consequent emergent collective quantum phenomena. Such is the case of the quasi-2D materials R4Ni3O10(R=La, Pr), in which intertwined charge-and spin-density waves (CDW and SDW) on the Ni sublattice have been identified and characterized. Not unexpectedly, these density waves are largely 2D as a result of weak coupling between planes, compounded with magnetic frustration. In the case of R=Pr, however, we show here that exchange coupling between the transition metal and rare earth sublattices upon cooling overcomes both obstacles, leading to a dimensional crossover into a fully 3D ordered and coupled SDW state on both sublattices, as an induced moment on notionally nonmagnetic Pr3+ opens exchange pathways in the third dimension. In the process, the structure of the SDW on the Ni sublattice is irreversibly altered, an effect that survives reheating of the material until the underlying CDW melts. This 'bootstrapping' mechanism linking incommensurate SDWs on the two sublattices illustrates a new member of the multitude of quantum states that low-dimensional magnets can express, driven by coupled orders and modulated by frustrated exchange pathways., Comment: 48 pages including supplementary, 6 figures, 19 supplementary figures

In the collision of two heavy ions, the strong repulsion coming from the Coulomb field is enough to produce $e^+e^-$ pair(s) from vacuum fluctuations. The energy is provided by the kinetic energy of the ions and the Coulomb interaction at the production point. If, for instance, the electron is located at the center of mass (C.M.) of the two ions moving along the \emph{z}-axis, and the positron is at a distance \emph{x} from the electron, the ions can be accelerated towards each other since the Coulomb barrier is lowered by the presence of the electron. This screening results in an increase in the kinetic energy of the colliding ions and may result in an increase in the fusion probability of light ions above the adiabatic limit., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures

The unusual anisotropy of the spin glass transition in the pseudobrookite system Fe$_2$TiO$_5$ has been interpreted as arising from an induced, van der Waals-like, interaction among magnetic clusters. Here we present susceptibility ($\chi$) and specific heat data (C) for Fe2TiO5 diluted with non-magnetic Ga, (Fe$_{1-p}$Ga$_p$)$_2$TiO$_5$, for disorder parameter p = 0, 0.11, and 0.42, and elastic neutron scattering data for p = 0.20. A uniform suppression of T{_g} is observed upon increasing p, along with a value of $\chi (T_g)$ that increases as T$_g$ decreases, i.e. $d\chi(T_g)/dT_g< 0$. We also observe C(T) $\propto$ T$^2$ in the low temperature limit. The observed behavior places (Fe$_{1-p}$Ga$_p$)$_2$TiO$_5$ in the category of a strongly geometrically frustrated spin glass., Comment: 4 figures

The transverse momentum $(p_T)$ spectra of charged particles measured in Au + Au collisions from the beam energy scan (BES) program, Cu + Cu collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=62.4$, 200 GeV at the RHIC and Pb + Pb, Xe + Xe collisions at the LHC are investigated in the framework of Tsallis thermodynamics. The theory can describe the experimental data well for all the collision systems, energies and centralities investigated. The collision energy and centrality dependence of the Tsallis distribution parameters, i.e., the temperature $T$ and the nonextensive parameter $q$, for the \mbox{A + A} collisions are also studied and discussed. A novel scaling between the temperature divided by the natural logarithm of collision energy $(T/\ln\sqrt{s})$ and the nonextensive parameter $q$ is presented., Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures

We report the synthesis and characterization of phase pure Ta3Sb, a material predicted to be topological with eightfold degenerate fermionic states [Science 353, aaf5037 (2016)] and to exhibit a large spin Hall effect [Sci. Adv. 5, eaav8575 (2019]. We observe superconductivity in Ta3Sb with Tc~ 0.67 K in both electrical resistivity \r{ho}(T) and specific heat C(T) measurements. Field dependent measurements yield the superconducting phase diagram with an upper critical field of Hc2(0) ~ 0.95 T, corresponding to a superconducting coherence length of {\xi} ~18.6 nm. The gap ratio deduced from specific heat anomaly, 2{\Delta}0/kBTc is 3.46, a value close to the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) value of 3.53. From a detailed analysis of both the transport and thermodynamic data within the Ginsburg-Landau (GL) framework, a GL parameter of \k{appa} ~90 is obtained identifying Ta3Sb as an extreme type-II superconductor. The observation of superconductivity in an eightfold degenerate fermionic compound with topological surface states and predicted large spin Hall conductance positions Ta3Sb as an appealing platform to further explore exotic quantum states in multifold degenerate systems., Comment: 16 Pages, 3 figures

Topological electronic structures are key to the topological classification of quantum materials and play an important role in their physical properties and applications. Recently, SnSe has attracted great research interests due to its superior thermoelectric performance. However, it's topological nature has long been ignored. In this work, by combining synchrotron-based angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and ab-initio calculations, we systematically investigated the topological electronic structure of orthorhombic SnSe. By identifying the continuous gap in the valence bands due to the band inversion and the topological surface states on its (001) surface, we establish SnSe as a strong topological insulator. Furthermore, we studied the evolution of the topological electronic structure and propose the topological phase diagram in SnSe1-xTex. Our work reveals the topological non-trivial nature of SnSe and provides new understandings of its intriguing transport properties., Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Physical Review Materials

The number-of-constituent-quark (NCQ) scaling behavior of the elliptic flow of identified particles produced in A+A collisions is studied quantitatively using an empirical function that fits the experimental $v_2$ data available from the RHIC and LHC. The most common approach for NCQ scaling involves (1) doing a scaling of the experimental $v_2$ data of an identified particle with its NCQ, (2) doing the same to its transverse momentum or energy, then (3) combining all the scaled data and identifying the NCQ behavior by intuitively looking (since the measured experimental data are discrete). We define two variables $(d_1, d_2)$ to describe NCQ scaling quantitatively and simultaneously, and identify the approximate region where the NCQ scaling holds. This approach could be applied to study NCQ or other scaling phenomena in future experiments., Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures

We investigate the transverse momentum ($p_{\rm T}$) spectra of identified hadrons in minimum-bias proton-proton (pp) collisions at a centre-of-mass energy ($\sqrt{s}$) of 0.9, 2.76, 5.02, 7 and 13 TeV in the framework of Tsallis-blast wave (TBW) model. It is found that the model describes well the particle spectra up to 10 GeV/c. The radial flow ($\langle \beta \rangle$) increases with the collision energy. The degrees of non-equilibrium ($q$) and the Tsallis temperature parameter ($T$) show a similar behaviour, but with a much weaker trend. With this dependence of the freeze-out parameters on the collision energy, we evaluate $\langle \beta \rangle$, $T$ and $q$ in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}=$ 8 and 14 TeV and predict the particle spectra at these two energies. Moreover, in order to investigate the multiplicity dependence of the freeze-out parameters, the TBW model is extended to the spectra at different charged-particle multiplicity classes in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}=$ 7 and 13 TeV. It is observed that at both energies the radial flow increases with the multiplicity while the degree of non-equilibrium shows an opposite behaviour, which is similar to that observed in proton-nucleus (pA) and nucleus-nucleus (AA) collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) energies. However, the Tsallis temperature parameter increases with the multiplicity, which is opposite to the trend in pA and AA collisions. At similar multiplicities, the radial flow in pp collisions is stronger than those in pA and AA collisions, indicating that the size of the colliding system has significant effects on the final state particle dynamics. Finally, we apply an additional flow correction to the Tsallis temperature parameter and find that the doppler-corrected temperature parameter almost scales with the multiplicity in a uniform way, despite the difference in the colliding system and collision energy., Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures, 6 tables