Anisotropic flow at RHIC

We present the first measurement of directed flow ($v_1$) at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). $v_1$ is found to be consistent with zero at pseudorapidities $\eta$ from -1.2 to 1.2, then rises to the level of a couple of percent over the range $2.4 < |\eta| < 4$. The latter observation is similar to that from NA49 if the SPS rapidities are shifted by the difference in beam rapidity between RHIC and SPS. We studied the evolution of elliptic flow from p+p collisions through d+Au collision, and onto Au+Au collisions. Measurements of higher harmonics are presented and discussed.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures. Proceeding for the 20th Winter Workshop on Nuclear Dynamics, Jamaic

And you know why: compulsory jailing and racism

Much has been made over the last few months over the mandatory sentencing regime in the Northern Territory and Western Australia. However, the words ‘mandatory sentencing’ obscure what has been perpetrated by the governments of those two jurisdictions. ‘Mandatory sentencing’ is meaningless really: all judges and magistrates sentence those who are found guilty even if, in their judgement, circumstances are such that a conviction might not be recorded. It is a judgement and a discretionary decision on sentence nevertheless. What we are really talking about is not ‘mandatory sentencing’ but ‘compulsory jailing’. We are talking about a legal regime under which, across a large range of property crimes, judges and magistrates have absolutely no choice. They have been left with no discretion; they have been left without powers to take into account any single aspect of the circumstances surrounding the crime such as the mental state of the defendant, or the triviality of the offence. For juveniles, which in the Northern Territory is defined as 15—17 year olds, means compulsory jailing on a second offence of 28 days. Subsequent offences also attract a 28 day compulsory jailing. There is an empty legislative attempt at diversionary schemes. For adults, this means compulsory jailing on a first offence of 14 days; on a second offence of 3 months and a year in jail on a third offence. No second chances. No diversionary schemes

Theory of stripes in quasi two dimensional rare-earth tritellurides

Even though the rare-earth tritellurides are tetragonal materials with a quasi two dimensional (2D) band structure, they have a "hidden" 1D character. The resultant near-perfect nesting of the Fermi surface leads to the formation of a charge density wave (CDW) state. We show that for this band structure, there are two possible ordered phases: A bidirectional "checkerboard" state would occur if the CDW transition temperature were sufficiently low, whereas a unidirectional "striped" state, consistent with what is observed in experiment, is favored when the transition temperature is higher. This result may also give some insight into why, in more strongly correlated systems, such as the cuprates and nickelates, the observed charge ordered states are generally stripes as opposed to checkerboards.Comment: Added contents and references, changed title and figures. Accepted to PR

Dynamical layer decoupling in a stripe-ordered, high T_c superconductor

In the stripe-ordered state of a strongly-correlated two-dimensional electronic system, under a set of special circumstances, the superconducting condensate, like the magnetic order, can occur at a non-zero wave-vector corresponding to a spatial period double that of the charge order. In this case, the Josephson coupling between near neighbor planes, especially in a crystal with the special structure of La_{2-x}Ba_xCuO_4, vanishes identically. We propose that this is the underlying cause of the dynamical decoupling of the layers recently observed in transport measurements at x=1/8.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures (one with 3 subfigures); ; new edited version; one new reference (Ref.25); to be published in Physical Review Letters (in press

New Challenges to Hydrodynamics from Azimuthal Anisotropy at RHIC

This paper presents $v_{4}/v_{2}^2$ ratio as a function of transverse momentum ($p_{t}$), pseudorapidity ($\eta$) and collision centrality in Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 200$ GeV using the STAR detector at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). It is found that $v_{4}/v_{2}^2$ is larger than Hydrodynamic calculations, the centrality and transverse dependence of this ratio can not be fully described by Hydrodynamics, and the pseudorapidity dependence is opposite to what one expects from Hydrodynamics. The $p_{t}$ dependence of $v_{1}$ is also presented. It is found that $v_{1}(p_{t})$ for $|\eta|<1.3$ changes sign, and two possible explanations of the sign change are discussed.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures. CIPANP 06 proceedin

Robust artificial neural networks and outlier detection. Technical report

Large outliers break down linear and nonlinear regression models. Robust regression methods allow one to filter out the outliers when building a model. By replacing the traditional least squares criterion with the least trimmed squares criterion, in which half of data is treated as potential outliers, one can fit accurate regression models to strongly contaminated data. High-breakdown methods have become very well established in linear regression, but have started being applied for non-linear regression only recently. In this work, we examine the problem of fitting artificial neural networks to contaminated data using least trimmed squares criterion. We introduce a penalized least trimmed squares criterion which prevents unnecessary removal of valid data. Training of ANNs leads to a challenging non-smooth global optimization problem. We compare the efficiency of several derivative-free optimization methods in solving it, and show that our approach identifies the outliers correctly when ANNs are used for nonlinear regression

Theory of the nodal nematic quantum phase transition in superconductors

We study the character of an Ising nematic quantum phase transition (QPT) deep inside a d-wave superconducting state with nodal quasiparticles in a two-dimensional tetragonal crystal. We find that, within a 1/N expansion, the transition is continuous. To leading order in 1/N, quantum fluctuations enhance the dispersion anisotropy of the nodal excitations, and cause strong scattering which critically broadens the quasiparticle (qp) peaks in the spectral function, except in a narrow wedge in momentum space near the Fermi surface where the qp's remain sharp. We also consider the possible existence of a nematic glass phase in the presence of weak disorder. Some possible implications for cuprate physics are also discussed.Comment: 9 page, 4 figures, an error in one of expressions corrected and a new author was added. New references and footnotes are added and this is the version to appear in PR

Optical band gap of cross-linked, curved, and radical polyaromatic hydrocarbons.

In this work, the optical band gaps of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) crosslinked via an aliphatic bond, curved via pentagon integration and with radical character were computed using density functional theory. A variety of different functionals were benchmarked against optical band gaps (OBGs) measured by ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy with HSE06 being most accurate with a percentage error of 6% for a moderate basis set. Pericondensed aromatics with different symmetries were calculated with this improved functional providing new scaling relationships for the OBG versus size. Further calculations showed crosslinks cause a small decrease in the OBG of the monomers which saturates after 3-4 crosslinks. Curvature in PAHs was shown to increase the optical band gap due to the resulting change in hybridisation of the system, but this increase saturated at larger sizes. The increase in OBG between a flat PAH and a strained curved one was shown to be equivalent to a difference of several rings in size for pericondensed aromatic systems. The effect of σ-radicals on the optical band gap was also shown to be negligible, however, π-radicals were found to decrease the band gap by ∼0.5 eV. These findings have applications in understanding the molecular species involved in soot formation