Composition Dependence of Glass Forming Propensity in Al−Ni Alloys

Enormous progress has been made over the past decade in developing bulk amorphous alloys with high strength and other mechanical properties while possessing improved glass forming and processing abilities. Particularly important in developing new systems is identifying the compositions most likely to lead to glass formation. We illustrate here for the Al−Ni system how Molecular Dynamics (MD) using a force field derived from first-principles quantum mechanics (QM) can be used to determine the optimum compositions for glass forming ability (GFA). Using the Two-Phase Thermodynamics (2PT) method to extract entropy and free energy directly from MD, we find that the GFA is closely related to (ΔG_(lc))_(Tg), the Gibbs free energy difference between the liquid state and crystal state at the glass transition temperature T_g. We find that the glass phase is preferred at compositions where (ΔG_(lc))_(Tg) is small and where the equilibrium crystal structure is complex. For the AlNi alloys, our calculations suggest that the best glass-forming composition is 87.5% Al and 12.5% Ni. On the basis of the Honeycutt−Andersen type of local structure analysis of alloys in the liquid state, we propose an atomic scale explanation of GFA. Large GFA arises when there is a great difference in the atom bonding preference between different atom species

Charmless B(s)→VVB_{(s)}\to VV Decays in Factorization-Assisted Topological-Amplitude Approach

Within the factorization-assisted topological-amplitude approach, we studied the 33 charmless $B_{(s)} \to VV$ decays, where $V$ stands for a light vector meson. According to the flavor flows, the amplitude of each process can be decomposed into 8 different topologies. In contrast to the conventional flavor diagrammatic approach, we further factorize each topological amplitude into decay constant, form factors and unknown universal parameters. By $\chi^2$ fitting 46 experimental observables, we extracted 10 theoretical parameters with $\chi^2$ per degree of freedom around 2. Using the fitted parameters, we calculated the branching fractions, polarization fractions, CP asymmetries and relative phases between polarization amplitudes of each decay mode. The decay channels dominated by tree diagram have large branching fractions and large longitudinal polarization fraction. The branching fractions and longitudinal polarization fractions of color-suppressed decays become smaller. Current experimental data of large transverse polarization fractions in the penguin dominant decay channels can be explained by only one transverse amplitude of penguin annihilation diagram. Our predictions of those not yet measured channels can be tested in the ongoing LHCb experiment and the Belle-II experiment in future.Comment: 22 pages, 2 figure

E-Characteristic Polynomials of Tensors

In this paper, we show that the coefficients of the E-characteristic polynomial of a tensor are orthonormal invariants of that tensor. When the dimension is 2, some simplified formulas of the E-characteristic polynomial are presented. A re- sultant formula for the constant term of the E-characteristic polynomial is given. We then study the set of tensors with infinitely many eigenpairs and the set of irregular tensors, and prove both the sets have codimension 2 as subvarieties in the projective space of tensors. This makes our perturbation method workable. By using the perturbation method and exploring the difference between E-eigenvalues and eigenpair equivalence classes, we present a simple formula for the coefficient of the leading term of the E-characteristic polynomial, when the dimension is 2

An improved method to determine the Ξc−Ξc′\Xi_c-\Xi_c' mixing

We develop an improved method to explore the $\Xi_c- \Xi_c'$ mixing which arises from the flavor SU(3) and heavy quark symmetry breaking. In this method, the flavor eigenstates under the SU(3) symmetry are at first constructed and the corresponding masses can be nonperturbatively determined. Matrix elements of the mass operators which break the flavor SU(3) symmetry sandwiched by the flavor eigenstates are then calculated. Diagonalizing the corresponding matrix of Hamiltonian gives the mass eigenstates of the full Hamiltonian and determines the mixing. Following the previous lattice QCD calculation of $\Xi_c$ and $\Xi_c'$, and estimating an off-diagonal matrix element, we extract the mixing angle between the $\Xi_c$ and $\Xi_c'$. Preliminary numerical results for the mixing angle confirm the previous observation that such mixing is incapable to explain the large SU(3) symmetry breaking in semileptonic decays of charmed baryons.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure

Experimental Test of Quantum Jarzynski Equality with a Trapped Ion System

The past two decades witnessed important developments in the field of non-equilibrium statistical mechanics. Among these developments, the Jarzynski equality, being a milestone following the landmark work of Clausius and Kelvin, stands out. The Jarzynski equality relates the free energy difference between two equilibrium states and the work done on the system through far from equilibrium processes. While experimental tests of the equality have been performed in classical regime, the verification of the quantum Jarzynski equality has not yet been fully demonstrated due to experimental challenges. Here, we report an experimental test of the quantum Jarzynski equality with a single \Yb ion trapped in a harmonic potential. We perform projective measurements to obtain phonon distributions of the initial thermal state. Following that we apply the laser induced force on the projected energy eigenstate, and find transition probabilities to final energy eigenstates after the work is done. By varying the speed of applying the force from equilibrium to far-from equilibrium regime, we verified the quantum Jarzynski equality in an isolated system.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figures, 1 tabl

Quantum phase transition of the two-dimensional Rydberg atom array in an optical cavity

We study the two-dimensional Rydberg atom array in an optical cavity with help of the meanfield theory and the large-scale quantum Monte Carlo simulations. The strong dipole-dipole interactions between Rydberg atoms can make the system exhibit the crystal structure, and the coupling between two-level atom and cavity photon mode can result in the formation of the polariton. The interplay between them provides a rich quantum phase diagram including the Mott, solid-1/2, superradiant and superradiant solid phases. As the two-order co-existed phase, the superradiant solid phase breaks both translational and U(1) symmetries. Based on both numerical and analytic results, we found the region of superradiant solid is much larger than one dimensional case, so that it can be more easily observed in the experiment. Finally, we discuss how the energy gap of the Rydberg atom can affect the type of the quantum phase transition and the number of triple points