QCD sum rule Study of the d∗(2380)d^*(2380)

We systematically construct $I(J^P)=0(3^+)$ six-quark local interpolating currents without derivative operators. We discuss the best choice of operator, and select three $\Delta$-$\Delta$ like operators to perform QCD sum rule analyses to calculate the mass of the $d^*(2380)$. The mass extracted from this analysis is $M_{d^*} = 2.4\pm0.2$ GeV, consistent with the $d^*(2380)$ mass observed by the WASA detector at COSY. We also obtain a sum-rule lower mass bound $M_{d^*} > 2.25$ GeV. We also consider the effect of mixing of singlet dibaryon fields with the same quantum numbers, and perform the QCD sum rule analysis of the mixed interpolating current and extract the mass of the $d^*(2380)$ and its lower mass bound. With optimized mixing parameters, we find that the mixed current does not change the numerical result significantly.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure

Extreme ultraviolet mask surface cleaning effects on lithography process performance

Extreme UV (EUV) masks are expected to undergo cleaning processes in order to maintain the lifetimes necessary for high volume manufacturing. For this study, the impact of repetitive cleaning of EUV masks on imaging performance is evaluated. Two high quality industry standard EUV masks are used, with one of the masks undergoing repeated cleaning and the other one kept as a reference. Lithographic performance, in terms of process window analysis and line edge roughness, was monitored after every two cleans and was compared to the reference mask performance. Surface analysis by atomic force microscopy did not show changes in the midspatial frequency roughness measured after each clean. After a total of eight cleans, minimal degradation is observed in the lithographic performance of the mask. From these observations, the authors conclude that the cleaning cycles completed thus far did not damage the mask multilayer or the absorber structures. The cleaning cycles will be continued until significant loss in imaging fidelity is found. © 2010 American Vacuum Society

a1(1420)a_1(1420) resonance as a tetraquark state and its isospin partner

We systematically construct tetraquark currents of $I^GJ^{PC}=1^-1^{++}$ and classify them into types $\mathbf{A}$ (antisymmetric), $\mathbf{S}$ (symmetric) and $\mathbf{M}$ (mixed), based on flavor symmetries of diquarks and antidiquarks composing the tetra quark currents. We use tetraquark currents of type $\mathbf{M}$ to perform QCD sum rule analyses, and find a tetraquark current $\eta^M_{5\mu}$ with quark contents $q s\bar q \bar s$($q=u$ or $d$) leading to a mass of $1.44 \pm 0.08$ GeV consistent with the $a_1(1420)$ state recently observed by the COMPASS collaboration. Our results support tetraquark explanations for both $a_1(1420)$ and $f_1(1420)$, assuming that they are isospin partners. We also study their possible decay patterns. As tetraquark candidates, the possible decay modes of $a_1(1420)$ are $S$-wave $a_1(1420) \rightarrow K^*(892)K$ and $P$-wave $a_1(1420)\rightarrow f_0(980) \pi$ while the possible decay patterns of $f_1(1420)$ are $S$-wave $f_1(1420) \rightarrow K^*(892)K$ and $P$-wave $f_1(1420) \rightarrow a_0(980) \pi$. We speculate that $a_1(1420)$ is partly responsible for the large isospin violation in the $\eta(1405)\to f_0(980)\pi_0$ decay mode which is reported by BESIII collaboration in the $J/\psi\to\gamma 3\pi$ process.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figures. Accepted by Phys. Rev.

Population synthesis of accreting white dwarfs: II. X-ray and UV emission

Accreting white dwarfs (WDs) with non-degenerate companions are expected to emit in soft X-rays and the UV, if accreted H-rich material burns stably. They are an important component of the unresolved emission of elliptical galaxies, and their combined ionizing luminosity may significantly influence the optical line emission from warm ISM. In an earlier paper we modeled populations of accreting WDs, first generating WD with main-sequence, Hertzsprung gap and red giant companions with the population synthesis code \textsc{BSE}, and then following their evolution with a grid of evolutionary tracks computed with \textsc{MESA}. Now we use these results to estimate the soft X-ray (0.3-0.7keV), H- and He II-ionizing luminosities of nuclear burning WDs and the number of super-soft X-ray sources for galaxies with different star formation histories. For the starburst case, these quantities peak at $\sim 1$ Gyr and decline by $\sim 1-3$ orders of magnitude by the age of 10 Gyr. For stellar ages of $\sim$~10 Gyr, predictions of our model are consistent with soft X-ray luminosities observed by Chandra in nearby elliptical galaxies and He II 4686$\AA/\rm{H}{\beta}$ line ratio measured in stacked SDSS spectra of retired galaxies, the latter characterising the strength and hardness of the UV radiation field. However, the soft X-ray luminosity and He~II~4686$\AA/\rm{H}{\beta}$ ratio are significantly overpredicted for stellar ages of $\lesssim 4-8$ Gyr. We discuss various possibilities to resolve this discrepancy and tentatively conclude that it may be resolved by a modification of the typically used criteria of dynamically unstable mass loss for giant stars.Comment: 13 pages, 12 figures, MNRAS accepte

Latent Class Model with Application to Speaker Diarization

In this paper, we apply a latent class model (LCM) to the task of speaker diarization. LCM is similar to Patrick Kenny's variational Bayes (VB) method in that it uses soft information and avoids premature hard decisions in its iterations. In contrast to the VB method, which is based on a generative model, LCM provides a framework allowing both generative and discriminative models. The discriminative property is realized through the use of i-vector (Ivec), probabilistic linear discriminative analysis (PLDA), and a support vector machine (SVM) in this work. Systems denoted as LCM-Ivec-PLDA, LCM-Ivec-SVM, and LCM-Ivec-Hybrid are introduced. In addition, three further improvements are applied to enhance its performance. 1) Adding neighbor windows to extract more speaker information for each short segment. 2) Using a hidden Markov model to avoid frequent speaker change points. 3) Using an agglomerative hierarchical cluster to do initialization and present hard and soft priors, in order to overcome the problem of initial sensitivity. Experiments on the National Institute of Standards and Technology Rich Transcription 2009 speaker diarization database, under the condition of a single distant microphone, show that the diarization error rate (DER) of the proposed methods has substantial relative improvements compared with mainstream systems. Compared to the VB method, the relative improvements of LCM-Ivec-PLDA, LCM-Ivec-SVM, and LCM-Ivec-Hybrid systems are 23.5%, 27.1%, and 43.0%, respectively. Experiments on our collected database, CALLHOME97, CALLHOME00 and SRE08 short2-summed trial conditions also show that the proposed LCM-Ivec-Hybrid system has the best overall performance

Next generation population synthesis of accreting white dwarfs: I. Hybrid calculations using BSE + MESA

Accreting, nuclear-burning white dwarfs have been deemed to be candidate progenitors of type Ia supernovae, and to account for supersoft X-ray sources, novae, etc. depending on their accretion rates. We have carried out a binary population synthesis study of their populations using two algorithms. In the first, we use the binary population synthesis code \textsf{BSE} as a baseline for the "rapid" approach commonly used in such studies. In the second, we employ a "hybrid" approach, in which we use \textsf{BSE} to generate a population of white dwarfs (WD) with non-degenerate companions on the verge of filling their Roche lobes. We then follow their mass transfer phase using the detailed stellar evolution code \textsf{MESA}. We investigate the evolution of the number of rapidly accreting white dwarfs (RAWDs) and stably nuclear-burning white dwarfs (SNBWDs), and estimate the type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) rate produced by "single-degenerate" systems (SD). We find significant differences between the two algorithms in the predicted numbers of SNBWDs at early times, and also in the delay time distribution (DTD) of SD SNe Ia. Such differences in the treatment of mass transfer may partially account for differences in the SNe Ia rate and DTD found by different groups. Adopting 100\% efficiency for helium burning, the rate of SNe Ia produced by the SD-channel in a Milky-way-like galaxy in our calculations is $2.0\times10^{-4}\rm{yr}^{-1}$, more than an order of magnitude below the observationally inferred value. In agreement with previous studies, our calculated SD DTD is inconsistent with observations.Comment: 13 pages,11 figures, accepted by MNRA