Sign Changes of Intrinsic Spin Hall Effect in Semiconductors and Simple Metals: First-Principles Calculations

First-principles calculations are applied to study spin Hall effect in semiconductors and simple metals. We found that intrinsic spin Hall conductivity (ISHC) in realistic materials shows rich sign changes, which may be used to distinguish the effect from the extrinsic one. The calculated ISHC in n-doped GaAs can be well compared with experiment, and it differs from the sign obtained from the extrinsic effect. On the other hand, the ISHC in W and Au, which shows opposite sign respectively, is robust and not sensitive to the disorder.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

A Monitoring System Based on Behavior Analysis

[[abstract]]This paper presents a vision-based infant-monitoring system that adopts an infant behavior analysis approach to reduce infant injuries. In our study, the video camera is set above the crib to capture infant sequences. The system first preprocesses the input sequence to filter out the noise and reduce the effects of lights and shadows. Then, the infant’s head and limbs are detected from the input frames and compared with pre-defined posture maps to select the most similar map. A posture map describes the current infant posture; the selected posture map can be regarded as a node to be linked by the occurrence order to construct a dynamic behavior graph that describes infant behaviour captured over time. If an input posture map does not exist in the dynamic behavior graph, this means that an unexpected situation has occurred and the system would then alert the baby sitter to attend to the infant immediately. A weighted dynamic behavior graph adjustment algorithm is used to accomplish the behavior analysis. Since infants grow very quickly and their growth processes may differ, the dynamic behavior graph should be continuously updated to fit the current behavior of infants. The experimental results show that the proposed method is able to perform robustly in real-time.

Impulsive cylindrical gravitational wave: one possible radiative form emitted from cosmic strings and corresponding electromagnetic response

The cosmic strings(CSs) may be one important source of gravitational waves(GWs), and it has been intensively studied due to its special properties such as the cylindrical symmetry. The CSs would generate not only usual continuous GW, but also impulsive GW that brings more concentrated energy and consists of different GW components broadly covering low-, intermediate- and high-frequency bands simultaneously. These features might underlie interesting electromagnetic(EM) response to these GWs generated by the CSs. In this paper, with novel results and effects, we firstly calculate the analytical solutions of perturbed EM fields caused by interaction between impulsive cylindrical GWs (would be one of possible forms emitted from CSs) and background celestial high magnetic fields or widespread cosmological background magnetic fields, by using rigorous Einstein - Rosen metric. Results show: perturbed EM fields are also in the impulsive form accordant to the GW pulse, and asymptotic behaviors of the perturbed EM fields are fully consistent with the asymptotic behaviors of the energy density, energy flux density and Riemann curvature tensor of corresponding impulsive cylindrical GWs. The analytical solutions naturally give rise to the accumulation effect which is proportional to the term of distance^1/2, and based on it, we for the first time predict potentially observable effects in region of the Earth caused by the EM response to GWs from the CSs.Comment: 34 pages, 12 figure

Determination of f+K(0)f_+^K(0) and Extraction of ∣Vcs∣|V_{cs}| from Semileptonic DD Decays

By globally analyzing all existing measured branching fractions and partial rates in different four momentum transfer-squared $q^2$ bins of $D\to Ke^+\nu_e$ decays, we obtain the product of the form factor and magnitude of CKM matrix element $V_{cs}$ to be $f_+^K(0)|V_{cs}|=0.717\pm0.004$. With this product, we determine the $D\to K$ semileptonic form factor $f_+^K(0)=0.737\pm0.004\pm0.000$ in conjunction with the value of $|V_{cs}|$ determined from the SM global fit. Alternately, with the product together with the input of the form factor $f_+^K(0)$ calculated in lattice QCD recently, we extract $|V_{cs}|^{D\to Ke^+\nu_e}=0.962\pm0.005\pm0.014$, where the error is still dominated by the uncertainty of the form factor calculated in lattice QCD. Combining the $|V_{cs}|^{D_s^+\to\ell^+\nu_\ell}=1.012\pm0.015\pm0.009$ extracted from all existing measurements of $D^+_s\to\ell^+\nu_\ell$ decays and $|V_{cs}|^{D\to Ke^+\nu_e}=0.962\pm0.005\pm0.014$ together, we find the most precisely determined $|V_{cs}|$ to be $|V_{cs}|=0.983\pm0.011$, which improves the accuracy of the PDG'2014 value $|V_{cs}|^{\rm PDG'2014}=0.986\pm0.016$ by $45\%$

Abundance of moderate-redshift clusters in the Cold + Hot dark matter model

Using a set of \pppm simulation which accurately treats the density evolution of two components of dark matter, we study the evolution of clusters in the Cold + Hot dark matter (CHDM) model. The mass function, the velocity dispersion function and the temperature function of clusters are calculated for four different epochs of $z\le 0.5$. We also use the simulation data to test the Press-Schechter expression of the halo abundance as a function of the velocity dispersion $\sigma_v$. The model predictions are in good agreement with the observational data of local cluster abundances ($z=0$). We also tentatively compare the model with the Gunn and his collaborators' observation of rich clusters at $z\approx 0.8$ and with the x-ray luminous clusters at $z\approx 0.5$ of the {\it Einstein} Extended Medium Sensitivity Survey. The important feature of the model is the rapid formation of clusters in the near past: the abundances of clusters of \sigma_v\ge 700\kms and of \sigma_v\ge 1200 \kms at $z=0.5$ are only 1/4 and 1/10 respectively of the present values ($z=0$). Ongoing ROSAT and AXAF surveys of distant clusters will provide sensitive tests to the model. The abundance of clusters at $z\approx 0.5$ would also be a good discriminator between the CHDM model and a low-density flat CDM model both of which show very similar clustering properties at $z=0$.Comment: 21 pages + 6 figures (uuencoded version of the PS files), Steward Preprints No. 118

Video Saliency Detection by 3D Convolutional Neural Networks

Different from salient object detection methods for still images, a key challenging for video saliency detection is how to extract and combine spatial and temporal features. In this paper, we present a novel and effective approach for salient object detection for video sequences based on 3D convolutional neural networks. First, we design a 3D convolutional network (Conv3DNet) with the input as three video frame to learn the spatiotemporal features for video sequences. Then, we design a 3D deconvolutional network (Deconv3DNet) to combine the spatiotemporal features to predict the final saliency map for video sequences. Experimental results show that the proposed saliency detection model performs better in video saliency prediction compared with the state-of-the-art video saliency detection methods

Understanding the white-light flare on 2012 March 9 : Evidence of a two-step magnetic reconnection

We attempt to understand the white-light flare (WLF) that was observed on 2012 March 9 with a newly constructed multi-wavelength solar telescope called the Optical and Near-infrared Solar Eruption Tracer (ONSET). We analyzed WLF observations in radio, H-alpha, white-light, ultraviolet, and X-ray bands. We also studied the magnetic configuration of the flare via the nonlinear force-free field (NLFFF) extrapolation and the vector magnetic field observed by the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) on board the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). Continuum emission enhancement clearly appeared at the 3600 angstrom and 4250 angstrom bands, with peak contrasts of 25% and 12%, respectively. The continuum emission enhancement closely coincided with the impulsive increase in the hard X-ray emission and a microwave type III burst at 03:40 UT. We find that the WLF appeared at one end of either the sheared or twisted field lines or both. There was also a long-lasting phase in the H-alpha and soft X-ray bands after the white-light emission peak. In particular, a second, yet stronger, peak appeared at 03:56 UT in the microwave band. This event shows clear evidence that the white-light emission was caused by energetic particles bombarding the lower solar atmosphere. A two-step magnetic reconnection scenario is proposed to explain the entire process of flare evolution, i.e., the first-step magnetic reconnection between the field lines that are highly sheared or twisted or both, and the second-step one in the current sheet, which is stretched by the erupting flux rope. The WLF is supposed to be triggered in the first-step magnetic reconnection at a relatively low altitude.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, published in A&A Lette