Zeeman-Induced Gapless Superconductivity with Partial Fermi Surface

We show that an in-plane magnetic field can drive two-dimensional spin-orbit-coupled systems under superconducting proximity effect into a gapless phase where parts of the normal state Fermi surface are gapped, and the ungapped parts are reconstructed into a small Fermi surface of Bogoliubov quasiparticles at zero energy. Charge distribution, spin texture, and density of states of such "partial Fermi surface" are discussed. Material platforms for its physical realization are proposed.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure

Microwave-induced resistance oscillations in a back-gated GaAs quantum well

We performed effective mass measurements employing microwave-induced resistance oscillation in a tunable-density GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well. Our main result is a clear observation of an effective mass increase with decreasing density, in general agreement with earlier studies which investigated the density dependence of the effective mass employing Shubnikov- de Haas oscillations. This finding provides further evidence that microwave-induced resistance oscillations are sensitive to electron-electron interactions and offer a convenient and accurate way to obtain the effective mass.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Lattice QCD calculation of ππ\pi\pi scattering length

We study s-wave pion-pion ($\pi\pi$) scattering length in lattice QCD for pion masses ranging from 330 MeV to 466 MeV. In the "Asqtad" improved staggered fermion formulation, we calculate the $\pi\pi$ four-point functions for isospin I=0 and 2 channels, and use chiral perturbation theory at next-to-leading order to extrapolate our simulation results. Extrapolating to the physical pion mass gives the scattering lengths as $m_\pi a_0^{I=2} = -0.0416(2)$ and $m_\pi a_0^{I=0} = 0.186(2)$ for isospin I=2 and 0 channels, respectively. Our lattice simulation for $\pi\pi$ scattering length in the I=0 channel is an exploratory study, where we include the disconnected contribution, and our preliminary result is near to its experimental value. These simulations are performed with MILC 2+1 flavor gauge configurations at lattice spacing $a \approx 0.15$ fm.Comment: Remove some typo

Unconventional Superconductivity and Density Waves in Twisted Bilayer Graphene

We study electronic ordering instabilities of twisted bilayer graphene with $n=2$ electrons per supercell, where correlated insulator state and superconductivity are recently observed. Motivated by the Fermi surface nesting and the proximity to Van Hove singularity, we introduce a hot-spot model to study the effect of various electron interactions systematically. Using renormalization group method, we find $d$/$p$-wave superconductivity and charge/spin density wave emerge as the two types of leading instabilities driven by Coulomb repulsion. The density wave state has a gapped energy spectrum at $n=2$ and yields a single doubly-degenerate pocket upon doping to $n>2$. The intertwinement of density wave and superconductivity and the quasiparticle spectrum in the density wave state are consistent with experimental observations.Comment: 15 pages, 12 figures; updated discussion and analysis on density wave state

Collective quantum phase slips in multiple nanowire junctions

Realization of robust coherent quantum phase slips represents a significant experimental challenge. Here we propose a new design consisting of multiple nanowire junctions to realize a phase-slip flux qubit. It admits good tunability provided by gate voltages applied on superconducting islands separating nanowire junctions. In addition, the gates and junctions can be identical or distinct to each other leading to symmetric and asymmetric setups. We find that the asymmetry can improve the performance of the proposed device, compared with the symmetric case. In particular, it can enhance the effective rate of collective quantum phase slips. Furthermore, we demonstrate how to couple two such devices via a mutual inductance. This is potentially useful for quantum gate operations. Our investigation on how symmetry in multiple nanowire junctions affects the device performance should be useful for the application of phase-slip flux qubits in quantum information processing and quantum metrology.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figure

Two-component model for the chemical evolution of the Galactic disk

In the present paper, we introduce a two-component model of the Galactic disk to investigate its chemical evolution. The formation of the thick and thin disks occur in two main accretion episodes with both infall rates to be Gaussian. Both the pre-thin and post-thin scenarios for the formation of the Galactic disk are considered. The best-fitting is obtained through $\chi^2$-test between the models and the new observed metallicity distribution function of G dwarfs in the solar neighbourhood (Hou et al 1998). Our results show that post-thin disk scenario for the formation of the Galactic disk should be preferred. Still, other comparison between model predictions and observations are given.Comment: 23 pages, 7 figure

AN INTELLIGENT PERSONAL NAVIGATOR INTEGRATING GNSS, RFID AND INS FOR CONTINUOUS POSITION DETERMINATION

Most of the developed pedestrian navigators rely on the use of satellite positioning (GNSS), sometimes also in combination with other sensors and positioning methods. In the project “Ubiquitous Cartography for Pedestrian Navigation” (UCPNAVI) we have integrated active Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) in combination with GNSS and Inertial Navigation Systems (INS) for continuous positioning. RFID can be employed in areas where no satellite positioning is possible due to obstructions, e.g. in urban canyons and indoor environments. In RFID positioning the location estimation  is based on Received Signal Strength Indication (RSSI) which is a measurement of the power present in a received radio signal. The receiver can compute its position using various methods based on RSSI. In total, three different methods have been developed and investigated, i.e., cell-based positioning, trilateration and RFID  location fingerprinting. These methods can be employed depending on the density of the RFID tags in the surrounding environment providing different levels of positioning accuracies. By integrating the three methods for positioning into an intelligent software package and developing a knowledge-based system it is possible  to determine the pedestrian position automatically and ubiquitously. The concept of the intelligent software package is presented and described in the paper. For improvement of the positioning accuracy of cell-based positioning a modification has been developed, the so-called time-ased Cell of Origin (CoO) positioning method. This method uses also the measured RSSI above a certain threshold which is measured only if the user is located very close to the RFID tag. The  test results showed  that the accuracy of positioning using time-based CoO is in the range of 1.30 m. For continuous positioning of the pedestrian user, a low-cost INS is employed in addition. Since the INS components produce small measurement errors that accumulate over time and cause drift errors, the positions determined by RFID would be needed regularly for update. For the combined positioning of  RFID and INS a time-varying Kalman filter is employed. The approach is tested in indoor environment in an office building of our university. For the combined positioning, an accuracy of around 1.00 m for continuous position determination is achieved. The new approach and the test results are also described in this paper.