6,442 research outputs found
Statistical Topological Insulators
We define a class of insulators with gapless surface states protected from
localization due to the statistical properties of a disordered ensemble, namely
due to the ensemble's invariance under a certain symmetry. We show that these
insulators are topological, and are protected by a invariant.
Finally, we prove that every topological insulator gives rise to an infinite
number of classes of statistical topological insulators in higher dimensions.
Our conclusions are confirmed by numerical simulations.Comment: 6 pages, 1 table, 5 figures, this is the final, published versio
Influence of diffractive interactions on cosmic ray air showers
A comparative study of commonly used hadronic collision simulation packages
is presented. The characteristics of the products of hadron-nucleus collisions
are analyzed from a general perspective, but focusing on their correlation with
diffractive processes. One of the purposes of our work is to give quantitative
estimations of the impact that different characteristics of the hadronic models
have on air shower observables. Several sets of shower simulations using
different settings for the parameters controlling the diffractive processes are
used to analyze the correlations between diffractivity and shower observables.
We find that the relative probability of diffractive processes during the
shower development have a non negligible influence over the longitudinal
profile as well as the distribution of muons at ground level. The implications
on experimental data analysis are discussed
Impact of Uncertainties in Hadron Production on Air-Shower Predictions
At high energy, cosmic rays can only be studied by measuring the extensive
air showers they produce in the atmosphere of the Earth. Although the main
features of air showers can be understood within a simple model of successive
interactions, detailed simulations and a realistic description of particle
production are needed to calculate observables relevant to air shower
experiments. Currently hadronic interaction models are the main source of
uncertainty of such simulations. We will study the effect of using different
hadronic models available in CORSIKA and CONEX on extensive air shower
predictions.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, to appear in the proceedings of International
Conference on Interconnection between High Energy Physics and Astroparticle
Physics: From Colliders to Cosmic Rays, Prague, Czech Republic, 7-13 Sep 200
The background from single electromagnetic subcascades for a stereo system of air Cherenkov telescopes
The MAGIC experiment, a very large Imaging Air Cherenkov Telescope (IACT)
with sensitivity to low energy (E < 100 GeV) VHE gamma rays, has been operated
since 2004. It has been found that the gamma/hadron separation in IACTs becomes
much more difficult below 100 GeV [Albert et al 2008] A system of two large
telescopes may eventually be triggered by hadronic events containing Cherenkov
light from only one electromagnetic subcascade or two gamma subcascades, which
are products of the single pi^0 decay. This is a possible reason for the
deterioration of the experiment's sensitivity below 100 GeV. In this paper a
system of two MAGIC telescopes working in stereoscopic mode is studied using
Monte Carlo simulations. The detected images have similar shapes to that of
primary gamma-rays and they have small sizes (mainly below 400 photoelectrons
(p.e.)) which correspond to an energy of primary gamma-rays below 100 GeV. The
background from single or two electromagnetic subcascdes is concentrated at
energies below 200 GeV. Finally the number of background events is compared to
the number of VHE gamma-ray excess events from the Crab Nebula. The
investigated background survives simple cuts for sizes below 250 p.e. and thus
the experiment's sensitivity deteriorates at lower energies.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figures, published in Journ.of Phys.
Realization of microwave quantum circuits using hybrid superconducting-semiconducting nanowire Josephson elements
We report the realization of quantum microwave circuits using hybrid
superconductor-semiconductor Josephson elements comprised of InAs nanowires
contacted by NbTiN. Capacitively-shunted single elements behave as transmon
qubits with electrically tunable transition frequencies. Two-element circuits
also exhibit transmon-like behavior near zero applied flux, but behave as flux
qubits at half the flux quantum, where non-sinusoidal current-phase relations
in the elements produce a double-well Josephson potential. These hybrid
Josephson elements are promising for applications requiring microwave
superconducting circuits operating in magnetic field.Comment: Main text: 4 pages, 4 figures; Supplement: 10 pages, 8 figures, 1
tabl
Inertial electrostatic confinement as a power source for electric propulsion
The potential use of an INERTIAL ELECTROSTATIC CONFINEMENT (IEC) power source for space propulsion has previously been suggested by the authors and others. In the past, these discussions have generally followed the charged-particle electric-discharge engine (QED) concept proposed by Bussard, in which the IEC is used to generate an electron beam which vaporizes liquid hydrogen for use as a propellant. However, an alternate approach is considered, using the IEC to drive a 'conventional' electric thruster unit. This has the advantage of building on the rapidly developing technology for such thrusters, which operate at higher specific impulse. Key issues related to this approach include the continued successful development of the physics and engineering of the IEC unit, as well as the development of efficient step-down dc voltage transformers. The IEC operates by radial injection of energetic ions into a spherical vessel. A very high ion density is created in a small core region at the center of the vessel, resulting in extremely high fusion power density in the core. Experiments at the U. of Illinois in small IEC devices (is less than 60 cm. dia.) demonstrated much of the basic physics underlying this concept, e.g. producing 10(exp 6) D-D neutrons/sec steady-state with deuterium gas flow injection. The ultimate goal is to increase the power densities by several orders of magnitude and to convert to D-He-3 injection. If successful, such an experiment would represent a milestone proof-of-principle device for eventual space power use. Further discussion of IEC physics and status are presented with a description of the overall propulsion system and estimated performance
Charm Production in DPMJET
In this work, charm production in the {\sc dpmjet} hadronic jet simulation is
compared to experimental data. Since the major application of {\sc dpmjet} is
the simulation of cosmic ray-induced air showers, the version of the code
integrated in the CORSIKA simulation package has been used for the comparison.
Wherever necessary, adjustments have been made to improve agreement between
simulation and data. With the availability of new muon/neutrino detectors that
combine a large fiducial volume with large amounts of shielding, investigation
of prompt muons and neutrinos from cosmic ray interactions will be feasible for
the first time. Furthermore, above TeV charmed particle decay
becomes the dominant background for diffuse extraterrestrial neutrino flux
searches. A reliable method to simulate charm production in high-energy
proton-nucleon interactions is therefore required.Comment: 10 pages, to be published in JCA
Heliophysics Event Knowledgebase for the Solar Dynamics Observatory and Beyond
The immense volume of data generated by the suite of instruments on SDO
requires new tools for efficient identifying and accessing data that is most
relevant to research investigations. We have developed the Heliophysics Events
Knowledgebase (HEK) to fill this need. The HEK system combines automated data
mining using feature-detection methods and high-performance visualization
systems for data markup. In addition, web services and clients are provided for
searching the resulting metadata, reviewing results, and efficiently accessing
the data. We review these components and present examples of their use with SDO
data.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figure
Coulomb stability of the 4\pi-periodic Josephson effect of Majorana fermions
The Josephson energy of two superconducting islands containing Majorana
fermions is a 4\pi-periodic function of the superconducting phase difference.
If the islands have a small capacitance, their ground state energy is governed
by the competition of Josephson and charging energies. We calculate this ground
state energy in a ring geometry, as a function of the flux -\Phi- enclosed by
the ring, and show that the dependence on the Aharonov-Bohm phase 2e\Phi/\hbar
remains 4\pi-periodic regardless of the ratio of charging and Josephson
energies - provided that the entire ring is in a topologically nontrivial
state. If part of the ring is topologically trivial, then the charging energy
induces quantum phase slips that restore the usual 2\pi-periodicity.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures; v2: more references, improved phase-slip formula,
and a discussion of the effect of overlapping Majorana'
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