Low Frequency Quantum Transport in a Three-probe Mesoscopic Conductor

The low frequency quantum transport properties of a three-probe mesoscopic conductor are studied using B\"uttiker's AC transport formalism. The static transmission coefficients and emittance matrix of the system were computed by explicitly evaluating the various partial density of states (PDOS). We have investigated the finite size effect of the scattering volume on the global PDOS. By increasing the scattering volume we observed a gradual improvement in the agreement of the total DOS as computed externally or locally. Our numerical data permits a particular fitting form of the finite size effect.Comment: 13 pages, LaTeX, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Revisiting f(R) gravity models that reproduce Λ\LambdaCDM expansion

We reconstruct an $f(R)$ gravity model that gives rise to the particular $\Lambda$CDM background evolution of the universe. We find well-defined, real-valued analytical forms for the $f(R)$ model to describe the universe both in the early epoch from the radiation to matter dominated eras and the late time acceleration period. We further examine the viability of the derived $f(R)$ model and find that it is viable to describe the evolution of the universe in the past and there does not exist the future singularity in the Lagrangian.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, revised version, accepted for publication in PR

Weakly nonlinear quantum transport: an exactly solvable model

We have studied the weakly non-linear quantum transport properties of a two-dimensional quantum wire which can be solved exactly. The non-linear transport coefficients have been calculated and interesting physical properties revealed. In particular we found that as the incoming electron energy approaches a resonant point given by energy $E=E_r$, where the transport is characterized by a complete reflection, the second order non-linear conductance changes its sign. This has interesting implications to the current-voltage characteristics. We have also investigated the establishment of the gauge invariance condition. We found that for systems with a finite scattering region, correction terms to the theoretical formalism are needed to preserve the gauge invariance. These corrections were derived analytically for this model.Comment: 15 pages, LaTeX, submitted to Phys. Rev.

High Thermoelectric Figure of Merit by Resonant Dopant in Half-Heusler Alloys

Half-Heusler alloys have been one of the benchmark high temperature thermoelectric materials owing to their thermal stability and promising figure of merit ZT. Simonson et al. early showed that small amounts of vanadium doped in Hf0.75Zr0.25NiSn enhanced the Seebeck coefficient and correlated the change with the increased density of states near the Fermi level. We herein report a systematic study on the role of vanadium (V), niobium (Nb), and tantalum (Ta) as prospective resonant dopants in enhancing the ZT of n-type half-Heusler alloys based on Hf0.6Zr0.4NiSn0.995Sb0.005. The V doping was found to increase the Seebeck coefficient in the temperature range 300-1000 K, consistent with a resonant doping scheme. In contrast, Nb and Ta act as normal n-type dopants, as evident by the systematic decrease in electrical resistivity and Seebeck coefficient. The combination of enhanced Seebeck coefficient due to the presence of V resonant states and the reduced thermal conductivity has led to a state-of-the-art ZT of 1.3 near 850 K in n-type (Hf0.6Zr0.4)0.99V0.01NiSn0.995Sb0.005 alloys.Comment: Submitted to AIP Advance

Scales of Mass Generation for Quarks, Leptons and Majorana Neutrinos

We study 2 --> n inelastic fermion-(anti)fermion scattering into multiple longitudinal weak gauge bosons and derive universal upper bounds on the scales of fermion mass generation by imposing unitarity of the S-matrix. We place new upper limits on the scales of fermion mass generation, independent of the electroweak symmetry breaking scale. We find that the strongest 2 --> n limits fall in a narrow range, 3-170 TeV (with n=2-24), depending on the observed fermion masses.Comment: Phys. Rev. Lett.(in press), minor rewordin

Spin resolved Hall effect driven by spin-orbit coupling

Spin and electric Hall currents are calculated numerically in a two-dimensional mesoscopic system with Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling by means of the Landauer-Buttiker formalism. It is found that both electric and spin Hall currents circulate when two spin-orbit couplings coexist, while the electric Hall conductance vanishes if either one is absent. The electric and spin Hall conductances are suppressed in strong disorder, but survive in weak disorder. Physically it can be understood that the spinomotive transverse "force" generated by spin-orbit coupling is responsible for the formation of the spin Hall current and the lack of transverse reflection symmetry is the origin of the electric Hall current.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Entanglement and quantum phase transitions

We examine several well known quantum spin models and categorize behavior of pairwise entanglement at quantum phase transitions. A unified picture on the connection between the entanglement and quantum phase transition is given.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Optical Nondestructive Controlled-NOT Gate without Using Entangled Photons

We present and experimentally demonstrate a novel optical nondestructive controlled-NOT gate without using entangled ancilla. With much fewer measurements compared with quantum process tomography, we get a good estimation of the gate fidelity. The result shows a great improvement compared with previous experiments. Moreover, we also show that quantum parallelism is achieved in our gate and the performance of the gate can not be reproduced by local operations and classical communications.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, Slight changes have been made, Journal-ref adde