Quantum Dynamical Phase Transition in a Spin-Orbit Coupled Bose Condensate

Spin-orbit coupled bosons can exhibit rich equilibrium phases at low temperature and in the presence of particle-particle interactions. In the case with a 1D synthetic spin-orbit interaction, it has been observed that the ground state of a Bose gas can be a normal phase, stripe phase, or magnetized phase in different experimentally controllable parameter regimes. The magnetized states are doubly degenerate and consist of a many-particle two-state system. In this work, we investigate the nonequilibrium quantum dynamics by switching on an external perturbation to induce resonant couplings between the magnetized phases, and predict the novel quantum spin dynamics which cannot be obtained in the single-particle systems. In particular, due to particle-particle interactions, the transition of the Bose condensate from one magnetized phase to the other is forbidden when the strength of external perturbation is less than a critical value, and a full transition can occur only when the perturbation exceeds such critical strength. This phenomenon manifests itself a quantum dynamical phase transition, with the critical point behavior being exactly solvable. From the numerical simulations and exact analytic studies we show that the predicted many-body effects can be well observed with the current experiments.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, plus supplementary materia

Self-cancellation of ephemeral regions in the quiet Sun

With the observations from the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager aboard the Solar Dynamics Observatory, we statistically investigate the ephemeral regions (ERs) in the quiet Sun. We find that there are two types of ERs: normal ERs (NERs) and self-cancelled ERs (SERs). Each NER emerges and grows with separation of its opposite polarity patches which will cancel or coalesce with other surrounding magnetic flux. Each SER also emerges and grows and its dipolar patches separate at first, but a part of magnetic flux of the SER will move together and cancel gradually, which is described with the term "self-cancellation" by us. We identify 2988 ERs among which there are 190 SERs, about 6.4% of the ERs. The mean value of self-cancellation fraction of SERs is 62.5%, and the total self-cancelled flux of SERs is 9.8% of the total ER flux. Our results also reveal that the higher the ER magnetic flux is, (i) the easier the performance of ER self-cancellation is, (ii) the smaller the self-cancellation fraction is, and (iii) the more the self-cancelled flux is. We think that the self-cancellation of SERs is caused by the submergence of magnetic loops connecting the dipolar patches, without magnetic energy release.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

FRACTAL APPROACH TO MECHANICAL AND ELECTRICAL PROPERTIES OF GRAPHENE/SIC COMPOSITES

Graphene and carbon nanotubes have a Steiner minimum tree structure, which endows them with extremely good mechanical and electronic properties. A modified Hall-Petch effect is proposed to reveal the enhanced mechanical strength of the SiC/graphene composites, and a fractal approach to its mechanical analysis is given.  Fractal laws for the electrical conductivity of graphene, carbon nanotubes and graphene/SiC composites are suggested using the two-scale fractal theory. The Steiner structure is considered as a cascade of a fractal pattern. The theoretical results show that the two-scale fractal dimensions and the graphene concentration play an important role in enhancing the mechanical and electrical properties of graphene/SiC composites. This paper sheds a bright light on a new era of the graphene-based materials