Depletion of carriers and negative differential conductivity in an intrinsic graphene under a dc electric field

The heating of carriers in an intrinsic graphene under an abrupt switching off a dc electric field is examined taking into account both the energy relaxation via acoustic and optic phonons and the interband generation-recombination processes. The later are caused by the interband transitions due to optical phonon modes and thermal radiation. Description of the temporal and steady-state responses, including the nonequilibrium concentration and energy as well as the current-voltage characteristics, is performed. At room temperature, a nearly-linear current-voltage characteristic and a slowly-varied concentration take place for fields up to -- 20 kV/cm. Since a predominant recombination of high-energy carriers due to optical phonon emission at low temperatures, a depletion of concentration takes place below -- 250 K. For lower temperatures the current tends to be saturated and a negative differential conductivity appears below -- 170 K in the region of fields -- 10 V/cm.Comment: 8 pages, 10 figures, extended versio

Evolution of the Radio Remnant of Supernova 1987A: Morphological Changes from Day 7000

We present radio imaging observations of supernova remnant 1987A at 9 GHz, taken with the Australia Telescope Compact Array over 21 years from 1992 to 2013. By employing a Fourier modeling technique to fit the visibility data, we show that the remnant structure has evolved significantly since day 7000 (mid-2006): the emission latitude has gradually decreased, such that the overall geometry has become more similar to a ring structure. Around the same time, we find a decreasing trend in the east-west asymmetry of the surface emissivity. These results could reflect the increasing interaction of the forward shock with material around the circumstellar ring, and the relative weakening of the interaction with the lower-density material at higher latitudes. The morphological evolution caused an apparent break in the remnant expansion measured with a torus model, from a velocity of 4600+150-200 km/s between day 4000 and 7000 to 2400+100-200 km/s after day 7000. However, we emphasize that there is no conclusive evidence for a physical slowing of the shock at any given latitude in the expanding remnant, and that a change of radio morphology alone appears to dominate the evolution. This is supported by our ring-only fits which show a constant expansion of 3890+/-50 km/s without deceleration between days 4000 and 9000. We suggest that once the emission latitude no longer decreases, the expansion velocity obtained from the torus model should return to the same value as that measured with the ring model.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ, Figure 1 has been scaled dow

Thermal-radiation-induced nonequilibrium carriers in an intrinsic graphene

We examine an intrinsic graphene connected to the phonon thermostat at temperature T under irradiation of thermal photons with temperature T_r, other than T. The distribution of nonequilibrium electron-hole pairs was obtained for the cases of low and high concentration of carriers. For the case when the interparticle scattering is unessential, the distribution function is determined by the interplay of intraband relaxation of energy due to acoustic phonons and interband radiative transitions caused by the thermal radiation. When the Coulomb scattering dominates, then the quasi-equilibrium distribution with effective temperature and non-equilibrium concentration, determined through balance equations, is realized. Due to the effect of thermal radiation with temperature $T_r\neq T$ concentration and conductivity of carriers in graphene modify essentially. It is demonstrated, that at $T_r>T$ the negative interband absorption, caused by the inversion of carriers distribution, can occur, i.e. graphene can be unstable under thermal irradiation.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

High-resolution radio observations of SNR 1987A at high frequencies

We present new imaging observations of the remnant of Supernova (SN) 1987A at 44 GHz, performed in 2011 with the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA). The 0\farcs35\times0\farcs23 resolution of the diffraction-limited image is the highest achieved to date in high-dynamic range. We also present a new ATCA image at 18 GHz derived from 2011 observations, which is super-resolved to 0\farcs25. The flux density is 40$\pm$2 mJy at 44 GHz and 81$\pm$6 mJy at 18 GHz. At both frequencies, the remnant exhibits a ring-like emission with two prominent lobes, and an east-west brightness asymmetry that peaks on the eastern lobe. A central feature of fainter emission appears at 44 GHz. A comparison with previous ATCA observations at 18 and 36 GHz highlights higher expansion velocities of the remnant eastern side. The 18-44 GHz spectral index is $\alpha=-0.80$ ($S_{\nu}\propto\nu^{\alpha}$). The spectral index map suggests slightly steeper values at the brightest sites on the eastern lobe, whereas flatter values are associated with the inner regions. The remnant morphology at 44 GHz generally matches the structure seen with contemporaneous X-ray and H$\alpha$ observations. Unlike the H$\alpha$ emission, both the radio and X-ray emission peaks on the eastern lobe. The regions of flatter spectral index align and partially overlap with the optically-visible ejecta. Simple free-free absorption models suggest that emission from a pulsar wind nebula or a compact source inside the remnant may now be detectable at high frequencies, or at low frequencies if there are holes in the ionised component of the ejecta.Comment: References updated. High resolution version may be found at http://ict.icrar.org/store/staff/gio/Papers/Zanardo_2013.pd

Rabi oscillations under ultrafast excitation of graphene

We study coherent nonlinear dynamics of carriers under ultrafast interband excitation of an intrinsic graphene. The Rabi oscillations of response appear with increasing of pumping intensity. The photoexcited distribution is calculated versus time and energy taking into account the effects of energy relaxation and dephasing. Spectral and temporal dependencies of the response on a probe radiation (transmission and reflection coefficients) are considered for different pumping intensities and the Rabi oscillations versus time and intensity are analyzed.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figure

Transient response under ultrafast interband excitation of an intrinsic graphene

The transient evolution of carriers in an intrinsic graphene under ultrafast excitation, which is caused by the collisionless interband transitions, is studied theoretically. The energy relaxation due to the quasielastic acoustic phonon scattering and the interband generation-recombination transitions due to thermal radiation are analyzed. The distributions of carriers are obtained for the limiting cases when carrier-carrier scattering is negligible and when the intercarrier scattering imposes the quasiequilibrium distribution. The transient optical response (differential reflectivity and transmissivity) on a probe radiation and transient photoconductivity (response on a weak dc field) appears to be strongly dependent on the relaxation and recombination dynamics of carriers.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figure

Enhancing competitive island cooperative neuro - evolution through backpropagation for pattern classification

Cooperative coevolution is a promising method for training neural networks which is also known as cooperative neuro-evolution. Cooperative neuro-evolution has been used for pattern classification, time series prediction and global optimisation problems. In the past, competitive island based cooperative coevolution has been proposed that employed different instances of problem decomposition methods for competition. Neuro-evolution has limitations in terms of training time although they are known as global search methods. Backpropagation algorithm employs gradient descent which helps in faster convergence which is needed for neuro-evolution. Backpropagation suffers from premature convergence and its combination with neuro-evolution can help eliminate the weakness of both the approaches. In this paper, we propose a competitive island cooperative neuro-evolutionary method that takes advantage of the strengths of gradient descent and neuro-evolution. We use feedforward neural networks on benchmark pattern classification problems to evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm. The results show improved performance when compared to related methods

The effect of two-temperature post-shock accretion flow on the linear polarization pulse in magnetic cataclysmic variables

The temperatures of electrons and ions in the post-shock accretion region of a magnetic cataclysmic variable (mCV) will be equal at sufficiently high mass flow rates or for sufficiently weak magnetic fields. At lower mass flow rates or in stronger magnetic fields, efficient cyclotron cooling will cool the electrons faster than the electrons can cool the ions and a two-temperature flow will result. Here we investigate the differences in polarized radiation expected from mCV post-shock accretion columns modeled with one- and two-temperature hydrodynamics. In an mCV model with one accretion region, a magnetic field >~30 MG and a specific mass flow rate of ~0.5 g/cm/cm/s, along with a relatively generic geometric orientation of the system, we find that in the ultraviolet either a single linear polarization pulse per binary orbit or two pulses per binary orbit can be expected, depending on the accretion column hydrodynamic structure (one- or two-temperature) modeled. Under conditions where the physical flow is two-temperature, one pulse per orbit is predicted from a single accretion region where a one-temperature model predicts two pulses. The intensity light curves show similar pulse behavior but there is very little difference between the circular polarization predictions of one- and two-temperature models. Such discrepancies indicate that it is important to model some aspect of two-temperature flow in indirect imaging procedures, like Stokes imaging, especially at the edges of extended accretion regions, were the specific mass flow is low, and especially for ultraviolet data.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astrophysics & Space Scienc