Water on hexagonal boron nitride from diffusion Monte Carlo

Despite a recent flurry of experimental and simulation studies, an accurate estimate of the interaction strength of water molecules with hexagonal boron nitride is lacking. Here we report quantum Monte Carlo results for the adsorption of a water monomer on a periodic hexagonal boron nitride sheet, which yield a water monomer interaction energy of -84 +/- 5 meV. We use the results to evaluate the performance of several widely used density functional theory (DFT) exchange correlation functionals, and find that they all deviate substantially. Differences in interaction energies between different adsorption sites are however better reproduced by DFT

δ\delta meson effects on neutron stars in the modified quark-meson coupling model

The properties of neutron stars are investigated by including $\delta$ meson field in the Lagrangian density of modified quark-meson coupling model. The $\Sigma^-$ population with $\delta$ meson is larger than that without $\delta$ meson at the beginning, but it becomes smaller than that without $\delta$ meson as the appearance of $\Xi^-$. The $\delta$ meson has opposite effects on hadronic matter with or without hyperons: it softens the EOSes of hadronic matter with hyperons, while it stiffens the EOSes of pure nucleonic matter. Furthermore, the leptons and the hyperons have the similar influence on $\delta$ meson effects. The $\delta$ meson increases the maximum masses of neutron stars. The influence of $(\sigma^*,\phi)$ on the $\delta$ meson effects are also investigated.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, 4 table

Inequalities Detecting Quantum Entanglement for 2⊗d2\otimes d Systems

We present a set of inequalities for detecting quantum entanglement of $2\otimes d$ quantum states. For $2\otimes 2$ and $2\otimes 3$ systems, the inequalities give rise to sufficient and necessary separability conditions for both pure and mixed states. For the case of $d>3$, these inequalities are necessary conditions for separability, which detect all entangled states that are not positive under partial transposition and even some entangled states with positive partial transposition. These inequalities are given by mean values of local observables and present an experimental way of detecting the quantum entanglement of $2\otimes d$ quantum states and even multi-qubit pure states.Comment: 6 page

Abelian and Non-Abelian Quantum Geometric Tensor

We propose a generalized quantum geometric tenor to understand topological quantum phase transitions, which can be defined on the parameter space with the adiabatic evolution of a quantum many-body system. The generalized quantum geometric tenor contains two different local measurements, the non-Abelian Riemannian metric and the non-Abelian Berry curvature, which are recognized as two natural geometric characterizations for the change of the ground-state properties when the parameter of the Hamiltonian varies. Our results show the symmetry-breaking and topological quantum phase transitions can be understood as the singular behavior of the local and topological properties of the quantum geometric tenor in the thermodynamic limit.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure

Assessing Consumer Preference using Community Pharmacy Preference Evaluation Questionnaire (ComPETe): A Pilot Survey in a Malaysia City

Purpose: To assess the consumer preference for community pharmacy (CP) for filling prescription, and purchasing over-the-counter (OTC) and health products among customers frequenting eight departmental stores located in a Malaysian city.Method: A cross-sectional study was conducted in the city of Wakaf Bharu, Kelantan, Malaysia. A total of 400 respondents in the area were randomly selected to participate in the 14-item Community Pharmacy Preference Evaluation Questionnaire (ComPETe). The results were then subjected to data analysis.Results: A total of 198 respondents returned the questionnaire but only 120 respondents completely filled in them. Majority of the respondents was between the age of 18 and 30 years (42.4 %), female (55.0 %) and married (66.7 %). Most of them (90.8 %) agreed that location is an important criterion for choosing a CP. About 62 and 56 % of the respondents went to the same preferred CP and at least once a month, respectively. Interestingly, customers with a monthly income of <RM 1000 (equivalent to USD 280) and married were more likely to visit the same preferred CP (p < 0.05). More than half of the respondents preferred heavily subsidized medical treatment for minor ailments from government healthcare institutions. For OTC products, preference among consumers was almost the same among CPs and local stores. With regard to health supplements and screening test kits, most respondents preferred to go to CPs.Conclusion: The respondents showed variability in their preference for CPs. The findings about consumer preference for CPs and health products should facilitate the process of launching a successful CP establishment.Keywords: Consumer Satisfaction, Community Pharmacy Preference, Prescription Filling, Over-the-counter Products, Financial Managemen

A Practical Guide for X-Ray Diffraction Characterization of Ga(Al, In)N Alloys

Ga(In, Al)N alloys are used as an active layer or cladding layer in light emitting diodes and laser diodes. x-ray diffraction is extensively used to evaluate the crystalline quality, the chemical composition and the residual strain in Ga(Al,In)N thin films, which directly determine the emission wavelength and the device performance. Due to the minor mismatch in lattice parameters between Ga(Al, In)N alloy and a GaN virtual substrate, x-ray diffraction comes to a problem to separate the signal from Ga(Al,In)N alloy and GaN. We give a detailed comparison on different diffraction planes. In order to balance the intensity and peak separation between Ga(Al,In)N alloy and GaN, (0004) and (1015) planes make the best choice for symmetric scan and asymmetric scan, respectively.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figure

Precambrian tectonic evolution of Central Tianshan, NW China: constraints from U-Pb dating and in-situ Hf isotopic analysis of detrital zircons

International audienceThe Tarim Block is an important geologic unit in the reconstruction of the tectonic evolution of the Central Asian Orogenic Belt and the Precambrian Columbia and Rodinia supercontinents. In order to examine the evolution and crustal generation of the Tarim Block, we performed detrital zircon U-Pb dating and in-situ Hf isotopic analysis of Devonian sandstones of the Baluntai area in Central Tianshan, which is part of the Tarim Block. Most analyzed zircon grains show oscillatory zoning and have Th/U ratios >0.4, suggesting that they were mainly derived from igneous rocks. A total of about 400 detrital zircon analyses yielded five age populations, namely, early Paleoproterozoic (peak at 2470 Ma), middle Paleoproterozoic (peak at 1858 Ma), early Mesoproterozoic (peak at 1541 Ma), early Neoproterozoic (peak at 952 Ma), and late Neoproterozoic (820 to 750 Ma). These peak ages are remarkably consistent with the polyphase tectonothermal events that occurred in the Tarim Block. The peak at 2470 Ma indicates the presence of late Neoarchean to early Paleoproterozoic magmatism in the Tarim Block. The two peaks at 1858 Ma and 952 Ma coincide with the two periods of assembly of the Columbia and Rodinia supercontinents. This further suggests that the Tarim Block was part of these two supercontinents. In fact, the age peak of 1541 Ma correlates with the breakup of Columbia, and the age range of 820 to 750 Ma is interpreted to represent the time of the breakup of Rodinia. The zircon Hf model ages suggest three major stages of crustal evolution at 1.0-1.4 Ga, 1.8-3.3 Ga, and 3.4-3.8 Ga. The zircons exhibit a huge range of var epsilonHf(t) values from −33 to +51, suggesting that they were derived from highly diverse protoliths. However, since most detrital zircons show negative var epsilonHf(t) values, the protoliths of the Baluntai sandstones of Central Tianshan probably comprise rocks of Archean to Proterozoic crust. Owing to the similar Precambrian basement, lithology and age spectra between Central Tianshan and Tarim, it is argued that Central Tianshan belonged to the Tarim Block in the Precambrian time. Furthermore, euhedral zircons with high Th/U ratios (>0.4) yielded a prominent peak of 447 Ma. This can be correlated with an early Paleozoic arc development in Central Tianshan

WHW_H-pair Production in the Littlest Higgs Model with T parity in next-to-leading order QCD at LHC

In the framework of the littlest Higgs model with $T$ parity, we study the $W_H$-pair production at the CERN Large Hadron Collider up to the QCD next-to-leading order (NLO). The kinematic distributions of final decay products and the theoretical dependence of the cross section on the factorization/renormalization scale are analyzed. We adopt the PROSPINO scheme in the QCD NLO calculations to avoid double counting and keep the convergence of the perturbative QCD description. Our numerical results show that the QCD NLO corrections significantly reduce the scale uncertainty, and enhance the leading order integrated cross section with a $K$-factor in the range of $1.10-1.22$ ($1.09-1.17$) with the symmetry breaking scale $f$ varying from $400 GeV$ ($400 GeV$) to $1.5 TeV$ ($1.0 TeV$) at the $14 TeV$ $(8 TeV)$ LHC. We find that it is possible to select the signal events of the $W_H$-pair production from the $pp\to W^+ W^- \to e^+ \mu^-\nu_{e}\bar{\nu}_{\mu}+X$ background with high ratio of signature over background by taking proper lower limits on transverse momenta, invariant mass of the final charged leptons and the missing transverse momentum.Comment: 34 pages, 14 figures, 4 table

Operator entanglement of two-qubit joint unitary operations revisited: Schmidt number approach

Operator entanglement of two-qubit joint unitary operations is revisited. Schmidt number is an important attribute of a two-qubit unitary operation, and may have connection with the entanglement measure of the unitary operator. We found the entanglement measure of two-qubit unitary operators is classified by the Schmidt number of the unitary operators. The exact relation between the operator entanglement and the parameters of the unitary operator is clarified too.Comment: To appear in the Brazilian Journal of Physic