4,548 research outputs found

    Engineering Time-Reversal Invariant Topological Insulators With Ultra-Cold Atoms

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    Topological insulators are a broad class of unconventional materials that are insulating in the interior but conduct along the edges. This edge transport is topologically protected and dissipationless. Until recently, all existing topological insulators, known as quantum Hall states, violated time-reversal symmetry. However, the discovery of the quantum spin Hall effect demonstrated the existence of novel topological states not rooted in time-reversal violations. Here, we lay out an experiment to realize time-reversal topological insulators in ultra-cold atomic gases subjected to synthetic gauge fields in the near-field of an atom-chip. In particular, we introduce a feasible scheme to engineer sharp boundaries where the "edge states" are localized. Besides, this multi-band system has a large parameter space exhibiting a variety of quantum phase transitions between topological and normal insulating phases. Due to their unprecedented controllability, cold-atom systems are ideally suited to realize topological states of matter and drive the development of topological quantum computing.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figure

    Switching Behaviour of a Series Connection of a Vacuum Interrupter and a Gas Circuit Breaker

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    After being in the focus of sciences' and industry's research and development activities for many years, the investigation of possible SF6 gas-alternatives has been even more intensified after the revision of the European F-Gas regulation 517/2014. As natural gases yield a significantly lower dielectric strength in comparison to SF6, new challenges arise for the design of high voltage switchgear. Vacuum interrupters are environmentally friendly, reliable and able to withstand steep rising transient recovery voltages. In the last years, first installations of switchgear based on vacuum switching technology in sub-transmission level are in operation. One option for the realization of a SF6 free high voltage switchgear for transmission level is the combination of a gas circuit breaker filled with an atmospheric gas with a vacuum interrupter in a hybrid switchgear. In this contribution the voltage distribution and switching behavior of a hybrid circuit breaker is experimentally investigated

    Quasiparticle Scattering Interference in (K,Tl)FexSe2 Superconductors

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    We model the quasiparticle interference (QPI) pattern in the recently discovered (K,Tl)Fe_xSe2 superconductors. We show in the superconducting state that, due to the absence of hole pockets at the Brillouin zone center, the quasiparticle scattering occurs around the momentum transfer q=(0,0) and (\pm \pi, \pm \pi) between electron pockets located at the zone boundary. More importantly, although both d_{x^2-y^2}-wave and s-wave pairing symmetry lead to nodeless quasiparticle excitations, distinct QPI features are predicted between both types of pairing symmetry. In the presence of a nonmagnetic impurity scattering, the QPI exhibits strongest scattering with q=(\pm \pi, \pm \pi) for the d_{x^2-y^2}-wave pairing symmetry; while the strongest scattering exhibits a ring-like structure centered around both q=(0,0) and (\pm \pi, \pm \pi) for the isotropic s-wave pairing symmetry. A unique QPI pattern has also been predicted due to a local pair-potential-type impurity scattering. The significant contrast in the QPI pattern between the d_{x^2-y^2}-wave and the isotropic s-wave pairing symmetry can be used to probe the pairing symmetry within the Fourier-transform STM technique.Comment: 4+ pages, 3 embedded eps figure

    Star Formation Near Photodissociation Regions: Detection of a Peculiar Protostar Near Ced 201

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    We present the detection and characterization of a peculiar low-mass protostar (IRAS 22129+7000) located ~0.4 pc from Ced 201 Photodissociation Region (PDR) and ~0.2 pc from the HH450 jet. The cold circumstellar envelope surrounding the object has been mapped through its 1.2 mm dust continuum emission with IRAM-30m/MAMBO. The deeply embedded protostar is clearly detected with Spitzer/MIPS (70 um), IRS (20-35 um) and IRAC (4.5, 5.8, and 8 um) but also in the K_s band (2.15 um). Given the large "near- and mid-IR excess" in its spectral energy distribution, but large submillimeter-to-bolometric luminosity ratio (~2%), IRAS 22129+7000 must be a transition Class 0/I source and/or a multiple stellar system. Targeted observations of several molecular lines from CO, 13CO, C18O, HCO+ and DCO+ have been obtained. The presence of a collimated molecular outflow mapped with the CSO telescope in the CO J=3-2 line suggests that the protostar/disk system is still accreting material from its natal envelope. Indeed, optically thick line profiles from high density tracers such as HCO+ J=1-0 show a red-shifted-absorption asymmetry reminiscent of inward motions. We construct a preliminary physical model of the circumstellar envelope (including radial density and temperature gradients, velocity field and turbulence) that reproduces the observed line profiles and estimates the ionization fraction. The presence of both mechanical and (non-ionizing) FUV-radiative input makes the region an interesting case to study triggered star formation

    The star formation history of early-type galaxies as a function of mass and environment

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    Using the third data release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), we have rigorously defined a volume-limited sample of early-type galaxies in the redshift range 0.005 < z 64 0.1. We have defined the density of the local environment for each galaxy using a method which takes account of the redshift bias introduced by survey boundaries if traditional methods are used. At luminosities greater than our absolute r-band magnitude cut-off of 1220.45, the mean density of environment shows no trend with redshift. We calculate the Lick indices for the entire sample and correct for aperture effects and velocity dispersion in a model-independent way. We find that early-type galaxies in the field are younger than those in environments typical of clusters but that neither metallicity, \u3b1-enhancement nor carbon enhancement are influenced by the environment. We argue that the timing of the process of formation of early-type galaxies is determined by the environment, while the details of the process of star formation, which has built up the stellar mass, are entirely regulated by the halo mass. These results suggest that the star formation took place after the mass assembly and favours an anti-hierarchical model. In such a model, the majority of the mergers must take place before the bulk of the stars form. This can only happen if there exists an efficient feedback mechanism which inhibits the star formation in low-mass haloes and is progressively reduced as mergers increase the mass

    Asymptotic symmetry and conservation laws in 2d Poincar\'e gauge theory of gravity

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    The structure of the asymptotic symmetry in the Poincar\'e gauge theory of gravity in 2d is clarified by using the Hamiltonian formalism. The improved form of the generator of the asymptotic symmetry is found for very general asymptotic behaviour of phase space variables, and the related conserved quantities are explicitly constructed.Comment: 22 pages, Plain Te

    The persistence landscape and some of its properties

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    Persistence landscapes map persistence diagrams into a function space, which may often be taken to be a Banach space or even a Hilbert space. In the latter case, it is a feature map and there is an associated kernel. The main advantage of this summary is that it allows one to apply tools from statistics and machine learning. Furthermore, the mapping from persistence diagrams to persistence landscapes is stable and invertible. We introduce a weighted version of the persistence landscape and define a one-parameter family of Poisson-weighted persistence landscape kernels that may be useful for learning. We also demonstrate some additional properties of the persistence landscape. First, the persistence landscape may be viewed as a tropical rational function. Second, in many cases it is possible to exactly reconstruct all of the component persistence diagrams from an average persistence landscape. It follows that the persistence landscape kernel is characteristic for certain generic empirical measures. Finally, the persistence landscape distance may be arbitrarily small compared to the interleaving distance.Comment: 18 pages, to appear in the Proceedings of the 2018 Abel Symposiu
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