Magnetic effects in heavy-ion collisions at intermediate energies

The time-evolution and space-distribution of internal electromagnetic fields in heavy-ion reactions at beam energies between 200 and 2000 MeV/nucleon are studied within an Isospin-dependent Boltzmann-Uhling-Uhlenbeck transport model IBUU11. While the magnetic field can reach about $7\times 10^{16}$ G which is significantly higher than the estimated surface magnetic field ($\sim 10^{15}$ G) of magnetars, it has almost no effect on nucleon observables as the Lorentz force is normally much weaker than the nuclear force. Very interestingly, however, the magnetic field generated by the projectile-like (target-like) spectator has a strong focusing/diverging effect on positive/negative pions at forward (backward) rapidities. Consequently, the differential $\pi^-/\pi^+$ ratio as a function of rapidity is significantly altered by the magnetic field while the total multiplicities of both positive and negative pions remain about the same. At beam energies above about 1 GeV/nucleon, while the integrated ratio of total $\pi^-$ to $\pi^+$ multiplicities is not, the differential $\pi^-/\pi^+$ ratio is sensitive to the density dependence of nuclear symmetry energy $E_{\rm{sym}}(\rho)$. Our findings suggest that magnetic effects should be carefully considered in future studies of using the differential $\pi^-/\pi^+$ ratio as a probe of the $E_{\rm{sym}}(\rho)$ at supra-saturation densities.Comment: 12 pages including 8 figures and 1 tabl

Accuracy of Segment-Anything Model (SAM) in medical image segmentation tasks

The segment-anything model (SAM), was introduced as a fundamental model for segmenting images. It was trained using over 1 billion masks from 11 million natural images. The model can perform zero-shot segmentation of images by using various prompts such as masks, boxes, and points. In this report, we explored (1) the accuracy of SAM on 12 public medical image segmentation datasets which cover various organs (brain, breast, chest, lung, skin, liver, bowel, pancreas, and prostate), image modalities (2D X-ray, histology, endoscropy, and 3D MRI and CT), and health conditions (normal, lesioned). (2) if the computer vision foundational segmentation model SAM can provide promising research directions for medical image segmentation. We found that SAM without re-training on medical images does not perform as accurately as U-Net or other deep learning models trained on medical images.Comment: Technical Repor

Ultrafast switchable spin-orbit coupling for silicon spin qubits via spin valves

Recent experimental breakthroughs, particularly for single-qubit and two-qubit gates exceeding the error correction threshold, highlight silicon spin qubits as leading candidates for fault-tolerant quantum computation. In the existing architecture, intrinsic or synthetic spin-orbit coupling (SOC) is critical in various aspects, including electrical control, addressability, scalability, etc. However, the high-fidelity SWAP operation and quantum state transfer (QST) between spin qubits, crucial for qubit-qubit connectivity, require the switchable nature of SOC which is rarely considered. Here, we propose a flexible architecture based on spin valves by electrically changing its magnetization orientation within sub-nanoseconds to generate ultrafast switchable SOC. Based on the switchable SOC architecture, both SWAP operation of neighbor spin qubits and resonant QST between distant spins can be realized with fidelity exceeding 99% while considering the realistic experimental parameters. Benefiting from the compatible processes with the modern semiconductor industry and experimental advances in spin valves and spin qubits, our results pave the way for future construction of silicon-based quantum chips.Comment: 22 pages, 5 figure

Quantum Coherence Effects in Four-level Diamond Atomic System

A symmetric four-level closed-loop $\diamondsuit$ type (the diamond structure) atomic system driven by four coherent optical fields is investigated. The system shows rich quantum interference and coherence features. When symmetry of the system is broken, interesting phenomena such as single and double dark resonances appear. As a result, the double electromagnetically induced transparency effect is generated, which will facilitate the implementation of quantum phase gate operation.Comment: 8pages, 19 figure

The impact of renal function on the prognostic value of N-terminal pro–B-type natriuretic peptide in patients with coronary artery disease

Background: The impact of renal function on the prognostic value of N-terminal pro–B-type natriureticpeptide (NT-proBNP) remains unclear in coronary artery disease (CAD). This study sought toinvestigate the value of using NT-proBNP level to predict prognoses of CAD patients with differentestimated glomerular filtration rates (eGFRs).Methods: A retrospective analysis was conducted from a single registered database. 2087 consecutivepatients with CAD confirmed by coronary angiography were enrolled. The primary endpoint was allcausemortality.Results: The mean follow-up time was 26.4 ± 11.9 months and death events occurred in 197 cases.The NT-proBNP levels increased with the deterioration of renal function, as well as the optimal cutoffvalues based on eGFR stratification to predict endpoint outcome (179.4 pg/mL, 1443.0 pg/mL,3478.0 pg/mL, for eGFR ≥ 90, 60–90 and < 60 mL/min/1.73 m2, respectively). Compared with theroutine cut-off value or overall optimal one, stratified optimal ones had superior predictive ability forendpoint in each eGFR group (all with the highest Youden’s J statistics). And the prognostic value becameweaker as eGFR level decreased (eGFR ≥ 90 vs. 60–90 vs. < 60 mL/min/1.73 m2, odds ratio [OR]7.7; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.7–33.9 vs. OR 4.8; 95% CI 2.7–8.5 vs. OR 3.0; 95% CI 1.5–6.2).Conclusions: This study demonstrated that NT-proBNP exhibits different predictive values for prognosisfor CAD patients with different levels of renal function. Among the assessed values, the NT-proBNPcut-off value determined using renal function improve the accuracy of the prognosis prediction of CAD.Moreover, lower eGFR is associated with a higher NT-proBNP cut-off value for prognostic prediction

Probing two driven double quantum dots strongly coupled to a cavity

We experimentally and theoretically study a driven hybrid circuit quantum electrodynamics (cQED) system beyond the dispersive coupling regime. Treating the cavity as part of the driven system, we develop a theory applicable to such strongly coupled and to multi-qubit systems. The fringes measured for a single driven double quantum dot (DQD)-cavity setting and the enlarged splittings of the hybrid Floquet states in the presence of a second DQD are well reproduced with our model. This opens a path to study Floquet states of multi-qubit systems with arbitrarily strong coupling and reveals a new perspective for understanding strongly driven hybrid systems.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figure