27,236 research outputs found
Majorana Fermion Induced Resonant Andreev Reflection
We describe experimental signatures of Majorana fermion edge states, which
form at the interface between a superconductor and the surface of a topological
insulator. If a lead couples to the Majorana fermions through electron
tunneling, the Majorana fermions induce \textit{resonant} Andreev reflections
from the lead to the grounded superconductor. The linear tunneling conductance
is () if there is an even (odd) number of vortices in the
superconductor. Similar resonance occurs for tunneling into the zero mode in
the vortex core. We also study the current and noise of a two-lead device.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures. Discussion on STM tunneling into the Majorana
zero mode in the vortex core is adde
Theories of Technological Progress and the British Textile Industry from Kay to Cartwright
Editada en la Fundación Empresa PúblicaLa industria textil británica continúa en el centro del debate sobre la revolución industrial. Las innovaciones técnicas en el período produjeron una aceleración extraordinaria del crecimiento del output y una considerable reducción de los precios de los tejidos. En este trabajo presentamos un estudio de la comunidad de los inventores responsables de la transformación tecnológica, lo que nos permite alcanzar una serie de conclusiones nuevas sobre el ritmo y dirección de la actividad innovadora durante la revolución industrialThe cotton textile industry remains central to all accounts of the first industrial revolution. Innovations in this period precipitated an extraordinary acceleration in the growth of output and a steep decline in the cost of producing all varieties of cloth. In this paper we outline an explanation through an analysis of the community of inventors responsible for the technological transformation, which enables us to offer some generalizations of the pace and pattern of the inventive activity in this period.Publicad
Selective Equal-Spin Andreev Reflections Induced by Majorana Fermions
In this work, we find that Majorana fermions induce selective equal spin
Andreev reflections (SESARs), in which incoming electrons with certain spin
polarization in the lead are reflected as counter propagating holes with the
same spin. The spin polarization direction of the electrons of this Andreev
reflected channel is selected by the Majorana fermions. Moreover, electrons
with opposite spin polarization are always reflected as electrons with
unchanged spin. As a result, the charge current in the lead is spin-polarized.
Therefore, a topological superconductor which supports Majorana fermions can be
used as a novel device to create fully spin-polarized currents in paramagnetic
leads. We point out that SESARs can also be used to detect Majorana fermions in
topological superconductors.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures. Comments are welcome. Title changed to match
published versio
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Financial interests of patient organisations contributing to technology appraisal at England's National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE): a policy review
Objectives: To investigate the prevalence of financial interests among patient organisations contributing to health technology assessment at the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) in England, and the extent to which current disclosure policy ensures decision-making committees are aware of these interests.
Design: Policy review using annual accounts, reports and websites of patient organisations, a database of payments declared by pharmaceutical manufacturers (Disclosure UK), other manufacturer declarations, responses from patient organisations, and declarations of interests by nominated representatives of patient organisations.
Setting: Appraisals of medicines and treatments for use in the English and Welsh National Health Service.
Participants: 53 patient organisations contributing to 41 NICE technology appraisals published in 2015 and 2016, with 117 separate occasions that a patient organisation contributed to the appraisal of a technology.
Main outcome measures: (i) Prevalence of specific interests, i.e. funding from manufacturer(s) of a technology under appraisal or competitor products; (ii) Proportion of specific interests of which NICE decision-making committees were aware; (iii) Proportion of specific interests for which disclosure was not required by current NICE policy.
Results: 38/53 (71.7%) patient organisations had accepted funding from the manufacturer(s) of a technology or a competitor product in the same or previous year that they had contributed to the appraisal of that technology. Specific interests were 46 present on 92 out of 117 (78.6%) occasions that patient organisations contributed to appraisals in 2015 and 2016. NICE decision-making committees were aware of less than a third of specific interests (36/115, 31.3%). For over half of the specific interests of which committees were unaware (42/79, 53.2%), disclosure by patient organisations was not required by current NICE policy.
Conclusions: Specific interests are highly prevalent among patient organisations contributing to health technology assessment. NICE is reviewing its disclosure policy to ensure that decision-making committees are aware of all relevant interests
Robustness of Majorana Fermion induced Fractional Josephson Effect
It is shown in previous works that the coupling between two Majorana end
states in superconducting quantum wires leads to fractional Josephson effect.
However, in realistic experimental conditions, multiple bands of the wires are
occupied and the Majorana end states are accompanied by other fermionic end
states. This raises the question concerning the robustness of fractional
Josephson effect in these situations. In this work, we show that the absence of
the avoided energy crossing which gives rise to the fractional Josephson effect
is robust, even when the Majorana fermions are coupled with arbitrary strengths
to other fermions. Moreover, we calculate the temperature dependence of the
fractional Josephson current and show that it is suppressed by thermal
excitations to the other fermion bound states.Comment: 4+ pages, 3 figure
Solution of Optimal Power Flow Problems using Moment Relaxations Augmented with Objective Function Penalization
The optimal power flow (OPF) problem minimizes the operating cost of an
electric power system. Applications of convex relaxation techniques to the
non-convex OPF problem have been of recent interest, including work using the
Lasserre hierarchy of "moment" relaxations to globally solve many OPF problems.
By preprocessing the network model to eliminate low-impedance lines, this paper
demonstrates the capability of the moment relaxations to globally solve large
OPF problems that minimize active power losses for portions of several European
power systems. Large problems with more general objective functions have thus
far been computationally intractable for current formulations of the moment
relaxations. To overcome this limitation, this paper proposes the combination
of an objective function penalization with the moment relaxations. This
combination yields feasible points with objective function values that are
close to the global optimum of several large OPF problems. Compared to an
existing penalization method, the combination of penalization and the moment
relaxations eliminates the need to specify one of the penalty parameters and
solves a broader class of problems.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure, to appear in IEEE 54th Annual Conference on
Decision and Control (CDC), 15-18 December 201
Zero-bias peaks in spin-orbit coupled superconducting wires with and without Majorana end-states
One of the simplest proposed experimental probes of a Majorana bound-state is
a quantized (2e^2/h) value of zero-bias tunneling conductance. When temperature
is somewhat larger than the intrinsic width of the Majorana peak, conductance
is no longer quantized, but a zero-bias peak can remain. Such a non-quantized
zero-bias peak has been recently reported for semiconducting nanowires with
proximity induced superconductivity. In this paper we analyze the relation of
the zero-bias peak to the presence of Majorana end-states, by simulating the
tunneling conductance for multi-band wires with realistic amounts of disorder.
We show that this system generically exhibits a (non-quantized) zero-bias peak
even when the wire is topologically trivial and does not possess Majorana
end-states. We make comparisons to recent experiments, and discuss the
necessary requirements for confirming the existence of a Majorana state.Comment: 5 pages, 4 Figure
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