The decays "neutrino{heavy} -> neutrino{light} + photon" and "neutrino{heavy} -> neutrino{light} e+ e-" of massive neutrinos

If, as recently reported by the Super-Kamiokande collaboration, the neutrinos are massive, the heaviest one would not be stable and, though chargeless, could in particular decay into a lighter neutrino and a photon by quantum loop effects. The corresponding rate is computed in the standard model with massive Dirac neutrinos as a function of the neutrino masses and mixing angles. The lifetime of the decaying neutrino is estimated to be approximately 10^44 years for a mass 5 10^{-2} eV. If kinematically possible, the decay of a heavy neutrino into a lighter one plus an e+ e- pair occurs at tree level and its one-loop radiative corrections get enhanced by a large logarithm of the electron mass acting as an infrared cutoff. It then largely dominates the photonic mode by several orders of magnitude, corresponding to a lifetime approximately equal to 10^{-2} year for a mass 1.1 MeV.Comment: 12 pages, LaTeX 2e (epsf) with 9 postscript figures and one logo. Some comments and references adde

Charge carrier localization induced by excess Fe in the Fe1+y(Te,Se) superconductor system

We have investigated the effect of Fe nonstoichiometry on properties of the Fe1+y(Te, Se) superconductor system by means of resistivity, Hall coefficient, magnetic susceptibility, and specific heat measurements. We find that the excess Fe at interstitial sites of the (Te, Se) layers not only suppresses superconductivity, but also results in a weakly localized electronic state. We argue that these effects originate from the magnetic coupling between the excess Fe and the adjacent Fe square planar sheets, which favors a short-range magnetic order.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures accepted for publication in PR

One-loop flavor changing electromagnetic transitions

We discuss the effect of the external fermion masses in the flavor-changing radiative transitions of a heavy fermion (quark or lepton) to a lighter fermion at the one-loop level, and point out an often overlooked crucial difference in the sign of a charge factor between transitions of the down type $s\to d\gamma$ and the up type $c\to u\gamma$. We give formulas for the $F\to f\gamma$ effective vertex in various approximations and the exact formula for $t\to c\gamma$ and $\tau \to \mu \gamma$.Comment: LaTeX 16 pages + 4 postscript figures. Misprints corrected, some Comments adde

QFlip: An Adaptive Reinforcement Learning Strategy for the FlipIt Security Game

A rise in Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) has introduced a need for robustness against long-running, stealthy attacks which circumvent existing cryptographic security guarantees. FlipIt is a security game that models attacker-defender interactions in advanced scenarios such as APTs. Previous work analyzed extensively non-adaptive strategies in FlipIt, but adaptive strategies rise naturally in practical interactions as players receive feedback during the game. We model the FlipIt game as a Markov Decision Process and introduce QFlip, an adaptive strategy for FlipIt based on temporal difference reinforcement learning. We prove theoretical results on the convergence of our new strategy against an opponent playing with a Periodic strategy. We confirm our analysis experimentally by extensive evaluation of QFlip against specific opponents. QFlip converges to the optimal adaptive strategy for Periodic and Exponential opponents using associated state spaces. Finally, we introduce a generalized QFlip strategy with composite state space that outperforms a Greedy strategy for several distributions including Periodic and Uniform, without prior knowledge of the opponent's strategy. We also release an OpenAI Gym environment for FlipIt to facilitate future research.Comment: Outstanding Student Paper awar

Hidden attractors in fundamental problems and engineering models

Recently a concept of self-excited and hidden attractors was suggested: an attractor is called a self-excited attractor if its basin of attraction overlaps with neighborhood of an equilibrium, otherwise it is called a hidden attractor. For example, hidden attractors are attractors in systems with no equilibria or with only one stable equilibrium (a special case of multistability and coexistence of attractors). While coexisting self-excited attractors can be found using the standard computational procedure, there is no standard way of predicting the existence or coexistence of hidden attractors in a system. In this plenary survey lecture the concept of self-excited and hidden attractors is discussed, and various corresponding examples of self-excited and hidden attractors are considered

Charge-carrier localization induced by excess Fe in the superconductor Fe1+yTe1−xSex

We have investigated the effect of Fe nonstoichiometry on properties of the Fe1+y(Te,Se) superconductor system by means of resistivity, Hall coefficient, magnetic susceptibility, and specific-heat measurements. We find that the excess Fe at interstitial sites of the (Te, Se) layers not only suppresses superconductivity but also results in a weakly localized electronic state. We argue that these effects originate from the magnetic coupling between the excess Fe and the adjacent Fe square-planar sheets, which favors a short-range magnetic order

Charge-carrier localization induced by excess Fe in the superconductor Fe1+yTe1−xSex

We have investigated the effect of Fe nonstoichiometry on properties of the Fe1+y(Te,Se) superconductor system by means of resistivity, Hall coefficient, magnetic susceptibility, and specific-heat measurements. We find that the excess Fe at interstitial sites of the (Te, Se) layers not only suppresses superconductivity but also results in a weakly localized electronic state. We argue that these effects originate from the magnetic coupling between the excess Fe and the adjacent Fe square-planar sheets, which favors a short-range magnetic order

Extreme temperature impairs growth and productivity in a common tropical marine copepod

Abstract Shallow, tropical marine ecosystems provide essential ecosystem goods and services, but it is unknown how these ecosystems will respond to the increased exposure to the temperature extremes that are likely to become more common as climate change progresses. To address this issue, we tracked the fitness and productivity of a key zooplankton species, the copepod Pseudodiaptomus annandalei, acclimated at two temperatures (30 and 34 °C) over three generations. 30 °C is the mean temperature in the shallow water of the coastal regions in Southeast Asia, while 34 °C simulated a temperature extreme that occurs frequently during the summer period. For each generation, we measured the size at maturity and reproductive success of individuals. In all three generations, we found strong negative effects of warming on all measured fitness-related parameters, including prolonged development time, reduced size at maturity, smaller clutch sizes, lower hatching success, and reduced naupliar production. Our results suggest that P. annandalei are already exposed to temperatures that exceed their upper thermal optimum. Increased exposure to extreme temperatures may reduce the abundance of these tropical marine copepods, and thus reduce the availability of resources to higher trophic levels