Data Unfolding with Wiener-SVD Method

Data unfolding is a common analysis technique used in HEP data analysis. Inspired by the deconvolution technique in the digital signal processing, a new unfolding technique based on the SVD technique and the well-known Wiener filter is introduced. The Wiener-SVD unfolding approach achieves the unfolding by maximizing the signal to noise ratios in the effective frequency domain given expectations of signal and noise and is free from regularization parameter. Through a couple examples, the pros and cons of the Wiener-SVD approach as well as the nature of the unfolded results are discussed.Comment: 26 pages, 12 figures, match the accepted version by JINS

Mass Hierarchy Resolution in Reactor Anti-neutrino Experiments: Parameter Degeneracies and Detector Energy Response

Determination of the neutrino mass hierarchy using a reactor neutrino experiment at $\sim$60 km is analyzed. Such a measurement is challenging due to the finite detector resolution, the absolute energy scale calibration, as well as the degeneracies caused by current experimental uncertainty of $|\Delta m^2_{32}|$. The standard $\chi^2$ method is compared with a proposed Fourier transformation method. In addition, we show that for such a measurement to succeed, one must understand the non-linearity of the detector energy scale at the level of a few tenths of percent.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, accepted by PR

Thermodynamical quantities of lattice full QCD from an efficient method

I extend to QCD an efficient method for lattice gauge theory with dynamical fermions. Once the eigenvalues of the Dirac operator and the density of states of pure gluonic configurations at a set of plaquette energies (proportional to the gauge action) are computed, thermodynamical quantities deriving from the partition function can be obtained for arbitrary flavor number, quark masses and wide range of coupling constants, without additional computational cost. Results for the chiral condensate and gauge action are presented on the $10^4$ lattice at flavor number $N_f=0$, 1, 2, 3, 4 and many quark masses and coupling constants. New results in the chiral limit for the gauge action and its correlation with the chiral condensate, which are useful for analyzing the QCD chiral phase structure, are also provided.Comment: Latex, 11 figures, version accepted for publicatio

Unsupervised Feature Selection with Adaptive Structure Learning

The problem of feature selection has raised considerable interests in the past decade. Traditional unsupervised methods select the features which can faithfully preserve the intrinsic structures of data, where the intrinsic structures are estimated using all the input features of data. However, the estimated intrinsic structures are unreliable/inaccurate when the redundant and noisy features are not removed. Therefore, we face a dilemma here: one need the true structures of data to identify the informative features, and one need the informative features to accurately estimate the true structures of data. To address this, we propose a unified learning framework which performs structure learning and feature selection simultaneously. The structures are adaptively learned from the results of feature selection, and the informative features are reselected to preserve the refined structures of data. By leveraging the interactions between these two essential tasks, we are able to capture accurate structures and select more informative features. Experimental results on many benchmark data sets demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms many state of the art unsupervised feature selection methods

Nonsaturating magnetoresistance and nontrivial band topology of type-II Weyl semimetal NbIrTe4

Weyl semimetals, characterized by nodal points in the bulk and Fermi arc states on the surface, have recently attracted extensive attention due to the potential application on low energy consumption electronic materials. In this report, the thermodynamic and transport properties of a theoretically predicted Weyl semimetal NbIrTe4 is measured in high magnetic fields up to 35 T and low temperatures down to 0.4 K. Remarkably, NbIrTe4 exhibits a nonsaturating transverse magnetoresistance which follows a power-law dependence in B. Low-field Hall measurements reveal that hole-like carriers dominate the transport for T $>$ 80 K, while the significant enhancement of electron mobilities with lowering T results in a non-negligible contribution from electron-like carriers which is responsible for the observed non-linear Hall resistivity at low T. The Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations of the Hall resistivity under high B give the light effective masses of charge carriers and the nontrivial Berry phase associated with Weyl fermions. Further first-principles calculations confirm the existence of 16 Weyl points located at kz = 0, $\pm$0.02 and $\pm$0.2 planes in the Brillouin zone.Comment: 5 figures, 1 tabl

Spin-Fluctuation-Induced Non-Fermi-Liquid Behavior with suppressed superconductivity in LiFe1−x_{1-x}Cox_{x}As

A series of LiFe$_{1-x}$Co$_{x}$As compounds with different Co concentrations have been studied by transport, optical spectroscopy, angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and nuclear magnetic resonance. We observed a Fermi liquid to non-Fermi liquid to Fermi liquid (FL-NFL-FL) crossover alongside a monotonic suppression of the superconductivity with increasing Co content. In parallel to the FL-NFL-FL crossover, we found that both the low-energy spin fluctuations and Fermi surface nesting are enhanced and then diminished, strongly suggesting that the NFL behavior in LiFe$_{1-x}$Co$_{x}$As is induced by low-energy spin fluctuations which are very likely tuned by Fermi surface nesting. Our study reveals a unique phase diagram of LiFe$_{1-x}$Co$_{x}$As where the region of NFL is moved to the boundary of the superconducting phase, implying that they are probably governed by different mechanisms.Comment: 10 pages, 11 figure

Statistical Evaluation of Experimental Determinations of Neutrino Mass Hierarchy

Statistical methods of presenting experimental results in constraining the neutrino mass hierarchy (MH) are discussed. Two problems are considered and are related to each other: how to report the findings for observed experimental data, and how to evaluate the ability of a future experiment to determine the neutrino mass hierarchy, namely, sensitivity of the experiment. For the first problem where experimental data have already been observed, the classical statistical analysis involves constructing confidence intervals for the parameter Δm^2_(32). These intervals are deduced from the parent distribution of the estimation of Δm^2_(32) based on experimental data. Due to existing experimental constraints on |Δm^2_(32)|, the estimation of Δm^2_(32) is better approximated by a Bernoulli distribution (a Binomial distribution with 1 trial) rather than a Gaussian distribution. Therefore, the Feldman- Cousins approach needs to be used instead of the Gaussian approximation in constructing confidence intervals. Furthermore, as a result of the definition of confidence intervals, even if it is correctly constructed, its confidence level does not directly reflect how much one hypothesis of the MH is supported by the data rather than the other hypothesis. We thus describe a Bayesian approach that quantifies the evidence provided by the observed experimental data through the (posterior) probability that either one hypothesis of MH is true. This Bayesian presentation of observed experimental results is then used to develop several metrics to assess the sensitivity of future experiments. Illustrations are made using a simple example with a confined parameter space, which approximates the MH determination problem with experimental constraints on the |Δm^2_(32)|