Magnetization plateau and incommensurate spin modulation in Ca3Co2O6

The magnetic properties of a trigonal prism unit of the spin-2 frustrated compound Ca3Co2O6 are studied by means of the density-matrix renormalization group method. A magnetization plateau at $ms/3$ ($ms$ is the saturation magnetization) with ferrimagnetic structure is observed. By fitting the experimental data of magnetic curve, an estimation of the couplings gives J1=-26.84K, J_{2}=0.39K, and J_{3}=0.52K. The local magnetic moments are unveiled to exhibit an incommensurate sinusoidally modulation along the three chains of the trigonal prism, which gives a strong theoretical support to the experimentally observed incommensurate partially disordered antiferromagnetic state for Ca3Co2O6. The present result suggests that the modulation indeed originates from the competition of antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic couplings.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, accepted by Appl. Phys. Lett

Soft Null Hypotheses: A Case Study of Image Enhancement Detection in Brain Lesions

This work is motivated by a study of a population of multiple sclerosis (MS) patients using dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) to identify active brain lesions. At each visit, a contrast agent is administered intravenously to a subject and a series of images is acquired to reveal the location and activity of MS lesions within the brain. Our goal is to identify and quantify lesion enhancement location at the subject level and lesion enhancement patterns at the population level. With this example, we aim to address the difficult problem of transforming a qualitative scientific null hypothesis, such as "this voxel does not enhance", to a well-defined and numerically testable null hypothesis based on existing data. We call the procedure "soft null hypothesis" testing as opposed to the standard "hard null hypothesis" testing. This problem is fundamentally different from: 1) testing when a quantitative null hypothesis is given; 2) clustering using a mixture distribution; or 3) identifying a reasonable threshold with a parametric null assumption. We analyze a total of 20 subjects scanned at 63 visits (~30Gb), the largest population of such clinical brain images

Automatic programming of simulation models

The objective of automatic programming is to improve the overall environment for describing the program. This improved environment is realized by a reduction in the amount of detail that the programmer needs to know and is exposed to. Furthermore, this improved environment is achieved by a specification language that is more natural to the user's problem domain and to the user's way of thinking and looking at the problem. The goal of this research is to apply the concepts of automatic programming (AP) to modeling discrete event simulation system. Specific emphasis is on the design and development of simulation tools to assist the modeler define or construct a model of the system and to then automatically write the corresponding simulation code in the target simulation language, GPSS/PC. A related goal is to evaluate the feasibility of various languages for constructing automatic programming simulation tools

Automatic programming of simulation models

The concepts of software engineering were used to improve the simulation modeling environment. Emphasis was placed on the application of an element of rapid prototyping, or automatic programming, to assist the modeler define the problem specification. Then, once the problem specification has been defined, an automatic code generator is used to write the simulation code. The following two domains were selected for evaluating the concepts of software engineering for discrete event simulation: manufacturing domain and a spacecraft countdown network sequence. The specific tasks were to: (1) define the software requirements for a graphical user interface to the Automatic Manufacturing Programming System (AMPS) system; (2) develop a graphical user interface for AMPS; and (3) compare the AMPS graphical interface with the AMPS interactive user interface

Thermodynamics of spin-1/2 tetrameric Heisenberg antiferromagnetic chain

The thermodynamic properties of a spin S=1/2 tetrameric Heisenberg antiferromagnetic chain with alternating interactions AF1-AF2-AF1-F (AF and F denote the antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic couplings, respectively) are studied by means of the transfer-matrix renormalization group method and Jordan-Wigner transformation. It is found that in the absence of magnetic field, the thermodynamic behaviors are closely related to the gapped low-lying excitations, and a novel structure with three peaks in the temperature dependence of specific heat is unveiled. In a magnetic field, a phase diagram in the temperature-field plane for the couplings satisfying JAF1=JAF2=JF is obtained, in which various phases are identified. The temperature dependence of thermodynamic quantities including the magnetization, susceptibility and specific heat are studied to characterize the corresponding phases. It is disclosed that the magnetization has a crossover behavior at low temperature in the Luttinger liquid phase, which is shown falling into the same class as that in the S=1 Haldane chain. In the plateau regime, the thermodynamic behaviors alter at a certain field, which results from the crossing of two excitation spectra. By means of the fermion mapping, it is uncovered that the system has four spectra from fermion and hole excitations that are responsible for the observed thermodynamic behaviors.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures, accepted by Phys. Rev.

Generalization of Friedberg-Lee Symmetry

We study the possible origin of Friedberg-Lee symmetry. First, we propose the generalized Friedberg-Lee symmetry in the potential by including the scalar fields in the field transformations, which can be broken down to the FL symmetry spontaneously. We show that the generalized Friedberg-Lee symmetry allows a typical form of Yukawa couplings, and the realistic neutrino masses and mixings can be generated via see-saw mechanism. If the right-handed neutrinos transform non-trivially under the generalized Friedberg-Lee symmetry, we can have the testable TeV scale see-saw mechanism. Second, we present two models with the $SO(3)\times U(1)$ global flavour symmetry in the lepton sector. After the flavour symmetry breaking, we can obtain the charged lepton masses, and explain the neutrino masses and mixings via see-saw mechanism. Interestingly, the complete neutrino mass matrices are similar to those of the above models with generalized Friedberg-Lee symmetry. So the Friedberg-Lee symmetry is the residual symmetry in the neutrino mass matrix after the $SO(3)\times U(1)$ flavour symmetry breaking.Comment: 16 pages, no figure, version published in PR

Proton-Antiproton Annihilation in Baryonium

A possible interpretation of the near-threshold enhancement in the $(p\bar{p})$-mass spectrum in $J/\psi{\to}\gamma p{\bar p}$ is the of existence of a narrow baryonium resonance X(1860). Mesonic decays of the $(p\bar{p})$-bound state X(1860) due to the nucleon-antinucleon annihilation are investigated in this paper. Mesonic coherent states with fixed $G$-parity and $P$-parity have been constructed . The Amado-Cannata-Dedoder-Locher-Shao formulation(Phys Rev Lett. {\bf 72}, 970 (1994)) is extended to the decays of the X(1860). By this method, the branch-fraction ratios of $Br(X\to \eta 4\pi)$, $Br(X\to \eta 2\pi)$ and $Br(X\to 3\eta)$ are calculated. It is shown that if the X(1860) is a bound state of $(p\bar{p})$, the decay channel ($X\to \eta 4\pi)$ is favored over $(X\to \eta 2\pi)$. In this way, we develop criteria for distinguishing the baryonium interpretation for the near-threshold enhancement effects in $(p\bar{p})$-mass spectrum in $J/\psi{\to}\gamma p{\bar p}$ from other possibilities. Experimental checks are expected. An intuitive picture for our results is discussed.Comment: 19 pages, 3 figure

The cosmological origin of Higgs particles

A proposal of the cosmological origin of Higgs particles is given. We show, that the Higgs field could be created from the vacuum quantum conformal fluctuation of Anti-de Sitter space-time, the spontaneous breaking of vacuum symmetry, and the mass of Higgs particle are related to the cosmological constant of our universe,especially the theoretical estimated mass m$_{H}$ of Higgs particles is m$_{H}=\sqrt{-2\mu ^{2}}$ =$\sqrt{|\Lambda /\pi}$.Comment: 7 pages,no figure

Trace initial interaction from final state observable in relativistic heavy ion collisions

In order to trace the initial interaction in ultra-relativistic heavy ion collision in all azimuthal directions, two azimuthal multiplicity-correlation patterns -- neighboring and fixed-to-arbitrary angular-bin correlation patterns -- are suggested. From the simulation of Au + Au collisions at 200 GeV by using the Monte Carlo models RQMD with hadron re-scattering and AMPT with and without string melting, we observe that the correlation patterns change gradually from out-of-plane preferential one to in-plane preferential one when the centrality of collision shifts from central to peripheral, meanwhile the anisotropic collective flow v_2 keeps positive in all cases. This regularity is found to be model and collision energy independent. The physics behind the two opposite trends of correlation patterns, in particular, the presence of out-of-plane correlation patterns at RHIC energy, are discussed.Comment: 5pages, 4figure