Gravitino dark matter from gluino late decay in split supersymmetry

In split-supersymmetry (split-SUSY), gluino is a metastable particle and thus can freeze out in the early universe. The late decay of such a long-life gluino into the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP) may provide much of the cosmic dark matter content. In this work, assuming the LSP is gravitino produced from the late decay of the metastable gluino, we examine the WMAP dark matter constraints on the gluino mass. We find that to provide the full abundance of dark matter, the gluino must be heavier than about 14 TeV and thus not accessible at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC).Comment: discussions added (version in PRD

Phase transition from hadronic matter to quark matter

We study the phase transition from nuclear matter to quark matter within the SU(3) quark mean field model and NJL model. The SU(3) quark mean field model is used to give the equation of state for nuclear matter, while the equation of state for color superconducting quark matter is calculated within the NJL model. It is found that at low temperature, the phase transition from nuclear to color superconducting quark matter will take place when the density is of order 2.5$\rho_0$ - 5$\rho_0$. At zero density, the quark phase will appear when the temperature is larger than about 148 MeV. The phase transition from nuclear matter to quark matter is always first order, whereas the transition between color superconducting quark matter and normal quark matter is second order.Comment: 18 pages, 11 figure

Liquid-gas phase transition in nuclear matter including strangeness

We apply the chiral SU(3) quark mean field model to study the properties of strange hadronic matter at finite temperature. The liquid-gas phase transition is studied as a function of the strangeness fraction. The pressure of the system cannot remain constant during the phase transition, since there are two independent conserved charges (baryon and strangeness number). In a range of temperatures around 15 MeV (precise values depending on the model used) the equation of state exhibits multiple bifurcates. The difference in the strangeness fraction $f_s$ between the liquid and gas phases is small when they coexist. The critical temperature of strange matter turns out to be a non-trivial function of the strangeness fraction.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figure

The GAP-TPC

Several experiments have been conducted worldwide, with the goal of observing low-energy nuclear recoils induced by WIMPs scattering off target nuclei in ultra-sensitive, low-background detectors. In the last few decades noble liquid detectors designed to search for dark matter in the form of WIMPs have been extremely successful in improving their sensitivities and setting the best limits. One of the crucial problems to be faced for the development of large size (multi ton-scale) liquid argon experiments is the lack of reliable and low background cryogenic PMTs: their intrinsic radioactivity, cost, and borderline performance at 87 K rule them out as a possible candidate for photosensors. We propose a brand new concept of liquid argon-based detector for direct dark matter search: the Geiger-mode Avalanche Photodiode Time Projection Chamber (GAP-TPC) optimized in terms of residual radioactivity of the photosensors, energy and spatial resolution, light and charge collection efficiencyComment: 7 pages, 5 figures, Accepted for publication on JINS

Competing Quantum Orderings in Cuprate Superconductors: A Minimal Model

We present a minimal model for cuprate superconductors. At the unrestricted mean-field level, the model produces homogeneous superconductivity at large doping, striped superconductivity in the underdoped regime and various antiferromagnetic phases at low doping and for high temperatures. On the underdoped side, the superconductor is intrinsically inhomogeneous and global phase coherence is achieved through Josephson-like coupling of the superconducting stripes. The model is applied to calculate experimentally measurable ARPES spectra.Comment: 5 pages, 4 eps included figure

Topological code Autotune

Many quantum systems are being investigated in the hope of building a large-scale quantum computer. All of these systems suffer from decoherence, resulting in errors during the execution of quantum gates. Quantum error correction enables reliable quantum computation given unreliable hardware. Unoptimized topological quantum error correction (TQEC), while still effective, performs very suboptimally, especially at low error rates. Hand optimizing the classical processing associated with a TQEC scheme for a specific system to achieve better error tolerance can be extremely laborious. We describe a tool Autotune capable of performing this optimization automatically, and give two highly distinct examples of its use and extreme outperformance of unoptimized TQEC. Autotune is designed to facilitate the precise study of real hardware running TQEC with every quantum gate having a realistic, physics-based error model.Comment: 13 pages, 17 figures, version accepted for publicatio

Fabrication of Embedded Microvalve on PMMA Microfluidic Devices through Surface Functionalization

The integration of a PDMS membrane within orthogonally placed PMMA microfluidic channels enables the pneumatic actuation of valves within bonded PMMA-PDMS-PMMA multilayer devices. Here, surface functionalization of PMMA substrates via acid catalyzed hydrolysis and air plasma corona treatment were investigated as possible techniques to permanently bond PMMA microfluidic channels to PDMS surfaces. FTIR and water contact angle analysis of functionalized PMMA substrates showed that air plasma corona treatment was most effective in inducing PMMA hydrophilicity. Subsequent fluidic tests showed that air plasma modified and bonded PMMA multilayer devices could withstand fluid pressure at an operational flow rate of 9 mircoliters/min. The pneumatic actuation of the embedded PDMS membrane was observed through optical microscopy and an electrical resistance based technique. PDMS membrane actuation occurred at pneumatic pressures of as low as 10kPa and complete valving occurred at 14kPa for 100 micrometers x 100 micrometers channel cross-sections.Comment: Submitted on behalf of EDA Publishing Association (http://irevues.inist.fr/handle/2042/16838

Defending against Sybil Devices in Crowdsourced Mapping Services

Real-time crowdsourced maps such as Waze provide timely updates on traffic, congestion, accidents and points of interest. In this paper, we demonstrate how lack of strong location authentication allows creation of software-based {\em Sybil devices} that expose crowdsourced map systems to a variety of security and privacy attacks. Our experiments show that a single Sybil device with limited resources can cause havoc on Waze, reporting false congestion and accidents and automatically rerouting user traffic. More importantly, we describe techniques to generate Sybil devices at scale, creating armies of virtual vehicles capable of remotely tracking precise movements for large user populations while avoiding detection. We propose a new approach to defend against Sybil devices based on {\em co-location edges}, authenticated records that attest to the one-time physical co-location of a pair of devices. Over time, co-location edges combine to form large {\em proximity graphs} that attest to physical interactions between devices, allowing scalable detection of virtual vehicles. We demonstrate the efficacy of this approach using large-scale simulations, and discuss how they can be used to dramatically reduce the impact of attacks against crowdsourced mapping services.Comment: Measure and integratio