Theory of control of spin/photon interface for quantum networks

A cavity coupling a charged nanodot and a fiber can act as a quantum interface, through which a stationary spin qubit and a flying photon qubit can be inter-converted via cavity-assisted Raman process. This Raman process can be controlled to generate or annihilate an arbitrarily shaped single-photon wavepacket by pulse-shaping the controlling laser field. This quantum interface forms the basis for many essential functions of a quantum network, including sending, receiving, transferring, swapping, and entangling qubits at distributed quantum nodes as well as a deterministic source and an efficient detector of a single photon wavepacket with arbitrarily specified shape and average photon number. Numerical study of noise effects on the operations shows high fidelity.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Interactive probabilistic post-mining of user-preferred spatial co-location patterns

© 2018 IEEE. Spatial co-location pattern mining is an important task in spatial data mining. However, traditional mining frameworks often produce too many prevalent patterns of which only a small proportion may be truly interesting to end users. To satisfy user preferences, this work proposes an interactive probabilistic post-mining method to discover user-preferred co-location patterns from the early-round of mined results by iteratively involving user's feedback and probabilistically refining preferred patterns. We first introduce a framework of interactively post-mining preferred co-location patterns, which enables a user to effectively discover the co-location patterns tailored to his/her specific preference. A probabilistic model is further introduced to measure the user feedback-based subjective preferences on resultant co-location patterns. This measure is used to not only select sample co-location patterns in the iterative user feedback process but also rank the results. The experimental results on real and synthetic data sets demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach

The Temporal and Spectral Characteristics of "Fast Rise and Exponential Decay" Gamma-Ray Burst Pulses

In this paper we have analyzed the temporal and spectral behavior of 52 Fast Rise and Exponential Decay (FRED) pulses in 48 long-duration gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) observed by the CGRO/BATSE, using a pulse model with two shape parameters and the Band model with three shape parameters, respectively. It is found that these FRED pulses are distinguished both temporally and spectrally from those in long-lag pulses. Different from these long-lag pulses only one parameter pair indicates an evident correlation among the five parameters, which suggests that at least $\sim$4 parameters are needed to model burst temporal and spectral behavior. In addition, our studies reveal that these FRED pulses have correlated properties: (i) long-duration pulses have harder spectra and are less luminous than short-duration pulses; (ii) the more asymmetric the pulses are the steeper the evolutionary curves of the peak energy ($E_{p}$) in the $\nu f_{\nu}$ spectrum within pulse decay phase are. Our statistical results give some constrains on the current GRB models.Comment: 18 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa

Optical properties and structure characterization of sapphire after Ni ion implantation and annealing

Implantation of 64 keV64keV Ni ions to sapphire was conducted at room temperature to 1×1017 ions/cm21×1017ions∕cm2 with a current density of 55 or 10 μA/cm210μA∕cm2. Metallic Ni nanoparticles were formed with the 5 μA/cm25μA∕cm2 ion current and the NiAl2O4NiAl2O4 compound was formed with the 10 μA/cm210μA∕cm2 ion current. The crystals implanted with both current densities were annealed isochronally for 1 h1h at temperatures up to 1000 °C1000°C in steps of 100 °C100°C in an ambient atmosphere. Optical absorption spectroscopy, x-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy have been utilized to characterize the samples. The surface plasmon resonance (SPR) absorption band peaked at 400 nm400nm due to the Ni nanoparticles shifted toward the longer wavelength gradually with the annealing temperature increasing from 400 to 700 °C400to700°C. The SPR absorption band disappeared after the annealing temperature reached 800 °C800°C. NiO nanoparticles were formed at the expense of Ni nanoparticles with an increasing annealing temperature. The TEM analyses revealed that the nanoparticles grew to 6–20 nm6–20nm and migrated toward the surface after annealing at 900 °C900°C. The absorption band at 430 nm430nm from Ni2+Ni2+ cations in NiAl2O4NiAl2O4 did not shift with the increasing annealing temperature.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/87389/2/073524_1.pd

Influence of Storage Strategies on the Reactivation Characteristics of Shortcut Nitrification Aerobic Granular Sludge

Appropriate storage strategies were helpful in keeping the integrity and activity as well as in promoting the engineering application of granular sludge. The particle size distribution, composition of extracellular polymeric substances (EPSs), and activity of shortcut nitrification aerobic granular sludge (SNAGS) of the different storage strategies (15 °C with intermittent aeration, 4 °C, −20 °C, and −80 °C) were investigated in this study. The results showed that the storage strategies influenced particle size distribution, EPSs, protein (PN), polysaccharide (PS), PN/PS, and the oxidation ability of ammonium nitrogen of SNAGS. However, storage strategies had little effect on nitrite accumulation. The particle size, EPSs, PN, and PS of the SNAGS decreased after storage. The change of EPSs, PN, and PS of SNGS was smaller under the storage condition of −20 °C. The ammonium nitrogen oxidation and denitrification abilities of SNAGS were highest under the storage condition of −80 °C and −20 °C. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Regulation of connexin 43 channels by PKC-mediated phosphorylation

Gap-junctional channels communicate adjacent cells electrically and metabolically. They are formed by 4-transmembrane helix proteins called connexins; six connexins form a connexon (or gap-junctional hemichannel) and two of these, one from each neighboring cell, dock head-to-head to form the gap-junctional channel. The permeability of gapjunctional channels is regulated by voltage, intracellular calcium activity, intracellular pH and phosphorylation by various kinases. This review focuses on the mechanism of the regulation of connexin 43 by protein kinase C. We discuss results obtained largely from studies of hemichannels that demonstrate that the channel pore is narrowed down, but not closed, by protein kinase C-mediated phosphorylation of a single site, serine 368, located 14 residues away from the C-terminal end of connexin 43. The effect of protein kinase C involves a large conformational change of the protein and requires phosphorylation of all six subunits. The precise mechanism of the decrease in pore cross-sectional area has not been established.Sociedad Argentina de Fisiologí

Kondo hybridisation and the origin of metallic states at the (001) surface of SmB6

SmB6, a well-known Kondo insulator, has been proposed to be an ideal topological insulator with states of topological character located in a clean, bulk electronic gap, namely the Kondo hybridisation gap. Seeing as the Kondo gap arises from many body electronic correlations, this would place SmB6 at the head of a new material class: topological Kondo insulators. Here, for the first time, we show that the k-space characteristics of the Kondo hybridisation process is the key to unravelling the origin of the two types of metallic states observed directly by ARPES in the electronic band structure of SmB6(001). One group of these states is essentially of bulk origin, and cuts the Fermi level due to the position of the chemical potential 20 meV above the lowest lying 5d-4f hybridisation zone. The other metallic state is more enigmatic, being weak in intensity, but represents a good candidate for a topological surface state. However, before this claim can be substantiated by an unequivocal measurement of its massless dispersion relation, our data raises the bar in terms of the ARPES resolution required, as we show there to be a strong renormalisation of the hybridisation gaps by a factor 2-3 compared to theory, following from the knowledge of the true position of the chemical potential and a careful comparison with the predictions from recent LDA+Gutzwiler calculations. All in all, these key pieces of evidence act as triangulation markers, providing a detailed description of the electronic landscape in SmB6, pointing the way for future, ultrahigh resolution ARPES experiments to achieve a direct measurement of the Dirac cones in the first topological Kondo insulator.Comment: 9 pages, 4 Figures and supplementary material (including Movies and CORPES13 "best prize" poster