Unexpected Reconstruction of the alpha-Boron (111) Surface

We report on a novel reconstruction of the alpha-boron (111) surface, discovered using an ab initio evolution structure search, and reveal that it has an unexpected neat structure and much lower surface energy than the recently proposed (111)-I_R,(a) surface. For this reconstruction, every single interstitial boron atom forms bridges with the unique polar-covalent bonds between neighboring B_12 icosahedra, which perfectly meet the electron counting rule and are responsible for the reconstruction-induced metal-semiconductor transition. The peculiar charge transfer between the interstitial atoms and the icosahedra plays an important role in stabilizing the surface.Comment: [email protected];[email protected]

Tentative evidence of spatially extended GeV emission from SS433/W50

We analyze 10 years of Fermi-LAT data towards the SS433/W50 region. With the latest source catalog and diffuse background models, the gamma-ray excess from SS433/W50 is detected with a significance of 6{\sigma} in the photon energy range of 500 MeV - 10 GeV. Our analysis indicates that an extended flat disk morphology is preferred over a point-source description, suggesting that the GeV emission region is much larger than that of the TeV emission detected by HAWC. The size of the GeV emission is instead consistent with the extent of the radio nebula W50, a supernova remnant being distorted by the jets, so we suggest that the GeV emission may originate from this supernova remnant. The spectral result of the GeV emission is also consistent with an supernova remnant origin. We also derive the GeV flux upper limits on the TeV emission region, which put moderate constrains on the leptonic models to explain the multiwavelength data.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in A&

Limiting Superluminal Neutrino Velocity and Lorentz Invariance Violation by Neutrino Emission from the Blazar TXS 0506+056

The detection of high-energy neutrino coincident with the blazar TXS 0506+056 provides a unique opportunity to test Lorentz invariance violation (LIV) in the neutrino sector. Thanks to the precisely measured redshift, i.e., $z=0.3365$, the comoving distance of the neutrino source is determined. In this work, we obtain and discuss the constraints on the superluminal neutrino velocity $\delta_\nu$ and the LIV by considering the energy loss of superluminal neutrino during propagation. Given superluminal electron velocity ($\delta_e \ge 0$), a very stringent constraint on superluminal neutrino velocity can be reached, i.e., $\delta_\nu \lesssim 1.3\times 10^{-18}$, corresponding to the quantum gravity (QG) scale $M_{\rm QG,1} \gtrsim 5.7 \times 10^{3} M_{\rm Pl}$ and $M_{\rm QG,2} \gtrsim 9.3 \times 10^{-6} M_{\rm Pl}$ for linear (quadratic) LIV, which are $\sim 12$ orders of magnitude tighter for linear LIV and $\sim 9$ orders tighter for quadratic LIV compared to the time-of-flight constraint from MeV neutrinos of SN 1987A. While given the subluminal electron velocity, a weaker constraint on the superluminal neutrino velocity is obtained, i.e., $\delta_\nu \lesssim 8 \times 10^{-17}$, which is consistent with the conclusions of previous works. We also study the neutrino detection probability due to the distortion of neutrino spectral shape during propagation, which gives slightly weaker constraints than above by a factor of $\sim2$.Comment: 4 pages, 1 table, accepted by Phys. Rev.

Detection of gamma-ray emission from the Coma cluster with Fermi Large Area Telescope and tentative evidence for an extended spatial structure

Many galaxy clusters have giant halos of non-thermal radio emission, indicating the presence of relativistic electrons in the clusters. Relativistic protons may also be accelerated by merger and/or accretion shocks in galaxy clusters. These cosmic-ray (CR) electrons and/or protons are expected to produce gamma-rays through inverse-Compton scatterings or inelastic $pp$ collisions respectively. Despite of intense efforts in searching for high-energy gamma-ray emission from galaxy clusters, conclusive evidence is still missing so far. Here we report the discovery of $\ge 200$ MeV gamma-ray emission from the Coma cluster direction with an unbinned likelihood analysis of the 9 years of {\it Fermi}-LAT Pass 8 data. The gamma-ray emission shows a spatial morphology roughly coincident with the giant radio halo, with an apparent excess at the southwest of the cluster. Using the test statistic analysis, we further find tentative evidence that the gamma-ray emission at the Coma center is spatially extended. The extended component has an integral energy flux of $\sim 2\times 10^{-12}{\rm \ erg\ cm^{-2}\ s^{-1}}$ in the energy range of 0.2 - 300 GeV and the spectrum is soft with a photon index of $\simeq-2.7$. Interpreting the gamma-ray emission as arising from CR proton interaction, we find that the volume-averaged value of the CR to thermal pressure ratio in the Coma cluster is about $\sim 2\%$. Our results show that galaxy clusters are likely a new type of GeV gamma-ray sources, and they are probably also giant reservoirs of CR protons.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures, Accepted by Physical Review D, more spatial models for the gamma-ray emission are used, systematic checks on the results are adde