Topological Inflation with Large Tensor-to-scalar Ratio

BICEP2's detection on the primordial B-mode of CMB polarization suggests that inflation occurred around GUT scale, with the tensor-to-scalar ratio r~0.2. Inspired by this discosvery, we study the topological inflation which was driven by a double/single/no well potential. We show that with proper choice of parameters, all these three types of topological inflationary models could be consistent with the constraints from current observations.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figures, PRD format; v2 typos corrected, references adde

Scaling of the chiral magnetic effect in quantum diffusive Weyl semimetals

We investigate the effect of short-range spin-independent disorder on the chiral magnetic effect (CME) in Weyl semimetals. Based on a minimum two-band model, the disorder effect is examined in the quantum diffusion limit by including the Drude correction and the correction due to the Cooperon channel. It is shown that the Drude correction renormalizes the CME coefficient by a factor to a finite value that is independent of the system size. Furthemore, due to an additional momentum expansion involved in deriving the CME coefficient, the contribution of Cooperon to the CME coefficient is governed by the quartic momentum term. As a result, in contrast to the weak localization and weak anti-localization effects observed in the measurement of conductivity of Dirac fermions, we find that in the limit of zero magnetic field, the CME coefficients of finite systems manifest the same scaling of localization even in three dimension. Our results indicate that while the chiral magnetic current due to slowly oscillating magnetic fields can exist in clean systems, its observability will be limited by suppression due to short-range disorder in condensed matters.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figure, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Estimating the Impacts of Climate Change on Mortality in OECD Countries

The major contribution of this study is to combines both climatic and macroeconomic factors simultaneously in the estimation of mortality using the capital city of 22 OECD countries from the period 1990 to 2008. The empirical results provide strong evidences that higher income and a lower unemployment rate could reduce mortality rates, while the increases in precipitation and temperature variation have significantly positive impacts on the mortality rates. The effects of changing average temperature on mortality rates in summer and winter are asymmetrical and also depend on the location. Combining the future climate change scenarios with the estimation outcomes show that mortality rates in OECD countries in 2100 will be increased by 3.77% to 5.89%.Climate change; mortality; panel data model

Mechanisms of Visible Light Photocatalysis in N-Doped Anatase TiO2 with Oxygen Vacancies from GGA+U Calculations

We have systematically studied the photocatalytic mechanisms of nitrogen doping in anatase TiO2 using first-principles calculations based on density functional theory, employing Hubbard U (8.47 eV) on-site correction. The impurity formation energy, charge density, and electronic structure properties of TiO2 supercells containing substitutional nitrogen, interstitial nitrogen, or oxygen vacancies were evaluated to clarify the mechanisms under visible light. According to the formation energy, a substitutional N atom is better formed than an interstitial N atom, and the formation of an oxygen vacancy in N-doped TiO2 is easier than that in pure TiO2. The calculated results have shown that a significant band gap narrowing may only occur in heavy nitrogen doping. With light nitrogen doping, the photocatalysis under visible light relies on N-isolated impurity states. Oxygen vacancies existence in N-doped TiO2 can improve the photocatalysis in visible light because of a band gap narrowing and n-type donor states. These findings provide a reasonable explanation of the mechanisms of visible light photocatalysis in N-doped TiO2