Impurity effect as a probe for the pairing symmetry of graphene-based superconductors

The single impurity effect on the graphene-based superconductor is studied theoretically. Four different pairing symmetries are discussed. Sharp resonance peaks are found near the impurity site for the $d+id$-wave pairing symmetry and the $p+ip$-wave pairing symmetry when the chemical potential is large. As the chemical potential decreases, the in-gap states are robust for the $d+id$ pairing symmetry while they disappear for the $p+ip$ pairing symmetry. Such in-gap peaks are absent for the fully gapped extended $s$-wave pairing symmetry and the nodal $f$-wave pairing symmetry. The existence of the in-gap resonance peaks can be explained well based on the sign-reversal of the superconducting gap along different Fermi pockets and by analyzing the denominator of the $T$-matrix. All of the features can be accessed by the experiments, which provide a useful probe for the pairing symmetry of graphene-based superconductors.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figure

Secure Transmission and Self-Energy Recycling for Wireless-Powered Relay Systems with Partial Eavesdropper Channel State Information

This paper focuses on the secure transmission of wireless-powered relay systems with imperfect eavesdropper channel state information (ECSI). For efficient energy transfer and information relaying, a novel two-phase protocol is proposed, in which the relay operates in full-duplex (FD) mode to achieve simultaneous wireless power and information transmission. Compared with those existing protocols, the proposed design possesses two main advantages: 1) it fully exploits the available hardware resource (antenna element) of relay and can offer higher secrecy rate; 2) it enables self-energy recycling (S-ER) at relay, in which the loopback interference (LI) generated by FD operation is harvested and reused for information relaying. To maximize the worst-case secrecy rate (WCSR) through jointly designing the source and relay beamformers coupled with the power allocation ratio, an optimization problem is formulated. This formulated problem is proved to be non-convex and the challenge to solve it is how to concurrently solve out the beamformers and the power allocation ratio. To cope with this difficulty, an alternative approach is proposed by converting the original problem into three subproblems. By solving these subproblems iteratively, the closed form solutions of robust beamformers and power allocation ratio for the original problem are achieved. Simulations are done and results reveal that the proposed S-ER based secure transmission scheme outperforms the traditional time-switching based relaying (TSR) scheme at a maximum WCSR gain of 80%.Results also demonstrate that the WCSR performance of the scheme reusing idle antennas for information reception is much better than that of schemes exploiting only one receive antenna.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figure

PTB-TIR: A Thermal Infrared Pedestrian Tracking Benchmark

Thermal infrared (TIR) pedestrian tracking is one of the important components among numerous applications of computer vision, which has a major advantage: it can track pedestrians in total darkness. The ability to evaluate the TIR pedestrian tracker fairly, on a benchmark dataset, is significant for the development of this field. However, there is not a benchmark dataset. In this paper, we develop a TIR pedestrian tracking dataset for the TIR pedestrian tracker evaluation. The dataset includes 60 thermal sequences with manual annotations. Each sequence has nine attribute labels for the attribute based evaluation. In addition to the dataset, we carry out the large-scale evaluation experiments on our benchmark dataset using nine publicly available trackers. The experimental results help us understand the strengths and weaknesses of these trackers.In addition, in order to gain more insight into the TIR pedestrian tracker, we divide its functions into three components: feature extractor, motion model, and observation model. Then, we conduct three comparison experiments on our benchmark dataset to validate how each component affects the tracker's performance. The findings of these experiments provide some guidelines for future research. The dataset and evaluation toolkit can be downloaded at {https://github.com/QiaoLiuHit/PTB-TIR_Evaluation_toolkit}.Comment: 10 pages,IEEE Transactions on Multimedia (2019

Calculation of intrinsic spin Hall conductivity by Wannier interpolation

\textit{Ab-initio} calculation of intrinsic spin Hall conductivity (SHC) generally requires a strict convergence criterion and a dense k-point mesh to sample the Brillouin zone, making its convergence challenging and time-consuming. Here we present a scheme for efficiently and accurately calculating SHC based on maximally localized Wannier function (MLWF). The quantities needed by the Kubo formula of SHC are derived in the space of MLWF and it is shown that only the Hamiltonian, the overlap and the spin operator matrices are required from the initial \textit{ab-initio} calculation. The computation of these matrices and the interpolation of Kubo formula on a dense k-point mesh can be easily achieved. We validate our results by prototypical calculations on fcc Pt and GaAs, which demonstrate that the Wannier interpolation approach is of high accuracy and efficiency. Calculations of $\alpha$-Ta and $\beta$-Ta show that SHC of $\beta$-Ta is 2.7 times of $\alpha$-Ta, while both have the opposite sign relative to fcc Pt and are an order of magnitude smaller than Pt. The calculated spin Hall angle of $-0.156$, is quite consistent with previous experiment on $\beta$-Ta, further suggesting intrinsic contribution may dominate in $\beta$-Ta. Our approach could facilitate large-scale SHC calculations, and may benefit the discovery of materials with high intrinsic SHC

Centrally Concentrated X-ray Radiation from an Extended Accreting Corona in Active Galactic Nuclei

The X-ray emission from bright active galactic nuclei (AGNs) is believed to originate in a hot corona lying above a cold, geometrically thin accretion disk. A highly concentrated corona located within $\sim10$ gravitational radii above the black hole is inferred from observations. Based on the accretion of interstellar medium/wind, a disk corona model has been proposed in which the corona is well coupled to the disk by radiation, thermal conduction, as well as by mass exchange \citep{Liu2015, Qiao2017}. Such a model avoids artificial energy input to the corona and has been used to interpret the spectral features observed in AGN. In this work, it is shown that the bulk emission size of the corona is very small for the extended accretion flow in our model. More than 80\% of the hard X-ray power is emitted from a small region confined within 10 Schwarzschild radii around a non-spinning black hole, which is expected to be even smaller accordingly for a spinning black hole. Here, the corona emission is more extended at higher Eddington ratios. The compactness parameter of the corona, $l={L\over R}{\sigma_{\rm T}\over m_{\rm e} c^3}$, is shown to be in the range of 1-33 for Eddington ratios of 0.02 - 0.1. Combined with the electron temperature in the corona, this indicates that electron--positron pair production is not dominant in this regime. A positive relation between the compactness parameter and photon index is also predicted. By comparing the above model predictions with observational features, we find that the model is in agreement with observations.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figure

Anisotropies of different mass compositions of cosmic rays

The spectral hardenings of cosmic ray nuclei above $\sim 200$ GV followed by softenings around 10 TV, the knee of the all-particle spectrum around PeV energies, as well as the pattern change of the amplitude and phase of the large-scale anisotropies around 100 TeV indicate the complexities of the origin and transportation of Galactic cosmic rays. It has been shown that nearby source(s) are most likely to be the cause of such spectral features of both the spectra and the anisotropies. In this work, we study the anisotropy features of different mass composition (or mass groups) of cosmic rays in this nearby source model. We show that even if the spectral features from the nearby source component is less distinctive compared with the background component from e.g., the population of distant sources, the anisotropy features are more remarkable to be identified. Measurements of the anisotropies of each mass composition (group) of cosmic rays by the space experiments such as DAMPE and HERD and the ground-based experiments such as LHAASO in the near future are expected to be able to critically test this scenario.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figure

Disk corona interaction: mechanism for the disk truncation and spectrum change in low luminosity AGN

The truncation of an optically thick, geometrically thin accretion disk is investigated in the context of low luminosity AGN (LLAGN). We generalize the disk evaporation model used in the interpretative framework of black hole X-ray binaries by including the effect of a magnetic field in accretion disks surrounding supermassive black holes. The critical transition mass accretion rate for which the disk is truncated is found to be insensitive to magnetic effects, but its inclusion leads to a smaller truncation radius in comparison to a model without its consideration. That is, a thin viscous disk is truncated for LLAGN at an Eddington ratio less than 0.03 for a standard viscosity parameter ($\alpha = 0.3$). An increase of the viscosity parameter results in a higher critical transition mass accretion rate and a correspondingly smaller truncation distance, the latter accentuated by greater magnetic energy densities in the disk. Based on these results, the truncation radii inferred from spectral fits of LLAGN published in the literature are consistent with the disk evaporation model. The infrared emission arising from the truncated geometrically thin accretion disks may be responsible for the red bump seen in such LLAGN.Comment: 21 pages, 2 figures. Accepted for publication in Ap

A Hybrid Two Component Accretion Flow Surrounding Supermassive Black Holes in AGN

It is commonly believed that the optical/UV and X-ray emissions in luminous AGN are produced in an accretion disk and an embedded hot corona respectively. The inverse Compton scattering of disk photons by hot electrons in the corona can effectively cool the coronal gas if the mass supply is predominantly via a cool disk like flow as in BHXRBs. Thus, the application of such a model to AGNs fails to produce their observed X-ray emission. As a consequence, a fraction of disk accretion energy is usually assumed to be transferred to the corona. To avoid this assumption, we propose that gas in a vertically extended distribution is supplied to a supermassive black hole by the gravitational capture of interstellar medium or stellar wind material. In this picture, the gas partially condenses to an underlying cool disk as it flows toward the black hole, releasing accretion energy as X-ray emission and supplying mass for the disk accretion. Detailed numerical calculations reveal that the X-ray luminosity can reach a few tens of percent of the bolometric luminosity. The value of $\alpha_{\rm ox}$ varies from 0.9 to 1.2 for the mass supply rate ranging from 0.03 to 0.1 times the Eddington value. The corresponding photon index in the 2-10 keV energy band varies from 1.9 to 2.3. Such a picture provides a natural extension of the model for low luminosity AGN where condensation is absent at low mass accretion rates and no optically thick disk exists in the inner region.Comment: 21 pages,4 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

A realistic phase screen model for forward multiple-scattering media

Existing random phase screen (RPS) models for forward multiple-scattering media fail to incorporate ballistic light. In this letter, we redesign the angular spectrum of the screen by means of Monte-Carlo simulation based on an assumption that a single screen should represent all the scattering events a photon experiences between two adjacent screens. Three examples demonstrate that the proposed model exhibits more realistic optical properties than conventional RPS models in terms of attenuation of ballistic light, evolution of beam profile and angular memory effect. The proposed model also provides the flexibility to balance the computing accuracy, speed and memory usage by tuning the screen spacing.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Improved Thermometer from Intermediate Mass Fragments in Heavy-Ion Collisions with Isobaric Yield Ratio Difference

\item[Background] Temperature is an important parameter in studying many important questions in heavy-ion collisions. A thermometer based on the isobaric yield ratio (IYR) has been proposed [Ma \textit{et al.}, Phys. Rev. C \textbf{86}, 054611 (2012) and Ma \textit{et al.}, \textit{ibid.}, Phys. Rev. C \textbf{88}, 014609 (2013)]. \item[Purpose] An improved thermometer ($T_{IB}$) is proposed based on the difference between IYRs. $T_{IB}$ obtained from isobars in different reactions will be compared. \item[Methods] The yields of three isobars are employed in $T_{IB}$. The residual free energy of the three isobars are replaced by that of the binding energy. No secondary decay modification for odd $A$ fragment is used in $T_{IB}$. \item[Results] The measured fragment yields in the 140$A$ MeV $^{40, 48}$Ca + $^{9}$Be ($^{181}$Ta) and $^{58, 64}$Ni + $^9$Be ($^{181}$Ta), the 1$A$ GeV $^{124, 136}$Xe + Pb, and the $^{112,124}$Sn + $^{112,124}$Sn reactions have been analyzed to obtain $T_{IB}$ from IMFs. $T_{IB}$ from most of the fragments in the $^{40, 48}$Ca and $^{58, 64}$Ni reactions is in the range of 0.6 MeV $< T_{IB} <$ 3.5 MeV. $T_{IB}$ from most of the fragments in the $^{124}$Xe and $^{112,124}$Sn reactions is in the range of 0.5 MeV $< T_{IB} <$ 2.5 MeV, while the range is 0.5 MeV $< T_{IB} <$ 4 MeV from most of the fragments in the $^{136}$Xe reaction. In general, for most of the fragments $T_{IB}$ in the $^{40, 48}$Ca and $^{58, 64}$Ni reactions are very similar (except in the very neutron-rich fragments), and $T_{IB}$ from IMFs in the $^{124, 136}$Xe and $^{112,124}$Sn reactions is also similar. A slightly dependence of $T_{IB}$ on $A$ is found. \item[Conclusions] Using the binding energy of the nucleus, $T_{IB}$ can be obtained without the knowledge of the free energies of fragments. In the investigated reactions, $T_{IB}$ from most of the IMFs is low.Comment: 7 pages, 9 figures. To appear on Physical Review