Nonleptonic two-body charmless B decays involving a tensor meson in the Perturbative QCD Approach

Two-body charmless hadronic B decays involving a light tensor meson in the final states are studied in the perturbative QCD approach based on $k_T$ factorization. From our calculations, we find that the decay branching ratios for color allowed tree-dominated decays $B\to a_{2}^{0}\pi^{+}$ and $B\to a_{2}^{-}\pi^{+}$ modes are of order $10^{-6}$ and $10^{-5}$, respectively. While other color suppressed tree-dominated decays have very small branching ratios. In general, the branching ratios of most decays are in the range of $10^{-5}$ to $10^{-8}$, which are bigger by one or two orders of magnitude than those predictions obtained in Isgur-Scora-Grinstein-Wise II model and in the covariant light-front approach, but consistent with the recent experimental measurements and the QCD factorization calculations. Since the decays with a tensor meson emitted from vacuum are prohibited in naive factorization, the contributions of nonfactorizable and annihilation diagrams are very important to these decays, which are calculable in our perturbative QCD approach. We also give predictions to the direct CP asymmetries, some of which are large enough for the future experiments to measure. Because we considered the mixing between $f_{2}$ and $f_{2}'$, the decay rates are enhanced significantly for some decays involving $f_{2}^{\prime}$ meson, even with a small mixing angle.Comment: 26 pages, 2 figure

Streaming Video over HTTP with Consistent Quality

In conventional HTTP-based adaptive streaming (HAS), a video source is encoded at multiple levels of constant bitrate representations, and a client makes its representation selections according to the measured network bandwidth. While greatly simplifying adaptation to the varying network conditions, this strategy is not the best for optimizing the video quality experienced by end users. Quality fluctuation can be reduced if the natural variability of video content is taken into consideration. In this work, we study the design of a client rate adaptation algorithm to yield consistent video quality. We assume that clients have visibility into incoming video within a finite horizon. We also take advantage of the client-side video buffer, by using it as a breathing room for not only network bandwidth variability, but also video bitrate variability. The challenge, however, lies in how to balance these two variabilities to yield consistent video quality without risking a buffer underrun. We propose an optimization solution that uses an online algorithm to adapt the video bitrate step-by-step, while applying dynamic programming at each step. We incorporate our solution into PANDA -- a practical rate adaptation algorithm designed for HAS deployment at scale.Comment: Refined version submitted to ACM Multimedia Systems Conference (MMSys), 201

Probing Half-odd Topological Number with Cold Atoms in a Non-Abelian Optical Lattice

We propose an experimental scheme to probe the contribution of a single Dirac cone to the Hall conductivity as half-odd topological number sequence. In our scheme, the quantum anomalous Hall effect as in graphene is simulated with cold atoms trapped in an optical lattice and subjected to a laser-induced non-Abelian gauge field. By tuning the laser intensity to change the gauge flux, the energies of the four Dirac points in the first Brillouin zone are shifted with each other and the contribution of the single Dirac cone to the total atomic Hall conductivity is manifested. We also show such manifestation can be experimentally probed with atomic density profile measurements.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure