A multi-wavelength observation and investigation of six infrared dark clouds

Context. Infrared dark clouds (IRDCs) are ubiquitous in the Milky Way, yet they play a crucial role in breeding newly-formed stars. Aims. With the aim of further understanding the dynamics, chemistry, and evolution of IRDCs, we carried out multi-wavelength observations on a small sample. Methods. We performed new observations with the IRAM 30 m and CSO 10.4 m telescopes, with tracers ${\rm HCO^+}$, HCN, ${\rm N_2H^+}$, ${\rm C^{18}O}$, DCO$^+$, SiO, and DCN toward six IRDCs G031.97+00.07, G033.69-00.01, G034.43+00.24, G035.39-00.33, G038.95-00.47, and G053.11+00.05. Results. We investigated 44 cores including 37 cores reported in previous work and seven newly-identified cores. Toward the dense cores, we detected 6 DCO$^+$, and 5 DCN lines. Using pixel-by-pixel spectral energy distribution (SED) fits of the $\textit{Herschel}$ 70 to 500 $\mu$m, we obtained dust temperature and column density distributions of the IRDCs. We found that ${\rm N_2H^+}$ emission has a strong correlation with the dust temperature and column density distributions, while ${\rm C^{18}O}$ showed the weakest correlation. It is suggested that ${\rm N_2H^+}$ is indeed a good tracer in very dense conditions, but ${\rm C^{18}O}$ is an unreliable one, as it has a relatively low critical density and is vulnerable to freezing-out onto the surface of cold dust grains. The dynamics within IRDCs are active, with infall, outflow, and collapse; the spectra are abundant especially in deuterium species. Conclusions. We observe many blueshifted and redshifted profiles, respectively, with ${\rm HCO^+}$ and ${\rm C^{18}O}$ toward the same core. This case can be well explained by model "envelope expansion with core collapse (EECC)".Comment: 24 pages, 11 figures, 4 tables. To be published in A&A. The resolutions of the pictures are cut dow

Tip induced unconventional superconductivity on Weyl semimetal TaAs

Weyl fermion is a massless Dirac fermion with definite chirality, which has been long pursued since 1929. Though it has not been observed as a fundamental particle in nature, Weyl fermion can be realized as low-energy excitation around Weyl point in Weyl semimetal, which possesses Weyl fermion cones in the bulk and nontrivial Fermi arc states on the surface. As a firstly discovered Weyl semimetal, TaAs crystal possesses 12 pairs of Weyl points in the momentum space, which are topologically protected against small perturbations. Here, we report for the first time the tip induced superconductivity on TaAs crystal by point contact spectroscopy. A conductance plateau and sharp double dips are observed in the point contact spectra, indicating p-wave like unconventional superconductivity. Furthermore, the zero bias conductance peak in low temperature regime is detected, suggesting potentially the existence of Majorana zero modes. The experimentally observed tunneling spectra can be interpreted with a novel mirror-symmetry protected topological superconductor induced in TaAs, which can exhibit zero bias and double finite bias peaks, and double conductance dips in the measurements. Our work can open a broad avenue in search for new topological superconducting phases from topological Weyl materials and trigger intensive investigations for pursuing Majorana fermions

Existence of solutions for a Dirichlet problem with a p-Laplacian

AbstractSome theorems of existence of weak solutions are obtained for p-Laplacian equations with Dirichlet boundary conditions by using a critical point theorem