26Al/10Be Age of Peking Man

The chronological position of Peking Man, or Homo erectus pekinensis, has long been pursued, but has remained problematic due to lack of a suitable dating method^1-7^. Here we report cosmogenic ^26^Al/ ^10^Be burial dating of quartz sediments and artifacts from the lower strata of Zhoukoudian Locality 1 where the remains of early members of the Peking Man family were discovered. This study marks the first radioisotopic dating of any early hominin site in China beyond the range of mass spectrometric U-series dating. The weighted mean of six meaningful measurements, 0.75 +/-; 0.09 (0.11) Ma (million years), provides the best age estimate for lower cultural Layers ^7-10^. Together with previously reported U-series^3^ and paleomagnetic^4^ data, as well as sedimentological considerations^8, 9^ these layers may be further correlated to S6-S7 in Chinese loess stratigraphy or marine isotope stages 17-18, in the range of ~0.68-0.75 Ma. These ages are substantially older than previously supposed and may imply hominin presence in northern China throughout early Middle Pleistocene climate cycles

A Static Spherically Symmetric Solution of the Einstein-aether Theory

By using of the Euler-Lagrange equations, we find a static spherically symmetric solution in the Einstein-aether theory with the coupling constants restricted. The solution is similar to the Reissner-Nordstrom solution in that it has an inner Cauchy horizon and an outer black hole event horizon. But a remarkable difference from the Reissner-Nordstrom solution is that it is not asymptotically flat but approaches a two dimensional sphere. The resulting electric potential is regular in the whole spacetime except for the curvature singularity. On the other hand, the magnetic potential is divergent on both Cauchy horizon and the outer event horizon.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures. To appear in PR

Cosmic evolution of scalar fields with multiple vacua: generalized DBI and quintessence

We find a method to rewrite the equations of motion of scalar fields, generalized DBI field and quintessence, in the autonomous form for\emph{arbitrary} scalar potentials. With the aid of this method, we explore the cosmic evolution of generalized DBI field and quintessence with the potential of multiple vacua. Then we find that the scalars are always frozen in the false or true vacuum in the end. Compared to the evolution of quintessence, the generalized DBI field has more times of oscillations around the vacuum of the potential. The reason for this point is that, with the increasing of speed $\dot{\phi}$, the friction term of generalized DBI field is greatly decreased. Thus the generalized DBI field acquires more times of oscillations.Comment: 8 pages, 9 figures, accepted by IJTP. A number of typos correcte

Conductance modulation in spin field-efect transistors under finite bias voltages

The conductance modulations in spin field-effect transistors under finite bias voltages were studied. It was shown that when a finite bias voltage is applied between two terminals of a spin field-effect transistor, the spin precession states of injected spin-polarized electrons in the semiconductor channel of the device will depend not only the gate-voltage controlled Rashba spin-orbit coupling but also depend on the bias voltage and, hence, the conductance modulation in the device due to Rashba spin-orbit coupling may also depend sensitively on the bias voltage.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, to appear in Physical Review B, (April, 2004