54,748 research outputs found
Wormhole Effect in a Strong Topological Insulator
An infinitely thin solenoid carrying magnetic flux Phi (a `Dirac string')
inserted into an ordinary band insulator has no significant effect on the
spectrum of electrons. In a strong topological insulator, remarkably, such a
solenoid carries protected gapless one-dimensional fermionic modes when
Phi=hc/2e. These modes are spin-filtered and represent a distinct bulk
manifestation of the topologically non-trivial insulator. We establish this
`wormhole' effect by both general qualitative considerations and by numerical
calculations within a minimal lattice model. We also discuss the possibility of
experimental observation of a closely related effect in artificially engineered
nanostructures.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures. For related work and info visit
http://www.physics.ubc.ca/~fran
Breakdown of adiabatic invariance in spherical tokamaks
Thermal ions in spherical tokamaks have two adiabatic invariants: the
magnetic moment and the longitudinal invariant. For hot ions, variations in
magnetic-field strength over a gyro period can become sufficiently large to
cause breakdown of the adiabatic invariance. The magnetic moment is more
sensitive to perturbations than the longitudinal invariant and there exists an
intermediate regime, super-adiabaticity, where the longitudinal invariant
remains adiabatic, but the magnetic moment does not. The motion of
super-adiabatic ions remains integrable and confinement is thus preserved.
However, above a threshold energy, the longitudinal invariant becomes
non-adiabatic too, and confinement is lost as the motion becomes chaotic. We
predict beam ions in present-day spherical tokamaks to be super-adiabatic but
fusion alphas in proposed burning-plasma spherical tokamaks to be
non-adiabatic.Comment: 6 pages, 8 figure
Space-Based Gravity Detector for a Space Laboratory
A space-based superconducting gravitational low-frequency wave detector is
considered. Sensitivity of the detector is sufficient to use the detector as a
partner of other contemporary low-frequency detectors like LIGO and LISA. This
device can also be very useful for experimental study of other effects
predicted by theories of gravitation.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures
Crystal Growth in Fluid Flow: Nonlinear Response Effects
We investigate crystal-growth kinetics in the presence of strong shear flow
in the liquid, using molecular-dynamics simulations of a binary-alloy model.
Close to the equilibrium melting point, shear flow always suppresses the growth
of the crystal-liquid interface. For lower temperatures, we find that the
growth velocity of the crystal depends non-monotonically on the shear rate.
Slow enough flow enhances the crystal growth, due to an increased particle
mobility in the liquid. Stronger flow causes a growth regime that is nearly
temperature-independent, in striking contrast to what one expects from the
thermodynamic and equilibrium kinetic properties of the system, which both
depend strongly on temperature. We rationalize these effects of flow on crystal
growth as resulting from the nonlinear response of the fluid to strong shearing
forces.Comment: to appear in Phys. Rev. Material
Fronthaul-Constrained Cloud Radio Access Networks: Insights and Challenges
As a promising paradigm for fifth generation (5G) wireless communication
systems, cloud radio access networks (C-RANs) have been shown to reduce both
capital and operating expenditures, as well as to provide high spectral
efficiency (SE) and energy efficiency (EE). The fronthaul in such networks,
defined as the transmission link between a baseband unit (BBU) and a remote
radio head (RRH), requires high capacity, but is often constrained. This
article comprehensively surveys recent advances in fronthaul-constrained
C-RANs, including system architectures and key techniques. In particular, key
techniques for alleviating the impact of constrained fronthaul on SE/EE and
quality of service for users, including compression and quantization,
large-scale coordinated processing and clustering, and resource allocation
optimization, are discussed. Open issues in terms of software-defined
networking, network function virtualization, and partial centralization are
also identified.Comment: 5 Figures, accepted by IEEE Wireless Communications. arXiv admin
note: text overlap with arXiv:1407.3855 by other author
Stability of Majorana Fermions in Proximity-Coupled Topological Insulator Nanowires
It has been shown previously that a finite-length topological insulator
nanowire, proximity-coupled to an ordinary bulk s-wave superconductor and
subject to a longitudinal applied magnetic field, realizes a one-dimensional
topological superconductor with an unpaired Majorana fermion (MF) localized at
each end of the nanowire. Here, we study the stability of these MFs with
respect to various perturbations that are likely to occur in a physical
realization of the proposed device. We show that the unpaired Majorana fermions
persist in this system for any value of the chemical potential inside the bulk
band gap of order 300 meV in BiSe by computing the Majorana number.
From this calculation, we also show that the unpaired Majorana fermions persist
when the magnetic flux through the nanowire cross-section deviates
significantly from half flux quantum. Lastly, we demonstrate that the unpaired
Majorana fermions persist in strongly disordered wires with fluctuations in the
on-site potential ranging in magnitude up to several times the size of the bulk
band gap. These results suggest this solid-state system should exhibit unpaired
Majorana fermions under accessible conditions likely important for experimental
study or future applications.Comment: 17 pages, 13 figure
Strain Modulated Electronic Properties of Ge Nanowires - A First Principles Study
We used density-functional theory based first principles simulations to study
the effects of uniaxial strain and quantum confinement on the electronic
properties of germanium nanowires along the [110] direction, such as the energy
gap and the effective masses of the electron and hole. The diameters of the
nanowires being studied are up to 50 {\AA}. As shown in our calculations, the
Ge [110] nanowires possess a direct band gap, in contrast to the nature of an
indirect band gap in bulk. We discovered that the band gap and the effective
masses of charge carries can be modulated by applying uniaxial strain to the
nanowires. These strain modulations are size-dependent. For a smaller wire (~
12 {\AA}), the band gap is almost a linear function of strain; compressive
strain increases the gap while tensile strain reduces the gap. For a larger
wire (20 {\AA} - 50 {\AA}), the variation of the band gap with respect to
strain shows nearly parabolic behavior: compressive strain beyond -1% also
reduces the gap. In addition, our studies showed that strain affects effective
masses of the electron and hole very differently. The effective mass of the
hole increases with a tensile strain while the effective mass of the electron
increases with a compressive strain. Our results suggested both strain and size
can be used to tune the band structures of nanowires, which may help in design
of future nano-electronic devices. We also discussed our results by applying
the tight-binding model.Comment: 1 table, 8 figure
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