We report a quark spin calculation from the anomalous Ward identity with overlap fermions on 2+1 flavor dynamical fermion configurations with light sea quark masses. Such a formulation decomposes the divergence of the flavor-singlet axial-vector current into a quark pseudoscalar term and a triangle anomaly term, flavor by flavor. A large negative contribution from the anomaly term is observed and it is canceled within errors by the contribution from the pseudoscalar term in the disconnected insertion in the heavy quark region. On the other hand, net negative contributions are obtained for the light and strange quarks in the disconnected insertion, since their quark pseudoscalar terms are smaller than that of the heavy quark. Our results are obtained from the 2+1 flavor domain wall fermion configurations on the 24^3*64 lattice with a-1 = 1.78(5) GeV and the light sea quark at m_{pi} = 330 MeV. We use the overlap fermion for the valence and the quark loop so that the renormalization constants Z_m and Z_P cancel in the pseudoscalar operator 2mP. In addition, the overlap Dirac operator is used to calculate the local topological charge in the anomaly so that there is no renormalization for the anomaly term either. In this study, we find the total quark spin to be small mainlyly due to the large negative anomaly term which could be the source for the proton spin crisis.
Majorana fermions, quantum particles that are their own anti-particles, are not only of fundamental importance in elementary particle physics and dark matter, but also building blocks for fault-tolerant quantum computation. Recently Majorana fermions have been intensively studied in solid state and cold atomic systems. These studies are generally based on superconducting pairing between two Fermions with opposite momenta (textit{% i.e.}, zero total momentum). On the other hand, finite total momentum Cooper pairings, known as Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) states, were predicted 50 years ago and then widely studied in many branches of physics. However, whether FFLO superconductors can also support Majorana fermions has not been explored. Here we show that Majorana fermions can exist in certain types of gapped FFLO states, yielding a new topological quantum matter: topological FFLO superfluids/superconductors. We demonstrate the existence of such topological FFLO superfluids and the associated Majorana fermions using spin-orbit coupled degenerate Fermi gases and derive their physical parameter regions. The potential implementation of topological FFLO superconductors in semiconductor/superconductor heterostructures are also discussed.
We propose an effective model to describe the statistical properties of exciton fine structure splitting (FSS) and polarization angle of quantum dot ensembles (QDEs). We derive the distributions of FSS and polarization angle for QDEs and show that their statistical features can be fully characterized using at most three independent measurable parameters. The effective model is confirmed using atomistic pseudopotential calculations as well as experimental measurements for several rather different QDEs. The model naturally addresses three fundamental questions that are frequently encountered in theories and experiments: (I) Why the probability of finding QDs with vanishing FSS is generally very small? (II) Why FSS and polarization angle differ dramatically from QD to QD? and (III) Is there any direct connection between FSS, optical polarization and the morphology of QDs? The answers to these fundamental questions yield a completely new physical picture for understanding optical properties of QDEs.
The Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) phase, a superconducting state with non-zero total momentum Cooper pairs in a large magnetic field, was first predicted about 50 years ago, and since then became an important concept in many branches of physics. Despite intensive search in various materials, unambiguous experimental evidence for the FFLO phase is still lacking in experiments. In this paper, we show that both FF (uniform order parameter with plane-wave phase) and LO phase (spatially varying order parameter amplitude) can be observed using fermionic cold atoms in spin-orbit coupled optical lattices. The increasing spin-orbit coupling enhances the FF phase over the LO phase. The coexistence of superfluid and magnetic orders is also found in the normal BCS phase. The pairing mechanism for different phases is understood by visualizing superfluid pairing densities in different spin-orbit bands. The possibility of observing similar physics using spin-orbit coupled superconducting ultra-thin films is also discussed.
Highly active, durable and cost-effective electrocatalysts for water oxidation to evolve oxygen gas hold a key to a range of renewable energy solutions including water splitting and rechargeable metal-air batteries. Here, we report the synthesis of ultrathin nickel iron layered double hydroxide nanoplates on mildly oxidized multi-walled carbon nanotubes. Incorporation of Fe into the nickel hydroxide induced the formation of NiFe-layered double hydroxide. The nanoplates were covalently attached to a network of nanotubes, affording excellent electrical wiring to the nanoplates. The ultra-thin Ni-Fe layered double hydroxide nanoplates/carbon nanotube complex was found to exhibit unusually high electro-catalytic activity and stability for oxygen evolution and outperformed commercial precious metal Ir catalysts.
We show that the recent experimental realization of spin-orbit coupling in ultracold atomic gases can be used to study different types of spin spiral order and resulting multiferroic effects. Spin-orbit coupling in optical lattices can give rise to the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) spin interaction which is essential for spin spiral order. By taking into account spin-orbit coupling and an external Zeeman field, we derive an effective spin model in the Mott insulator regime at half filling and demonstrate that the DM interaction in optical lattices can be made extremely strong with realistic experimental parameters. The rich finite temperature phase diagrams of the effective spin models for fermions and bosons are obtained via classical Monte Carlo simulations.
Ultra-cold atoms in optical lattices provide an ideal platform for exploring many-body physics of a large system arising from the coupling among a series of small identical systems whose few-body dynamics is exactly solvable. Using Landau-Zener (LZ) transition of bosonic atoms in double well optical lattices as an experimentally realizable model, we investigate such few to many body route by exploring the relation and difference between the small few-body (in one double well) and the large many-body (in double well lattice) non-equilibrium dynamics of cold atoms in optical lattices. We find the many-body coupling between double wells greatly enhances the LZ transition probability. The many-body dynamics in the double well lattice shares both similarity and difference from the few-body dynamics in one and two double wells. The sign of the on-site interaction plays a significant role on the many-body LZ transition. Various experimental signatures of the many-body LZ transition, including atom density, momentum distribution, and density-density correlation, are obtained.
We numerically investigate, using the time evolving block decimation algorithm, the quantum transport of ultra-cold bosonic atoms in a double well optical lattice through slow and periodic modulation of the lattice parameters (intra- and inter-well tunneling, chemical potential, etc.). The transport of atoms does not depend on the rate of change of the parameters (as along as the change is slow) and can distribute atoms in optical lattices at the quantized level without involving external forces. The transport of atoms depends on the atom filling in each double well and the interaction between atoms. In the strongly interacting region, the bosonic atoms share the same transport properties as non-interacting fermions with quantized transport at the half filling and no atom transport at the integer filling. In the weakly interacting region, the number of the transported atoms is proportional to the atom filling. We show the signature of the quantum transport from the momentum distribution of atoms that can measured in the time of flight image. A semiclassical transport model is developed to explain the numerically observed transport of bosonic atoms in the non-interacting and strongly interacting limits. The scheme may serve as an quantized battery for atomtronics applications.
We derive a general relation between the fine structure splitting (FSS) and the exciton polarization angle of self-assembled quantum dots (QDs) under uniaxial stress. We show that the FSS lower bound under external stress can be predicted by the exciton polarization angle and FSS under zero stress. The critical stress can also be determined by monitoring the change in exciton polarization angle. We confirm the theory by performing atomistic pseudopotential calculations for the InAs/GaAs QDs. The work provides a deep insight into the dots asymmetry and their optical properties, and a useful guide in selecting QDs with smallest FSS which are crucial in entangled photon sources applications.
We present a comprehensive study of the optical properties of InAs/InP self-assembled quantum dots (QDs) using an empirical pseudopotential method and configuration interaction treatment of the many-particle effects. The results are compared to those of InAs/GaAs QDs. The main results are: (i) The alignment of emission lines of neutral exciton, charged exciton and biexciton in InAs/InP QDs is quite different from that in InAs/GaAs QDs. (ii) The hidden correlation in InAs/InP QDs is 0.7 - 0.9 meV, smaller than that in InAs/GaAs QDs. (iii) The radiative lifetimes of neutral exciton, charged exciton and biexciton in InAs/InP QDs are about twice longer than those in InAs/GaAs QDs. (v) The phase diagrams of few electrons and holes in InAs/InP QDs differ greatly from those in InAs/GaAs QDs. The filling orders of electrons and holes are shown to obey the Hunds rule and Aufbau principle, and therefore the photoluminescence spectra of highly charged excitons are very different from those of InAs/GaAs QDs.
