Matrix Elements Research Articles

A hierarchy of thermal processes collapses under catalysis

Abstract Thermal operations (TO) are a generic description for allowed state transitions under thermodynamic restrictions. However, the quest for simpler methods to encompass all these processes remains unfulfilled. We resolve this challenge through the catalytic use of thermal baths, which are assumed to be easily accessible. We select two sets of simplified operations: elementary TO (ETO) and Markovian TO (MTO). They are known for their experimental feasibility, but fail to capture the full extent of TO due to their innate Markovianity. We nevertheless demonstrate that this limitation can be overcome when the operations are enhanced by ambient-temperature Gibbs state catalysts. In essence, our result indicates that free states within TO can act as catalysts that provide the necessary non-Markovianity for simpler operations. Furthermore, we prove that when any catalyst can be employed, different thermal processes (TO, ETO, and MTO) converge. Notably, our results extend to scenarios involving initial states with coherence in the energy eigenbasis, a notoriously difficult process to characterise.

Soft-gluon exchange matters: Isotropic screening in QCD kinetic theory

QCD kinetic theory simulations are a prominent tool for studying the nonequilibrium initial stages in heavy-ion collisions. Despite their success, all implementations rely on approximations of the hard thermal loop (HTL) screened matrix elements in the collision terms. In this paper, we present our results for different isotropic screening prescriptions in the elastic collision term for gluons. In particular, we go beyond the simple Debye-like screening form that is used in all current implementations and apply the isotropic HTL matrix element instead. For isotropic systems, the evolution is nearly unchanged, but when studying the equilibration process in a Bjorken expanding plasma, we find qualitative and quantitative differences in a range of moments of the distribution function, such as a decrease in the maximum pressure anisotropy by up to 50%. In contrast, we find no significant qualitative impact on the jet quenching parameter or on the late-time hydrodynamization dynamics of anisotropic plasmas, but observe systematically smaller values of η/s by about 10% that coincide with perturbative calculations at small couplings. Our study reveals that the choice of the screening prescription can lead to large corrections at early times, but is less important close to equilibrium. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Search for a light sterile neutrino with 7.5 years of IceCube DeepCore data

We present a search for an eV-scale sterile neutrino using 7.5 years of data from the IceCube DeepCore detector. The analysis uses a sample of 21,914 events with energies between 5 and 150 GeV to search for sterile neutrinos through atmospheric muon neutrino disappearance. Improvements in event selection and treatment of systematic uncertainties provide greater statistical power compared to previous DeepCore sterile neutrino searches. Our results are compatible with the absence of mixing between active and sterile neutrino states, and we place constraints on the mixing matrix elements |Uμ4|2<0.0534 and |Uτ4|2<0.0574 at 90% CL under the assumption that Δm412≥1 eV2. These null results add to the growing tension between anomalous appearance results and constraints from disappearance searches in the 3+1 sterile neutrino landscape. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

The Higgs mechanism with diagrams: A didactic approach

We present a paedagogical treatment of the electroweak Higgs mechanism based solely on Feynman diagrams and S-matrix elements, without recourse to (gauge) symmetry arguments. Throughout, the emphasis is on Feynman rules and the Schwinger-Dyson equations; it is pointed out that particular care is needed in the treatment of tadpole diagrams and their symmetry factors.

(GaAs/InAs)–GaAsSb digital alloy type-II superlattice for extended short-wavelength infrared detection

GaInAs–GaAsSb type-II superlattices (T2SLs) on an InP substrate are promising candidates for an optical absorption layer in the extended short-wavelength region (2–3 μm), offering more flexibility in designing a cutoff wavelength compared to strained GaInAs bulk material. However, T2SL-based photodetectors inherently suffer from lower quantum efficiency (QE) due to the reduced overlap of the wavefunctions of the conduction and valence bands in the optical matrix element of the T2SL. To improve QE, a (GaAs/InAs)–GaAsSb digital alloy T2SL, which replaces the GaInAs random alloy layer in the GaInAs–GaAsSb T2SL with a GaAs/InAs digital alloy, has been proposed recently by an empirical tight-binding calculation. This paper presents a demonstration of a fabricated photodetector using the (GaAs/InAs)–GaAsSb digital alloy grown on an InP substrate by molecular beam epitaxy and shows that the average QE in the wavelength region of 2.3–2.6 μm is approximately 1.6 times higher than that of a conventional GaInAs–GaAsSb T2SL photodetector. Furthermore, the dark-current density of the digital alloy photodetector is lower than that of the GaInAs–GaAsSb T2SL photodetector despite having a longer cutoff wavelength.

Superconductivity in LaO: a density functional theory study with local, semilocal, and nonlocal exchange-correlation functionals

We studied the dynamical, electronic, and superconducting properties of LaO using a local (PZ), a semilocal (PBE), and three nonlocal correlation functionals (rVV10, vdW-DF2, and vdW-DF3) of the density-functional theory. We concluded that the nonlocal correlations have a marginal effect on the electronic band energies near the Fermi surface. However, the corresponding shifts in the density of states are relatively significant. In contrast, the phonon energies get modified by larger amounts, particularly for optical phonons. These variations in energies of optical phonons do not get reflected to the same degree in electron-phonon coupling constant, λ, from different functionals as their contribution in λ is minor that ranges from 21% to 33%. Moreover, the imperative role of Kohn anomalies and Fermi surface nesting for the electron-phonon coupling is reconfirmed. We also highlighted the role of the matrix elements that surpasses, in certain parts of the Brillouin Zone, all other factors including the Fermi surface nesting. The nonlocal correlation functional, vdW-DF2, gives significantly different results than other nonlocal as well as local/semilocal functionals due to excessive low energy phonons and larger phonon linewidth.

Complete property tensors of some low-symmetry borate NLO crystals

Several low-symmetry borate crystals, such as α-BiB3O6 (BiBO), YCa4O(BO3)3 (YCOB) and La2CaB10O19 (LCB) show not only promising nonlinear optical (NLO) properties but also other favorable physical properties like large electro-optic (EO) coefficients and exceptionally large piezoelectric constants. Those materials may serve as high temperature sensors and electro- or acoustic- modulators beyond their traditional applications in high power laser generations. The knowledge of their full property tensors are indispensable for their efficient and practical usages. Due to the low-symmetry nature, more none-zero matrix elements are present and those elements most likely are combined when measuring them. Therefore, experimental determinations of the full tensor elements are not always easy especially for those high rank tensors. In fact, though being discovered over several decades, some of the property tensor matrices are still missing. Recently it is shown that by applying a modified post-DFT LD (density functional theory + London dispersion) correction based on linear combination of atomic orbitals (LCAO) and B3LYP functional, many important material property tensors of BiBO crystal are calculated in unprecedented precisions. Among them, theoretical calculation of the refractive indices in the terahertz (THz) range was firstly achieved. The calculation also confirms that BiBO has an exceptional large piezoelectric constant d22 = 40 pC/N and largest free EO coefficients on the order of 10 pm/V among borate crystals. The same calculation has been extended to the other low-symmetry borate NLO crystals, including YCOB and LCB. With those calculated material constants, practical devices may be designed with preferable figure of merits over existing materials.

High‐Resolution Optical Convolutional Neural Networks Using Phase‐Change Material‐Based Microring Hybrid Waveguides

In the More‐than‐Moore era, the explosive growth of data and information has driven the exploration of alternative non‐von Neumann computational paradigms. Photonic neuromorphic computing has emerged as a promising approach, offering high speed, wide bandwidth, and massive parallelism. Herein, a high‐resolution optical convolutional neural network (OCNN) is introduced using phase‐change material Ge2Sb2Te5 (GST)‐based microring hybrid waveguides. This on‐chip optical computing platform integrates GST into photonic devices, enabling versatile programming and in‐memory computing capabilities. Central to this platform is a photonic convolutional computational kernel, constructed from photonic switching cells embedded with GST on a microring resonator. This programmable photonic switch leverages the refractive index modulation during the GST phase transition to achieve up to 64 discrete levels of transmission contrast, suitable for representing matrix elements in neural network algorithms with 6‐bit resolution. Using these matrix elements, an OCNN capable of performing parallelized image edge detection and digital recognition tasks with high accuracy is demonstrated. The architecture is scalable for large‐scale photonic neural networks, offering ultrahigh computational throughput, a compact design, complementary metal‐oxide‐semiconductor‐compatible fabrication, and broad bandwidth.

First lattice QCD calculation of J/ψ semileptonic decay containing D and Ds particles

We perform the first lattice calculation on the semileptonic decay of J/ψ using the (2+1)-flavor Wilson-clover gauge ensembles generated by CLQCD collaboration. Three gauge ensembles with different lattice spacings, from 0.0519 to 0.1053 fm, and pion masses, mπ∼300 MeV, are utilized. After a naive continuum extrapolation using three lattice spacings, we obtain Br(J/ψ→Dseνe)=1.90(6)(5)Vcs×10−10 and Br(J/ψ→Deνe)=1.21(6)(9)Vcd×10−11, where the first errors are statistical, and the second come from the uncertainties of Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix element Vcs(d). The ratios of the branching fractions between lepton μ and e are also calculated as RJ/ψ(Ds)=0.97002(8) and RJ/ψ(D)=0.97423(15) after performing a continuum limit including only a2 term. The ratios provide necessary theoretical support for the future experimental test of lepton flavor universality. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Gauge-invariant renormalization of four-quark operators

We study the renormalization of four-quark operators in one-loop perturbation theory. We employ a coordinate-space gauge-invariant renormalization scheme (GIRS), which can be advantageous compared to other schemes, especially in nonperturbative lattice investigations. From our perturbative calculations, we extract the conversion factors between GIRS and the modified minimal subtraction scheme (MS¯) at the next-to-leading order. As a by-product, we also obtain the relevant anomalous dimensions in the GIRS scheme. A formidable issue in the study of the four-quark operators is that operators with different Dirac matrices mix among themselves upon renormalization. We focus on both parity-conserving and parity-violating four-quark operators, which change flavor numbers by two units (ΔF=2). The extraction of the conversion factors entails the calculation of two-point Green’s functions involving products of two four-quark operators, as well as three-point Green’s functions with one four-quark and two bilinear operators. The significance of our results lies in their potential to refine our understanding of QCD phenomena, offering insights into the precision of Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) matrix elements and shedding light on the nonperturbative treatment of complex mixing patterns associated with four-quark operators. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Beyond Cancer Cells: How the Tumor Microenvironment Drives Cancer Progression.

Liver cancer represents a substantial global health challenge, contributing significantly to worldwide morbidity and mortality. It has long been understood that tumors are not composed solely of cancerous cells, but also include a variety of normal cells within their structure. These tumor-associated normal cells encompass vascular endothelial cells, fibroblasts, and various inflammatory cells, including neutrophils, monocytes, macrophages, mast cells, eosinophils, and lymphocytes. Additionally, tumor cells engage in complex interactions with stromal cells and elements of the extracellular matrix (ECM). Initially, the components of what is now known as the tumor microenvironment (TME) were thought to be passive bystanders in the processes of tumor proliferation and local invasion. However, recent research has significantly advanced our understanding of the TME's active role in tumor growth and metastasis. Tumor progression is now known to be driven by an intricate imbalance of positive and negative regulatory signals, primarily influenced by specific growth factors produced by both inflammatory and neoplastic cells. This review article explores the latest developments and future directions in understanding how the TME modulates liver cancer, with the aim of informing the design of novel therapies that target critical components of the TME.

Novel Quantum States of Exciton-Floquet Composites: Electron-Hole Entanglement and Information.

Coulomb exchange between distinct electron-hole modes, i.e., exciton and Floquet states, in two-dimensional semiconductors is explored. Coherent ultrafast mixing of the exciton and Floquet states under weak optical pumping is investigated through a theoretical description of time-resolved and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (tr-ARPES) in an extended Haldane model that includes the electron-hole Coulomb interaction. Two branches of novel quantum states are found in the form of bosonic exciton-Floquet composites, which result from exchange coupling due to the Coulomb interaction. Furthermore, tr-ARPES could be directly employed for the density matrix element of the biparticle subsystem of photoelectron and hole, and electron-hole entanglement and information could be further explored. This finding suggests a unique platform to study the buildup and dephasing of novel exciton-Floquet composites and to resolve the information carried by them, which would enable the pursuit of new reconfigurable devices based on two-dimensional semiconductors.

Low and moderate x gluon contribution to exclusive Compton scattering processes

We revisit the high energy semi-classical description of the exclusive processes DVCS, TCS, and Double DVCS by explicitly keeping track of the Feynman x dependence in both the hard and the hadronic matrix elements. This is achieved by a modification of the standard shock wave approximation to derive the effective Feynman rules, which leads to a generic expression on which we then perform a partial twist expansion to get rid of quantities suppressed by the proper physical scales. We obtain a compact factorized master formula that can be used to investigate the Bjorken limit at leading twist. In particular, we recover the full one-loop result in the collinear limit for pure gluon exchange with the target. Finally, we discuss the subtleties in taking the simultaneous collinear and small x limit.

Imprinting New Physics by Using Angular Profiles of the Flavor-Changing-Neutral-Current Process Bc → Ds* (→ Dsπ) ℓ+ℓ-

Abstract The decays governed by the flavor-changing-neutral-current (FCNC) transitions, such as $b\rightarrow s\ell ^{+}\ell ^{-}$, provide an important tool to test the physics in and beyond the Standard Model (SM). This work focuses on investigating the FCNC process $B_{c}\rightarrow D_{s}^{*} \left(\rightarrow D_{s}\pi \right)\ell ^{+}\ell ^{-}(\ell =e,\mu ,\tau )$. Being an exclusive process, the initial and final state meson matrix elements involve the form factors, which are nonperturbative quantities and need to be calculated using specific models. By using the form factors calculated in the covariant light-front quark model, we analyze the branching fractions and angular observables such as the forward-backward asymmetry $A_{\mathrm{ FB}}$, polarization fractions (longitudinal and transverse) $F_{L(T)}$, CP asymmetry coefficients $A_{i}$, and CP-averaged angular coefficients $S_{i}$, both in the SM and in some new physics (NP) scenarios. Some of these physical observables are a potential source of finding the physics beyond the SM and help us to distinguish various NP scenarios.

Light scattering by Möbius particles

Using the Discrete-Dipole Approximation (DDA) we study scattering-angle dependences of the orientationally averaged Mueller matrix elements for small Möbius particles with different chirality. A Möbius particle is a strip of a certain width and thickness, the ends of which are attached to each other after twisting one of them at an angle by a multiple of □. The Mueller matrices Mik for such particles have 16 non-zero elements. The scattering-angle dependences of the intensity M11, linear polarization degree (-M12/M11), and Circular Intensity Differential Scattering (CIDS = -M14/M11) show their sensitivity to the refractive index and number of the strip twisting. For instance, the CIDS depends significantly on the complex part of the refractive index. Particles with more twists show a decrease in the maximum value of the positive branch of linear polarization and an increase in the width and minimum of the negative branch. The twist parameter's influence on CIDS is non-monotonic, initially increasing and then approaching zero with further twisting.

A method of estimating degree of influence from wind for improving sound source localization in windy place

In this paper, we propose a method for visualizing the influence of wind on sound propagating in a room where wind is blowing, and rating the degree of influence. Since non-uniform airflow affects sound propagation and gives time-variant characteristics to the transfer function, a method is needed to understand the influence of wind. Therefore we propose a method that measures impulse responses multiple times indoors, determines a similarity matrix between impulse responses, and visualizes it as a heatmap. We evaluate the proposed method in four types of average wind velocity (0.0 m/s, 2.7 m/s, 3.3 m/s, 3.9 m/s). The result of the evaluation showed that the greater the influence of the wind, the higher the value of diagonal elements of the similarity matrix than off-diagonal elements, and the tendency for diagonal elements to be emphasized. We also confirm that the rating based on the Frobenius norm of the similarity matrix takes a lower value as the influence of the wind is greater.

Valence quark PDFs of the proton from two-current correlations in lattice QCD

Following previous works on that topic, we consider Euclidean hadronic matrix elements in position space of two spatially separated local currents on the lattice, in order to extract the x dependence of parton distribution functions (PDFs). The corresponding approach is often referred to by the term . In this work we will consider valence quark PDFs of an unpolarized proton. We adapt the previously established formalism to our choice of operators. The calculation of the two-current matrix elements requires the evaluation of four-point functions. The corresponding calculation is carried out on a nf=2+1 gauge ensemble with lattice spacing a=0.0856 fm and pseudoscalar masses mπ=355 MeV and mK=441 MeV. The four-point functions have been evaluated in a previous project. The lattice data is converted to the MS¯ scheme at a scale μ=2 GeV and improved with respect to lattice artifacts. We use a common model as fit ansatz for the lattice data in order to extract the PDFs. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Gravitational wavefunctions in JT supergravity

We determine explicit expressions for the continuous two-sided gravitational wavefunctions in supersymmetric versions of JT gravity, focusing mainly on N\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$ \\mathcal{N} $$\\end{document} = 2 JT supergravity. Our approach is based on representation theory of the associated supergroup, for which we determine the relevant mixed parabolic matrix elements that implement asymptotic AdS boundary conditions at the quantum level. We match our expressions with those found by solving the energy-eigenvalue equation [1]. We discuss gravitational applications by computing several amplitudes of interest, and address how our framework can be generalized further.

Quantum scalar field on fuzzy de Sitter space. Part I. Field modes and vacua

We study a scalar field on a noncommutative model of spacetime, the fuzzy de Sitter space, which is based on the algebra of the de Sitter group SO(1, d) and its unitary irreducible representations. We solve the Klein-Gordon equation in d = 2, 4 and show, using a specific choice of coordinates and operator ordering, that all commutative field modes can be promoted to solutions of the fuzzy Klein-Gordon equation. To explore completeness of this set of modes, we specify a Hilbert space representation and study the matrix elements (integral kernels) of a scalar field: in this way the complete set of solutions of the fuzzy Klein-Gordon equation is found. The space of noncommutative solutions has more degrees of freedom than the commutative one, whenever spacetime dimension is d > 2. In four dimensions, the new non-geometric, internal modes are parametrised by S2 × W, where W is a discrete matrix space. Our results pave the way to analysis of quantum field theory on the fuzzy de Sitter space.

Unified Implementation of Relativistic Wave Function Methods: 4C-iCIPT2 as a Showcase.

In parallel to the unified construction of relativistic Hamiltonians based solely on physical arguments (J. Chem. Phys. 2024, 160, 084111), a unified implementation of relativistic wave function methods is achieved here via programming techniques (e.g., template metaprogramming and polymorphism in C++). That is, once the code for constructing the Hamiltonian matrix is made ready, all the rest can be generated automatically from existing templates used for the nonrelativistic counterparts. This is facilitated by decomposing a second-quantized relativistic Hamiltonian into diagrams that are topologically the same as those required for computing the basic coupling coefficients between spin-free configuration state functions (CSF). Moreover, both time reversal and binary double point group symmetries can readily be incorporated into molecular integrals and Hamiltonian matrix elements. The latter can first be evaluated in the space of (randomly selected) spin-dependent determinants and then transformed to that of spin-dependent CSFs, thanks to simple relations in between. As a showcase, we consider here the no-pair four-component relativistic iterative configuration interaction with selection and perturbation correction (4C-iCIPT2), which is a natural extension of the spin-free iCIPT2 (J. Chem. Theory Comput. 2021, 17, 949), and can provide near-exact numerical results within the manifold of positive energy states (PES), as demonstrated by numerical examples.