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At least 1,189 records · Page 66

Characteristic terahertz emissions induced by optically excited collective orbital modes

Here, we study the generation of collective orbital modes, their evolution, and the characteristic nonlinear optical response induced by them in a photoinduced orbital-ordered correlated oxide using real-time simulations based on an interacting multiband tight-binding (TB) model. The d-d optical transitions under femtoseconds light-pulse in an orbital-ordered state excite collective orbital modes, also known as “orbitons”. Consistently incorporating electronic interactions and the interplay between charge, spin, and lattice degrees of freedom in the TB-model provides a clearer understanding of how these factors influence the generation and evolution of collective orbital modes. The dynamics of Jahn-Teller vibrational modes in the photoinduced state modify the intersite orbital interaction, which further amplifies these orbital modes. In the presence of weak ferroelectricity, the excitation of collective orbital modes induces a strong THz oscillatory photocurrent, which is long-lived. This suggests an alternative way to experimentally detect low-energy collective modes through THz-emission studies in the photoinduced state. Our study also elucidates that quasiparticle dynamics in improper ferroelectric oxides can be exploited to achieve highly interesting and nontrivial optoelectronic properties.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Signatures of enhanced spin-triplet superconductivity induced by interfacial properties

While spin-triplet pairing remains elusive in nature, there is a growing effort to realize proximity-induced equal-spin triplet superconductivity in junctions with magnetic regions or an applied magnetic field and common s-wave superconductors. To enhance such spin-triplet contribution, it is expected that junctions with a weak interfacial barrier and strong spin-orbit coupling are desirable. Intuitively, a weak interfacial barrier enables a robust proximity-induced superconductivity and strong spin-orbit coupling promotes spin mixing, converting spin-singlet into spin-triplet superconductivity. In contrast, we reveal a nonmonotonic spin-triplet contribution with the strength of the interfacial barrier and spin-orbit coupling. This picture is established by considering different signatures in conductance and superconducting correlations, as well as by performing self-consistent calculations. As a result, we identify a strongly enhanced spin-triplet superconductivity, realized for an intermediate strength of interfacial barrier and spin-orbit coupling. In junctions with magnetic regions, an enhanced spin-triplet superconductivity leads to a large magnetoanisotropy of conductance and superconducting correlations. Furthermore, this picture of an enhanced spin-triplet superconductivity is consistent with experiments demonstrating a huge increase in the conductance magnetoanisotropy, which we predict can be further enhanced at a finite bias.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Field-induced magnetization of δ -plutonium from density functional theory

Here, we present results from density functional theory (DFT) calculations of magnetization, induced by an external magnetic field, for δ-phase plutonium. The fully relativistic electronic structure accounts for Zeeman splitting effects through a Hamiltonian that couples the magnetic field to both spin and orbital magnetic moments. The electronic-structure model is further improved by an extension to DFT in terms of an orbital-orbital coupling via the conventional orbital-polarization method, as has routinely been done for plutonium. The response to the applied magnetic field is shown to be weak in the DFT model, with induced magnetic moments of the order of in magnetic fields up to 30 T. These results are in accord with recent assessments from x-ray magnetic circular dichroism measurements in magnetic field on δ-plutonium. Somewhat surprisingly, a model assuming δ-plutonium to be absent magnetic moments shows stronger response to an external static magnetic field than models allowing for antiferromagnetism or magnetic disorder.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Correlations Between Fission Fragment and Neutron Anisotropies in Neutron-Induced Fission

Several sources of angular anisotropy for fission fragments and prompt neutrons have been studied in neutron-induced fission reactions. These include kinematic recoils of the target from the incident neutron beam and the fragments from the emission of the prompt neutrons, preferential directions of the emission of the fission fragments with respect to the beam axis due to the population of particular transition states at the fission barrier, and forward-peaked angular distributions of pre-equilibrium neutrons which are emitted before the formation of a compound nucleus. In addition, there are several potential sources of angular anisotropies that are more difficult to disentangle: the angular distributions of prompt neutrons from fully accelerated fragments or from scission neutrons, and the emission of neutrons from fission fragments that are not fully accelerated. Here, we study the effects of the first group of anisotropy sources, particularly exploring the correlations between the fission-fragment anisotropy and the resulting neutron anisotropy. While kinematic effects were already accounted for in our Hauser-Feshbach Monte Carlo code cgmf, anisotropic angular distributions for the fission fragments and pre-equilibrium neutrons resulting from neutron-induced fission on 233,234,235,238 U, 239,241 Pu, and 237 Np have been introduced for the first time. The effects of these sources of anisotropy are examined over a range of incident neutron energies, from thermal to 20 MeV, and compared with experimental data from the Chi-Nu liquid scintillator array. The anisotropy of the fission fragments is reflected in the anisotropy of the prompt neutrons, especially as the outgoing energy of the prompt neutrons increases, allowing for an extraction of the fission-fragment anisotropy to be made from a measurement of the neutrons.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Potential neutron-induced γ-ray background on natural tellurium relevant to 130 Te 0 ν ββ decay searches at the CUORE and SNO+ detectors

Gamma-ray production cross-section data have been obtained for the inelastic neutron scattering reactions 126,128,130 Te(n,n'γ) at five neutron energies between 3.6 and 10 MeV. We report data for the γ-ray energy region relevant to 0ν ββ decay of 130 Te with a Q ββ value of 2527.515 keV, assuming natural-abundance tellurium, as used at CUORE and SNO+. The natural abundance of 130 Te, 128 Te, and 126 Te is 34%, 32%, and 19%, respectively. For CUORE the γ-ray cascades from the excited state in 130 Te at 2527.06 keV and in 126 Te at 2533.85 keV are of concern. For SNO+, accounting for its inferior energy resolution, an additional four levels are important in 130 Te, an additional nine levels in 128 Te, and an additional eight levels in 126 Te. Of these, we report neutron-induced γ-ray production cross sections for the strongest transitions: the 2581.15 keV level in 130 Te, the 2494.20, 2508.06, and 2630.14 keV levels in 128 Te, and the 2496.83 and 2585.46 keV level in 126 Te. Here, the largest cross-section values were found for cascade γ-ray transitions to the ground state, while direct transitions to the ground state are very weak and were not observed in the present work. Both the CUORE and SNO+ detectors, however, may not be able to distinguish between cascade transitions and direct transitions to the ground state, making the neutron-induced excitation of the 2527.06 keV state of 130 Te in particular a potential problem for 0νββ decay searches of 130Te, because it matches its Q ββ value.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Effect of nuclear charge on laser-induced fusion enhancement in advanced fusion fuels

Here, based on the preliminary work done in a previous paper [Phys. Rev. C 105, 054001 (2022)], we investigate the effects of laser-induced fusion rate enhancements of different fusion fuels. In the aforementioned work, which considered $_{1}^{2}$H-$_{1}^{3}$H (D-T) and DHe 3 fusion, it was observed that a larger product of charge numbers of the fusion reactants leads to an increased laser-induced enhancement to the fusion cross section for static external electric fields. We investigate whether this trend persists for DT, DHe 3 , and pB 11 fusion for dynamical electric fields, using the semiclassical approaches of the Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin method and the imaginary-time method, as well as the Kramers- Henneberger method, and the Volkoff-state approximation. We find that the fusion cross section of pB 11 indeed exhibits the largest relative enhancement for all laser parameters considered and may even surpass the cross section of DT and DHe 3 fusion.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Neutron capture-induced nuclear recoils as background for CE$v$⁢NS measurements at reactors

Nuclear reactors represent a promising neutrino source for CE⁢v⁢NS (coherent-elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering) searches. However, reactor sites also come with high ambient neutron flux. Neutron capture-induced nuclear recoils can create a spectrum that strongly overlaps the CEv⁢NS signal for recoils ≲100 eV for nuclear reactor measurements in silicon or germanium detectors. This background can be particularly critical for low-power research reactors providing a moderate neutrino flux. Here, in this work we quantify the impact of this background and show that, for a measurement 10 m from a 1 MW reactor, the effective thermal neutron flux should be kept below ~7 × 10 –4 ⁢n/cm 2 s so that the CE⁢v⁢NS events can be measured at least at a 5⁢σ level with germanium detectors in 100 kg yr exposure time. This flux corresponds to 60% of the sea-level flux but needs to be achieved in a nominally high-flux (reactor) environment. Improved detector resolution can help the measurements, but the thermal flux is the key parameter for the sensitivity of the experiment. For silicon detectors, the constraint is even stronger and thermal neutron fluxes must be near an order of magnitude lower. This constraint highlights the need of an effective thermal neutron mitigation strategy for future low threshold CEv⁢NS searches. In particular, the neutron capture-induced background can be efficiently reduced by active veto systems tagging the deexcitation gamma following the capture.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Detectability of neutrino-signal fluctuations induced by the hadron-quark phase transition in failing core-collapse supernovae

Here we introduce a systematic and quantitative methodology for establishing the presence of neutrino oscillatory signals due to the hadron-quark phase transition (PT) in failing core-collapse supernovae from the observed neutrino event rate in water- or ice-based neutrino detectors. The methodology uses a likelihood ratio in the frequency domain as a test-statistic; it is employed for quantitative analysis of neutrino signals without assuming the frequency, amplitude, starting time, and duration of the PT-induced oscillations present in the neutrino events and thus it is suitable for analyzing neutrino signals from a wide variety of numerical simulations. We test the validity of this method by using a core-collapse simulation of a 17 solar-mass star by Zha et al. [Astrophys. J. 911, 74 (2021) ]. Based on this model, we further report the presence of a PT-induced oscillations quantitatively for a core-collapse supernovae out to a distance of ~10 kpc, ~5 kpc for IceCube and to a distance of ~10 kpc, ~5 kpc, and ~1 kpc for a 0.4 Mt mass water Cherenkov detector. This methodology will aid the investigation of a future galactic supernova and the study of hadron-quark phase in the core of core-collapse supernovae.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

New methods and simulations for cosmogenic induced spallation removal in Super-Kamiokande-IV

Radioactivity induced by cosmic muon spallation is a dominant source of backgrounds for 𝒪⁡(10 MeV) neutrino interactions in water Cherenkov detectors. In particular, it is crucial to reduce backgrounds to measure the solar neutrino spectrum and find neutrino interactions from distant supernovae. In this paper we introduce new techniques to locate muon-induced hadronic showers and efficiently reject spallation backgrounds. Applying these techniques to the solar neutrino analysis with an exposure of 2790 × 22.5 kton · day increases the signal efficiency by 12.6%, approximately corresponding to an additional year of detector running. Furthermore, we present the first spallation simulation at Super-Kamiokande, where we model hadronic interactions using fluka. The agreement between the isotope yields and shower pattern in this simulation and in the data gives confidence in the accuracy of this simulation, and thus opens the door to use it to optimize muon spallation removal in new data with gadolinium-enhanced neutron capture detection.

muons↗

Jet quenching in the glasma phase: Medium-induced radiation

Inspired by the recent considerations of parton momentum broadening in the glasma phase, we study the medium-induced soft gluon radiation of jet partons at early times in heavy-ion collisions. The glasma state is assumed to be comprised of independent color domains with homogenous longitudinal fields that vary event by event, and we further complete this model with an event-averaging procedure accounting for the finite correlation length. Using this description, we evaluate the rate of medium-induced radiation from an energetic parton at midrapidity in the glasma phase. We mainly focus on SU(2) color fields for simplicity, also referring to the U(1) case and comparing with the Baier, Dokshitzer, Mueller, Peigné, Schiff, and Zakharov rate to gain further insight. Our results show that there is an intricate interplay of the synchrotron-like radiation in a single color domain with the destructive interference between different color domains, after the medium averaging is performed. Thus, we find that the emission rate is sensitive to the matter structure, decreasing for a glasma state populated by smaller color domains—i.e., for a glasma with a larger characteristic saturation scale. Our approach can be applied to more realistic backgrounds, and it sets the stage for the modeling of jet evolution in the early stages of heavy-ion collisions.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Impurity-Induced Anomalous Thermal Hall Effect in Chiral Superconductors

Chiral superconductors exhibit novel transport properties that rely on the topology of the order parameter, topology of the Fermi surface, the spectrum of bulk and edge Fermionic excitations, and the structure of the impurity potential. In the case of electronic heat transport, impurities induce an anomalous (zero-field) thermal Hall conductivity that is easily orders of magnitude larger than the quantized edge contribution. The effect originates from branch-conversion scattering of Bogoliubov quasiparticles by the chiral order parameter, induced by potential scattering. The former transfers angular momentum between the condensate and the excitations that transport heat. The anomalous thermal Hall conductivity is shown to depend to the structure of the electron-impurity potential, as well as the winding number ν of the chiral order parameter $Δ(p)=|Δ(p)|e^{iν\phi_p}$. The results provide quantitative formulas for interpreting heat transport experiments seeking to identify broken T and P symmetries, as well as the topology of the order parameter for chiral superconductors.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Dynamic Nuclear Spin Polarization Induced by the Edelstein Effect at Bi(111) Surfaces

Nuclear spin polarization induced by hyperfine interaction and mainly the Edelstein effect due to strong spin-orbit interaction, is investigated by quantum transport in Bi(111) thin film samples. The Bi(111) films are deposited on mica by van der Waals epitaxial growth. The Bi(111) films show micrometer-sized triangular islands with 0.39 nm step height, corresponding to the Bi(111) bilayer height. At low temperatures a high current density is applied to generate a nonequilibrium carrier spin polarization by mainly the Edelstein effect at the Bi(111) surface, which then induces dynamic nuclear polarization by hyperfine interaction. Here, comparative quantum magnetotransport antilocalization measurements indicate a suppression of antilocalization by the in-plane Overhauser field from the nuclear polarization and allow a quantification of the Overhauser field. Hence nuclear polarization was both achieved and quantified by a purely electronic transport-based approach.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Phonon Helicity Induced by Electronic Berry Curvature in Dirac Materials

In two-dimensional insulators with time-reversal (TR) symmetry, a nonzero local Berry curvature of low-energy massive Dirac fermions can give rise to nontrivial spin and charge responses, even though the integral of the Berry curvature over all occupied states is zero. In this Letter, we present a new effect induced by the electronic Berry curvature. By studying electron-phonon interactions in BaMnSb2, a prototype two-dimensional Dirac material possessing two TR-related massive Dirac cones, we find that the nonzero local Berry curvature of electrons can induce a phonon angular momentum. The direction of this phonon angular momentum is locked to the phonon propagation direction, and thus we refer to it as “phonon helicity” in a way that is reminiscent of electron helicity in spin-orbit-coupled electronic systems. We discuss possible experimental probes of such phonon helicity.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Role of Equilibrium Fluctuations in Light-Induced Order

Engineering novel states of matter with light is at the forefront of materials research. An intensely studied direction is to realize broken-symmetry phases that are “hidden” under equilibrium conditions but can be unleashed by an ultrashort laser pulse. Despite a plethora of experimental discoveries, the nature of these orders and how they transiently appear remain unclear. To this end, we investigate a nonequilibrium charge density wave (CDW) in rare-earth tritellurides, which is suppressed in equilibrium but emerges after photoexcitation. Using a pump-pump-probe protocol implemented in ultrafast electron diffraction, we demonstrate that the light-induced CDW consists solely of order parameter fluctuations, which bear striking similarities to critical fluctuations in equilibrium despite differences in the length scale. By calculating the dynamics of CDW fluctuations in a nonperturbative model, we further show that the strength of the light-induced order is governed by the amplitude of equilibrium fluctuations. Overall, these findings highlight photoinduced fluctuations as an important ingredient for the emergence of transient orders out of equilibrium. Our results further suggest that materials with strong fluctuations in equilibrium are promising platforms to host hidden orders after laser excitation.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Structural Amorphization-Induced Topological Order

Electronic properties of crystals are inherently pertained to crystalline symmetry, so that amorphization that lowers and breaks symmetry is detrimental. One important crystalline property is electron band topology which is known to be weakened and destroyed by structural disorder. Here, we report a counterintuitive theoretical discovery that atomic structural disorder by amorphization can in fact induce electronic order of topology in an otherwise topologically trivial crystal. The resulting nontrivial topology is characterized by a nonzero spin Bott index, associated with robust topological edge states and quantized conductance. Further, the underlying topological phase transition (TPT) from a trivial crystal to a topological amorphous is analyzed by mapping out a phase diagram in the degree of structural disorder using an effective medium theory. The atomic disorder is revealed to induce topological order by renormalizing the spectral gap toward nontriviality near the phase boundary. As a concrete example, we further show such TPT in amorphous stanane by first-principles calculations. Our findings point to possible observation of an electronic ordering transition accompanied by a structural disorder transition.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Electron Density Changes across the Pressure-Induced Iron Spin Transition

High-pressure single-crystal x-ray diffraction is used to experimentally map the electron-density distribution changes in (Fe,Mg)O as ferrous iron undergoes a pressure-induced transition from high- to low-spin states. As the bulk density and elasticity of magnesiowustite—one of the dominant mineral phases of Earth’s mantle—are affected by this electronic transition, our results have applications to geophysics as well as to validating first-principles calculations. Furthermore, the observed changes in diffraction intensities indicate a spin-transition-induced change in orbital occupancies of the Fe ion in general accord with crystal-field theory, illustrating the use of electron density measurements for characterizing high-pressure d-block chemistry and motivating further studies characterizing chemical bonding under pressure.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Higher Harmonics in Multipactor Induced Plasma Ionization Breakdown near a Dielectric Surface

In this Letter, the novel physics of higher harmonic (HH) generation of the normal electric field near a dielectric surface is reported in multipactor induced plasma ionization breakdown, as determined by kinetic particle-in-cell simulations. The observed HH frequency is around ten times the fundamental rf driving frequency, but lower than the electron plasma frequency. A theory is constructed which indicates that stream plasma interaction-induced instability is the mechanism of HH generation in the collisional regime. The HH frequency and its corresponding growth rate of the HH oscillation amplitude from the theory are in good agreement with kinetic particle-in-cell simulations.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

Confinement-Induced Chiral Edge Channel Interaction in Quantum Anomalous Hall Insulators

In quantum anomalous Hall (QAH) insulators, the interior is insulating but electrons can travel with zero resistance along one-dimensional (1D) conducting paths known as chiral edge channels (CECs). These CECs have been predicted to be confined to the 1D edges and exponentially decay in the two-dimensional (2D) bulk. Here, in this Letter, we present the results of a systematic study of QAH devices fashioned in a Hall bar geometry of different widths under gate voltages. At the charge neutral point, the QAH effect persists in a Hall bar device with a width of only ~7⁢2 nm, implying the intrinsic decaying length of CECs is less than ~3⁢6 nm. In the electron-doped regime, we find that the Hall resistance deviates quickly from the quantized value when the sample width is less than 1 μ⁢m. Our theoretical calculations suggest that the wave function of CEC first decays exponentially and then shows a long tail due to disorder-induced bulk states. Therefore, the deviation from the quantized Hall resistance in narrow QAH samples originates from the interaction between two opposite CECs mediated by disorder-induced bulk states in QAH insulators, consistent with our experimental observations.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗