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Kai Wang

Publications and source records attributed to Kai Wang.

At least 847 records · Page 47Linked to original sources
arXiv2016

Supermassive Black Holes with High Accretion Rates in Active Galactic Nuclei. V. A New Size-Luminosity Scaling Relation for the Broad-Line Region

This paper reports results of the third-year campaign of monitoring super-Eddington accreting massive black holes (SEAMBHs) in active galactic nuclei (AGNs) between 2014-2015. Ten new targets were selected from quasar sample of Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), which are generally more luminous than the SEAMBH candidates in last two years. H$β$ lags ($τ_{_{\rm Hβ}}$) in five of the 10 quasars have been successfully measured in this monitoring season. We find that the lags are generally shorter, by large factors, than those of objects with same optical luminosity, in light of the well-known $R_{_{\rm Hβ}}-L_{5100}$ relation. The five quasars have dimensionless accretion rates of $\dot{\mathscr{M}}=10-10^3$. Combining measurements of the previous SEAMBHs, we find that the reduction of H$β$ lags tightly depends on accretion rates, $τ_{_{\rm Hβ}}/τ_{_{R-L}}\propto\dot{\mathscr{M}}^{-0.42}$, where $τ_{_{R-L}}$ is the H$β$ lag from the normal $R_{_{\rm Hβ}}-L_{5100}$ relation. Fitting 63 mapped AGNs, we present a new scaling relation for the broad-line region: $R_{_{\rm Hβ}}=α_1\ell_{44}^{β_1}\,\min\left[1,\left(\dot{\mathscr{M}}/\dot{\mathscr{M}}_c\right)^{-γ_1}\right]$, where $\ell_{44}=L_{5100}/10^{44}\,\rm erg~s^{-1}$ is 5100 Å continuum luminosity, and coefficients of $α_1=(29.6_{-2.8}^{+2.7})$ lt-d, $β_1=0.56_{-0.03}^{+0.03}$, $γ_1=0.52_{-0.16}^{+0.33}$ and $\dot{\mathscr{M}}_c=11.19_{-6.22}^{+2.29}$. This relation is applicable to AGNs over a wide range of accretion rates, from $10^{-3}$ to $10^3$. Implications of this new relation are briefly discussed.

astro-ph.GA↗
arXiv2016

Squarkonium, diquarkonium and octetonium at the LHC and their di-photon decays

Motivated by the recent di-photon excess by both ATLAS and CMS collaborations at the LHC, we systematically investigate the production and di-photon decay of onia formed by pair of all possible color exotic scalars in minimal extension. When such scalar massive meta-stable colored and charged (MMCC) particles are produced in pair near threshold, $η$ onium can be formed and decay into di-photon through annihilation as $pp\to η\to γγ$. Squarkonium is formed by meta-stable squarks in supersymmetric models such as stoponium. Diquarkonium is formed by meta-stable color sextet diquarks which may be realized in the Pati-Salam model. Octetonium is formed by color octet scalars bosons as in the Manohar-Wise model. Stoponium prediction is much smaller than the required signal to account for the di-photon excess. Due to the enhancement factor from color and electric charge, predictions of diquarkonium and octetonium are of $\cal O$(10 fb) which are significantly greater than the stoponium prediction. Since the color enhancement also results in large production at the colliders, such light color exotic states of $\cal O$(375 GeV) suffer from severe direct search constraints. On the other hand, if their dominant decay mode involve top quark, they may be buried in the $t\bar{t}$ plus jets samples and can potentially be searched via $t+j$ resonance.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2016

Leveraging Crowd for Game-based Learning: A Case Study of Privacy Education Game Design and Evaluation by Crowdsourcing

As the Internet grows in importance, it is vital to develop methods and techniques for educating end-users to improve their awareness of online privacy. Web-based education tools have been proven effective in many domains and have been increasingly adopted by many online professional and educational services. However, the design and development of Web-based education tools for online privacy is still in the early stage. The traditional solutions always involve privacy experts who have sophisticated expertise. Such involvement can make the tool development costly. Furthermore, it is not clear how inspiring and effective these education tools are to general users of varying backgrounds, specially to novice users who have rarely dealt with online privacy issues before. In this paper, we design, develop, and evaluate a game-based privacy learning system by leveraging the wisdom of a crowd of non-experts on Amazon Mechanic Turk. Empirical study demonstrates that the crowd can provide high-quality ideas of designing and developing a practical, educational privacy learning game.

cs.CY↗
arXiv2016

Utility of potential energy span as an approximate free energy proxy

Free energy calculation is critical in predictive tasks such as protein folding, docking and design. However, rigorous calculation of free energy change is prohibitively expensive in these practical applications. The minimum potential energy is therefore widely utilized to approximate free energy. In this study, based on analysis of extensive molecular dynamics (MD) simulation trajectories of a few native globular proteins, we found that change of minimum and corresponding maximum potential energy terms exhibit similar level of correlation with change of free energy. More importantly, we demonstrated that change of span (maximum - minimum) of potential energy terms, which engender negligible additional computational cost, exhibit considerably stronger correlations with change of free energy than the corresponding change of minimum and maximum potential energy terms. Therefore, potential energy span may serve as an alternative efficient approximate free energy proxy.

q-bio.BM↗
arXiv2016

Spectroscopic Indication for a Centi-parsec Supermassive Black Hole Binary in the Galactic Center of NGC 5548

As a natural consequence of cosmological hierarchical structure formation, sub-parsec supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs) should be common in galaxies but thus far have eluded spectroscopic identification. Based on four decades of optical spectroscopic monitoring, we report that the nucleus of NGC 5548, a nearby Seyfert galaxy long suspected to have experienced a major merger about one billion years ago, exhibits long-term variability with a period of 14 years in the optical continuum and broad Hbeta emission line. Remarkably, the double-peaked profile of Hbeta shows systematic velocity changes with a similar period. These pieces of observations plausibly indicate that a SMBHB resides in the center of NGC 5548. The complex, secular variations in the line profiles can be explained by orbital motion of a binary with equal mass and a semi-major axis of 22 light-days (corresponding to 18 milli-parsec). At a distance of 75 Mpc, NGC 5548 is one of the nearest sub-parsec SMBHB candidates that offers an ideal laboratory for gravitational wave detection.

astro-ph.GA↗
arXiv2016

Light-effect transistor (LET) with multiple independent gating controls for optical logic gates and optical amplification

Modern electronics are developing electronic-optical integrated circuits, while their electronic backbone, e.g. field-effect transistors (FETs), remains the same. However, further FET down scaling is facing physical and technical challenges. A light-effect transistor (LET) offers electronic-optical hybridization at the component level, which can continue Moore's law to the quantum region without requiring a FET's fabrication complexity, e.g. a physical gate and doping, by employing optical gating and photoconductivity. Multiple independent gates are therefore readily realized to achieve unique functionalities without increasing chip space. Here we report LET device characteristics and novel digital and analog applications, such as optical logic gates and optical amplification. Prototype CdSe-nanowire-based LETs show output and transfer characteristics resembling advanced FETs, e.g. on/off ratios up to ~1.0x10^6 with a source-drain voltage of ~1.43 V, gate-power of ~260 nW, and subthreshold swing of ~0.3 nW/decade (excluding losses). Our work offers new electronic-optical integration strategies and electronic and optical computing approaches.

physics.optics↗
arXiv2015

A Low-Noise CMOS Pixel Direct Charge Sensor, Topmetal-II-

We report the design and characterization of a CMOS pixel direct charge sensor, Topmetal-II-, fabricated in a standard 0.35um CMOS Integrated Circuit process. The sensor utilizes exposed metal patches on top of each pixel to directly collect charge. Each pixel contains a low-noise charge-sensitive preamplifier to establish the analog signal and a discriminator with tunable threshold to generate hits. The analog signal from each pixel is accessible through time-shared multiplexing over the entire array. Hits are read out digitally through a column-based priority logic structure. Tests show that the sensor achieved a <15e- analog noise and a 200e- minimum threshold for digital readout per pixel. The sensor is capable of detecting both electrons and ions drifting in gas. These characteristics enable its use as the charge readout device in future Time Projection Chambers without gaseous gain mechanism, which has unique advantages in low background and low rate-density experiments.

physics.ins-det↗
arXiv2015

Highly-sensitive detection of the lattice distortion in single bent ZnO nanowires by second-harmonic generation microscopy

Nanogenerators based on ZnO nanowires (NWs) realize the energy conversion at nanoscale, which are ascribed to the piezoelectric property caused by the lattice distortion of the ZnO NWs. The lattice distortion can significantly tune the electronic and optical properties, and requires a sensitive and convenient measurement. However, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) technique provides a limited sensitivity of 0.01 nm on the variation of the lattice spacing and requires vacuum conditions. Here we demonstrate a highly-sensitive detection of the lattice distortion in single bent ZnO NWs by second-harmonic generation (SHG) microscopy. As the curvature of the single bent ZnO NW increases to 21 mm-1 (<4% bending distortion), it shows a significant decrease (~70%) in the SHG intensity ratio between perpendicular and parallel excitation polarization with respect to c-axis of ZnO NWs. Importantly, the extraordinary non-axisymmetrical SHG polarimetric patterns are also observed, indicating the twisting distortion around c-axis of ZnO NWs. Thus, SHG microscopy provides a sensitive all-optical and non-invasive method for in situ detecting the lattice distortion under various circumstances.

physics.optics↗
arXiv2015

Light Higgsino from $A_t$ Dilemma in Rare $B$-decays

In the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM), large chiral symmetry breaking term $A_t$, which plays an important role in Higgs mass, may significantly contribute in flavor changing neutral current (FCNC) processes $B\to X_{s}γ$ and $B_{s}\to μ^{+}μ^{-}$. Though the above processes can both be categorized as $b\to s$ transitions, the two rare decays behave completely different in MSSM. With an on-shell photon in the final state, helicity of initial state $b$-quark and final state $s$-quark must be flipped in $B\to X_{s}γ$, which corresponds to the simultaneous breaking of chiral symmetry and electroweak symmetry. The common feature is shared by fermion mass generation. Same as radiative mass generation in MSSM, Peccei-Quinn and $R$ symmetry breaking contributions, for example from a Higgsino-stop loop when $μA_t<0$, may significantly cancel the contribution from charged Higgs and reduce the prediction of $B\to X_{s}γ$. For the latter process, including Babu-Kolda FCNC proportional to $μA_t$, $B_{s}\to μ^{+}μ^{-}$ is mediated by a scalar $H_d$ boson which corresponds to chiral symmetry breaking. In addition, as a result of interference among the Higgs extension sector and $Z$ contributions, in the region of $μA_t <0$ which is favored by $B\to X_{s}γ$, there may simultaneously exist large enhancement in $B_{s}\to μ^{+}μ^{-}$. However, we still find viable parameter region with light Higgsino of a few hundreds GeV when charged Higgs contribution is not negligible with $M_A$ of 400 GeV.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2015

Configurational space discretization and free energy calculation in complex molecular systems

Trajectories provide dynamical information that is discarded in free energy calculations, for which we sought to design a scheme with the hope of saving cost for generating dynamical information. We first demonstrated that snapshots in a converged trajectory set are associated with implicit conformers that have invariant statistical weight distribution (ISWD). Based on the thought that infinite number of sets of implicit conformers with ISWD may be created through independent converged trajectory sets, we hypothesized that explicit conformers with ISWD may be constructed for complex molecular systems through systematic increase of conformer fineness, and tested the hypothesis in lipid molecule palmitoyloleoylphosphatidylcholine (POPC). Furthermore, when explicit conformers with ISWD were utilized as basic states to define conformational entropy, change of which between two given macrostates was found to be equivalent to change of free energy except a mere difference of a negative temperature factor, and change of enthalpy essentially cancels corresponding change of average intra-conformer entropy. These findings suggest that entropy enthalpy compensation is inherently a local phenomenon in configurational space. By implicitly taking advantage of entropy enthalpy compensation and forgoing all dynamical information, constructing explicit conformers with ISWD and counting thermally accessible number of which for interested end macrostates is likely to be an efficient and reliable alternative end point free energy calculation strategy.

physics.chem-ph↗
arXiv2015

Smoothing methods comparison for CMB E- and B-mode separation

The anisotropies of the B-mode polarization in the cosmic microwave background radiation play a crucial role for the study of the very early Universe. However, in the real observation, the mixture of the E-mode and B-mode can be caused by the partial sky surveys, which must be separated before applied to the cosmological explanation. The separation method developed by Smith (\citealt{PhysRevD.74.083002}) has been widely adopted, where the edge of the top-hat mask should be smoothed to avoid the numerical errors. In this paper, we compare three different smoothing methods, and investigate the leakage residuals of the E-B mixture. We find that, if the less information loss is needed and the smaller region is smoothed in the analysis, the \textit{sin}- and \textit{cos}-smoothing methods are better. However, if we need a clean constructed B-mode map, the larger region around the mask edge should be smoothed. In this case, the \textit{Gaussian}-smoothing method becomes much better. In addition, we find that the leakage caused by the numerical errors in the \textit{Gaussian}-smoothing method mostly concentrates on two bands, which is quite easy to be reduced for the further E-B separations.

astro-ph.CO↗
arXiv2015

Measuring the Aharonov-Anandan phase in photonics

The Aharonov-Anandan phase is a description of the geometric nature in non-adiabatic cyclic evolutions of quantum states. Here we report on a measurement of the Aharonov-Anandan phase in photonics. We consider a time-independent quantum driven harmonic oscillator that is initially prepared at the vacuum state. We utilize evanescently coupled waveguides to realize this physical model and achieve a measurement of the Aharonov-Anandan phase via integrated interferometry.

physics.optics↗
arXiv2015

Pressure-induced reversible phase transition and amorphization of CH$_3$NH$_3$PbI$_3$

Recent advances of highly efficient solar cells based on organic-inorganic halide perovskites have triggered intense research efforts to establish the fundamental properties of these materials. In this work, we utilized diamond anvil cell to investigate the pressure-induced structural and electronic transformations in methylammonium lead iodide (CH$_3$NH$_3$PbI$_3$) up to 7 GPa at room temperature. The synchrotron X-ray diffraction experiment show that the sample transformed from tetragonal to orthorhombic phase at 0.3 GPa and amorphized above 4 GPa. Further high pressure IR spectroscopy experiments illustrated the high pressure behavior of organic (CH$_3$NH$_3$)$^+$ cations. We also analyzed the pressure dependence of the band gap energy based on the optical absorption and photoluminescence (PL) results. Moreover, all the observed changes were fully reversible when the pressure was completely released. Our in situ high pressure studies provide essential information for the intrinsic properties and stability of organic-inorganic halide perovskites, which significantly affect the performance of perovskite solar cells.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗
arXiv2015

Dixmier Trace for Toeplitz Operators on Symmetric Domains

For Toeplitz operators on bounded symmetric domains of arbitrary rank, we define a Hilbert quotient module corresponding to partitions of length $1$ and prove that it belongs to the Macaev class ${\mathcal{L}}^{n,\infty}$. We next obtain an explicit formula for the Dixmier trace of Toeplitz commutators in terms of the underlying boundary geometry.

math.FA↗
arXiv2015

Ideal gas behavior of rotamerically defined conformers in native globular proteins

Protein conformational transitions, which are essential for function, may be driven either by entropy or enthalpy when molecular systems comprising solute and solvent molecules are the focus. Revealing thermodynamic origin of a given molecular process is an important but difficult task, and general principles governing protein conformational distributions remain elusive. Here we demonstrate that when protein molecules are taken as thermodynamic systems and solvents being treated as the environment, conformational entropy is an excellent proxy for free energy and is sufficient to explain protein conformational distributions. Specifically, by defining each unique combination of side chain torsional state as a conformer, the population distribution (or free energy) on an arbitrarily given order parameter is approximately a linear function of conformational entropy. Additionally, span of various microscopic potential energy terms is observed to be highly correlated with both conformational entropy and free energy. Presently widely utilized free energy proxies, including minimum potential energy, average potential energy terms by themselves or in combination with vibrational entropy\cite, are found to correlate with free energy rather poorly. Therefore, our findings provide a fundamentally new theoretical base for development of significantly more reliable and efficient next generation computational tools, where the number of available conformers,rather than poential energy of microscopic configurations, is the central focus. We anticipate that many related research fields, including structure based drug design and discovery, protein design, docking and prediction of general intermolecular interactions involving proteins, are expected to benefit greatly.

q-bio.BM↗
arXiv2014

Pure leptonic proposal to $W^{+}W^{-}$ excess and neutrino mass generation

We investigate the TeV models for neutrino mass generation as candidate models to explain the recent 2$σ$ excess of leptonic $W^{+}W^{-}$ pair production at LHC. Several models with singly charged exotic states that may explain the excess require light masses completely excluded by LEP experiments. One possible model with new lepton doublets can fit the observation and evade all direct search bounds but with tuned Yukawa structure to satisfy lepton universality. The new exotic leptons $L^{\pm}$ decay into $L^{\pm}\to \ell^{\pm} ϕ$ where $ϕ$ is a light singlet scalar of $\cal O$(MeV) that decays into neutrinos. Drell-Yan production of $L^{+}L^{-}\to \ell^{+}\ell^{-}+\cancel{E}_{T}$ fits the excess and $L^{\pm}L^{0}\to \ell^{\pm}+\cancel{E}_{T}$ is completely buried in SM background.

hep-ph↗