arXiv subjects

Xin Zhang

Publications and source records attributed to Xin Zhang.

At least 865 records · Page 48Linked to original sources

arXiv2022

A new way to explore cosmological tensions using gravitational waves and strong gravitational lensing

In recent years, a crisis in the standard cosmology has been caused by inconsistencies in the measurements of some key cosmological parameters, Hubble constant $H_0$ and cosmic curvature parameter $Ω_K$ for example. It is necessary to remeasure them with the cosmological model-independent methods. In this paper, based on the distance sum rule, we present such a way to constrain $H_0$ and $Ω_K$ simultaneously in the late universe from strong gravitational lensing time delay (SGLTD) data and gravitational wave (GW) standard siren data simulated from the future observation of the Einstein Telescope (ET). Based on the currently 6 observed SGLTD data, we find that the constraint precision of $H_0$ from the combined 100 GW events can be comparable with the measurement from SH0ES collaboration. As the number of GW events increases to 700, the constraint precision of $H_0$ will exceed that of the \textit{Planck} 2018 results. Considering 1000 GW events as the conservative estimation of ET in ten-year observation, we obtain $H_0=73.69\pm 0.36 \mathrm{~km~s^{-1}~Mpc^{-1}}$ with a 0.5\% uncertainty and $Ω_K=0.076^{+0.068}_{-0.087}$. In addition, we simulate 55 SGL systems with 6.6\% uncertainty for the measurement of time-delay distance. By combining with 1000 GWs, we infer that $H_0=73.65\pm0.35 \mathrm{~km~s^{-1}~Mpc^{-1}}$ and $Ω_K=0.008\pm0.048$. Our results suggest that this approach can play an important role in exploring cosmological tensions.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2022

Complementary Vanadium Dioxide Metamaterials with Enhanced Modulation Amplitude at Terahertz Frequencies

One route to create tunable metamaterials is through integration with "on-demand" dynamic quantum materials, such as vanadium dioxide (VO2). This enables new modalities to create high performance devices for historically challenging applications. Indeed, dynamic materials have often been integrated with metamaterials to imbue artificial structures with some degree of tunability. Conversely, metamaterials can be used to enhance and extend the natural tuning range of dynamic materials. Utilizing a complementary split ring resonator array deposited on a VO2 film, we demonstrate enhanced terahertz transmission modulation upon traversing the insulator-to-metal transition (IMT) at ~340 K. Our complementary metamaterial increases the modulation amplitude of the original VO2 film from 42% to 68.3% at 0.47 THz upon crossing the IMT, corresponding to an enhancement of 62.4%. Moreover, temperature dependent transmission measurements reveal a redshift of the resonant frequency arising from a giant increase of the permittivity of the VO2 film. Maxwell-Garnett effective medium theory was employed to explain the permittivity change upon transitioning through the IMT. Our results highlight that symbiotic integration of metamaterial arrays with quantum materials provides a powerful approach to engineer emergent functionality.

physics.app-ph↗

arXiv2022

Impacts of gravitational-wave standard siren observations from Einstein Telescope and Cosmic Explorer on weighing neutrinos in interacting dark energy models

The multi-messenger gravitational-wave (GW) observation for binary neutron star merger events could provide a rather useful tool to explore the evolution of the universe. In particular, for the third-generation GW detectors, i.e., the Einstein Telescope (ET) and the Cosmic Explorer (CE), proposed to be built in Europe and the U.S., respectively, lots of GW standard sirens with known redshifts could be obtained, which would exert great impacts on the cosmological parameter estimation. The total neutrino mass could be measured by cosmological observations, but such a measurement is model-dependent and currently only gives an upper limit. In this work, we wish to investigate whether the GW standard sirens observed by ET and CE could help improve the constraint on the neutrino mass, in particular in the interacting dark energy (IDE) models. We find that the GW standard siren observations from ET and CE can only slightly improve the constraint on the neutrino mass in the IDE models, compared to the current limit. The improvements in the IDE models are weaker than in the standard cosmological model. Although the limit on neutrino mass can only be slightly updated, the constraints on other cosmological parameters can be significantly improved by using the GW observations.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2022

Shadow and weak deflection angle of a black hole in nonlocal gravity

Black hole shadow and gravitational lensing play important roles in testing gravitational theories in the strong field regime. As the first-order modifications from quantum gravity, the nonlocality can be manifested by black hole shadow and gravitational lensing. For example, the cut-off parameter introduced by nonlocality will affect the shape and size of the black hole shadow, and also affect the deflection angle of light rays. In this paper, we mainly investigate the effects of the nonlocality on the black hole shadow and the gravitational lensing for two types of rotating black holes in nonlocal gravity. It is found that the size of the black hole shadow decreases with the cut-off parameter since the nonlocality weakens the gravitational constant, and the shape of the shadow gets more deformed with the increase of the cut-off parameter. However, if the rotation parameter is small, the shape of the shadow is almost a circle even though the cut-off parameter approaches its maximum. The energy emission rate in both models is also studied. The results show that there is a peak for each curve and the peak decreases and shifts to the low frequency with the increase of the cut-off parameter. Besides, we also explore the shadow of both types of black holes surrounded by a nonmagnetized pressureless plasma which satisfies the separability condition. It is found that the plasma has a frequency-dependent dispersive effect on the size and shape of the black hole shadow. For the gravitational lensing, we find that the cut-off parameter of model A makes a positive contribution to the deflection angle, which can be compared with the contribution of the rotation parameter, while the cut-off parameter of model B makes a negative contribution which can be ignored. These results may be helpful for probing nonlocal gravity in future observations.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2022

Constraints on interacting dark energy models from time-delay cosmography with seven lensed quasars

Measurements of time-delay cosmography of lensed quasars can provide an independent probe to explore the expansion history of the late-time Universe. In this paper, we employ the time-delay cosmography measurements from seven lenses (here abbreviated as the TD data) to constrain interacting dark energy (IDE) models. We mainly focus on the scenario of vacuum energy (with $w=-1$) interacting with cold dark matter, and consider four typical cases of the interaction form $Q$. When the TD data alone are employed, we find that the IDE models with $Q\propto ρ_{\rm de}$ seem to have an advantage in relieving the $H_{0}$ tension between the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and TD data. When the TD data are added to the CMB$+$BAO$+$SN$+H_0$ data, we find that: (i) the coupling parameter $β$ in all the considered IDE models is positive within 1$σ$ range, implying a mild preference for the case of cold dark matter decaying into dark energy; (ii) the IDE model with $Q = βH_{0} ρ_{\rm c}$ slightly relieves the $S_8$ tension, but the other considered IDE models further aggravate this tension; (iii) the Akaike information criteria of the IDE models with $Q \propto ρ_{\rm c}$ are lower than that of the $Λ$CDM model, indicating that these IDE models are more preferred by the current mainstream data. We conclude that the considered IDE models have their own different advantages when the TD data are employed, and none of them can achieve good scores in all aspects.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2022

Anarchic Federated Learning

Present-day federated learning (FL) systems deployed over edge networks consists of a large number of workers with high degrees of heterogeneity in data and/or computing capabilities, which call for flexible worker participation in terms of timing, effort, data heterogeneity, etc. To satisfy the need for flexible worker participation, we consider a new FL paradigm called "Anarchic Federated Learning" (AFL) in this paper. In stark contrast to conventional FL models, each worker in AFL has the freedom to choose i) when to participate in FL, and ii) the number of local steps to perform in each round based on its current situation (e.g., battery level, communication channels, privacy concerns). However, such chaotic worker behaviors in AFL impose many new open questions in algorithm design. In particular, it remains unclear whether one could develop convergent AFL training algorithms, and if yes, under what conditions and how fast the achievable convergence speed is. Toward this end, we propose two Anarchic Federated Averaging (AFA) algorithms with two-sided learning rates for both cross-device and cross-silo settings, which are named AFA-CD and AFA-CS, respectively. Somewhat surprisingly, we show that, under mild anarchic assumptions, both AFL algorithms achieve the best known convergence rate as the state-of-the-art algorithms for conventional FL. Moreover, they retain the highly desirable {\em linear speedup effect} with respect of both the number of workers and local steps in the new AFL paradigm. We validate the proposed algorithms with extensive experiments on real-world datasets.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2022

Gate-Tunable Spin-Orbit Coupling in a Germanium Hole Double Quantum Dot

Hole spins confined in semiconductor quantum dot systems have gained considerable interest for their strong spin-orbit interactions (SOIs) and relatively weak hyperfine interactions. Here we experimentally demonstrate a tunable SOI in a double quantum dot in a Germanium (Ge) hut wire (HW), which could help enable fast all-electric spin manipulations while suppressing unwanted decoherence. Specifically, we measure the transport spectra in the Pauli spin blockade regime in the double quantum dot device.By adjusting the interdot tunnel coupling, we obtain an electric field tuned spin-orbit length lso = 2.0 - 48.9 nm. This tunability of the SOI could pave the way toward the realization of high-fidelity qubits in Ge HW systems.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2022

Ultrafast modulation of the molten metal surface tension under femtosecond laser irradiation

We predict ultrafast modulation of the pure molten metal surface stress fields under the irradiation of the single femtosecond laser pulse through the two-temperature model molecular-dynamics simulations. High-resolution and precision calculations are used to resolve the ultrafast laser-induced anisotropic relaxations of the pressure components on the time-scale comparable to the intrinsic liquid density relaxation time. The magnitudes of the dynamic surface tensions are found being modulated sharply within picoseconds after the irradiation, due to the development of the nanometer scale non-hydrostatic regime behind the exterior atomic layer of the liquid surfaces. The reported novel regulation mechanism of the liquid surface stress field and the dynamic surface tension hints at levitating the manipulation of liquid surfaces, such as ultrafast steering the surface directional transport and patterning.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2022

Strongly lensed type Ia supernovae as a precise late-universe probe of measuring the Hubble constant and cosmic curvature

Strongly lensed type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) are expected to have some advantages in measuring time delays of multiple images, and so they have a great potential to be developed into a powerful late-universe cosmological probe. In this paper, we simulate a sample of lensed SNe Ia with time-delay measurements in the era of the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). Based on the distance sum rule, we use lensed SNe Ia to implement model-independent constraints on the Hubble constant $H_0$ and cosmic curvature parameter $Ω_K$ in the late universe. We find that if 20 lensed SNe Ia could be observed, the constraint on $H_{0}$ is better than the measurement by the SH0ES collaboration. When the event number of lensed SNe Ia increases to 100, the constraint precision of $H_{0}$ is comparable with the result from Planck 2018 data. Considering 200 lensed SNe Ia events as the optimistic estimation, we obtain $ΔH_0=0.33$ $\rm km\ s^{-1}\ Mpc^{-1}$ and $ΔΩ_K=0.053$. In addition, we also simulate lensed quasars in different scenarios to make a comparison and we find that they are still a useful cosmological probe even though the constraint precision from them is much less than that obtained from lensed SNe Ia. In the era of LSST, the measurements of time delay from both lensed SNe Ia and lensed quasars are expected to yield the results of $ΔH_0=0.26 ~\rm km\ s^{-1}\ Mpc^{-1}$ and $ΔΩ_K=0.044$.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2022

Eliminating Primary Beam Effect in Foreground Subtraction of Neutral Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Survey with Deep Learning

In the neutral hydrogen (HI) intensity mapping (IM) survey, the foreground contamination on the cosmological signals is extremely severe, and the systematic effects caused by radio telescopes themselves further aggravate the difficulties in subtracting foreground. In this work, we investigate whether the deep learning method, concretely the 3D U-Net algorithm here, can play a crucial role in foreground subtraction when considering the systematic effect caused by the telescope's primary beam. We consider two beam models, i.e., the Gaussian beam model as a simple case and the Cosine beam model as a sophisticated case. The traditional principal component analysis (PCA) method is employed as a comparison and, more importantly, as the preprocessing step for the U-Net method to reduce the sky map dynamic range. We find that in the case of the Gaussian beam, the PCA method can effectively clean the foreground. However, the PCA method cannot handle the systematic effect induced by the Cosine beam, and the additional U-Net method can improve the result significantly. In order to show how well the PCA and U-Net methods can recover the HI signals, we also derive the HI angular power spectra, as well as the HI 2D power spectra, after performing the foreground subtractions. It is found that, in the case of Gaussian beam, the concordance with the original HI map using U-Net is better than that using PCA by $27.4\%$, and in the case of Cosine beam, the concordance using U-Net is better than that using PCA by $144.8\%$. Therefore, the U-Net based foreground subtraction can efficiently eliminate the telescope primary beam effect and shed new light on recovering the HI power spectrum for future HI IM experiments.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2022

Approaching a Minimal Topological Electronic Structure in Antiferromagnetic Topological Insulator MnBi2Te4 via Surface Modification

The topological electronic structure plays a central role in the non-trivial physical properties in topological quantum materials. A minimal, hydrogen-atom-like topological electronic structure is desired for researches. In this work, we demonstrate an effort towards the realization of such a system in the intrinsic magnetic topological insulator MnBi2Te4, by manipulating the topological surface state (TSS) via surface modification. Using high resolution laser- and synchrotron-based angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES), we found the TSS in MnBi2Te4 is heavily hybridized with a trivial Rashba-type surface state (RSS), which could be efficiently removed by the in situ surface potassium (K) dosing. By employing multiple experimental methods to characterize K dosed surface, we attribute such a modification to the electrochemical reactions of K clusters on the surface. Our work not only gives a clear band assignment in MnBi2Te4, but also provides possible new routes in accentuating the topological behavior in the magnetic topological quantum materials.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2022

An introduction to variational inference in Geophysical inverse problems

In a variety of scientific applications we wish to characterize a physical system using measurements or observations. This often requires us to solve an inverse problem, which usually has non-unique solutions so uncertainty must be quantified in order to define the family of all possible solutions. Bayesian inference provides a powerful theoretical framework which defines the set of solutions to inverse problems, and variational inference is a method to solve Bayesian inference problems using optimization while still producing fully probabilistic solutions. This chapter provides an introduction to variational inference, and reviews its applications to a range of geophysical problems, including petrophysical inversion, travel time tomography and full-waveform inversion. We demonstrate that variational inference is an efficient and scalable method which can be deployed in many practical scenarios.

physics.geo-ph↗

arXiv2022

Next-to-tribimaximal mixing against CP violation and baryon asymmetry signs

Four next-to-tribimaximal (NTBM) mixing patterns are widely considered as the feasible candidates for the observed leptonic mixing structure. With the recent measurements from T2K, as well as intensive global fits, the interval of $\sinδ_{ CP} > 0$ for the Dirac CP-violating phase is persistently small in the normal ordering while $\sinδ_{ CP} < 0$ is successively obtained up to $3σ$ level in the inverted ordering. In this paper, we advocate the fitting results of Dirac CP-violating phase as a constraint, and show that, it can basically rule out half of the regions allowed by the constraint from three mixing angles only. In addition, given the small $\sinδ_{ CP} > 0$ interval, we find that a unique NTBM pattern can be selected out of the four candidates within $3σ$ uncertainty of the latest NuFIT 5.1, when the patterns are exposed to a Yukawa texture-independent leptogenesis for the baryon asymmetry of the Universe. For the surviving pattern, we find an interesting correlation between the Dirac CP-violating phase and the octant of atmospheric angle $θ_{23}$ , where $θ_{23}>45^\circ$ can be predicted once $5π/6 < δ_{CP} <π$ in the normal ordering can be confirmed in the future measurements.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2022

K-core in percolated dense graph sequences

We determine the size of $k$-core in a large class of dense graph sequences. Let $G_n$ be a sequence of undirected, $n$-vertex graphs with edge weights $\{a^n_{i,j}\}_{i,j \in [n]}$ that converges to a kernel $W:[0,1]^2\to [0,+\infty)$ in the cut metric. Keeping an edge $(i,j)$ of $G_n$ with probability $\min \{ {a^n_{i,j}}/{n},1 \}$ independently, we obtain a sequence of random graphs $G_n(\frac{1}{n})$. Denote by $\mathcal{A}$ the property of a branching process that the initial particle has at least $k$ children, each of which has at least $k-1$ children, each of which has at least $k-1$ children, and so on. Using branching process and the theory of dense graph limits, under mild assumptions we obtain the size of $k$-core of random graphs $G_n(\frac{1}{n})$, \begin{align*} \text{size of $k$-core of } G_n\left(\frac{1}{n}\right) =n \mathbb{P}_{X^W}\left(\mathcal{A}\right) +o_p(n). \end{align*} Our result can also be used to obtain the threshold of appearance of a $k$-core of order $n$.

math.PR↗

arXiv2022

Outage and Finite-SNR DMT Analysis for IRS-aided MIMO Systems: How Large IRSs Need to Be?

Intelligent reflecting surfaces (IRSs) are promising enablers for high-capacity wireless communication systems by constructing favorable channels between the transmitter and receiver. However, general, accurate, and tractable outage analysis for IRS-aided multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) systems is not available in the literature. In this paper, we first characterize the mutual information (MI) of IRS-aided MIMO systems by capitalizing on large random matrix theory (RMT). Based on this result, a closed-form approximation for the outage probability is derived and a gradient-based algorithm is proposed to minimize the outage probability with statistical channel state information (CSI). We also investigate the diversity-multiplexing tradeoff (DMT) with the finite signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Based on these theoretical results, we further study the impact of the IRS size on system performance. In the high SNR regime, we provide closed-form expressions for the ergodic mutual information (EMI) and outage probability as a function of the IRS size, which analytically reveal that the benefit of increasing the IRS size saturates quickly. Simulation results validate the accuracy of the theoretical analysis and confirm the increasing cost for deploying larger IRSs to improve system performance. For example, for an IRS-aided MIMO system with 20 antennas at both the transmitter and receiver, we need to double the size of the IRS to increase the throughout from 90% to 95% of its maximum value.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2022

Distributional Robust Portfolio Construction based on Investor Aversion

In behavioral finance, aversion affects investors' judgment of future uncertainty when profit and loss occur. Considering investors' aversion to loss and risk, and the ambiguous uncertainty characterizing asset returns, we construct a distributional robust portfolio model (DRP) under the condition that the distribution of risky asset returns is unknown. Specifically, our objective is to find an optimal portfolio of assets that maximizes the worst-case utility level on the Wasserstein ball, which is centered on the empirical distribution of sample returns and the radius of the ball quantifies the investor's ambiguity level. The model is also formulated as a mixed-integer quadratic programming problem with cardinality constraints. In addition, we propose a hybrid algorithm to improve the efficiency of the solution and make it more suitable for large-scale problems. The distributional robust portfolio model considering aversion is empirically tested for superior performance in asset allocation, and we also compare common asset allocation strategies to further enhance the credibility of the portfolio.

math.OC↗

arXiv2022

Identifying Chinese Opinion Expressions with Extremely-Noisy Crowdsourcing Annotations

Recent works of opinion expression identification (OEI) rely heavily on the quality and scale of the manually-constructed training corpus, which could be extremely difficult to satisfy. Crowdsourcing is one practical solution for this problem, aiming to create a large-scale but quality-unguaranteed corpus. In this work, we investigate Chinese OEI with extremely-noisy crowdsourcing annotations, constructing a dataset at a very low cost. Following zhang et al. (2021), we train the annotator-adapter model by regarding all annotations as gold-standard in terms of crowd annotators, and test the model by using a synthetic expert, which is a mixture of all annotators. As this annotator-mixture for testing is never modeled explicitly in the training phase, we propose to generate synthetic training samples by a pertinent mixup strategy to make the training and testing highly consistent. The simulation experiments on our constructed dataset show that crowdsourcing is highly promising for OEI, and our proposed annotator-mixup can further enhance the crowdsourcing modeling.

cs.CL↗

arXiv2022

Cosmological Parameter Estimation Using Current and Future Observations of Strong Gravitational Lensing

Remarkable development of cosmology is benefited from the increasingly improved measurements of cosmic distances including absolute distances and relative distances. In recent years, however, the emerged cosmological tensions motivate us to explore the independent and precise late-universe probes. The two observational effects of strong gravitational lensing (SGL), the velocity dispersions of lens galaxies and the time delays between multiple images, can provide measurements of relative and absolute distances respectively, and their combination is possible to break the degeneracies between cosmological parameters and enable tight constraints on cosmological parameters. In this paper, we combine the observed 130 SGL systems with velocity-dispersion measurements and 7 SGL systems with time-delay measurements to constrain dark-energy cosmological models. It is found that the combination of the two effects does not significantly break the degeneracies between cosmological parameters as expected. However, with the simulations of 8000 SGL systems with well-measured velocity dispersions and 55 SGL systems with well-measured time delays based on the forthcoming LSST survey, we find that the combination of two effects can significantly break the parameter degeneracies, and make the constraint precision of cosmological parameters meet the standard of precision cosmology. We conclude that the observations of SGL will become a useful late-universe probe for precisely measuring cosmological parameters.

astro-ph.CO↗