Search

GRAMS (Gamma-Ray and AntiMatter Survey) is a next-generation balloon/satellite experiment utilizing a LArTPC (Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber), to simultaneously target astrophysical observations of cosmic MeV gamma-rays and conduct an indirect dark matter search using antimatter. While LArTPCs are widely used in particle physics experiments, they have never been operated at balloon altitudes. An engineering balloon flight with a small-scale LArTPC (eGRAMS) was conducted on July 27th, 2023, to establish a system for safely operating a LArTPC at balloon altitudes and to obtain cosmic-ray data from the LArTPC. The flight was launched from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA) Taiki Aerospace Research Field in Hokkaido, Japan. The total flight duration was 3 hours and 12 minutes, including a level flight of 44 minutes at a maximum altitude of 28.9~km. The flight system was landed on the sea and successfully recovered. The LArTPC was successfully operated throughout the flight, and about 0.5 million events of the cosmic-ray data including muons, protons, and Compton scattering gamma-ray candidates, were collected. This pioneering flight demonstrates the feasibility of operating a LArTPC in high-altitude environments, paving the way for future GRAMS missions and advancing our capabilities in MeV gamma-ray astronomy and dark matter research.

We present a phase autoencoder that encodes the asymptotic phase of a limit-cycle oscillator, a fundamental quantity characterizing its synchronization dynamics. This autoencoder is trained in such a way that its latent variables directly represent the asymptotic phase of the oscillator. The trained autoencoder can perform two functions without relying on the mathematical model of the oscillator: first, it can evaluate the asymptotic phase and phase sensitivity function of the oscillator; second, it can reconstruct the oscillator state on the limit cycle in the original space from the phase value as an input. Using several examples of limit-cycle oscillators, we demonstrate that the asymptotic phase and phase sensitivity function can be estimated only from time-series data by the trained autoencoder. We also present a simple method for globally synchronizing two oscillators as an application of the trained autoencoder., Comment: 12 pages, 16 figures

Molecular fingerprints are widely used for predicting chemical properties, and selecting appropriate fingerprints is important. We generate new fingerprints based on the assumption that a performance of prediction using a more effective fingerprint is better. We generate effective interaction fingerprints that are the product of multiple base fingerprints. It is difficult to evaluate all combinations of interaction fingerprints because of computational limitations. Against this problem, we transform a problem of searching more effective interaction fingerprints into a quadratic unconstrained binary optimization problem. In this study, we found effective interaction fingerprints using QM9 dataset., Comment: 2022 IEEE International Conference on Big Data (Big Data). arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:2303.09772

This paper proposes an extension of regression trees by quadratic unconstrained binary optimization (QUBO). Regression trees are very popular prediction models that are trainable with tabular datasets, but their accuracy is insufficient because the decision rules are too simple. The proposed method extends the decision rules in decision trees to multi-dimensional boundaries. Such an extension is generally unimplementable because of computational limitations, however, the proposed method transforms the training process to QUBO, which enables an annealing machine to solve this problem., Comment: 2022 IEEE International Conference on Knowledge Graph (ICKG)

Ephemeral aggregations of bacteria are ubiquitous in the environment, where they serve as hotbeds of metabolic activity, nutrient cycling, and horizontal gene transfer. In many cases, these regions of high bacterial concentration are thought to form when motile cells use chemotaxis to navigate to chemical hotspots. However, what governs the dynamics of bacterial aggregations is unclear. Here, we use a novel experimental platform to create realistic sub-millimeter scale nutrient pulses with controlled nutrient concentrations. By combining experiments, mathematical theory and agent-based simulations, we show that individual \textit{Vibrio ordalii} bacteria begin chemotaxis toward hotspots of dissolved organic matter (DOM) when the magnitude of the chemical gradient rises sufficiently far above the sensory noise that is generated by stochastic encounters with chemoattractant molecules. Each DOM hotspot is surrounded by a dynamic ring of chemotaxing cells, which congregate in regions of high DOM concentration before dispersing as DOM diffuses and gradients become too noisy for cells to respond to. We demonstrate that \textit{V. ordalii} operates close to the theoretical limits on chemotactic precision. Numerical simulations of chemotactic bacteria, in which molecule counting noise is explicitly taken into account, point at a tradeoff between nutrient acquisition and the cost of chemotactic precision. More generally, our results illustrate how limits on sensory precision can be used to understand the location, spatial extent, and lifespan of bacterial behavioral responses in ecologically relevant environments., Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures. PNAS first published May 16, 2019 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1816621116

We studied phase transitions and thermodynamic properties of the field-induced antiferromagnetic nuclear-spin ordered phase in bcc solid 3He by measuring the melting pressure at temperatures down to 0.4 mK in magnetic fields up to 15 T. The transition temperature from the paramagnetic phase is reentrant with increasing field with a maximum at 10 T. This indicates that the system is highly frustrated by the competing multiple-spin exchanges and excludes other mechanisms related to the zero-point vacancies. The upper critical field was estimated as 19.7 T, which reveals non-negligible contributions from higher order exchanges beyond six spins. A considerable softening of the spin waves in the ordered phase in low fields also suggests the strong frustration.

The specific heat of superfluid $^{3}$He, disordered by a silica aerogel, is found to have a sharp discontinuity marking the thermodynamic transition to superfluidity at a temperature reduced from that of bulk $^{3}$He. The magnitude of the discontinuity is also suppressed. This disorder effect can be understood from the Ginzburg-Landau theory which takes into account elastic quasiparticle scattering suppressing both the transition temperature and the amplitude of the order parameter. We infer that the limiting temperature dependence of the specific heat is linear at low temperatures in the disordered superfluid state, consistent with predictions of gapless excitations everywhere on the Fermi surface., Comment: accpeted for publication in Physical Review Letters

The phase diagram of the superfluid phases of $^{3}$He in 98% aerogel was determined in the range of pressure from 15 to 33 bars and for fields up to 3 kG using high-frequency sound. The superfluid transition in aerogel at 33.4 bars is field independent from 0 to 5 kG and shows no evidence of an $A_{1}-A_{2}$ splitting. The first-order transition between the A and B-phases is suppressed by a magnetic field, and exhibits strong supercooling at high pressures. We show that the equilibrium phase in zero applied field is the B-phase with at most a region of A-phase {\small $\alt$} 20 $\mu$K just below T${_c}$ at a pressure of 33.4 bars. This is in contrast to pure $^{3}$He which has a large stable region of A-phase and a polycritical point. The quadratic coefficient for magnetic field suppression of the AB-transition, $g_{a}(\beta)$, was obtained. The pressure dependence of $g_{a}(\beta)$ is markedly different from that for the pure superfluid, $g_{0}(\beta)$, which diverges at a polycritical pressure of 21 bars. We compare our results with calculations from the homogeneous scattering model for $g_{a}(\beta)$, defined in a Ginzburg-Landau theory in terms of strong-coupling parameters $\beta$. We find qualitatively good agreement with the experiment if the strong-coupling corrections are rescaled from known values of the $\beta$'s for pure $^{3}$He, reduced by the suppression of the superfluid transition temperature. The calculations indicate that the polycritical pressure in the aerogel system is displaced well above the melting pressure and out of experimental reach. We cannot account for the puzzling supercooling of the aerogel AB-transition in zero applied field within the framework of known nucleation scenarios., Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures

The nucleation of the first order phase transition of superfluid 3He-B from superfluid 3He-A is quite remarkable since it requires a seed of the order of a micron. We have studied this nucleation for 3He confined to a very dilute silica aerogel. This dirty superfluid behaves in a manner similar to previous reports for the pure superfluid. But we have discovered a novel magnetically driven nucleation switch acting on the pure superfluid B-phase. Lastly, we find the surprising result that the proximity effect between the pure and dirty superfluids at their interface is insufficient to nucleate the B-phase in either superfluid., Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, to be published in Physical Review Letters