Search

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are ideal probes of the Universe at high redshift (z > 5), pinpointing the locations of the earliest star-forming galaxies and providing bright backlights that can be used to spectrally fingerprint the intergalactic medium and host galaxy during the period of reionization. Future missions such as Gamow Explorer are being proposed to unlock this potential by increasing the rate of identification of high-z GRBs to rapidly trigger observations from 6-10 m ground telescopes, JWST, and the Extremely Large Telescopes. Gamow was proposed to the NASA 2021 Medium-Class Explorer (MIDEX) program as a fast-slewing satellite featuring a wide-field lobster-eye X-ray telescope (LEXT) to detect and localize GRBs, and a 30 cm narrow-field multi-channel photo-z infrared telescope (PIRT) to measure their photometric redshifts using the Lyman-alpha dropout technique. To derive the PIRT sensitivity requirement we compiled a complete sample of GRB optical-near-infrared afterglows from 2008 to 2021, adding a total of 66 new afterglows to our earlier sample, including all known high-z GRB afterglows. We performed full light-curve and spectral-energy-distribution analyses of these afterglows to derive their true luminosity at very early times. For all the light curves, where possible, we determined the brightness at the time of the initial finding chart of Gamow, at different high redshifts and in different NIR bands. We then followed the evolution of the luminosity to predict requirements for ground and space-based follow-up. We find that a PIRT sensitivity of 15 micro-Jy (21 mag AB) in a 500 s exposure simultaneously in five NIR bands within 1000s of the GRB trigger will meet the Gamow mission requirement to recover > 80% of all redshifts at z > 5., Comment: 44 pages, 10 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics 15 Feb 2024. Abstract abridged for arXiv

Planar tunneling spectroscopy of the Kondo insulator SmB$_6$ suggests that an interaction between the surface Dirac fermions and the bulk spin excitons results in incompletely protected topological surface states. To gain further insight into their true nature, it is necessary to study other topological Kondo insulator candidates. Calculations of electronic energy bands predict that the Kondo insulator YbB$_{12}$ hosts topological surface states protected by crystalline mirror symmetry. In this study, we present tunneling conductance spectra obtained from the (001) surface of YbB$_{12}$ single crystals and discuss them in comparison to SmB$_6$. The linear conductance at low bias provides strong evidence for the existence of surface Dirac fermions. The double-hump structure in the negative bias region is associated with hybridized band edges, in agreement with a calculated band structure. While these similarities with SmB6 are suggestive of the existence of topological surface states in YbB$_{12}$, in agreement with other experiments, some discrepancies are also observed, which we attribute to a difference in their exact nature from those in SmB$_6$., Comment: 25 pages, 7 figures, submitted to Physical Review B

The microscopic mechanism for electron pairing in heavy-fermion superconductors remains a major challenge in quantum materials. Some form of magnetic mediation is widely accepted with spin fluctuations as a prime candidate. A novel mechanism, 'composite pairing' based on the cooperative two-channel Kondo effect directly involving the f-electron moments has also been proposed for some heavy fermion compounds including CeCoIn$_5$. The origin of the spin resonance peak observed in neutron scattering measurements on CeCoIn$_5$ is still controversial and the corresponding hump-dip structure in the tunneling conductance is missing. This is in contrast to the cuprate and Fe-based high-temperature superconductors, where both characteristic signatures are observed, indicating spin fluctuations are likely involved in the pairing process. Here, we report results from planar tunneling spectroscopy along three major crystallographic orientations of CeCoIn5 over wide ranges of temperature and magnetic field. The pairing gap opens at T$_p$ ~ 5 K, well above the bulk T$_c$ = 2.3 K, and its directional dependence is consistent with d$_{x^2-y^2}$ symmetry. With increasing magnetic field, this pairing gap is suppressed as expected but, intriguingly, a gaplike structure emerges smoothly, increasing linearly up to the highest field applied. This field-induced gaplike feature is only observed below T$_p$. The concomitant appearance of the pairing gap and the field-induced gaplike feature, along with its linear increase with field, indicates that the f-electron local moments are directly involved in the pairing process in CeCoIn$_5$., Comment: 25 pages, 6 figures; Supplemental Material included

The true topological nature of the Kondo insulator SmB$_6$ remains to be unveiled. Our previous tunneling study not only found evidence for the existence of surface Dirac fermions, but it also uncovered that they inherently interact with the spin excitons, collective excitations in the bulk. We have extended such a spectroscopic investigation into crystals containing a Sm deficiency. The bulk hybridization gap is found to be insensitive to the deficiency up to 1% studied here, but the surface states in Sm-deficient crystals exhibit quite different temperature evolutions from those in stoichiometric ones. We attribute this to the topological surface states remaining incoherent down to the lowest measurement temperature due to their continued interaction with the spin excitons that remain uncondensed. This result shows that the detailed topological nature of SmB$_6$ could vary drastically in the presence of disorder in the lattice. This sensitiveness to disorder is seemingly contradictory to the celebrated topological protection, but it can be understood as being due to the intimate interplay between strong correlations and topological effects., Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures

We address two long-standing questions regarding the hidden order in URu2Si2: Is it associated with the hybridization process, and what are the distinct roles played by the localized and itinerant electrons? Our quasiparticle scattering spectroscopy reveals a hybridization gap ubiquitous in the entire phase space spanned by P and Fe substitutions in URu2Si2, including the no-order and antiferromagnetic regions, with minimal change upon crossing the phase boundary. This indicates its opening isn't associated with the ordering, and thus localized electrons must be the major player. Towards a consistent understanding of all the other gap-like behaviors observed only below transition temperatures, we analyze the electrical resistivity using a model in which gapped bosonic excitations are the dominant scattering source. With their stiffness set to follow an unusual temperature dependence (decreasing with decreasing temperature), this model fits all of our resistivity data well including the jump at the transition. Remarkably, the extracted gap increases slowly with increasing Fe content, similarly to the gap detected by inelastic neutron scattering at Q1 = (1.4, 0, 0), suggesting a common origin. Such a model can also naturally explain the Hall effect temperature dependence without invoking Fermi surface gapping., Comment: Main text is 6 pages with 4 figures. Supplemental material is 8 pages with 11 figures

We report near-infrared (IR) observations of high Galactic latitude clouds to investigate diffuse Galactic light (DGL), which is starlight scattered by interstellar dust grains. The observations were performed at $1.1$ and $1.6\,\rm{\mu m}$ with a wide-field camera instrument, the Multi-purpose Infra-Red Imaging System (MIRIS) onboard the Korean satellite STSAT-3. The DGL brightness is measured by correlating the near-IR images with a far-IR $100\,\rm{\mu m}$ map of interstellar dust thermal emission. The wide-field observation of DGL provides the most accurate DGL measurement achieved to date. We also find a linear correlation between optical and near-IR DGL in the MBM32 field. To study interstellar dust properties in MBM32, we adopt recent dust models with or without $\rm{\mu m}$-sized very large grains and predict the DGL spectra, taking into account reddening effect of interstellar radiation field. The result shows that observed color of the near-IR DGL is closer to the model spectra without very large grains. This may imply that dust growth in the observed MBM32 field is not active owing to its low density of interstellar medium., Comment: 14 pages, 13 figures, accepted for PASJ

Several technical issues and challenges are identified and investigated for the planar tunneling spectroscopy of the topological Kondo insulator SmB$_6$. Contrasting behaviors of the tunnel junctions prepared in two different ways are analyzed and explained in detail. The conventional approach based on an AlO$_\text{x}$ tunnel barrier results in unsatisfactory results due to the inter-diffusion between SmB$_6$ and deposited Al. On the contrary, plasma oxidation of SmB$_6$ crystals produces high-quality tunnel barriers on both (001) and (011) surfaces. Resultant conductance spectra are highly reproducible with clear signatures for the predicted surface Dirac fermions and the bulk hybridization gap as well. The surface states are identified to reside on two or one {\it distinguishable} Dirac cone(s) on the (001) and (011) surface, respectively, in good agreement with the recent literature. However, their topological protection is found to be limited within the low energy region due to their inevitable interaction with the bulk excitations, called spin excitons, consistent with a recent theoretical prediction. Implications of our findings on other physical properties in SmB$_6$ and also other correlated topological materials are remarked., Comment: 11 pages, 11 figures, published in Phys. Rev. B

We present results from point-contact spectroscopy of the antiferromagnetic heavy-fermion superconductor UPd$_2$Al$_3$: conductance spectra are taken from single crystals with two major surface orientations as a function of temperature and magnetic field, and analyzed using a theory of co-tunneling into an Anderson lattice. Spectroscopic signatures are clearly identified including the distinct asymmetric double-peak structure arising from the opening of a hybridization gap when a coherent heavy Fermi liquid is formed. Both the hybridization gap, found to be 7.2 $\pm$ 0.3 meV at 4 K, and the conductance enhancement above a flat background decrease upon increasing temperature. While the hybridization gap is extrapolated to remain finite up to $\sim$28 K, close to the temperature around which the magnetic susceptibility displays a broad peak, the conductance enhancement vanishes at $\sim$18 K, slightly above the antiferromagnetic transition temperature ($T_\textrm{N}$ $\approx$ 14 K). This rapid decrease of the conductance enhancement is understood as a consequence of the junction drifting away from the ballistic regime due to increased scattering off magnons associated with the localized U 5$f$ electrons. This shows that while the hybridization gap opening is not directly associated with the antiferromagnetic ordering, its visibility in the conductance is greatly affected by the temperature-dependent magnetic excitations. Our findings are not only consistent with the 5$f$ dual-nature picture in the literature but also shed new light on the interplay between the itinerant and localized electrons in UPd$_2$Al$_3$., Comment: 28 pages, 8 figures, published in Phys. Rev. B

The design and realization of a cryogenic rig for point-contact spectroscopy measurements in the needle-anvil configuration is presented. Thanks to the use of two piezoelectric nano-positioners, the tip can move along the vertical ($z$) and horizontal ($x$) direction and thus the rig is suitable to probe different regions of a sample \textit{in situ}. Moreover, it can also form double point-contacts on different facets of a single crystal for achieving, e.g., an interferometer configuration for phase-sensitive measurements. For the latter purpose, the sample holder can also host a Helmholtz coil for applying a small transverse magnetic field to the junction. A semi-rigid coaxial cable can be easily added for studying the behavior of Josephson junctions under microwave irradiation. The rig can be detached from the probe and thus used with different cryostats. The performance of this new probe has been tested in a Quantum Design PPMS system by conducting point-contact Andreev reflection measurements on Nb thin films over large areas as a function of temperature and magnetic field., Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures, published in Rev. Sci. Instrum

The $\Lambda$CDM cosmological model successfully reproduces many aspects of the galaxy and structure formation of the universe. However, the growth of large-scale structures (LSSs) in the early universe is not well tested yet with observational data. Here, we have utilized wide and deep optical--near-infrared data in order to search for distant galaxy clusters and superclusters ($0.8