Spider pulsars are neutron stars that have a companion star in a close orbit. The companion star sheds material to the neutron star, spinning it up to millisecond rotation periods, while the orbit shortens to hours. Here we report radio observations of the binary millisecond pulsar PSR J1953+1844 (M71E) that show it to have an orbital period of 53.3?minutes and a companion with a mass of around 0.07?M⊙. It is a faint X-ray source and located 2.5?arcminutes from the centre of the globular cluster M71.
Here we report on the first observation of 28O and 27O through their decay into 24O and four and three neutrons, respectively. The 28O nucleus is of particular interest as, with the Z?=?8 and N?=?20 magic numbers, it is expected in the standard shell-model picture of nuclear structure to be one of a relatively small number of so-called ‘doubly magic’ nuclei. Both 27O and 28O were found to exist as narrow, low-lying resonances and their decay energies are compared here to the results of sophisticated theoretical modelling, including a large-scale shell-model calculation and a newly developed statistical approach. In both cases, the underlying nuclear interactions were derived from effective field theories of quantum chromodynamics. Finally, it is shown that the cross-section for the production of 28O from a 29F beam is consistent with it not exhibiting a closed N?=?20 shell structure.
物理學Physics
Frustration- and doping-induced magnetism in a Fermi–Hubbard simulator
Here we investigate the local spin order of a Hubbard model with controllable frustration and doping, using ultracold fermions in anisotropic optical lattices continuously tunable from a square to a triangular geometry. At half-filling and strong interactions U/t?≈?9, we observe at the single-site level how frustration reduces the range of magnetic correlations and drives a transition from a collinear Néel antiferromagnet to a short-range correlated 120° spiral phase. Away from half-filling, the triangular limit shows enhanced antiferromagnetic correlations on the hole-doped side and a reversal to ferromagnetic correlations at particle dopings above 20%, hinting at the role of kinetic magnetism in frustrated systems. This work paves the way towards exploring possible chiral ordered or superconducting phases in triangular lattices and realizing t–t′ square lattice Hubbard models that may be essential to describe superconductivity in cuprate materials.
人工智能Artificial Intelligence
Champion-level drone racing using deep reinforcement learning
Here we introduce Swift, an autonomous system that can race physical vehicles at the level of the human world champions. The system combines deep reinforcement learning (RL) in simulation with data collected in the physical world. Swift competed against three human champions, including the world champions of two international leagues, in real-world head-to-head races. Swift won several races against each of the human champions and demonstrated the fastest recorded race time. This work represents a milestone for mobile robotics and machine intelligence, which may inspire the deployment of hybrid learning-based solutions in other physical systems.
環境科學Environmental Science
Agricultural pesticide land budget and river discharge to oceans
農藥土地預算以及河流向海洋的排放
▲ 作者:Federico Maggi, Fiona H. M. Tang & Francesco N. Tubiello
Here, we develop a process-based model accounting for the hydrology and biogeochemistry of the 92 most used agricultural pesticide active substances to assess their pathways through the principal catchments of the world and draw a near-present picture of the global land and river budgets, including discharge to oceans. Of the 0.94?Tg net annual pesticide input in 2015 used in this study, 82% is biologically degraded, 10% remains as residue in soil and 7.2% leaches below the root zone. Rivers receive 0.73?Gg of pesticides from their drainage at a rate of 10 to more than 100?kg?yr?1km?1. By contrast to their fate in soil, only 1.1% of pesticides entering rivers are degraded along streams, exceeding safety levels (concentrations >1 μg l?1) in more than 13,000 km of river length, with 0.71?Gg of pesticide active ingredients released to oceans every year. Herbicides represent the prevalent pesticide residue on both land (72%) and river outlets (62%).