量子临界点谱学研究进展论文

编译 | 未玖

Nature , 29 July 2021, VOL 595 , ISSUE 7869

《自然》 2021年7月29日，第595卷，7869期

天文学 Astronomy

Light bending and X-ray echoes from behind a supermassive black hole

超大质量黑洞背后的光弯曲和X射线回声

作者： D. R. Wilkins, L. C. Gallo, E. Costantini, W. N. Brandt & R. D. Blandford

链接：

摘要

黑洞周围吸积盘的最内层区域受到X射线的强烈辐射，这些X射线是由黑洞附近一个高度可变的致密冕区发射出来的。吸积盘反射的X射线和时间延迟提供了事件视界外的环境视图。IZwicky1（IZw1）是附近的窄线赛弗特1星系。

先前对来自吸积盘的X射线混响的研究表明，冕区由两部分组成：一个扩展的、缓慢变化的组成部分，延伸到内部吸积盘的表面；以及一个准直的核心，其光度波动从底部向上传播，主导着更快速的变化。

研究组报告了在IZw1中超大质量黑洞周围发射的X射线耀斑的观测结果。他们通过X射线发射谱中相对展宽的铁K线和康普顿峰，探测到来自吸积盘的X射线反射。对X射线耀斑的分析揭示了光子的短暂闪烁，与黑洞后面重新出现的辐射相一致。

这些光子的能级移动确定了它们来自吸积盘的不同部分。这些光子在吸积盘的远端反射，在黑洞周围弯曲并被强大的引力场放大。观察黑洞周围弯曲的光子证实了广义相对论的一个关键预测。

Abstract

The innermost regions of accretion disks around black holes are strongly irradiated by X-rays that are emitted from a highly variable, compact corona, in the immediate vicinity of the black hole. The X-rays that are seen reflected from the disk, and the time delays, provide a view of the environment just outside the event horizon. I Zwicky 1 (I Zw 1) is a nearby narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxy. Previous studies of the reverberation of X-rays from its accretion disk revealed that the corona is composed of two components: an extended, slowly varying component extending over the surface of the inner accretion disk, and a collimated core, with luminosity fluctuations propagating upwards from its base, which dominates the more rapid variability. Here we report observations of X-ray flares emitted from around the supermassive black hole in I Zw 1. X-ray reflection from the accretion disk is detected through a relativistically broadened iron K line and Compton hump in the X-ray emission spectrum. Analysis of the X-ray flares reveals short flashes of photons consistent with the re-emergence of emission from behind the black hole. The energy shifts of these photons identify their origins from different parts of the disk. These are photons that reverberate off the far side of the disk, and are bent around the black hole and magnified by the strong gravitational field. Observing photons bent around the black hole confirms a key prediction of general relativity.

材料科学 Materials Science

Spectroscopic evidence for a gold-coloured metallic water solution

金色金属水溶液的光谱证据

作者：Philip E. Mason, H. Christian Schewe, Tillmann Buttersack, Vojtech Kostal, Marco Vitek, Ryan S. McMullen, et al.

链接：

摘要

绝缘材料原则上可以通过施加压力制成金属。如果是纯水，估计需要48兆巴的压力，这超出了目前的实验能力，可能只存在于大型行星或恒星的内部。事实上，最近的估计和实验表明，在实验室可达到的压力下，水充其量是只具有高质子导电性的超离子水，而不是具有导电电子的金属水。

研究组表明，在水与碱金属反应时，通过大量掺杂电子可制备金属水溶液。尽管具有高浓度溶剂化电子的液氨类似金属溶液早已为人所知并被表征，但碱金属与水之间的爆炸性相互作用迄今为止仅允许制备具有较低的亚金属电子浓度的水溶液。

研究组发现，水-碱金属反应的爆炸行为可以通过在1 0-4 毫巴的低压下将水蒸气吸附到真空室喷射的钠-钾合金液滴上来抑制。这种设计导致在金属合金液滴表面形成短暂的金色金属水液层。利用光学反射和同步辐射X射线光电子能谱证实了该液层的金属特性，每立方厘米掺杂约5 1 021 个电子。

Abstract

Insulating materials can in principle be made metallic by applying pressure. In the case of pure water, this is estimated to require a pressure of 48 megabar, which is beyond current experimental capabilities and may only exist in the interior of large planets or stars. Indeed, recent estimates and experiments indicate that water at pressures accessible in the laboratory will at best be superionic with high protonic conductivity, but not metallic with conductive electrons. Here we show that a metallic water solution can be prepared by massive doping with electrons upon reacting water with alkali metals. Although analogous metallic solutions of liquid ammonia with high concentrations of solvated electrons have long been known and characterized, the explosive interaction between alkali metals and water has so far only permitted the preparation of aqueous solutions with low, submetallic electron concentrations. We found that the explosive behaviour of the water–alkali metal reaction can be suppressed by adsorbing water vapour at a low pressure of about 1 0-4 millibar onto liquid sodium–potassium alloy drops ejected into a vacuum chamber. This set-up leads to the formation of a transient gold-coloured layer of a metallic water solution covering the metal alloy drops. The metallic character of this layer, doped with around 5 1 021 electrons per cubic centimetre, is confirmed using optical reflection and synchrotron X-ray photoelectron spectroscopies.

Linear-in temperature resistivity from an isotropic Planckian scattering rate

各向同性普朗克散射率的线性温度电阻率

作者：Gaël Grissonnanche, Yawen Fang, Anaëlle Legros, Simon Verret, Francis Laliberté, Clément Collignon, et al.

链接：

摘要

传统金属的电阻率随温度呈二次方下降，而各种“奇异金属”的电阻率当温度降至零时却随温度呈线性下降。这种线性温度电阻率归因于电荷载流子以 ħ/τ = αkBT 给出的速率散射，α为统一阶常数，ħ为普朗克常数， kB 为玻尔兹曼常数。

散射率和温度之间的这种简单关系在各种各样的材料中都可以观察到，这表明散射的基本上限是“普朗克极限”，但对这个极限的根本起源，人们知之甚少。

研究组报告了对 （一种空穴掺杂铜酸盐）的角相关磁阻测量，在最低测量温度下呈现出线性温度电阻率。角相关磁阻显示了一个明确定义的费米面，该面与角分辨光电子能谱测量结果定量一致，并显示了在普朗克极限下饱和的线性温度散射率，即α= 。

值得注意的是，研究组发现这个普朗克散射率是各向同性的，也就是说，它与方向无关，这与“热点”模型的预期相反。该研究表明，奇异金属的线性温度电阻率源于达到普朗克极限的与动量无关的非弹性散射率。

Abstract

A variety of ‘strange metals’ exhibit resistivity that decreases linearly with temperature as the temperature decreases to zero, in contrast to conventional metals where resistivity decreases quadratically with temperature. This linear-in-temperature resistivity has been attributed to charge carriers scattering at a rate given by ħ/τ = αkBT , where α is a constant of order unity, ħ is the Planck constant and kB is the Boltzmann constant. This simple relationship between the scattering rate and temperature is observed across a wide variety of materials, suggesting a fundamental upper limit on scattering—the ‘Planckian limit’—but little is known about the underlying origins of this limit. Here we report a measurement of the angle-dependent magnetoresistance of —a hole-doped cuprate that shows linear-in-temperature resistivity down to the lowest measured temperatures. The angle-dependent magnetoresistance shows a well defined Fermi surface that agrees quantitatively with angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy measurements and reveals a linear-in-temperature scattering rate that saturates at the Planckian limit, namely α = . Remarkably, we find that this Planckian scattering rate is isotropic, that is, it is independent of direction, in contrast to expectations from ‘hotspot’ models. Our findings suggest that linear-in-temperature resistivity in strange metals emerges from a momentum-independent inelastic scattering rate that reaches the Planckian limit.

Incoherent transport across the strange-metal regime of overdoped cuprates

过掺杂铜酸盐奇异金属区的非相干输运

作者：J. Ayres, M. Berben, M. Čulo, . Hsu, E. van Heumen, Y. Huang, et al.

链接：

摘要

奇异金属具有非常规的电学性质，如线性温度电阻率、随温度平方变化的逆霍尔角和线性场磁电阻。即使是在具有简单能带结构的空穴掺杂铜酸盐材料中，确定这些集体异常的起源也颇有难度。普遍共识是，铜酸盐中奇异金属丰度与超导圆顶内掺杂p*处的量子临界点有关。

课题组研究了两个掺杂水平超过p*的超导铜酸盐家族的高场面内磁阻。在所有掺杂中，磁阻呈现正交标度，在高场温比下变为线性，这表明奇异金属区域远远超出p*。

此外，磁阻的大小比传统理论预测的要大得多，并且对杂质散射和磁场方向都不敏感。这些观察结果，再加上对零场和霍尔电阻的分析，均表明尽管铜酸盐奇异金属区域只有一个带，但它有两个电荷区，一个包含相干准粒子，另一个包含标度不变的“普朗克”耗散体。

Abstract

Strange metals possess highly unconventional electrical properties, such as a linear-in-temperature resistivity, an inverse Hall angle that varies as temperature squared and a linear-in-field magnetoresistance. Identifying the origin of these collective anomalies has proved fundamentally challenging, even in materials such as the hole-doped cuprates that possess a simple bandstructure. The prevailing consensus is that strange metallicity in the cuprates is tied to a quantum critical point at a doping p* inside the superconducting dome. Here we study the high-field in-plane magnetoresistance of two superconducting cuprate families at doping levels beyond p*. At all dopings, the magnetoresistance exhibits quadrature scaling and becomes linear at high values of the ratio of the field and the temperature, indicating that the strange-metal regime extends well beyond p*. Moreover, the magnitude of the magnetoresistance is found to be much larger than predicted by conventional theory and is insensitive to both impurity scattering and magnetic field orientation. These observations, coupled with analysis of the zero-field and Hall resistivities, suggest that despite having a single band, the cuprate strange-metal region hosts two charge sectors, one containing coherent quasiparticles, the other scale-invariant ‘Planckian’ dissipators.

化学 Chemistry

A radical approach for the selective C–H borylation of azines

氮杂芳环选择性C-H硼化反应的自由基途径

作者：Ji Hye Kim, Timothée Constantin, Marco Simonetti, Josep Llaveria, Nadeem S. Sheikh & Daniele Leonori

链接：

摘要

硼官能团通常被引入取代芳香碳氢键，以通过分子片段的偶联加速小分子多样化。目前基于过渡金属催化碳氢键活化的方法对许多（杂）芳香族衍生物的硼化是有效的，但对氮杂芳环（含氮芳香族杂环）的适用性有限，而氮杂芳环是许多医药和农药产品的关键成分。

研究组报告了一种使用稳定且廉价的胺硼烷试剂的氮杂芳环硼化策略。光催化作用将这些低分子量材料转化为高活性的硼自由基，并将其有效地添加到氮杂芳环构建块中。

这种反应活性为s p2 碳-硼键组装提供了一种机械上的替代策略，其中过渡金属介导的碳-氢键活化和氮杂芳环有机金属中间体的还原消除的基本步骤被直接的、Minisci式的自由基加成所取代。

胺-硼基自由基的强亲核特性通过靶向氮杂芳环最活跃的位置，包括与碱性氮原子相邻的具有挑战性的位置，使碳-硼键的形成具有可预测性和位置选择性。这种方法使目前基于碳氢键活化策略无法靠近的芳香族位置得以靠近，并成功制备出硼化材料，否则将很难制备。

研究组已将此工艺应用于将胺-硼烷官能团引入复杂和工业相关产品中。主流交叉偶联技术使硼化氮杂芳环产品多样化，从而使芳香族氨基硼烷成为化学合成的重要组成部分。

Abstract

Boron functional groups are often introduced in place of aromatic carbon–hydrogen bonds to expedite small-molecule persification through coupling of molecular fragments. Current approaches based on transition-metal-catalysed activation of carbon–hydrogen bonds are effective for the borylation of many (hetero)aromatic derivatives but show narrow applicability to azines (nitrogen-containing aromatic heterocycles), which are key components of many pharmaceutical and agrochemical products. Here we report an azine borylation strategy using stable and inexpensive amine-borane reagents. Photocatalysis converts these low-molecular-weight materials into highly reactive boryl radicals that undergo efficient addition to azine building blocks. This reactivity provides a mechanistically alternative tactic for s p2 carbon–boron bond assembly, where the elementary steps of transition-metal-mediated carbon–hydrogen bond activation and reductive elimination from azine-organometallic intermediates are replaced by a direct, Minisci-style, radical addition. The strongly nucleophilic character of the amine-boryl radicals enables predictable and site-selective carbon–boron bond formation by targeting the azine’s most activated position, including the challenging sites adjacent to the basic nitrogen atom. This approach enables access to aromatic sites that elude current strategies based on carbon–hydrogen bond activation, and has led to borylated materials that would otherwise be difficult to prepare. We have applied this process to the introduction of amine-borane functionalities to complex and industrially relevant products. The persification of the borylated azine products by mainstream cross-coupling technologies establishes aromatic amino-boranes as a powerful class of building blocks for chemical synthesis.

地球科学 Earth Science

A process-based approach to understanding and managing triggered seismicity

用基于过程的方法来理解和管理人为触发的地震活动

作者：Bradford H. Hager, James Dieterich, Cliff Frohlich, Ruben Juanes, Stefano Mantica, John H. Shaw, et al.

链接：

摘要

人们越来越担心由人类活动引发的地震活动，即应力的微小增加会导致构造承载的断层破裂。这些人类活动包括采矿、蓄水、开发地热田、提取碳氢化合物和水，以及向地下储层注入水、C O2 和C H4 等。

在缺乏足够信息来理解和控制人为触发地震过程的情况下，政府建立了基于经验监管的框架，并取得了不同程度的成功。20世纪70年代初在美国科罗拉多州Rangely油田进行的现场试验表明，地震活动可能通过循环地下流体压力高于或低于某阈值来开启或关闭。

研究组报告了一种多学科方法的开发、测试和实施，用于管理人为触发的地震活动，使用全面和详细的地下信息来校准地质力学和震源物理学模型。然后，他们通过将这些模型的预测结果与校准后的后续观测结果进行比较，来进行验证。

研究组在意大利南部地震活跃的Val d'Agri油田使用了该模型，证明了基于过程的方法可成功管理人为触发的地震活动，并将其应用于油气田开发。在其他地方应用该方法亦有助于管理和减轻人为触发的地震活动。

Abstract

There is growing concern about seismicity triggered by human activities, whereby small increases in stress bring tectonically loaded faults to failure. Examples of such activities include mining, impoundment of water, stimulation of geothermal fields, extraction of hydrocarbons and water, and the injection of water, C O2 and methane into subsurface reservoirs. In the absence of sufficient information to understand and control the processes that trigger earthquakes, authorities have set up empirical regulatory monitoring-based frameworks with varying degrees of success. Field experiments in the early 1970s at the Rangely, Colorado (USA) oil field suggested that seismicity might be turned on or off by cycling subsurface fluid pressure above or below a threshold. Here we report the development, testing and implementation of a multidisciplinary methodology for managing triggered seismicity using comprehensive and detailed information about the subsurface to calibrate geomechanical and earthquake source physics models. We then validate these models by comparing their predictions to subsequent observations made after calibration. We use our approach in the Val d’Agri oil field in seismically active southern Italy, demonstrating the successful management of triggered seismicity using a process-based method applied to a producing hydrocarbon field. Applying our approach elsewhere could help to manage and mitigate triggered seismicity.