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Recently, a novel 4 D Einstein–Gauss–Bonnet gravity was formulated by Glavan and Lin (Phys Rev Lett 124(8):081301, 2020). Although whether the theory is well defined is currently debatable, the spherically symmetric black hole solution is still meaningful and worthy of study. In this paper, we study the geodesic motions in the spacetime of the spherically symmetric black hole solution. First of all, we find that a negative GB coupling constant is allowable, as in which case the singular behavior of the black hole can be hidden inside the event horizon. Then we calculate the innermost stable circular orbits for massive particles, which turn out to be monotonic decreasing functions of the GB coupling constant. Furthermore, we study the unstable photon sphere and shadow of the black hole. It is interesting to find that the proposed universal bounds on black hole size in Lu and Lyu (Phys Rev D 101(4):044059, 2020) recently can be broken when the GB coupling constant takes a negative value.

A novel 4D Einstein–Gauss–Bonnet gravity was recently formulated by Glavan and Lin [Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 081301 (2020)]. Although this theory may run into trouble at the level of action or equations of motion, the spherically symmetric black hole solution, which can be successfully reproduced in those consistent theories of 4D EGB gravity, is still meaningful and worthy of study. In this paper, we investigate Hawking radiation in the spacetime containing such a de Sitter black hole. Both the greybody factor and the power spectra of the Hawking radiation of the massless scalar are studied numerically for the full range of various parameters, including the GB coupling constant α , the cosmological constant Λ and the coupling constant related to the scalar filed ξ . In particular, we find a negative α leads to a larger greybody factor than that of a α ≥ 0 . While, for the power spectra of the Hawking radiation the situation is quite the opposite. The reason is that the temperature of the black hole would be very high when α < 0 . Actually, we observe that the temperature would be arbitrarily high when α approaches to the lower bound.

The active-site density, intrinsic activity, and durability of Ni-based catalysts are critical to their application in industrial alkaline water electrolysis. This work develops a kind of promoters, the bixbyite-type lanthanide metal sesquioxides (Ln 2 O 3 ), which can be implanted into metallic Ni by selective high-temperature reduction to achieve highly efficient Ni/Ln 2 O 3 hybrid electrocatalysts toward hydrogen evolution reaction. The screened Ni/Yb 2 O 3 catalyst shows the low overpotential (20.0 mV at 10 mA cm −2 ), low Tafel slope (44.6 mV dec −1 ), and excellent long-term durability (360 h at 500 mA cm −2 ), significantly outperforming the metallic Ni and benchmark Pt/C catalysts. The remarkable hydrogen evolution activity and stability of Ni/Yb 2 O 3 are attributed to that the Yb 2 O 3 promoter with high oxophilicity and thermodynamic stability can greatly enlarge the active-site density, reduce the energy barrier of water dissociation, optimize the free energy of hydrogen adsorption, and avoid the oxidation corrosion of Ni. While renewable H 2 evolution will require inexpensive, abundant catalysts, non-noble metals typically show relatively low activities. Here, authors examine lanthanide metal sesquioxide doped metallic Ni and show efficient, stable performances for alkaline H 2 evolution electrocatalysis.

A bstract We investigated the superradiance and stability of the regularized 4D charged Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet black hole which is recently inspired by Glavan and Lin [Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 081301 (2020)]. We found that the positive Gauss-Bonnet coupling constant α enhances the superradiance, while the negative α suppresses it. The condition for superradiant instability is proved. We also worked out the quasinormal modes (QNMs) of the charged Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet black hole and found that the real part of all the QNMs does not satisfy the superradiance condition and the imaginary parts are all negative. Therefore this black hole is stable. When α makes the black hole extremal, there are normal modes.

Electrocatalytic nitrogen reduction reaction (NRR) represents a promising sustainable approach for NH3 synthesis. However, the poor NRR performance of electrocatalysts is a great challenge at this stage, mainly owing to their low activity and the competitive hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Herein, 2D ferric covalent organic framework/MXene (COF‐Fe/MXene) nanosheets with controllable hydrophobic behaviors are successfully prepared via a multiple‐in‐one synthetic strategy. The boosting hydrophobicity of COF‐Fe/MXene can effectively repel water molecules to inhibit the HER for enhanced NRR performances. By virtue of the ultrathin nanostructure, well‐defined single Fe sites, nitrogen enrichment effect, and high hydrophobicity, the 1H,1H,2H,2H‐perfluorodecanethiol modified COF‐Fe/MXene hybrid shows a NH3 yield of 41.8 µg h−1 mgcat.−1 and a Faradaic efficiency of 43.1% at −0.5 V versus RHE in a 0.1 m Na2SO4 water solution, which are vastly superior to the known Fe‐based catalysts and even to the noble metal catalysts. This work provides a universal strategy to design and synthesis of non‐precious metal electrocatalysts for high‐efficiency N2 reduction to NH3. COF‐Fe/MXene nanosheets are designed and prepared for electrocatalytic N2 reduction to NH3. Especially, the controllable hydrophobic properties of electrocatalysts can remarkably improve the nitrogen reduction reaction performances via inhibiting the competitive hydrogen evolution reaction at ambient conditions. This work opens up a universal approach to construct non‐precious metal electrocatalysts for ambient N2 fixation.

A bstract We study the static black holes in the large D dimensions in the Gauss-Bonnet gravity with a cosmological constant, coupled to the Maxewell theory. After integrating the equation of motion with respect to the radial direction, we obtain the effective equations at large D to describe the nonlinear dynamical deformations of the black holes. From the perturbation analysis on the effective equations, we get the analytic expressions of the frequencies for the quasinormal modes of charge and scalar-type perturbations. We show that for a positive Gauss-Bonnet term, the black hole could become unstable only if the cosmological constant is positive, otherwise the black hole is always stable. However, for a negative Gauss-Bonnet term, we find that the black hole could always be unstable. The instability of the black hole depends not only on the cosmological constant and the charge, but also significantly on the Gauss-Bonnet term. Moreover, at the onset of instability there is a non-trivial static zero-mode perturbation, which suggests the existence of a new non-spherically symmetric solution branch. We construct the non-spherical symmetric static solutions of the large D effective equations explicitly.

Polarization is a prominent feature of gravitational wave observations and can be used to distinguish between different modified gravity theories. Compared to General Relativity, f ( R ) gravity exhibits an additional polarization originating from a scalar field, which is a combination of the longitudinal and breathing modes. When the scalar mass of f ( R ) is zero, the mixed mode will reduce to a pure breathing mode with the disappearance of the longitudinal mode. However, this reducing seems to be disallowed because a positive scalar mass is often required to maintain the stability of the cosmological perturbation. In fact, the massless scalar case can provide a stable perturbation, but more detailed constraints need to be considered. For the completeness of the polarization analysis, we explore the possibility that there are stable massless scalar polarizations in viable dark energy f ( R ) models. We find that the existence of stable massless scalar polarization depends on the structure of f ( R ) model and can be used to distinguish different models in f ( R ) gravity.

A bstract We study the charged slowly rotating black holes in the Einstein-Maxwell theory in the large dimensions ( D ). By using the 1 /D expansion in the near regions of the black holes we obtain the effective equations for the charged slowly rotating black holes. The effective equations capture the dynamics of various stationary solutions, including the charged black ring, the charged slowly rotating Myers-Perry black hole and the charged slowly boosted black string. Via different embeddings we construct these stationary solutions explicitly. For the charged black ring at large D , we find that the charge lowers the angular momentum due to the regularity condition on the solution. By performing the perturbation analysis of the effective equations, we obtain the quasinormal modes of the charge perturbation and the gravitational perturbation analytically. Like the neutral case the charged thin black ring suffers from the Gregory-Laflamme-like instability under the non-axisymmetric perturbations, but the charge weakens the instability. Besides, we find that the large D analysis always respects the cosmic censorship.

Chitosan oligosaccharide (COS), a natural polysaccharide with good antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, is the depolymerized product of chitosan possessing various biological activities. The present study was designed to investigate the possible anti-aging effect of COS on the aging model mouse induced by d-galactose (d-gal) and explore the underlying mechanism. In the experiment, 48 male Kunming mice (KM mice) were randomly divided into the normal group, model group, positive group, and low-medium-high dose polysaccharide groups (300, 600, 1200 mg/kg/day). The results showed that COS, by intragastric gavage after subcutaneous injection of d-gal (250 mg/kg/day) into the neck of mice consecutively for eight weeks, gradually recovered the body weight, the activity of daily living, and organ indices of mice, as well as effectively ameliorated the histological deterioration of the liver and kidney in mice triggered by d-gal. To be specific, COS obviously improved the activities of antioxidant enzymes in liver and kidney of KM mice, including catalase (CAT), glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px), and superoxide dismutase (SOD), as well as decreased malondialdehyde (MDA) levels when compared with those in model group mice. Furthermore, COS not only elevated the diminished levels of serum immunoglobulin G (IgG) and IgM induced by d-gal, but also significantly inhibited the d-gal-caused upregulation of serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate transaminase (AST), alkaline phosphatase (ALP), uric acid (UA) and creatinine (CREA) levels as compared with those of mice in the model group. These results demonstrate that COS has an obvious anti-aging activity in d-gal-induced subacute aging mice, the mechanism of which, to some extent, is associated with enhancing the antioxidant defenses, reducing oxidative stress, and improving the immune function of aging model mice.

When dealing with heterogeneous systems, interpreting the mean-square displacement (MSD) data appropriately is crucial. This is due to the limitation that the various interpretations of stochastic differential equations with state-dependent diffusivity may yield the same MSD data, leading to erroneous conclusions. Aided by analytical MSD solutions supported by Langevin simulations, we explore this limitation in diffusion processes exhibiting power-law state-dependent diffusivity, D 0 | x / L | − 2 μ , with diffusion constant D 0 and scaling index µ . We find that distinct interpretations leading to same MSD data possess different D 0 values. A method is introduced to discern these D 0 -dependent interpretations. When applying the method to subdiffusion MSD data, we observe interpretation transitions depending on the value of the anomalous diffusion coefficient. Furthermore, we demonstrate that these D 0 -dependent interpretations respond diversely to memory effects, which may also be used to decide on the interpretation of MSD data. We believe that these findings offer insights for interpreting MSD data in heterogeneous systems.