title: Extremely Correlated Fermi Liquids in the limit of infinite dimensions

abstract:
  We study the infinite spatial dimensionality limit of the recently developed
Extremely Correlated Fermi Liquid (ECFL) theory for the t-J model. We directly
analyze the Schwinger equations of motion for the Gutzwiller projected electron
Green's function. From simplifications arising in this limit, we are able to
make several exact statements about the theory. The ECFL Green's function is
shown to have a momentum independent Dyson (Mori) self energy. For practical
calculations we introduce a partial projection parameter \lambda, and obtain
the complete set of ECFL integral equations to second order in \lambda. In a
related publication, these equations are compared in detail with the dynamical
mean field theory for the large U Hubbard model. Paralleling the well known
mapping for the Hubbard model, we find that the infinite dimensional t-J model
can be mapped to the infinite-U Anderson impurity model with a
self-consistently determined set of parameters. This mapping extends
individually to the auxiliary Green's function and the caparison factor of the
ECFL theory. Additionally, the optical conductivity is shown to be obtainable
from the Green's function with negligibly small vertex corrections. These
results are shown to hold to each order in \lambda.


title: Heavy-quark state production in A-A collisions at $\sqrt{s}$=200 GeV

abstract:
  We estimate differential rapidity cross sections for $J/\Psi$ and
$\Upsilon(1S)$ production via Cu-Cu and Au-Au collisions at RHIC, and the
relative probabilities of $\Psi'(2S)$ to $J/\Psi$ production via p-p collisions
using our recent theory of mixed heavy quark hybrids, in which the $\Psi'(2S)$
mesons have approximately equal normal $q\bar{q}$ and hybrid $q\bar{q}g$
components. We also estimate the relative probabilities of $\Psi'(2S)$ to
$J/\Psi$ production via Cu-Cu and Au-Au collisions, which will be measured in
future RHIC experiments. We also review production ratios of $\Upsilon(2S)$ and
$\Upsilon(3S)$ to $\Upsilon(1S)$ in comparison to recent experimental
results.This is an extension of our recent work on p-p collisions for possible
tests of the production of Quark-Gluon Plasma via A-A collisions at BNL-RHIC.


title: The mass shell of strong-field quantum electrodynamics

abstract:
  It has long been known that a free electron in an intense plane-wave field
has a mass shell that differs from the usual free-electron mass shell, with a
form that implies that an intensity-dependent increase in mass occurs. It has
been an enticing, but elusive goal to observe this mass shift. Many schemes
have been proposed by which a definitive measurement may be made, and some
claims of success exist, but these tests are not conclusive. It is shown here
that the intense-field mass shell is not the result of a change in mass.
Rather, it is a consequence of the potential energy that a charged particle
must possess in the presence of a plane-wave field. When the effects of this
potential are incorporated in a properly covariant form, the mass shift no
longer appears and kinematical relations are conventional. If the plane-wave
pulse is sufficiently long to allow the electron to exit the field
adiabatically, then there is no alteration at all of the mass shell expression.
Other aspects of the role played by the ponderomotive 4-potential are examined.
It is also shown that the putative "relativistic mass" of the electron is
illusory when confronted with covariance requirements. Both "mass increases" of
the electron are thereby discredited by fundamental principles.


title: Enumeration of Hybrid Domino-Lozenge Tilings

abstract:
  We solve and generalize an open problem posted by James Propp (Problem 16 in
New Perspectives in Geometric Combinatorics, Cambridge University Press, 1999)
on the number of tilings of quasi-hexagonal regions on the square lattice with
every third diagonal drawn in. We also obtain a generalization of Douglas'
Theorem on the number of tilings of a family of regions of the square lattice
with every second diagonal drawn in.


title:
Advanced Techniques for Scientific Programming and Collaborative
  Development of Open Source Software Packages at the International Centre for
  Theoretical Physics (ICTP)

abstract:
  A large number of computational scientific research projects make use of open
source software packages. However, the development process of such tools
frequently differs from conventional software development; partly because of
the nature of research, where the problems being addressed are not always fully
understood; partly because the majority of the development is often carried out
by scientists with limited experience and exposure to best practices of
software engineering. Often the software development suffers from the pressure
to publish scientific results and that credit for software development is
limited in comparison. Fundamental components of software engineering like
modular and reusable design, validation, documentation, and software
integration as well as effective maintenance and user support tend to be
disregarded due to lack of resources and qualified specialists. Thus innovative
developments are often hindered by steep learning curves required to master
development for legacy software packages full of ad hoc solutions. The growing
complexity of research, however, requires suitable and maintainable
computational tools, resulting in a widening gap between the potential users
(often growing in number) and contributors to the development of such a
package. In this paper we share our experiences aiming to improve the situation
by training particularly young scientists, through disseminating our own
experiences at contributing to open source software packages and practicing key
components of software engineering adapted for scientists and scientific
software development. Specifically we summarize the outcome of the Workshop in
Advanced Techniques for Scientific Programming and Collaborative Development of
Open Source Software Packages run at the Abdus Salam International Centre for
Theoretical Physics in March 2013, and discuss our conclusions for future
efforts.


title: Myopic Models of Population Dynamics on Infinite Networks

abstract:
  Reaction-diffusion equations are treated on infinite networks using semigroup
methods. To blend high fidelity local analysis with coarse remote modeling,
initial data and solutions come from a uniformly closed algebra generated by
functions which are flat at infinity. The algebra is associated with a
compactification of the network which facilitates the description of spatial
asymptotics. Diffusive effects disappear at infinity, greatly simplifying the
remote dynamics. Accelerated diffusion models with conventional eigenfunctions
expansions are constructed to provide opportunities for finite dimensional
approximation.


title: Proof of a conjecture of Bauer, Fan and Veldman

abstract:
  For a 1-tough graph $G$ we define $\sigma_3(G) = \min\{\deg(u) + \deg(v)+
\deg(w):$ $\{u, v, w\}$ is an independent set of vertices$\}$ and $NC2(G)=\min
\{|N(u)\cup N(v)|: d(u,v)=2\}$. D. Bauer, G. Fan and H.J.Veldman proved that
$c(G)\geq \min\{n,2NC2(G)\}$ for any 1-tough graph $G$ with $\sigma_3(G)\geq
n\geq 3$, where $c(G)$ is the circumference of $G$ (D. Bauer, G. Fan and
H.J.Veldman,Hamiltonian properties of graphs with large neighborhood
unions,Discrete Mathematics, 1991). They also conjectured a stronger upper
bound for the circumference: $c(G)\geq\min\{n,2NC2(G)+4\}$.In this paper, we
prove this conjecture.


title: Facilities for Dark Energy Investigations

abstract:
  The discovery of cosmic acceleration has inspired ambitious experimental and
observational efforts to understand its origin. Many of these take the form of
large astronomical surveys, sometimes using new, special-purpose
instrumentation, and in some cases entirely new facilities. This Report
summarizes some of the major ongoing and planned dark energy experiments,
focusing on those in which the U.S. community has a leading or significant
supporting role. It provides background information for other Reports from the
"Dark Energy and CMB" working group of the APS Division of Particles and Fields
long-term planning exercise. We provide 1-2 page summaries of the SDSS-III
Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) and its SDSS-IV successor eBOSS,
the Dark Energy Survey (DES), the Subaru Hyper-Suprime Camera (HSC) and Prime
Focus Spectrograph (PFS), the Hobby-Eberley Telescope Dark Energy Experiment
(HEDTEX), the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), the Large Synpotic
Survey Telescope (LSST), and the Euclid and AFTA-WFIRST (Wide Field Infrared
Survey Telescope) space missions. Over the next one to two decades, these
experiments seek to improve the precision of measurements of the cosmic
expansion history and cosmic structure growth by factors of 10-100, while
simultaneously increasing their redshift range and tightening control and
cross-checks of sytematic effects. These measurements will dramatically improve
the empirical constraints on theoretical explanations of cosmic acceleration
and could lead to breakthroughs in our understanding of the nature of gravity
and spacetime or the forms of energy present in the universe.


title:
Inflation Physics from the Cosmic Microwave Background and Large Scale
  Structure

abstract:
  Fluctuations in the intensity and polarization of the cosmic microwave
background (CMB) and the large-scale distribution of matter in the universe
each contain clues about the nature of the earliest moments of time. The next
generation of CMB and large-scale structure (LSS) experiments are poised to
test the leading paradigm for these earliest moments---the theory of cosmic
inflation---and to detect the imprints of the inflationary epoch, thereby
dramatically increasing our understanding of fundamental physics and the early
universe.
  A future CMB experiment with sufficient angular resolution and frequency
coverage that surveys at least 1% of the sky to a depth of 1 uK-arcmin can
deliver a constraint on the tensor-to-scalar ratio that will either result in a
5-sigma measurement of the energy scale of inflation or rule out all
large-field inflation models, even in the presence of foregrounds and the
gravitational lensing B-mode signal. LSS experiments, particularly
spectroscopic surveys such as the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument, will
complement the CMB effort by improving current constraints on running of the
spectral index by up to a factor of four, improving constraints on curvature by
a factor of ten, and providing non-Gaussianity constraints that are competitive
with the current CMB bounds.


title: Distance Probes of Dark Energy

abstract:
  This document presents the results from the Distances subgroup of the Cosmic
Frontier Community Planning Study (Snowmass 2013). We summarize the current
state of the field as well as future prospects and challenges. In addition to
the established probes using Type IA supernovae and baryon acoustic
oscillations, we also consider prospective methods based on clusters, active
galactic nuclei, gravitational wave sirens and strong lensing time delays.


title:
Neutrino Physics from the Cosmic Microwave Background and Large Scale
  Structure

abstract:
  This is a report on the status and prospects of the quantification of
neutrino properties through the cosmological neutrino background for the Cosmic
Frontier of the Division of Particles and Fields Community Summer Study
long-term planning exercise. Experiments planned and underway are prepared to
study the cosmological neutrino background in detail via its influence on
distance-redshift relations and the growth of structure. The program for the
next decade described in this document, including upcoming spectroscopic galaxy
surveys eBOSS and DESI and a new Stage-IV CMB polarization experiment CMB-S4,
will achieve sigma(sum m_nu) = 16 meV and sigma(N_eff) = 0.020. Such a mass
measurement will produce a high significance detection of non-zero sum m_nu,
whose lower bound derived from atmospheric and solar neutrino oscillation data
is about 58 meV. If neutrinos have a minimal normal mass hierarchy, this
measurement will definitively rule out the inverted neutrino mass hierarchy,
shedding light on one of the most puzzling aspects of the Standard Model of
particle physics --- the origin of mass. This precise a measurement of N_eff
will allow for high sensitivity to any light and dark degrees of freedom
produced in the big bang and a precision test of the standard cosmological
model prediction that N_eff = 3.046.


title:
Spectroscopic Needs for Imaging Dark Energy Experiments: Photometric
  Redshift Training and Calibration

abstract:
  Large sets of objects with spectroscopic redshift measurements will be needed
for imaging dark energy experiments to achieve their full potential, serving
two goals:_training_, i.e., the use of objects with known redshift to develop
and optimize photometric redshift algorithms; and_calibration_, i.e., the
characterization of moments of redshift (or photo-z error) distributions.
Better training makes cosmological constraints from a given experiment
stronger, while highly-accurate calibration is needed for photo-z systematics
not to dominate errors. In this white paper, we investigate the required scope
of spectroscopic datasets which can serve both these purposes for ongoing and
next-generation dark energy experiments, as well as the time required to obtain
such data with instruments available in the next decade. Large time allocations
on kilo-object spectrographs will be necessary, ideally augmented by infrared
spectroscopy from space. Alternatively, precision calibrations could be
obtained by measuring cross-correlation statistics using samples of bright
objects from a large baryon acoustic oscillation experiment such as DESI. We
also summarize the additional work on photometric redshift methods needed to
prepare for ongoing and future dark energy experiments.


title: Growth of Cosmic Structure: Probing Dark Energy Beyond Expansion

abstract:
  The quantity and quality of cosmic structure observations have greatly
accelerated in recent years. Further leaps forward will be facilitated by
imminent projects, which will enable us to map the evolution of dark and
baryonic matter density fluctuations over cosmic history. The way that these
fluctuations vary over space and time is sensitive to the nature of dark matter
and dark energy. Dark energy and gravity both affect how rapidly structure
grows; the greater the acceleration, the more suppressed the growth of
structure, while the greater the gravity, the more enhanced the growth. While
distance measurements also constrain dark energy, the comparison of growth and
distance data tests whether General Relativity describes the laws of physics
accurately on large scales. Modified gravity models are able to reproduce the
distance measurements but at the cost of altering the growth of structure
(these signatures are described in more detail in the accompanying paper on
Novel Probes of Gravity and Dark Energy). Upcoming surveys will exploit these
differences to determine whether the acceleration of the Universe is due to
dark energy or to modified gravity. To realize this potential, both wide field
imaging and spectroscopic redshift surveys play crucial roles. Projects
including DES, eBOSS, DESI, PFS, LSST, Euclid, and WFIRST are in line to map
more than a 1000 cubic-billion-light-year volume of the Universe. These will
map the cosmic structure growth rate to 1% in the redshift range 0<z<2, over
the last 3/4 of the age of the Universe.


title: Dark Energy and CMB

abstract:
  The American Physical Society's Division of Particles and Fields initiated a
long-term planning exercise over 2012-13, with the goal of developing the
community's long term aspirations. The sub-group "Dark Energy and CMB" prepared
a series of papers explaining and highlighting the physics that will be studied
with large galaxy surveys and cosmic microwave background experiments. This
paper summarizes the findings of the other papers, all of which have been
submitted jointly to the arXiv.


title:
The MUSIC of Galaxy Clusters III: Properties, evolution and Y-M scaling
  relation of protoclusters of galaxies

abstract:
  In this work we study the properties of protoclusters of galaxies by
employing the MUSIC set of hydrodynamical simulations, featuring a mass-limited
sample of 282 resimulated clusters with available merger trees up to high
redshift, and we trace the cluster formation back to $z$ = 1.5, 2.3 and 4. We
study the features and redshift evolution of the mass and the spatial
distribution for all the cluster progenitors and for the protoclusters, which
we define as the most massive progenitors of the clusters identified at $z$ =
0. A natural extension to redshifts larger than 1 is applied to the estimate of
the baryon content also in terms of gas and stars budgets: no remarkable
variations with redshift are discovered. Furthermore, motivated by the proven
potential of Sunyaev-Zel'dovich surveys to blindly search for faint distant
objects, we focus on the scaling relation between total object mass and
integrated Compton $y$-parameter, and we check for the possibility to extend
the mass-observable paradigm to the protocluster regime, far beyond the
redshift of 1, to account for the properties of the simulated objects. We find
that the slope of this scaling law is steeper than what expected for a
self-similarity assumption among these objects, and it increases with redshift
mainly for the synthetic clusters where radiative processes, such as radiative
cooling, heating processes of the gas due to UV background, star formation and
supernovae feedback, are included. We use three different criteria to account
for the dynamical state of the protoclusters, and find no significant
dependence of the scaling parameters from the level of relaxation. Based on
this, we exclude that the dynamical state is the cause of the observed
deviations from self-similarity.


title: Exploiting Cross Correlations and Joint Analyses

abstract:
  In this report, we present a wide variety of ways in which information from
multiple probes of dark energy may be combined to obtain additional information
not accessible when they are considered separately. Fundamentally, because all
major probes are affected by the underlying distribution of matter in the
regions studied, there exist covariances between them that can provide
information on cosmology. Combining multiple probes allows for more accurate
(less contaminated by systematics) and more precise (since there is
cosmological information encoded in cross-correlation statistics) measurements
of dark energy. The potential of cross-correlation methods is only beginning to
be realized. By bringing in information from other wavelengths, the
capabilities of the existing probes of dark energy can be enhanced and
systematic effects can be mitigated further. We present a mixture of work in
progress and suggestions for future scientific efforts. Given the scope of
future dark energy experiments, the greatest gains may only be realized with
more coordination and cooperation between multiple project teams; we recommend
that this interchange should begin sooner, rather than later, to maximize
scientific gains.


title: Novel Probes of Gravity and Dark Energy

abstract:
  The discovery of cosmic acceleration has stimulated theorists to consider
dark energy or modifications to Einstein's General Relativity as possible
explanations. The last decade has seen advances in theories that go beyond
smooth dark energy -- modified gravity and interactions of dark energy. While
the theoretical terrain is being actively explored, the generic presence of
fifth forces and dark sector couplings suggests a set of distinct observational
signatures. This report focuses on observations that differ from the
conventional probes that map the expansion history or large-scale structure.
Examples of such novel probes are: detection of scalar fields via lab
experiments, tests of modified gravity using stars and galaxies in the nearby
universe, comparison of lensing and dynamical masses of galaxies and clusters,
and the measurements of fundamental constants at high redshift. The
observational expertise involved is very broad as it spans laboratory
experiments, high resolution astronomical imaging and spectroscopy and radio
observations. In the coming decade, searches for these effects have the
potential for discovering fundamental new physics. We discuss how the searches
can be carried out using experiments that are already under way or with modest
adaptations of existing telescopes or planned experiments. The accompanying
paper on the Growth of Cosmic Structure describes complementary tests of
gravity with observations of large-scale structure.


title: Information Acquisition with Sensing Robots: Algorithms and Error Bounds

abstract:
  Utilizing the capabilities of configurable sensing systems requires
addressing difficult information gathering problems. Near-optimal approaches
exist for sensing systems without internal states. However, when it comes to
optimizing the trajectories of mobile sensors the solutions are often greedy
and rarely provide performance guarantees. Notably, under linear Gaussian
assumptions, the problem becomes deterministic and can be solved off-line.
Approaches based on submodularity have been applied by ignoring the sensor
dynamics and greedily selecting informative locations in the environment. This
paper presents a non-greedy algorithm with suboptimality guarantees, which does
not rely on submodularity and takes the sensor dynamics into account. Our
method performs provably better than the widely used greedy one. Coupled with
linearization and model predictive control, it can be used to generate adaptive
policies for mobile sensors with non-linear sensing models. Applications in gas
concentration mapping and target tracking are presented.


title: Even the Abstract have Colour: Consensus in Word-Colour Associations

abstract:
  Colour is a key component in the successful dissemination of information.
Since many real-world concepts are associated with colour, for example danger
with red, linguistic information is often complemented with the use of
appropriate colours in information visualization and product marketing. Yet,
there is no comprehensive resource that captures concept-colour associations.
We present a method to create a large word-colour association lexicon by
crowdsourcing. A word-choice question was used to obtain sense-level
annotations and to ensure data quality. We focus especially on abstract
concepts and emotions to show that even they tend to have strong colour
associations. Thus, using the right colours can not only improve semantic
coherence, but also inspire the desired emotional response.


title:
Design optimization of mode-matched bulk-mode piezoelectric
  micro-gyroscopes through modal analysis

abstract:
  Bulk piezoelectric micro-gyroscope is a miniaturized inertial sensor that
uses a differential thickness-shear bulk mode of a PZT block as the drive mode
of the gyroscope. In the paper, a second differential thickness-extensional
mode is identified for the sense mode and mode-matching is proposed for the
first time by proper design of the device geomtries. Through finite element
modal analysis, the frequencies of drive mode and sense mode are obtained when
the length of the PZT block varies from 4.8mm to 5.6mm and the width of the PZT
block varies from 3.0mm to 4.0mm. Using a fitting method, the empirical
formulae with an excellent fit are induced to predict the influence of the
length and the width of the PZT block on the drive and sense mode frequencies.
Based on these empirical formulae, the mode-matching equations are introduced.
The analysis results show that for a given thickness of the PZT block, the
effect of the width on the drive mode frequency is prominant. Conversly, the
effect of length on the sense mode frequency is dominant. The resonance
frequencies, kinetic energy ratios, scale factors of gyroscope are compared to
evaluate the mode quality. The results show that the kinetic energy in y-axis
direction of the drive mode and the kinetic energy in z-axis direction of the
sense mode increase with the thickness of the PZT block, and consequently the
scale factor of the gyroscope increases. For a constant thickness of the PZT
block the scale factor will decrease as the length increases. Through design
optimization we present a 20 times improvement in the scale factor of the
mode-matched gyroscope. Given the thickness of PZT block, the length and the
width will be determined by the mode-matching equations mentioned. Generally,
the analysis suggests that the resolution of the gyroscope improves by
increasing the thickness PZT block.


title: How to Implement Access Rights in an MIS Project

abstract:
  The MIS data is critical to an organization and should be protected from
misuse by wrong persons. Although The MIS data is typically meant for the
senior managers each MIS report may not be required by every manager. The
access to MIS data is determined by the role of an individual in the
organization and controlled by the MIS administrator accordingly. The access is
generally determined by the following parameters, (a) the type of user (such as
staff or manager etc.), (b) the type of data (whether general data or
managerial data), (c) level of access (read/ write/ admin access) and (d)
special access allocated by MIS admin. By combining all the above four
parameters, each individual user can be allocated exact specific rights
required to access the MIS.


title: Progress in quantum electrodynamics theory of highly charged ions

abstract:
  Recent progress in quantum electrodynamics (QED) calculations of highly
charged ions is reviewed. The theoretical predictions for the binding energies,
the hyperfine splittings, and the g factors are presented and compared with
available experimental data. Special attention is paid to tests of bound-state
QED at strong field regime. Future prospects for tests of QED at the strongest
electric and magnetic fields as well as for determination of the fine structure
constant and the nuclear magnetic moments with heavy ions are discussed.


title:
Dynamical properties of a dissipative discontinuous map: A scaling
  investigation

abstract:
  The effects of dissipation on the scaling properties of nonlinear
discontinuous maps are investigated by analyzing the behavior of the average
squared action $\left< I^2 \right>$ as a function of the $n$-th iteration of
the map as well as the parameters $K$ and $\gamma$, controlling nonlinearity
and dissipation, respectively. We concentrate our efforts to study the case
where the nonlinearity is large; i.e., $K\gg 1$. In this regime and for large
initial action $I_0\gg K$, we prove that dissipation produces an exponential
decay for the average action $\left< I \right>$. Also, for $I_0\cong 0$, we
describe the behavior of $\left< I^2 \right>$ using a scaling function and
analytically obtain critical exponents which are used to overlap different
curves of $\left< I^2 \right>$ onto an universal plot. We complete our study
with the analysis of the scaling properties of the deviation around the average
action $\omega$.


title: Bayesian Quickest Change Point Detection with Sampling Right Constraints

abstract:
  In this paper, Bayesian quickest change detection problems with sampling
right constraints are considered. Specifically, there is a sequence of random
variables whose probability density function will change at an unknown time.
The goal is to detect this change in a way such that a linear combination of
the average detection delay and the false alarm probability is minimized. Two
types of sampling right constrains are discussed. The first one is a limited
sampling right constraint, in which the observer can take at most $N$
observations from this random sequence. Under this setup, we show that the cost
function can be written as a set of iterative functions, which can be solved by
Markov optimal stopping theory. The optimal stopping rule is shown to be a
threshold rule. An asymptotic upper bound of the average detection delay is
developed as the false alarm probability goes to zero. This upper bound
indicates that the performance of the limited sampling right problem is close
to that of the classic Bayesian quickest detection for several scenarios of
practical interest. The second constraint discussed in this paper is a
stochastic sampling right constraint, in which sampling rights are consumed by
taking observations and are replenished randomly. The observer cannot take
observations if there are no sampling rights left. We characterize the optimal
solution, which has a very complex structure. For practical applications, we
propose a low complexity algorithm, in which the sampling rule is to take
observations as long as the observer has sampling rights left and the detection
scheme is a threshold rule. We show that this low complexity scheme is first
order asymptotically optimal as the false alarm probability goes to zero.


title: Fluctuation-Dissipation Inequality for Quadratic Open Systems

abstract:
  For open systems derived from quadratic total Hamiltonians, we derive a
dynamic fluctuation-dissipation (FD) inequality valid for any total initial
state and without regard to the sign of the dissipation. With the added
constraint that this state be factorized with the reservoir in thermal
equilibrium, an uncertainty relation arises naturally from the FD inequality
that can be stronger than one common form of the uncertainty principle. We
discuss some of the properties of the uncertainty relation relevant to
decoherence.


title:
Structure, energetic and tribological properties, and possible
  applications in NEMS of argon-separated double-layer graphene

abstract:
  The possibility to control the commensurability and distance between graphene
layers separated by a dielectric spacer is considered by the example of a
heterostructure consisting of double-layer graphene separated by atomic layers
of argon. Van der Waals corrected density functional theory (DFT-D) is applied
to study structural, energetic and tribological characteristics of this
heterostructure. It is found that in the ground state, monolayer and bilayer
argon spacers are incommensurate with the graphene layers, whereas submonolayer
argon spacers which are commensurate with the graphene layers can exist only as
metastable states. The calculations show that this incommensurability provides
negligibly small static friction for relative motion of argon-separated
graphene layers and, therefore, such a heterostructure holds great promise for
the use in nanoelectromechanical systems. A scheme and operational principles
of the nanorelay based on the revealed tribological properties of the
heterostructure are proposed.


title: Aspects of inflation and the very early universe

abstract:
  Until recently our knowledge of the primordial curvature perturbation was
relatively modest. Ever since COBE delivered its map of data we know the scalar
spectrum of primordial perturbations is approximately flat, with the power
being only slightly stronger at larger scales. Most inflationary models predict
an approximately scale-invariant spectrum, which therefore cannot be used as a
distinctive signature. To distinguish between different inflationary
microphysics we need to study higher point statistics of the primordial
perturbation, which can encode non-gaussian data. In the first part of this
thesis we study the bispectrum in all single-field models with a well-defined
quantum field theory during a quasi-de Sitter inflationary phase. Any
single-field models without ghost-like instabilities fall into this
description: from canonical, to Dirac-Born-Infeld inflation and galileon
inflation theories. We investigate the scale and shape- dependences of the
bispectrum to next-order in the slow-roll approximation. We illustrate our
results by applying them to different models and argue these corrections must
be taken into account to keep the theoretical error below the observational
precision set by the Planck satellite. We then explore the ability of using
bispectrum shapes to distinguish between inflationary models more efficiently.
We further extend the study of the bispectrum of single-field models beyond the
slow-roll approximation, demanding the spectral index to be close to, but not
exactly, unity. In the second part of this thesis we explore the process by
which the universe is repopulated with matter particles at the end of a
Dirac-Born-Infeld inflation phase. We place some mild bounds on the reheating
temperature of these models. We argue that the constraints arising from the
preheating analysis are complementary to those derived from the primordial
perturbation.


title:
Shrinkability of Decomposition of $S^n$ Having Arbitrarily Small
  Neighborhoods with ($n-1$)-Sphere Frontiers

abstract:
  Let $G$ be a usc decomposition of $S^n$, $H_G$ denote the set of
nondegenerate elements and $\pi$ be the natural projection of $S^n$ onto
$S^n/G$. Suppose that each point in the decomposition space has arbitrarily
small neighborhoods with ($n-1$)-sphere frontiers or boundaries which miss
$\pi(H_G)$. If all the arcs are tame in the particular area on the boundary of
an $n$-cell $C$ in $S^n$, then this paper shows that this condition implies
$S^n/G$ is homeomorphic to $S^n$ ($n\geq 4$). This answers a weak form of a
conjecture asked by Daverman [2, p. 61]. In the case of $n=3$, the strong form
of the conjecture has an affirmative answer from Woodruff [11].


title: Nonmyopic View Planning for Active Object Detection

abstract:
  One of the central problems in computer vision is the detection of
semantically important objects and the estimation of their pose. Most of the
work in object detection has been based on single image processing and its
performance is limited by occlusions and ambiguity in appearance and geometry.
This paper proposes an active approach to object detection by controlling the
point of view of a mobile depth camera. When an initial static detection phase
identifies an object of interest, several hypotheses are made about its class
and orientation. The sensor then plans a sequence of views, which balances the
amount of energy used to move with the chance of identifying the correct
hypothesis. We formulate an active hypothesis testing problem, which includes
sensor mobility, and solve it using a point-based approximate POMDP algorithm.
The validity of our approach is verified through simulation and real-world
experiments with the PR2 robot. The results suggest that our approach
outperforms the widely-used greedy view point selection and provides a
significant improvement over static object detection.


title:
Engineering Quantum Anomalous Hall Plateaus and Anti-Chiral States with
  AC Fields

abstract:
  We investigate the AC electric field induced quantum anomalous Hall effect in
honeycomb lattices and derive the full phase diagram for arbitrary field
amplitude and phase polarization. We show how to induce anti-chiral edge modes
as well as topological phases characterized by a Chern number larger than $1$
by means of suitable drivings. In particular, we find that the Chern number
develops plateaus as a function of the frequency, providing an time-dependent
analogue to the ones in the quantum Hall effect.


title:
A Study of Weakly Discontinuous Solutions for Hyperbolic Differential
  Equations Based on Wavelet Transform Methods

abstract:
  A new way to prove the one-dimensional Cauchy problem's weakly discontinuous
solutions for hyperbolic PDEs are on the characteristics is discussed in this
paper. To do so, I use wavelet singularity detection methods or WTMM [1] based
on two-dimensional wavelet transform and combine it with the Lipschits index to
strengthen the detection.


title:
Layer Potentials and Boundary-Value Problems for Second Order Elliptic
  Operators with Data in Besov Spaces

abstract:
  This monograph presents a comprehensive treatment of second order divergence
form elliptic operators with bounded measurable t-independent coefficients in
spaces of fractional smoothness, in Besov and weighted Sobolev classes.
  We establish mapping properties for the double and single layer potentials,
as well as the Newton potential, on Besov spaces. We prove extrapolation-type
solvability results: that is, we show that solvability of the Dirichlet or
Neumann boundary value problem at any given L^p space automatically assures
their solvability in an extended range of Besov spaces. We also establish
well-posedness for non-homogeneous boundary value problems.
  In particular, we prove well-posedness of the non-homogeneous Dirichlet
problem with data in Besov spaces for operators with real, not necessarily
symmetric coefficients.


title: Cops and Robbers is EXPTIME-complete

abstract:
  We investigate the computational complexity of deciding whether k cops can
capture a robber on a graph G. In 1995, Goldstein and Reingold conjectured that
the problem is EXPTIME-complete when both G and k are part of the input; we
prove this conjecture.


title:
A new and improved quantitative recovery analysis for iterative hard
  thresholding algorithms in compressed sensing

abstract:
  We present a new recovery analysis for a standard compressed sensing
algorithm, Iterative Hard Thresholding (IHT) (Blumensath and Davies, 2008),
which considers the fixed points of the algorithm. In the context of arbitrary
measurement matrices, we derive a sufficient condition for convergence of IHT
to a fixed point and a necessary condition for the existence of fixed points.
These conditions allow us to perform a sparse signal recovery analysis in the
deterministic noiseless case by implying that the original sparse signal is the
unique fixed point and limit point of IHT, and in the case of Gaussian
measurement matrices and noise by generating a bound on the approximation error
of the IHT limit as a multiple of the noise level. By generalizing the notion
of fixed points, we extend our analysis to the variable stepsize Normalised IHT
(N-IHT) (Blumensath and Davies, 2010). For both stepsize schemes, we obtain
lower bounds on asymptotic phase transitions in a proportional-dimensional
framework, quantifying the sparsity/undersampling trade-off for which recovery
is guaranteed. Exploiting the reasonable average-case assumption that the
underlying signal and measurement matrix are independent, comparison with
previous results within this framework shows a substantial quantitative
improvement.


title:
Nonexistence results for nonlocal equations with critical and
  supercritical nonlinearities

abstract:
  We prove nonexistence of nontrivial bounded solutions to some nonlinear
problems involving nonlocal operators of the form \[Lu(x)=\sum
a_{ij}\partial_{ij}u+{\rm PV}\int_{\R^n}(u(x)-u(x+y))K(y)dy.\] These operators
are infinitesimal generators of symmetric L\'evy processes. Our results apply
to even kernels $K$ satisfying that $K(y)|y|^{n+\sigma}$ is nondecreasing along
rays from the origin, for some $\sigma\in(0,2)$ in case $a_{ij}\equiv0$ and for
$\sigma=2$ in case that $(a_{ij})$ is a positive definite symmetric matrix.
  Our nonexistence results concern Dirichlet problems for $L$ in star-shaped
domains with critical and supercritical nonlinearities (where the criticality
condition is in relation to $n$ and $\sigma$).
  We also establish nonexistence of bounded solutions to semilinear equations
involving other nonlocal operators such as the higher order fractional
Laplacian $(-\Delta)^s$ (here $s>1$) or the fractional $p$-Laplacian. All these
nonexistence results follow from a general variational inequality in the spirit
of a classical identity by Pucci and Serrin.


title:
The stellar and dark matter distributions in elliptical galaxies from
  the ensemble of strong gravitational lenses

abstract:
  We derive the average mass profile of elliptical galaxies from the ensemble
of 161 strong gravitational lens systems selected from several surveys,
assuming that the mass profile scales with the stellar mass and effective
radius of each lensing galaxy. The total mass profile is well fitted by a
power-law \rho(r) \propto r^\gamma with best-fit slope \gamma = -2.11+/-0.05.
The decomposition of the total mass profile into stellar and dark matter
distributions is difficult due to a fundamental degeneracy between the stellar
initial mass function (IMF) and the dark matter fraction f_DM. We demonstrate
that this IMF-f_DM degeneracy can be broken by adding direct stellar mass
fraction measurements by quasar microlensing observations. Our best-fit model
prefers the Salpeter IMF over the Chabrier IMF, and a smaller central dark
matter fraction than that predicted by adiabatic contraction models.


title: Scaling and width distributions of parity conserving interfaces

abstract:
  We present an alternative finite-size approach to a set of parity conserving
interfaces involving attachment, dissociation, and detachment of extended
objects in 1+1 dimensions. With the aid of a nonlocal construct introduced by
Barma and Dhar in related systems [Phys. Rev. Lett. 73, 2135 (1994)], we
circumvent the subdiffusive dynamics and examine close-to-equilibrium aspects
of these interfaces by assembling states of much smaller, numerically
accessible scales. As a result, roughening exponents, height correlations, and
width distributions exhibiting universal scaling functions are evaluated for
interfaces virtually grown out of dimers and trimers on large-scale substrates.
Dynamic exponents are also studied by finite-size scaling of the spectrum gaps
of evolution operators.


title:
Higgs boson signal at complete tree level in the SM extension by
  dimension-six operators

abstract:
  Deviations from the standard Higgs sector generated by some new (nonstandard)
physics at an energy scale \Lambda could be described by an effective SU(3)_c x
SU(2)_L x U(1) invariant non-renormalizable Lagrangian terms of dimension six.
The set of dimension-six operators involving the Higgs field is chosen in such
a way that the form of gauge bosons kinetic terms remains untouched, preserving
all high-precision electroweak constraints. A systematic study of effects in
various Higgs boson production channels (\gamma \gamma, ZZ, WW, bb-bar, \tau
\tau-bar) caused by effecive operators is carried out beyond the {production x
decay} approximation (or infinitely small width approximation). Statistical
methods are used to establish consistency of the standard Higgs sector with the
available LHC data. A global fit in the two-parametric anomalous coupling space
indicating to possible deviations from the standard Higgs-fermion and
Higgs-gauge boson couplings is performed, using post-Moriond 2012 data and more
precise LC 2013 data. We find that the standard Higgs sector is consistent with
the current CMS and ATLAS experimental results both in the infinitely small
width approximantion and the calculation with complete gauge invariant sets of
diagrams. However, visible difference of the exclusion contours is found for
some combinations of production and decay channels, although minor for the
global fits for all possible channels. Updates of the signal strength and the
signal strength error reported at LC 2013 result in a significant improvements
of the allowed regions in the anomalous coupling space, which are recalculated
also at complete tree level.


title:
Jeff=1/2 Mott spin-orbit insulating state close to the cubic limit in
  Ca4IrO6

abstract:
  The Jeff=1/2 state is manifested in systems with large cubic crystal field
splitting and spin-orbit coupling that are comparable to the on-site Coulomb
interaction, U. 5d transition metal oxides host parameters in this regime and
strong evidence for this state in Sr2IrO4, and additional iridates, has been
presented. All the candidates, however, deviate from the cubic crystal field
required to provide an unmixed canonical Jeff=1/2 state, impacting the
development of a robust model of this novel insulating and magnetic state. We
present results that not only show Ca4IrO6 hosts the state, but furthermore
uniquely resides close to the ideal case required for an unmixed Jeff=1/2
state.


title: A hydrodynamic approach to QGP instabilities

abstract:
  We show that the usual linear analysis of QGP Weibel instabilities based on
the Maxwell-Boltzmann equation may be reproduced in a purely hydrodynamic
model. The latter is derived by the Entropy Production Variational Method from
a transport equation including collisions, and can describe highly
nonequilibrium flow. We find that, as expected, collisions slow down the growth
of Weibel instabilities. Finally, we discuss the strong momentum anisotropy
limit.


title:
An unbiased estimate for the mean of a {0,1} random variable with
  relative error distribution independent of the mean

abstract:
  Say $X_1,X_2,\ldots$ are independent identically distributed Bernoulli random
variables with mean $p$. This paper builds a new estimate $\hat p$ of $p$ that
has the property that the relative error, $\hat p /p - 1$, of the estimate does
not depend in any way on the value of $p$. This allows the construction of
exact confidence intervals for $p$ of any desired level without needing any
sort of limit or approximation. In addition, $\hat p$ is unbiased. For
$\epsilon$ and $\delta$ in $(0,1)$, to obtain an estimate where
$\mathbb{P}(|\hat p/p - 1| > \epsilon) \leq \delta$, the new algorithm takes on
average at most $2\epsilon^{-2} p^{-1}\ln(2\delta^{-1})(1 - (14/3)
\epsilon)^{-1}$ samples. It is also shown that any such algorithm that applies
whenever $p \leq 1/2$ requires at least $0.2\epsilon^{-2}
p^{-1}\ln((2-\delta)\delta^{-1})(1 + 2 \epsilon)$ samples. The same algorithm
can also be applied to estimate the mean of any random variable that falls in
$[0,1]$.


title: An Algebraic Approach to the Control of Decentralized Systems

abstract:
  Optimal decentralized controller design is notoriously difficult, but recent
research has identified large subclasses of such problems that may be
convexified and thus are amenable to solution via efficient numerical methods.
One recently discovered sufficient condition for convexity is quadratic
invariance (QI). Despite the simple algebraic characterization of QI, which
relates the plant and controller maps, proving convexity of the set of
achievable closed-loop maps requires tools from functional analysis. In this
work, we present a new formulation of quadratic invariance that is purely
algebraic. While our results are similar in flavor to those from traditional QI
theory, they do not follow from that body of work. Furthermore, they are
applicable to new types of systems that are difficult to treat using functional
analysis. Examples discussed include rational transfer matrices, systems with
delays, and multidimensional systems.


title:
Light-weight Flexible Magnetic Shields For Large-Aperture
  Photomultiplier Tubes

abstract:
  Thin flexible sheets of high-permeability FINEMET foils encased in thin
plastic layers have been used to shield various types of 20-cm-diameter
photomultiplier tubes from ambient magnetic fields. In the presence of the
Earth's magnetic field this type of shielding is shown to increase the
collection efficiency of photoelectrons and can improve the uniformity of
response of these photomultiplier tubes.

categories: physics.ins-det astro-ph.IM hep-ex nucl-ex


title:
Determination of the Point-Spread Function for the Fermi Large Area
  Telescope from On-orbit Data and Limits on Pair Halos of Active Galactic
  Nuclei

abstract:
  The Large Area Telescope (LAT) on the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is a
pair-conversion telescope designed to detect photons with energies from 20 MeV
to > 300 GeV. The pre-launch response functions of the LAT were determined
through extensive Monte Carlo simulations and beam tests. The point-spread
function (PSF) characterizing the angular distribution of reconstructed photons
as a function of energy and geometry in the detector is determined here from
two years of on-orbit data by examining the distributions of \gamma rays from
pulsars and active galactic nuclei (AGN). Above 3 GeV, the PSF is found to be
broader than the pre-launch PSF. We checked for dependence of the PSF on the
class of \gamma-ray source and observation epoch and found none. We also
investigated several possible spatial models for pair-halo emission around BL
Lac AGN. We found no evidence for a component with spatial extension larger
than the PSF and set upper limits on the amplitude of halo emission in stacked
images of low and high redshift BL Lac AGN and the TeV blazars 1ES0229+200 and
1ES0347-121.


title: Endomorphisms of Bounded Height and Resultant

abstract:
  Let K be an algebraic number field. For a degree d rational morphism of
projective n-space defined over K let R denote its minimal resultant ideal. For
a fixed height function on the moduli space of dynamical systems this paper
shows that all such morphisms of bounded height and resultant are contained in
finitely many PGL(K) equivalence classes. This answers a question of Silverman
in the affirmative.


title: Star-Formation Bimodality in Early-Type Galaxies

abstract:
  We compute the properties of a sample of 221 local early-type galaxies with a
spectral energy distribution (SED) modeling software, CIGALEMC. Concentrating
on the star forming activity and dust contents, we derive parameters such as
the specific star formation rate, the dust luminosity, dust mass and
temperature. 52 % of our sample is composed of elliptical (E) galaxies and 48 %
of lenticular (S0) galaxies. We find a larger proportion of S0 galaxies among
galaxies with a large specific star formation rate (sSFR) and large specific
dust emission. The stronger activity of S0 galaxies is confirmed by larger dust
masses. We investigate the relative proportion of active galactic nuclei (AGN)
and star-forming (SF) galaxies in our sample using spectroscopic SDSS data and
near-infrared selection techniques, and find a larger proportion of AGN
dominated galaxy in the S0 sample than the E one. This could corroborate a
scenario where blue galaxies evolve into red ellipticals by passing through a
S0 AGN active period while quenching its star formation. Finally, we find a
good agreement comparing our estimates with color indicators.


title: Top Quark Forward-Backward Asymmetry in the Little Higgs Model

abstract:
  We calculate the forward backward asymmetry of the top-pair production at
TEVATRON up to next to leading order (NLO) in the little Higgs model (LHM). We
find that the contribution of $Z_H$ can be large enough to make up the gap
between standard model (SM) prediction and data. With the database of
$7.65\pm0.20\pm0.36$ pb, therefore, the parameter space for flavor-changing
coupling of $Z_H$ is constrained. Thus this model can result in the required
asymmetry while the total cross section of top-pair production remaining
consistent with data.


title: A theorem of Serre for the ring of twisted formal series

abstract:
  In this paper we prove that if R is a left Noetherian and left regular ring
such that all finitely generated projective left R-modules are stably free,
then the same is true for the completion R[[x;\sigma,\delta]] of any Ore
extension R[x;\sigma,\delta] of R. Additionally assumes certain natural
conditions for \sigma and \delta for ensure that this completion are good
defined. The proof compares the Grothendieck groups K_{0} of R and S using some
results find in [3], [6], [7] and [9].


title: The Role of Stellar Feedback in the Dynamics of HII Regions

abstract:
  Stellar feedback is often cited as the biggest uncertainty in galaxy
formation models today. This uncertainty stems from a dearth of observational
constraints as well as the great dynamic range between the small scales (<1 pc)
where the feedback occurs and the large scales of galaxies (>1 kpc) that are
shaped by this feedback. To bridge this divide, in this paper we aim to assess
observationally the role of stellar feedback at the intermediate scales of HII
regions. In particular, we employ multiwavelength data to examine several
stellar feedback mechanisms in a sample of 32 HII regions in the Large and
Small Magellanic Clouds (LMC and SMC, respectively). Using optical, infrared,
radio, and X-ray images, we measure the pressures exerted on the shells from
the direct stellar radiation, the dust-processed radiation, the warm ionized
gas, and the hot X-ray emitting gas. We find that the warm ionized gas
dominates over the other terms in all of the sources, although two have
comparable dust-processed radiation pressures to their warm gas pressures. The
hot gas pressures are comparatively weak, while the direct radiation pressures
are 1-2 orders of magnitude below the other terms. We discuss the implications
of these results, particularly highlighting evidence for hot gas leakage from
the HII shells and regarding the momentum deposition from the dust-processed
radiation to the warm gas. Furthermore, we emphasize that similar observational
work should be done on very young HII regions to test whether direct radiation
pressure and hot gas can drive the dynamics at early times.


title:
Compositional Transient Stability Analysis of Multi-Machine Power
  Networks

abstract:
  During the normal operation of a power system all the voltages and currents
are sinusoids with a frequency of 60 Hz in America and parts of Asia, or of
50Hz in the rest of the world. Forcing all the currents and voltages to be
sinusoids with the right frequency is one of the most important problems in
power systems. This problem is known as the transient stability problem in the
power systems literature.
  The classical models used to study transient stability are based on several
implicit assumptions that are violated when transients occur. One such
assumption is the use of phasors to study transients. While phasors require
sinusoidal waveforms to be well defined, there is no guarantee that waveforms
will remain sinusoidal during transients. In this paper, we use energy-based
models derived from first principles that are not subject to hard-to-justify
classical assumptions. In addition to eliminate assumptions that are known not
to hold during transient stages, we derive intuitive conditions ensuring the
transient stability of power systems with lossy transmission lines.
Furthermore, the conditions for transient stability are compositional in the
sense that one infers transient stability of a large power system by checking
simple conditions for individual generators.


title: Spinor class field for generalized Eichler orders

abstract:
  We compute the spinor class field for a genus of orders, in a central simple
algebra of higher dimension, that are intersections of two maximal orders. In
particular, we compute the number of spinor genera in a genus of such orders,
as the degree of an explicit extension of class fields.


title: Implementation of dynamically corrected gates for single-spin qubits

abstract:
  Precise control of an open quantum system is critical to quantum information
processing, but is challenging due to inevitable interactions between the
quantum system and the environment. We demonstrated experimentally at room
temperature a type of dynamically corrected gates on the nitrogen-vacancy
centers in diamond. The infidelity of quantum gates caused by environment
nuclear spin bath is reduced from being the second-order to the sixth-order of
the noise to control field ratio, which offers greater efficiency in reducing
the infidelity by reducing the noise level. The decay time of the coherent
oscillation driven by dynamically corrected gates is shown to be two orders of
magnitude longer than the dephasing time, and is essentially limited by
spin-lattice relaxation. The infidelity of DCG, which is actually constrained
by the decay time, reaches $4\times 10^{-3}$ at room temperature and is further
reducible by 2-3 orders of magnitudes via lowering temperature. The greatly
reduced noise dependence of infidelity and the uttermost extension of the
coherent time mark an important step towards fault-tolerant quantum computation
in realistic systems.


title:
Deuteron electromagnetic form factors in transverse plane with a
  phenomenological Lagrangian approach

abstract:
  A phenomenological Lagrangian approach is employed to study the
electromagnetic properties of deuteron. The deuteron is regarded as a loosely
bound state of a proton and a neutron. The deuteron electromagnetic form
factors are expressed in light-front representation in the transverse plane.
The transverse charge density of the deuteron is discussed.


title:
A hybrid molecular dynamics/atomic-scale finite element method for
  quasi-static atomistic simulations at finite temperature

abstract:
  In this paper, a hybrid quasi-static atomistic simulation method at finite
temperature is developed, which combines the advantages of MD for thermal
equilibrium and atomic-scale finite element method (AFEM) for efficient
equilibration. Some temperature effects are embedded in static AFEM simulation
by applying the virtual and equivalent thermal disturbance forces extracted
from MD. Alternatively performing MD and AFEM can quickly obtain a series of
thermodynamic equilibrium configurations such that a quasi-static process is
modeled. Moreover, a stirring-accelerated MD/AFEM fast relaxation approach is
proposed, in which the atomic forces and velocities are randomly exchanged to
artificially accelerate the "slow processes" such as mechanical wave
propagation and thermal diffusion. The efficiency of the proposed methods is
demonstrated by numerical examples on single wall carbon nanotubes.


title: Latent Fisher Discriminant Analysis

abstract:
  Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) is a well-known method for dimensionality
reduction and classification. Previous studies have also extended the
binary-class case into multi-classes. However, many applications, such as
object detection and keyframe extraction cannot provide consistent
instance-label pairs, while LDA requires labels on instance level for training.
Thus it cannot be directly applied for semi-supervised classification problem.
In this paper, we overcome this limitation and propose a latent variable Fisher
discriminant analysis model. We relax the instance-level labeling into
bag-level, is a kind of semi-supervised (video-level labels of event type are
required for semantic frame extraction) and incorporates a data-driven prior
over the latent variables. Hence, our method combines the latent variable
inference and dimension reduction in an unified bayesian framework. We test our
method on MUSK and Corel data sets and yield competitive results compared to
the baseline approach. We also demonstrate its capacity on the challenging
TRECVID MED11 dataset for semantic keyframe extraction and conduct a
human-factors ranking-based experimental evaluation, which clearly demonstrates
our proposed method consistently extracts more semantically meaningful
keyframes than challenging baselines.


title: Omitting cohesive sets

abstract:
  We prove that if $\vec{R}$ is a computable sequence of subsets of $\omega$
which admits no computable cohesive set, then no 3-generic computes any
$\vec{R}$-cohesive set; and there exists a Martin-L\"{o}f random which computes
no $\vec{R}$-cohesive set.


title:
Accurate tight-binding and continuum models for the $\pi$ bands of
  bilayer graphene

abstract:
  We derive an {\em ab initio} $\pi$-band tight-binding model for $AB$ stacked
bilayer graphene based on maximally localized Wannier wave functions (MLWFs)
centered on the carbon sites, finding that both intralayer and interlayer
hopping is longer in range than assumed in commonly used phenomenological
tight-binding models. Starting from this full tight-binding model, we derive
two effective models that are intended to provide a convenient starting point
for theories of $\pi$-band electronic properties by achieving accuracy over the
full width of the $\pi$-bands, and especially at the Dirac points, in models
with a relatively small number of hopping parameters. The simplified models are
then compared with phenomenological Slonczewski-Weiss-McClure type
tight-binding models in an effort to clarify confusions that exists in the
literature concerning tight-binding model parameter signs.


title:
Volume comparison of conformally compact manifolds with scalar curvature
  $R\geq -n\left(n-1\right)$

abstract:
  In this paper, we use the normalized Ricci-DeTurk flow to prove a stability
result for strictly stable conformally compact Einstein manifolds. As an
application, we show a local volume comparison of conformally compact manifolds
with scalar curvature $R\geq -n\left(n-1\right)$ and also the rigidity result
when certain renormalized volume is zero.


title:
Negative differential resistance and effect of defects and deformations
  in MoS2 armchair nanoribbon MOSFET

abstract:
  In this work we present a study on the negative differential resistance
behavior and the impact of various deformations {like ripples, twist, wrap} and
defects like vacancies and edge roughness on the electronic properties of
short-channel MoS2 armchair nanoribbon MOSFETs. The effect of deformation {3 to
7 degree twist or wrap and 0.3 to 0.7 Ang rippling amplitude} and defects on a
10 nm MoS2 ANR FET is evaluated by the density functional tight binding theory
and the non-equilibrium Green`s function approach. We study the channel density
of states, transmission spectra and the ID VD characteristics of such devices
under the varying conditions, with focus on the negative differential
resistance behavior. Our results show significant change in the NDR peak to
valley ratio and the NDR window with such minor intrinsic deformations,
especially with the rippling.


title:
Photovoltaic effect in BiFeO3/TiO2 heterostructures tuned with epitaxial
  strain and an electric field

abstract:
  The photovoltaic effect in the BiFeO3/TiO2 heterostructures can be tuned by
epitaxial strain and an electric field in the visible-light region which is
manifested by the enhancement of absorption activity in the heterojunction
under tensile strain and an electric field based on the first-principles
calculations. It is suggested that there are coupling between photon, spin
carrier, charge, orbital, and lattice in the interface of the bilayer film
which makes the heterojunction an intriguing candidate towards fabricating the
multifunctional photoelectric devices based on spintronics. The microscopic
mechanism involved in the heterostruces is related deeply with the spin
transfer and charge rearrangement between the Fe 3d and O 2p orbitals in the
vicinity of the interface.


title:
Further Refinement of Self-normalized Cram\a'{e}r-type moderate
  Deviations

abstract:
  In this paper, we study the self-normalized Cram\a'{e}r-type moderate
deviations for centered independent random variables $X_1, X_2,...$ with $0<E
|X_i|^3 <\infty$. The main results refine Theorems 1.1 and 1.2 of Wang (2011),
the Berry-Esseen bound (2.11) and Corollaries 2.2 and 2.3 of Jing, Shao and
Wang (2003) under stronger moment conditions.


title: Operator ideals on non-commutative function spaces

abstract:
  Suppose $X$ and $Y$ are Banach spaces, and ${\mathcal{I}}$, ${\mathcal{J}}$
are operator ideals (for instance, the ideals of strictly singular, weakly
compact, or compact operators). Under what conditions does the inclusion
${\mathcal{I}}(X,Y) \subset {\mathcal{J}}(X,Y)$, or the equality
${\mathcal{I}}(X,Y) = {\mathcal{J}}(X,Y)$, hold? We examine this question when
${\mathcal{I}}, {\mathcal{J}}$ are the ideals of Dunford-Pettis, strictly
(co)singular, finitely strictly singular, inessential, or (weakly) compact
operators, while $X$ and $Y$ are non-commutative function spaces. Since such
spaces are ordered, we also address the same questions for positive parts of
such ideals.


title: Ideals of operators on $C^*$-algebras and their preduals

abstract:
  In this paper we consider we study various classical operator ideals (for
instance, the ideals of strictly (co)singular, weakly compact, Dunford-Pettis
operators) either on $C^*$-algebras, or preduals of von Neumann algebras.


title: Estimate of 4-loop Pole-MSbar Mass Relation from Static QCD Potential

abstract:
  We estimate the presently unknown constant in the 4-loop relation between the
quark pole mass and the MSbar mass, by requiring stability of the perturbative
prediction for E_tot(r)=2m_pole+V_QCD(r) in the intermediate-distance region.
The estimate is fairly sharp due to a severe cancellation between 2m_pole and
V_QCD(r). This would provide a test, based on general properties of the gauge
theory, for the size of ultra-soft contributions to V_QCD(r).


title: A switch to reduce resistivity in smoothed particle magnetohydrodynamics

abstract:
  Artificial resistivity is included in Smoothed Particle Magnetohydrodynamics
simulations to capture shocks and discontinuities in the magnetic field. Here
we present a new method for adapting the strength of the applied resistivity so
that shocks are captured but the dissipation of the magnetic field away from
shocks is minimised. Our scheme utilises the gradient of the magnetic field as
a shock indicator, setting {\alpha}_B = h|gradB|/|B|, such that resistivity is
switched on only where strong discontinuities are present. The advantage to
this approach is that the resistivity parameter does not depend on the absolute
field strength. The new switch is benchmarked on a series of shock tube tests
demonstrating its ability to capture shocks correctly. It is compared against a
previous switch proposed by Price & Monaghan (2005), showing that it leads to
lower dissipation of the field, and in particular, that it succeeds at
capturing shocks in the regime where the Alfv\'en speed is much less than the
sound speed (i.e., when the magnetic field is very weak). It is also simpler.
We also demonstrate that our recent constrained divergence cleaning algorithm
has no difficulty with shock tube tests, in contrast to other implementations.

categories: astro-ph.IM astro-ph.CO astro-ph.GA astro-ph.HE astro-ph.SR


title: Individual and collective dynamics of self-propelled soft particles

abstract:
  Deformable self-propelled particles provide us with one of the most important
nonlinear dissipative systems, which are related, for example, to the motion of
microorganisms. It is emphasized that this is a subject of localized objects in
non-equilibrium open systems. We introduce a coupled set of ordinary
differential equations to study various dynamics of individual soft particles
due to the nonlinear couplings between migration, spinning and deformation. By
introducing interactions among the particles, the collective dynamics and its
collapse are also investigated by changing the particle density and the
interaction strength. We stress that assemblies of self-propelled particles
also exhibit a variety of non-equilibrium localized patterns.


title:
Meet Your Expectations With Guarantees: Beyond Worst-Case Synthesis in
  Quantitative Games

abstract:
  We extend the quantitative synthesis framework by going beyond the
worst-case. On the one hand, classical analysis of two-player games involves an
adversary (modeling the environment of the system) which is purely antagonistic
and asks for strict guarantees. On the other hand, stochastic models like
Markov decision processes represent situations where the system is faced to a
purely randomized environment: the aim is then to optimize the expected payoff,
with no guarantee on individual outcomes. We introduce the beyond worst-case
synthesis problem, which is to construct strategies that guarantee some
quantitative requirement in the worst-case while providing an higher expected
value against a particular stochastic model of the environment given as input.
This problem is relevant to produce system controllers that provide nice
expected performance in the everyday situation while ensuring a strict (but
relaxed) performance threshold even in the event of very bad (while unlikely)
circumstances. We study the beyond worst-case synthesis problem for two
important quantitative settings: the mean-payoff and the shortest path. In both
cases, we show how to decide the existence of finite-memory strategies
satisfying the problem and how to synthesize one if one exists. We establish
algorithms and we study complexity bounds and memory requirements.


title: Capacity of a POST Channel with and without Feedback

abstract:
  We consider finite state channels where the state of the channel is its
previous output. We refer to these as POST (Previous Output is the STate)
channels. We first focus on POST($\alpha$) channels. These channels have binary
inputs and outputs, where the state determines if the channel behaves as a $Z$
or an $S$ channel, both with parameter $\alpha$. %with parameter $\alpha.$ We
show that the non feedback capacity of the POST($\alpha$) channel equals its
feedback capacity, despite the memory of the channel. The proof of this
surprising result is based on showing that the induced output distribution,
when maximizing the directed information in the presence of feedback, can also
be achieved by an input distribution that does not utilize of the feedback. We
show that this is a sufficient condition for the feedback capacity to equal the
non feedback capacity for any finite state channel. We show that the result
carries over from the POST($\alpha$) channel to a binary POST channel where the
previous output determines whether the current channel will be binary with
parameters $(a,b)$ or $(b,a)$. Finally, we show that, in general, feedback may
increase the capacity of a POST channel.


title: Dynamics of periodic Toda chains with a large number of particles

abstract:
  For periodic Toda chains with a large number $N$ of particles we consider
states which are $N^{-2}-$close to the equilibrium and constructed by
discretizing any given $C^2-$functions with mesh size $N^{-1}$. For such states
we derive asymptotic expansions of the Toda frequencies $(\omega^N_n)_{0 < n <
N}$ and the actions $(I^N_n)_{0 < n < N},$ both listed in the standard way, in
powers of $N^{-1}$ as $N \to \infty$. %listed in accordance with the ordering
of the frequencies at the equilibrium, %$(2 \sin \frac{n\pi} {N})_{0 < n < N}$.
At the two edges $n \sim 1$ and $N -n \sim 1$, the expansions of the
frequencies are computed up to order $N^{-3}$ with an error term of higher
order. Specifically, the coefficients of the expansions of $\omega^N_n$ and
$\omega^N_{N-n}$ at order $N^{-3}$ are given by a constant multiple of the n'th
KdV frequencies $\omega^-_n$ and $\omega^+_n$ of two periodic potentials,
$q_{-}$ respectively $q_+$, constructed in terms of the states considered. The
frequencies $\omega^N_n$ for $n$ away from the edges are shown to be
asymptotically close to the frequencies of the equilibrium. For the actions
$(I^N_n)_{0 < n < N},$ asymptotics of a similar nature are derived.


title: Operating the Cloud from Inside Out

abstract:
  Virtual machine images and instances (VMs) in cloud computing centres are
typically designed as isolation containers for applications, databases and
networking functions. In order to build complex distributed applications,
multiple virtual machines must be connected, orchestrated and combined with
platform and infrastructure services from the hosting environment. There are
several reasons why sometimes it is beneficial to introduce a new layer,
Cloud-in-a-VM, which acts as a portable management interface to a cluster of
VMs. We reason about the benefits and present our Cloud-in-a-VM implementation
called Nested Cloud which allows consumers to become light-weight cloud
operators on demand and reap multiple advantages, including fully utilised
resource allocations. The practical usefulness and the performance of the
intermediate cloud stack VM are evaluated in a marketplace scenario.


title:
Spin excitations of individual Fe atoms on Pt(111): impact of the
  site-dependent giant substrate polarization

abstract:
  We demonstrate using inelastic scanning tunneling spectroscopy (ISTS) and
simulations based on density functional theory that the amplitude and sign of
the magnetic anisotropy energy for a single Fe atom adsorbed onto the Pt(111)
surface can be manipulated by modifying the adatom binding site. Since the
magnitude of the measured anisotropy is remarkably small, up to an order of
magnitude smaller than previously reported, electron-hole excitations are weak
and thus the spin-excitation exhibits long lived precessional lifetimes
compared to the values found for the same adatom on noble metal surfaces.


title: Nonstandard cosmology

abstract:
  Considering radial geodesics in the Robertson-Walker metric leads us to
abandon the co-moving coordinates. Instead we work in the cosmic rest frame.
Since then the matter is in motion, the solution of Einstein's equations is
more complicated. We calculate the first correction to standard cosmology which
has an off-diagonal term b dt dr in the metric. It describes the late universe.
We then solve Maxwell's equations in the new metric and discuss redshift and
luminosities. We obtain the correct age of the universe T=14 Gyr= 1/H, without
assuming a cosmological constant.


title:
Advances in Development of Quartz Crystal Oscillators at Liquid Helium
  Temperatures

abstract:
  This work presents some recent results in the field of liquid helium {bulk
acoustic wave} oscillators. The discussion covers the whole development
procedure starting from component selection and characterization and concluding
with actual phase noise measurements. The associated problems and limitations
are discussed. The unique features of obtained phase noise power spectral
densities are explained with a proposed extension of the Leeson effect.


title:
Relevance of the axial anomaly at the finite-temperature chiral
  transition in QCD

abstract:
  We investigate the nature of the finite-temperature chiral transition in QCD
with two light flavors, in the case of an effective suppression of the the
U(1)_A symmetry breaking induced by the axial anomaly, which implies the
symmetry breaking U(2)_L X U(2)_R -> U(2)_V, instead of SU(2)_L X SU(2)_R ->
SU(2)_V. For this purpose, we perform a high-order field-theoretical
perturbative study of the renormalization-group (RG) flow of the corresponding
three-dimensional multiparameter Landau-Ginzburg-Wilson Phi4 theory with the
same symmetry-breaking pattern. We confirm the existence of a stable fixed
point (FP), and determine its attraction domain in the space of the bare
quartic parameters. Therefore, the chiral QCD transition might be continuous
also if the U(1)_A symmetry is effectively restored at Tc. However, the
corresponding universality class differs from the O(4) vector universality
class which would describe a continuous transition in the presence of a
substantial U(1)_A symmetry breaking at Tc. We estimate the critical exponents
of the U(2)_L X U(2)_R -> U(2)_V universality class by computing and analyzing
their high-order perturbative expansions. These results are important to
discriminate among the different scenarios for the scaling behavior of QCD with
two light flavors close to the chiral transition.


title:
Cosmological entropy problem in the (1+3+6)-dimensional space-times with
  viscous processes

abstract:
  Recently the formation of an expanding universe from the (1+3+6)-dimensional
space-times has been proposed on the basis of super-string theory. The serious
entropy problem must be solved for it to be realistic from the cosmological
viewpoint. It is discussed here, taking account of the large dissipation due to
the viscous motion between the collapsing inner space and the inflating outer
space. It is shown that the large dissipation may be effective for the vast
production of 3-dimensional entropy S_3 within the horizon, and that there are
epochs when S_3 reaches the critical value 10^88 in the Guth level and at the
same time the outer space is decoupled from the inner space.


title:
A deep search for molecular gas in two massive Lyman break galaxies at
  z=3 and 4: vanishing CO-emission due to low metallicity?

abstract:
  We present deep IRAM Plateau de Bure Interferometer (PdBI) observations,
searching for CO-emission toward two massive, non-lensed Lyman break galaxies
(LBGs) at z=3.216 and 4.058. With one low significance CO detection (3.5 sigma)
and one sensitive upper limit, we find that the CO lines are >~ 3-4 times
weaker than expected based on the relation between IR and CO luminosities
followed by similarly, massive galaxies at z=0-2.5. This is consistent with a
scenario in which these galaxies have low metallicity, causing an increased
CO-to-H_2 conversion factor, i.e., weaker CO-emission for a given molecular
(H_2) mass. The required metallicities at z>3 are lower than predicted by the
fundamental metallicity relation (FMR) at these redshifts, consistent with
independent evidence. Unless our galaxies are atypical in this respect,
detecting molecular gas in normal galaxies at z>3 may thus remain challenging
even with ALMA.


title:
An implicit method for the finite time horizon Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman
  quasi-variational inequalities

abstract:
  We propose a new numerical method for solving the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman
quasi-variational inequality associated with the combined impulse and
stochastic optimal control problem over a finite time horizon. Our method
corresponds to an implicit method in the field of numerical methods for partial
differential equations, and thus it is advantageous in the sense that the
stability condition is independent of the discretization parameters. We apply
our method to the finite time horizon optimal forest harvesting problem, which
considers exiting from the forestry business at a finite time. We show that the
behavior of the obtained optimal harvesting strategy of the extended problem
coincides with our intuition.


title:
Assortative mixing in functional brain networks during epileptic
  seizures

abstract:
  We investigate assortativity of functional brain networks before, during, and
after one-hundred epileptic seizures with different anatomical onset locations.
We construct binary functional networks from multi-channel
electroencephalographic data recorded from 60 epilepsy patients, and from
time-resolved estimates of the assortativity coefficient we conclude that
positive degree-degree correlations are inherent to seizure dynamics. While
seizures evolve, an increasing assortativity indicates a segregation of the
underlying functional network into groups of brain regions that are only
sparsely interconnected, if at all. Interestingly, assortativity decreases
already prior to seizure end. Together with previous observations of
characteristic temporal evolutions of global statistical properties and
synchronizability of epileptic brain networks, our findings may help to gain
deeper insights into the complicated dynamics underlying generation,
propagation, and termination of seizures.

categories: physics.data-an cs.SI physics.comp-ph physics.soc-ph


title:
Comment on "The low lying modes of triplet-condensed neutron matter and
  their effective theory"

abstract:
  Contrary to what is claimed in the article by P. F. Bedaque and A. N.
Nicholson [Phys. Rev. C 87, 055807 (2013)], their result do not contradict but
rather complement the conclusion of the paper by L. B. Leinson [Phys. Rev. C
85, 0655021 (2012)] with respect to the low lying nonunitary excitations in the
anisotropic neutron superfluid. In fact, the corresponding Goldstone modes
(angulons), existing at zero temperature, can be found from Eq. (59) of the
work by Leinson. Being massless at absolute zero these modes acquire a mass gap
at finite temperature.


title:
Universal control and error correction in multi-qubit spin registers in
  diamond

abstract:
  Quantum registers of nuclear spins coupled to electron spins of individual
solid-state defects are a promising platform for quantum information
processing. Pioneering experiments selected defects with favourably located
nuclear spins having particularly strong hyperfine couplings. For progress
towards large-scale applications, larger and deterministically available
nuclear registers are highly desirable. Here we realize universal control over
multi-qubit spin registers by harnessing abundant weakly coupled nuclear spins.
We use the electron spin of a nitrogen-vacancy centre in diamond to selectively
initialize, control and read out carbon-13 spins in the surrounding spin bath
and construct high-fidelity single- and two-qubit gates. We exploit these new
capabilities to implement a three-qubit quantum-error-correction protocol and
demonstrate the robustness of the encoded state against applied errors. These
results transform weakly coupled nuclear spins from a source of decoherence
into a reliable resource, paving the way towards extended quantum networks and
surface-code quantum computing based on multi-qubit nodes.


title: On short interval expansion of R\'enyi entropy

abstract:
  R\'enyi entanglement entropy provides a new window to study the AdS/CFT
correspondence. In this paper we consider the short interval expansion of
R\'enyi entanglement entropy in two-dimensional conformal field theory. This
amounts to do the operator product expansion of the twist operators. We focus
on the vacuum Verma module and consider the quasiprimary operators constructed
from the stress tensors. After obtaining the expansion coefficients of the
twist operators to level 6 in vacuum Verma module, we compute the leading
contributions to the R\'enyi entropy, to order 6 in the short interval
expansion. In the case of one short interval on cylinder, we reproduce the
first several leading contributions to the R\'enyi entropy. In the case of two
short disjoint intervals with a small cross ratio $x$, we obtain not only the
classical and 1-loop quantum contributions to the R\'enyi entropy to order
$x^6$, both of which are in perfect match with the ones found in gravity, but
also the leading $1/c$ contributions, which corresponds to 2-loop corrections
in the bulk.


title: Solar magnetic fields as revealed by Stokes polarimetry

abstract:
  Observational astrophysics started when spectroscopy could be applied to
astronomy. Similarly, observational work on stellar magnetic fields became
possible with the application of spectro-polarimetry. In recent decades there
have been dramatic advances in the observational tools for spectro-polarimetry.
The four Stokes parameters that provide a complete representation of partially
polarized light can now be simultaneously imaged with megapixel array detectors
with high polarimetric precision (0.001% in the degree of polarization). This
has led to new insights about the nature and properties of the magnetic field,
and has helped pave the way for the use of the Hanle effect as a diagnostic
tool beside the Zeeman effect. The magnetic structuring continues on scales
orders of magnitudes smaller than the resolved ones, but various types of
spectro-polarimetric signatures can be identified, which let us determine the
field strengths and angular distributions of the field vectors in the spatially
unresolved domain. Here we review the observational properties of the magnetic
field, from the global patterns to the smallest scales at the magnetic
diffusion limit, and relate them to the global and local dynamos.


title:
Fossil imprint of a powerful flare at the Galactic Centre along the
  Magellanic Stream

abstract:
  The Fermi satellite discovery of the gamma-ray emitting bubbles extending 50
deg (10 kpc) from the Galactic Centre has revitalized earlier claims that our
Galaxy has undergone an explosive episode in the recent past. We now explore a
new constraint on such activity. The Magellanic Stream is a clumpy gaseous
structure passing over the South Galactic Pole (SGP) at a distance of at least
50-100 kpc. Patchy H-alpha emission discovered along the Magellanic Stream over
the SGP is a factor of 5 too bright to have been produced by the Galactic
stellar population. Time-dependent models of Stream clouds exposed to a flare
in ionising photon flux show that the ionised gas must recombine and cool for a
time interval 0.6 - 2.9 Myr for the emitted H-alpha surface brightness to drop
to the observed level. A nuclear starburst is ruled out. Sgr A* is a more
likely candidate because it is two orders of magnitude more efficient at
converting gas to UV radiation. The central black hole (4 x 10^6 Msun) can
supply the required ionising luminosity with a fraction of the Eddington
accretion rate (3-30%). In support of nuclear activity, the H-alpha emission
along the Stream has a polar angle dependence peaking close to the SGP.
Moreover, it is now generally accepted that the Stream over the SGP must be
further than the Magellanic Clouds. At the lower halo gas densities, shocks
become too ineffective and are unlikely to give rise to a polar angle
dependence in the H-alpha emission. Thus it is likely that the Stream emission
arose from a `Seyfert flare' that was active 1-3 Myr ago, consistent with the
cosmic ray lifetime in the Fermi bubbles. Sgr A* activity today is greatly
suppressed (70-80 dB) relative to the Seyfert outburst...


title: Long-Time Evolution of Gas-Free Disc Galaxies in Binary Systems

abstract:
  We present the results of several detailed numerical N-body simulations of
the dynamical interactions of two equal mass disc galaxies. Both galaxies are
embedded in spherical halos of dark matter and contain central bulges. Our
analysis of the dynamical evolution of the binary system focuses on the
morphological evolution of the stellar distribution of the discs. The satellite
galaxy has coplanar or polar disc orientation in relation to the disc of the
primary galaxy and their initial orbits are prograde eccentric ($e=0.1$,
$e=0.4$ or $e=0.7$). Both galaxies have mass and size comparable to the Milky
Way. We show that the merger of the two disc galaxies, depending on the
relative orientation of the discs, can yield either a disc or lenticular
remnant, instead of an elliptical one. These are the first simulations in the
literature to show the formation of S0-like galaxies from protracted binary
galaxy interactions. Additionally, we demonstrate that the time to merger
increases linearly with the initial apocentric distance between the galaxies,
and decreases with the initial orbital eccentricity. We also show that the
tidal forces of the discs excite transient $m=1$ and $m=2$ wave modes, i.e.,
lopsidedness, spiral arms, and bars. However, after the merging of the discs,
such instabilities fade completely, and the remnant is thicker and bigger than
the original discs. The maximum relative amplitude of these waves is at most
about 15 times greater compared to the control case. of these two wave modes.
Finally, the disc settles down quickly, after the merger, in less than one
outer disc rotation period.


title: Cable Fault Monitoring and Indication: A Review

abstract:
  Underground cable power transmission and distribution system are susceptible
to faults. Accurate fault location for transmission lines is of vital
importance. A quick detection and analysis of faults is necessity of power
retailers and distributors. This paper reviews various fault locating methods
and highly computational methods proposed by research community that are
currently in use. The paper also presents some guidelines for design of fault
location and remote indication, for reducing power outages and reducing heavy
loss of revenue.


title:
Allostery without conformation change: modelling protein dynamics at
  multiple scales

abstract:
  The original ideas of Cooper and Dryden, that allosteric signalling can be
induced between distant binding sites on proteins without any change in mean
structural conformation, has proved to be a remarkably prescient insight into
the rich structure of protein dynamics. It represents an alternative to the
celebrated Monod-Wyman-Changeux mechanism and proposes that modulation of the
amplitude of thermal fluctuations around a mean structure, rather than shifts
in the structure itself, give rise to allostery in ligand binding. In a
complementary approach to experiments on real proteins, here we take a
theoretical route to identify the necessary structural components of this
mechanism. By reviewing and extending an approach that moves from very
coarse-grained to more detailed models, we show that, a fundamental requirement
for a body supporting fluctuation-induced allostery is a strongly inhomogeneous
elastic modulus. This requirement is reflected in many real proteins, where a
good approximation of the elastic structure maps strongly coherent domains onto
rigid blocks connected by more flexible interface regions.


title: Advances in computer architecture

abstract:
  In the past, efforts were taken to improve the performance of a processor via
frequency scaling. However, industry has reached the limits of increasing the
frequency and therefore concurrent execution of instructions on multiple cores
seems the only possible option. It is not enough to provide concurrent
execution by the hardware, software also have to introduce concurrency in order
to exploit the parallelism.


title:
Effective recombination coefficient and solar zenith angle effects on
  low-latitude D-region ionosphere evaluated from VLF signal amplitude and its
  time delay during X-ray solar flares

abstract:
  Excess solar X-ray radiation during solar flares causes an enhancement of
ionization in the ionospheric D-region and hence affects sub-ionospherically
propagating VLF signal amplitude and phase. In first part of the work, using
the well known LWPC technique, we simulated the flare induced excess lower
ionospheric electron density by amplitude perturbation method. Unperturbed
D-region electron density is also obtained from simulation and compared with
IRI-model results. Using these simulation results and time delay as key
parameters, we calculate the effective electron recombination coefficient
($\alpha_{eff}$) at solar flare peak region. Our results match with the same
obtained by other established models. In the second part, we dealt with the
solar zenith angle effect on D-region during flares. We relate this VLF data
with the solar X-ray data. We find that the peak of the VLF amplitude occurs
later than the time of the X-ray peak for each flare. We investigate this
so-called time delay ($\bigtriangleup t$). For the C-class flares we find that
there is a direct correspondence between $\bigtriangleup t$ of a solar flare
and the average solar zenith angle $Z$ over the signal propagation path at
flare occurrence time. Now for deeper analysis, we compute the $\bigtriangleup
t$ for different local diurnal time slots $DT$. We find that while the time
delay is anti-correlated with the flare peak energy flux $\phi_{max}$
independent of these time slots, the goodness of fit, as measured by
$reduced$-$\chi^2$, actually worsens as the day progresses. The variation of
the $Z$ dependence of $reduced$-$\chi^2$ seems to follow the variation of
standard deviation of $Z$ along the $T_x$-$R_x$ propagation path. In other
words, for the flares having almost constant $Z$ over the path a tighter
anti-correlation between $\bigtriangleup t$ and $\phi_{max}$ was observed.


title: Linear kernels for k-tuple and liar's domination in bounded genus graphs

abstract:
  A set $D\subseteq V$ is called a $k$-tuple dominating set of a graph
$G=(V,E)$ if $\left| N_G[v] \cap D \right| \geq k$ for all $v \in V$, where
$N_G[v]$ denotes the closed neighborhood of $v$. A set $D \subseteq V$ is
called a liar's dominating set of a graph $G=(V,E)$ if (i) $\left| N_G[v] \cap
D \right| \geq 2$ for all $v\in V$ and (ii) for every pair of distinct vertices
$u, v\in V$, $\left| (N_G[u] \cup N_G[v]) \cap D \right| \geq 3$. Given a graph
$G$, the decision versions of $k$-Tuple Domination Problem and the Liar's
Domination Problem are to check whether there exists a $k$-tuple dominating set
and a liar's dominating set of $G$ of a given cardinality, respectively. These
two problems are known to be NP-complete \cite{LiaoChang2003, Slater2009}. In
this paper, we study the parameterized complexity of these problems. We show
that the $k$-Tuple Domination Problem and the Liar's Domination Problem are
$\mathsf{W}[2]$-hard for general graphs but they admit linear kernels for
graphs with bounded genus.


title: Mean-payoff Games with Partial Observation

abstract:
  Mean-payoff games are important quantitative models for open reactive
systems. They have been widely studied as games of full observation. In this
paper we investigate the algorithmic properties of several sub-classes of
mean-payoff games where the players have asymmetric information about the state
of the game. These games are in general undecidable and not determined
according to the classical definition. We show that such games are determined
under a more general notion of winning strategy. We also consider mean-payoff
games where the winner can be determined by the winner of a finite
cycle-forming game. This yields several decidable classes of mean-payoff games
of asymmetric information that require only finite-memory strategies, including
a generalization of full-observation games where positional strategies are
sufficient. We give an exponential time algorithm for determining the winner of
the latter.


title: Quarks, Flow and Temperature in Spectra

abstract: Theory Summary Talk given by Tamas S. Biro at SQM 2013, Birmingham, UK.


title:
GARFIELD + RCo Digital Upgrade: a Modern Set-up for Mass and Charge
  Identification of Heavy Ion Reaction Products

abstract:
  An upgraded GARFIELD + Ring Counter (RCo) apparatus is presented with
improved performances as far as electronics and detectors are concerned. On one
side fast sampling digital read out has been extended to all detectors,
allowing for an important simplification of the signal processing chain
together with an enriched extracted information. On the other side a relevant
improvement has been made in the forward part of the setup (RCo): an increased
granularity of the CsI(Tl) crystals and a higher homogeneity in the silicon
detector resistivity. The renewed performances of the GARFIELD + RCo array make
it suitable for nuclear reaction measurements both with stable and with
Radioactive Ion Beams (RIB), like the ones foreseen for the SPES facility,
where the Physics of Isospin can be studied.


title:
Study on Triggering Process of Solar Flares Based on Hinode/SOT
  Observations

abstract:
  We investigated four major solar flare events that occurred in active regions
NOAA 10930 (December 13 and 14, 2006) and NOAA 11158 (February 13 and 15, 2011)
by using data observed by the Solar Optical Telescope (SOT) onboard the Hinode
satellite. To reveal the trigger mechanism of solar flares, we analyzed the
spatio-temporal correlation between the detailed magnetic field structure and
the emission image of the Ca H line at the central part of flaring regions for
several hours prior to the onset of flares. We observed in all the flare events
that the magnetic shear angle in the flaring regions exceeded 70 degrees, as
well as that characteristic magnetic disturbances developed at the centers of
flaring regions in the pre-flare phase. These magnetic disturbances can be
classified into two groups depending on the structure of their magnetic
polarity inversion lines; the so-called "Opposite-Polarity" and
"Reversed-Shear" magnetic field recently proposed by our group, although the
magnetic disturbance in one event of the four samples is too subtle to clearly
recognize the detailed structure. The result suggests that some major solar
flares are triggered by rather small magnetic disturbances. We also show that
the critical size of the flare-trigger field varies among flare events and
briefly discuss how the flare-trigger process depends on the evolution of
active regions.


title: New measure of multifractality and its application in finances

abstract:
  We provide an alternative method for analysis of multifractal properties of
time series. The new approach takes into account the behaviour of the whole
multifractal profile of the generalized Hurst exponent $h(q)$ for all moment
orders $q$, not limited only to the edge values of $h(q)$ describing in MFDFA
scaling properties of smallest and largest fluctuations in signal. The meaning
of this new measure is clarified and its properties are investigated for
synthetic multifractal data and real signals taken from stock market. We show
that the proposed new measure is free of problems one can meet in real
nonstationary signals, while searching their multifractal signatures.


title:
Bottomonium suppression at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=2.76$ TeV using model based on
  color screening and gluonic dissociation with collisional damping

abstract:
  We present a model to explain the bottomonium suppression in Pb+Pb collisions
at mid rapidity obtained from Large Hadron Collider (LHC) energy,
$\sqrt{s_{NN}}=2.76$ TeV. The model consists of two decoupled mechanisms
namely, color screening during bottomonium production followed by gluon induced
dissociation along with collisional damping. The quasi-particle model (QPM) is
used as equation of state (EOS) for the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) medium. The
feed-down from higher $\Upsilon$ states, such as $\Upsilon(1P)$, $\Upsilon(2S)$
and $\Upsilon(2P)$, dilated formation times for bottomonium states and viscous
effect of QGP medium are other ingredients included in the current formulation.
We further assume that the QGP is expanding according to (1+1)-dimensional
Bjorken's boost invariant scaling law. The net suppression (in terms of $p_T$
integrated survival probability) for bottomonium states at mid rapidity is
obtained as a function of centrality and the result is then compared both
quantitatively and qualitatively with the recent LHC experimental data in the
mid rapidity region recently published by CMS collaboration. We find that the
current model, based on the Debye color screening plus gluonic dissociation
along with collisional damping, better describes the centrality dependence of
bottomonium suppression at LHC energy as compared to color screening model
alone.
  \vskip 0.5cm
  {\nd \it Keywords} : Color screening, Gluonic dissociation, Collisional
damping, Survival probability {\nd \it PACS numbers} : 12.38.Mh, 12.38.Gc,
25.75.Nq, 24.10.Pa


title: Universal Scaling Property of System Approaching Equilibrium

abstract:
  In this Letter we show that the diffusion kinetics of kinetic energy among
the atoms in non- equilibrium crystalline systems follows universal scaling
relation and obey Levy-walk properties. This scaling relation is found to be
valid for systems no matter how far they are driven out of equilibrium.