The Importance of Forgetting: Limiting Memory Improves Recovery of Topological Characteristics from Neural Data

We develop of a line of work initiated by Curto and Itskov towards understanding the amount of information contained in the spike trains of hippocampal place cells via topology considerations. Previously, it was established that simply knowing which groups of place cells fire together in an animal's hippocampus is sufficient to extract the global topology of the animal's physical environment. We model a system where collections of place cells group and ungroup according to short-term plasticity rules. In particular, we obtain the surprising result that in experiments with spurious firing, the accuracy of the extracted topological information decreases with the persistence (beyond a certain regime) of the cell groups. This suggests that synaptic transience, or forgetting, is a mechanism by which the brain counteracts the effects of spurious place cell activity

Pointwise convergence topology and function spaces in fuzzy analysis

We study the space of all continuous fuzzy-valued functions from a space $X$ into the space of fuzzy numbers (\mathbb{E}\sp{1},d\sb{\infty}) endowed with the pointwise convergence topology. Our results generalize the classical ones for continuous real-valued functions. The field of applications of this approach seems to be large, since the classical case allows many known devices to be fitted to general topology, functional analysis, coding theory, Boolean rings, etc

Conference Program

Document provides a list of the sessions, speakers, workshops, and committees of the 32nd Summer Conference on Topology and Its Applications

On algebraic supergroups, coadjoint orbits and their deformations

In this paper we study algebraic supergroups and their coadjoint orbits as affine algebraic supervarieties. We find an algebraic deformation quantization of them that can be related to the fuzzy spaces of non commutative geometry.Comment: 37 pages, AMS-LaTe

The baryon vertex with magnetic flux

In this letter we generalise the baryon vertex configuration of AdS/CFT by adding a suitable instantonic magnetic field on its worldvolume, dissolving D-string charge. A careful analysis of the configuration shows that there is an upper bound on the number of dissolved strings. This should be a manifestation of the stringy exclusion principle. We provide a microscopical description of this configuration in terms of a dielectric effect for the dissolved strings.Comment: 17 pages, 2 figures. V2: reference added. V3: version to appear in JHE

A U(3)U(3) Gauge Theory on Fuzzy Extra Dimensions

In this article, we explore the low energy structure of a $U(3)$ gauge theory over spaces with fuzzy sphere(s) as extra dimensions. In particular, we determine the equivariant parametrization of the gauge fields, which transform either invariantly or as vectors under the combined action of $SU(2)$ rotations of the fuzzy spheres and those $U(3)$ gauge transformations generated by $SU(2) \subset U(3)$ carrying the spin $1$ irreducible representation of $SU(2)$. The cases of a single fuzzy sphere $S_F^2$ and a particular direct sum of concentric fuzzy spheres, $S_F^{2 \, Int}$, covering the monopole bundle sectors with windings $\pm 1$ are treated in full and the low energy degrees of freedom for the gauge fields are obtained. Employing the parametrizations of the fields in the former case, we determine a low energy action by tracing over the fuzzy sphere and show that the emerging model is abelian Higgs type with $U(1) \times U(1)$ gauge symmetry and possess vortex solutions on ${\mathbb R}^2$, which we discuss in some detail. Generalization of our formulation to the equivariant parametrization of gauge fields in $U(n)$ theories is also briefly addressed.Comment: 27+1 page

Symmetry Breaking and Order in the Age of Quasicrystals

The discovery of quasicrystals has changed our view of some of the most basic notions related to the condensed state of matter. Before the age of quasicrystals, it was believed that crystals break the continuous translation and rotation symmetries of the liquid-phase into a discrete lattice of translations, and a finite group of rotations. Quasicrystals, on the other hand, possess no such symmetries-there are no translations, nor, in general, are there any rotations, leaving them invariant. Does this imply that no symmetry is left, or that the meaning of symmetry should be revised? We review this and other questions related to the liquid-to-crystal symmetry-breaking transition using the notion of indistinguishability. We characterize the order-parameter space, describe the different elementary excitations, phonons and phasons, and discuss the nature of dislocations-keeping in mind that we are now living in the age of quasicrystals.Comment: To appear in a special issue on quasicrystals of The Israel Journal of Chemistry, in celebration of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistr