Gravitation as a Quantum Diffusion

Inhomogeneous Nelson's diffusion in flat spacetime with a tensor of diffusion can be described as a homogeneous one in a Riemannian manifold with this tensor of diffusion as a metric tensor. The influence of matter to the energy density of the stochastic background (vacuum) is considered. It is shown that gravitation can be represented as inhomogeneity of the quantum diffusion, the Einstein equations for the metrics can be derived as the equations for the corresponding tensor of diffusion.Comment: Published in: "Z.Zakir (2003) Structure of Space-Time and Matter, CTPA, Tashkent.

Probing white-matter microstructure with higher-order diffusion tensors and susceptibility tensor MRI.

Diffusion MRI has become an invaluable tool for studying white matter microstructure and brain connectivity. The emergence of quantitative susceptibility mapping and susceptibility tensor imaging (STI) has provided another unique tool for assessing the structure of white matter. In the highly ordered white matter structure, diffusion MRI measures hindered water mobility induced by various tissue and cell membranes, while susceptibility sensitizes to the molecular composition and axonal arrangement. Integrating these two methods may produce new insights into the complex physiology of white matter. In this study, we investigated the relationship between diffusion and magnetic susceptibility in the white matter. Experiments were conducted on phantoms and human brains in vivo. Diffusion properties were quantified with the diffusion tensor model and also with the higher order tensor model based on the cumulant expansion. Frequency shift and susceptibility tensor were measured with quantitative susceptibility mapping and susceptibility tensor imaging. These diffusion and susceptibility quantities were compared and correlated in regions of single fiber bundles and regions of multiple fiber orientations. Relationships were established with similarities and differences identified. It is believed that diffusion MRI and susceptibility MRI provide complementary information of the microstructure of white matter. Together, they allow a more complete assessment of healthy and diseased brains

Homogenization of lateral diffusion on a random surface

We study the problem of lateral diffusion on a static, quasi-planar surface generated by a stationary, ergodic random field possessing rapid small-scale spatial fluctuations. The aim is to study the effective behaviour of a particle undergoing Brownian motion on the surface viewed as a projection on the underlying plane. By formulating the problem as a diffusion in a random medium, we are able to use known results from the theory of stochastic homogenization of SDEs to show that, in the limit of small scale fluctuations, the diffusion process behaves quantitatively like a Brownian motion with constant diffusion tensor $D$. While $D$ will not have a closed-form expression in general, we are able to derive variational bounds for the effective diffusion tensor, and using a duality transformation argument, obtain a closed form expression for $D$ in the special case where $D$ is isotropic. We also describe a numerical scheme for approximating the effective diffusion tensor and illustrate this scheme with two examples.Comment: 25 pages, 7 figure

Structural Adaptive Smoothing in Diffusion Tensor Imaging: The R Package dti

Diffusion weighted imaging has become and will certainly continue to be an important tool in medical research and diagnostics. Data obtained with diffusion weighted imaging are characterized by a high noise level. Thus, estimation of quantities like anisotropy indices or the main diffusion direction may be significantly compromised by noise in clinical or neuroscience applications. Here, we present a new package dti for R, which provides functions for the analysis of diffusion weighted data within the diffusion tensor model. This includes smoothing by a recently proposed structural adaptive smoothing procedure based on the propagation-separation approach in the context of the widely used diffusion tensor model. We extend the procedure and show, how a correction for Rician bias can be incorporated. We use a heteroscedastic nonlinear regression model to estimate the diffusion tensor. The smoothing procedure naturally adapts to different structures of different size and thus avoids oversmoothing edges and fine structures. We illustrate the usage and capabilities of the package through some examples.

Spin-Hall effect in semiconductor heterostructures with cubic Rashba spin-orbit interaction

We study the spin-Hall effect in systems with weak cubic Rashba spin-orbit interaction. To this end we derive particle and spin diffusion equations and explicit expressions for the spin-current tensor in the diffusive regime. We discuss the impact of electric fields on the Green's functions and the diffusion equations and establish a relationship between the spin-current tensor and the spin diffusion equations for the model under scrutiny. We use our results to calculate the edge spin-accumulation in a spin-Hall experiment and show that there is also a new Hall-like contribution to the electric current in such systems.Comment: 14 page

Generalized minimal principle for rotor filaments

To a reaction-diffusion medium with an inhomogeneous anisotropic diffusion tensor D, we add a fourth spatial dimension such that the determinant of the diffusion tensor is constant in four dimensions. We propose a generalized minimal principle for rotor filaments, stating that the scroll wave filament strives to minimize its surface area in the higher-dimensional space. As a consequence, stationary scroll wave filaments in the original 3D medium are geodesic curves with respect to the metric tensor G = det(D)D-1. The theory is confirmed by numerical simulations for positive and negative filament tension and a model with a non-stationary spiral core. We conclude that filaments in cardiac tissue with positive tension preferentially reside or anchor in regions where cardiac cells are less interconnected, such as portions of the cardiac wall with a large number of cleavage planes