Many-body processes in black and grey matter-wave solitons

We perform a comparative beyond mean-field study of black and grey solitonic excitations in a finite ensemble of ultracold bosons confined to a one-dimensional box. An optimized density-engineering potential is developed and employed together with phase-imprinting to cleanly initialize grey solitons. Based on our recently developed Multi-Layer Multi-Configuration Time-Dependent Hartree Method for Bosons, we demonstrate an enhancement of the quantum fluctuations limited lifetime of the soliton contrast with increasing soliton velocity. A natural orbital analysis reveals a two-stage process underlying the decay of the soliton contrast. The broken parity symmetry of grey solitons results in a local asymmetry of the orbital mainly responsible for the decay, which leads to a characteristic asymmetry of remarkably localized two-body correlations. The emergence and decay of these correlations as well as their displacement from the instantaneous soliton position are analysed in detail. Finally, the role of phase-imprinting for the many-body dynamics is illuminated and additional non-local correlations in pairs of counter-propagating grey solitons are unravelled

Emergence of a stable cortical map for neuroprosthetic control.

Cortical control of neuroprosthetic devices is known to require neuronal adaptations. It remains unclear whether a stable cortical representation for prosthetic function can be stored and recalled in a manner that mimics our natural recall of motor skills. Especially in light of the mixed evidence for a stationary neuron-behavior relationship in cortical motor areas, understanding this relationship during long-term neuroprosthetic control can elucidate principles of neural plasticity as well as improve prosthetic function. Here, we paired stable recordings from ensembles of primary motor cortex neurons in macaque monkeys with a constant decoder that transforms neural activity to prosthetic movements. Proficient control was closely linked to the emergence of a surprisingly stable pattern of ensemble activity, indicating that the motor cortex can consolidate a neural representation for prosthetic control in the presence of a constant decoder. The importance of such a cortical map was evident in that small perturbations to either the size of the neural ensemble or to the decoder could reversibly disrupt function. Moreover, once a cortical map became consolidated, a second map could be learned and stored. Thus, long-term use of a neuroprosthetic device is associated with the formation of a cortical map for prosthetic function that is stable across time, readily recalled, resistant to interference, and resembles a putative memory engram

Statistical Thermodynamics of Clustered Populations

We present a thermodynamic theory for a generic population of $M$ individuals distributed into $N$ groups (clusters). We construct the ensemble of all distributions with fixed $M$ and $N$, introduce a selection functional that embodies the physics that governs the population, and obtain the distribution that emerges in the scaling limit as the most probable among all distributions consistent with the given physics. We develop the thermodynamics of the ensemble and establish a rigorous mapping to thermodynamics. We treat the emergence of a so-called "giant component" as a formal phase transition and show that the criteria for its emergence are entirely analogous to the equilibrium conditions in molecular systems. We demonstrate the theory by an analytic model and confirm the predictions by Monte Carlo simulation.Comment: Minor edits to tex

Epistemic and Ontic Quantum Realities

Quantum theory has provoked intense discussions about its interpretation since its pioneer days. One of the few scientists who have been continuously engaged in this development from both physical and philosophical perspectives is Carl Friedrich von Weizsaecker. The questions he posed were and are inspiring for many, including the authors of this contribution. Weizsaecker developed Bohr's view of quantum theory as a theory of knowledge. We show that such an epistemic perspective can be consistently complemented by Einstein's ontically oriented position