A Partially Reflecting Random Walk on Spheres Algorithm for Electrical Impedance Tomography

In this work, we develop a probabilistic estimator for the voltage-to-current map arising in electrical impedance tomography. This novel so-called partially reflecting random walk on spheres estimator enables Monte Carlo methods to compute the voltage-to-current map in an embarrassingly parallel manner, which is an important issue with regard to the corresponding inverse problem. Our method uses the well-known random walk on spheres algorithm inside subdomains where the diffusion coefficient is constant and employs replacement techniques motivated by finite difference discretization to deal with both mixed boundary conditions and interface transmission conditions. We analyze the global bias and the variance of the new estimator both theoretically and experimentally. In a second step, the variance is considerably reduced via a novel control variate conditional sampling technique

The FLAME-slab method for electromagnetic wave scattering in aperiodic slabs

The proposed numerical method, "FLAME-slab," solves electromagnetic wave scattering problems for aperiodic slab structures by exploiting short-range regularities in these structures. The computational procedure involves special difference schemes with high accuracy even on coarse grids. These schemes are based on Trefftz approximations, utilizing functions that locally satisfy the governing differential equations, as is done in the Flexible Local Approximation Method (FLAME). Radiation boundary conditions are implemented via Fourier expansions in the air surrounding the slab. When applied to ensembles of slab structures with identical short-range features, such as amorphous or quasicrystalline lattices, the method is significantly more efficient, both in runtime and in memory consumption, than traditional approaches. This efficiency is due to the fact that the Trefftz functions need to be computed only once for the whole ensemble.Comment: Various typos were corrected. Minor inconsistencies throughout the manuscript were fixed. In Section II B. Additional description regarding choice of Trefftz cell, was added. In Section III A. Detailed description about units (used in our calculation) was adde

The Surface Laplacian Technique in EEG: Theory and Methods

This paper reviews the method of surface Laplacian differentiation to study EEG. We focus on topics that are helpful for a clear understanding of the underlying concepts and its efficient implementation, which is especially important for EEG researchers unfamiliar with the technique. The popular methods of finite difference and splines are reviewed in detail. The former has the advantage of simplicity and low computational cost, but its estimates are prone to a variety of errors due to discretization. The latter eliminates all issues related to discretization and incorporates a regularization mechanism to reduce spatial noise, but at the cost of increasing mathematical and computational complexity. These and several others issues deserving further development are highlighted, some of which we address to the extent possible. Here we develop a set of discrete approximations for Laplacian estimates at peripheral electrodes and a possible solution to the problem of multiple-frame regularization. We also provide the mathematical details of finite difference approximations that are missing in the literature, and discuss the problem of computational performance, which is particularly important in the context of EEG splines where data sets can be very large. Along this line, the matrix representation of the surface Laplacian operator is carefully discussed and some figures are given illustrating the advantages of this approach. In the final remarks, we briefly sketch a possible way to incorporate finite-size electrodes into Laplacian estimates that could guide further developments.Comment: 43 pages, 8 figure

Effective index approximations of photonic crystal slabs: a 2-to-1-D assessment

The optical properties of slab-like photonic crystals are often discussed on the basis of effective index (EI) approximations, where a 2-D effective refractive index profile replaces the actual 3-D structure. Our aim is to assess this approximation by analogous steps that reduce finite 2-D waveguide Bragg-gratings (to be seen as sections through 3-D PC slabs and membranes) to 1-D problems, which are tractable by common transfer matrix methods. Application of the EI method is disputable in particular in cases where locally no guided modes are supported, as in the holes of a PC membrane. A variational procedure permits to derive suitable effective permittivities even in these cases. Depending on the structural properties, these values can well turn out to be lower than one, or even be negative. Both the “standard” and the variational procedures are compared with reference data, generated by a rigorous 2-D Helmholtz solver, for a series of example structures.\u

Uniform semiclassical approximations on a topologically non-trivial configuration space: The hydrogen atom in an electric field

Semiclassical periodic-orbit theory and closed-orbit theory represent a quantum spectrum as a superposition of contributions from individual classical orbits. Close to a bifurcation, these contributions diverge and have to be replaced with a uniform approximation. Its construction requires a normal form that provides a local description of the bifurcation scenario. Usually, the normal form is constructed in flat space. We present an example taken from the hydrogen atom in an electric field where the normal form must be chosen to be defined on a sphere instead of a Euclidean plane. In the example, the necessity to base the normal form on a topologically non-trivial configuration space reveals a subtle interplay between local and global aspects of the phase space structure. We show that a uniform approximation for a bifurcation scenario with non-trivial topology can be constructed using the established uniformization techniques. Semiclassical photo-absorption spectra of the hydrogen atom in an electric field are significantly improved when based on the extended uniform approximations

Morita Duality and Large-N Limits

We study some dynamical aspects of gauge theories on noncommutative tori. We show that Morita duality, combined with the hypothesis of analyticity as a function of the noncommutativity parameter Theta, gives information about singular large-N limits of ordinary U(N) gauge theories, where the large-rank limit is correlated with the shrinking of a two-torus to zero size. We study some non-perturbative tests of the smoothness hypothesis with respect to Theta in theories with and without supersymmetry. In the supersymmetric case this is done by adapting Witten's index to the present situation, and in the nonsupersymmetric case by studying the dependence of energy levels on the instanton angle. We find that regularizations which restore supersymmetry at high energies seem to preserve Theta-smoothness whereas nonsupersymmetric asymptotically free theories seem to violate it. As a final application we use Morita duality to study a recent proposal of Susskind to use a noncommutative Chern-Simons gauge theory as an effective description of the Fractional Hall Effect. In particular we obtain an elegant derivation of Wen's topological order.Comment: 41 pages, Harvmac. Some corrections to section 6.3. Comments added on Hall Effec

Dynamics of Quark-Gluon-Plasma Instabilities in Discretized Hard-Loop Approximation

Non-Abelian plasma instabilities have been proposed as a possible explanation for fast isotropization of the quark-gluon plasma produced in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. We study the real-time evolution of these instabilities in non-Abelian plasmas with a momentum-space anisotropy using a hard-loop effective theory that is discretized in the velocities of hard particles. We extend our previous results on the evolution of the most unstable modes, which are constant in directions transverse to the direction of anisotropy, from gauge group SU(2) to SU(3). We also present first full 3+1-dimensional simulation results based on velocity-discretized hard loops. In contrast to the effectively 1+1-dimensional transversely constant modes we find subexponential behaviour at late times.Comment: 30 pages, 16 figures. v3 typos fixe

How to mesh up Ewald sums (I): A theoretical and numerical comparison of various particle mesh routines

Standard Ewald sums, which calculate e.g. the electrostatic energy or the force in periodically closed systems of charged particles, can be efficiently speeded up by the use of the Fast Fourier Transformation (FFT). In this article we investigate three algorithms for the FFT-accelerated Ewald sum, which attracted a widespread attention, namely, the so-called particle-particle-particle-mesh (P3M), particle mesh Ewald (PME) and smooth PME method. We present a unified view of the underlying techniques and the various ingredients which comprise those routines. Additionally, we offer detailed accuracy measurements, which shed some light on the influence of several tuning parameters and also show that the existing methods -- although similar in spirit -- exhibit remarkable differences in accuracy. We propose combinations of the individual components, mostly relying on the P3M approach, which we regard as most flexible.Comment: 18 pages, 8 figures included, revtex styl