Gluon Chain Model of the Confining Force

We develop a picture of the QCD string as a chain of constituent gluons, bound by attractive nearest-neighbor forces which may be treated perturbatively. This picture accounts for both Casimir scaling at large N, and the asymptotic center dependence of the static quark potential. We discuss the relevance, to the gluon-chain picture, of recent three-loop results for the static quark potential. A variational framework is presented for computing the minimal energy and wavefunction of a long gluon chain, which enables us to derive both the logarithmic broadening of the QCD flux tube (``roughening''), and the existence of a Luscher -c/R term in the potential.Comment: 25 pages, 5 figures, latex2

A New Algorithm for Protein Design

We apply a new approach to the reverse protein folding problem. Our method uses a minimization function in the design process which is different from the energy function used for folding. For a lattice model, we show that this new approach produces sequences that are likely to fold into desired structures. Our method is a significant improvement over previous attempts which used the energy function for designing sequences.Comment: 10 pages latex 2.09 no figures. Use uufiles to decod

Partial regularity of almost minimizing rectifiable G chains in Hilbert space

We adapt to an infinite dimensional ambient space E.R. Reifenberg's epiperimetric inequality and a quantitative version of D. Preiss' second moments computations to establish that the set of regular points of an almost mass minimizing rectifiable $G$ chain in $\ell_2$ is dense in its support, whenever the group $G$ of coefficients is so that $\{\|g\| : g \in G \}$ is discrete and closed.Comment: 96 page

D-brane networks in flux vacua, generalized cycles and calibrations

We consider chains of generalized submanifolds, as defined by Gualtieri in the context of generalized complex geometry, and define a boundary operator that acts on them. This allows us to define generalized cycles and the corresponding homology theory. Gauge invariance demands that D-brane networks on flux vacua must wrap these generalized cycles, while deformations of generalized cycles inside of a certain homology class describe physical processes such as the dissolution of D-branes in higher-dimensional D-branes and MMS-like instantonic transitions. We introduce calibrations that identify the supersymmetric D-brane networks, which minimize their energy inside of the corresponding homology class of generalized cycles. Such a calibration is explicitly presented for type II N=1 flux compactifications to four dimensions. In particular networks of walls and strings in compactifications on warped Calabi-Yau's are treated, with explicit examples on a toroidal orientifold vacuum and on the Klebanov-Strassler geometry.Comment: 42 pages, 4 eps figures, version to appear in JHE

Quantum Discord and entropic measures of quantum correlations: Optimization and behavior in finite XYXY spin chains

We discuss a generalization of the conditional entropy and one-way information deficit in quantum systems, based on general entropic forms. The formalism allows to consider simple entropic forms for which a closed evaluation of the associated optimization problem in qudit-qubit systems is shown to become feasible, allowing to approximate that of the quantum discord. As application, we examine quantum correlations of spin pairs in the exact ground state of finite $XY$ spin chains in a magnetic field through the quantum discord and information deficit. While these quantities show a similar behavior, their optimizing measurements exhibit significant differences, which can be understood and predicted through the previous approximations. The remarkable behavior of these quantities in the vicinity of transverse and non-transverse factorizing fields is also discussed.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure