The Chang-Refsdal Lens Revisited

This paper provides a complete theoretical treatment of the point-mass lens perturbed by constant external shear, often called the Chang-Refsdal lens. We show that simple invariants exist for the products of the (complex) positions of the four images, as well as moment sums of their signed magnifications. The image topographies and equations of the caustics and critical curves are also studied. We derive the fully analytic expressions for precaustics, which are the loci of non-critical points that map to the caustics under the lens mapping. They constitute boundaries of the region in the image domain that maps onto the interior of the caustics. The areas under the critical curves, caustics and precaustics are all evaluated, which enables us to calculate the mean magnification of the source within the caustics. Additionally, the exact analytic expression for the magnification distribution for the source in the triangular caustics is derived, as well as a useful approximate expression. Finally, we find that the Chang-Refsdal lens with the convergence greater than unity can exhibit third-order critical behaviour, if the reduced shear is exactly equal to \sqrt{3}/2, and that the number of images for N-point masses with non-zero constant shear cannot be greater than 5N-1.Comment: to appear in MNRAS (including 6 figures, 3 appendices; v2 - minor update with corrected typos etc.

Post-critical set and non existence of preserved meromorphic two-forms

We present a family of birational transformations in $CP_2$ depending on two, or three, parameters which does not, generically, preserve meromorphic two-forms. With the introduction of the orbit of the critical set (vanishing condition of the Jacobian), also called ``post-critical set'', we get some new structures, some "non-analytic" two-form which reduce to meromorphic two-forms for particular subvarieties in the parameter space. On these subvarieties, the iterates of the critical set have a polynomial growth in the \emph{degrees of the parameters}, while one has an exponential growth out of these subspaces. The analysis of our birational transformation in $CP_2$ is first carried out using Diller-Favre criterion in order to find the complexity reduction of the mapping. The integrable cases are found. The identification between the complexity growth and the topological entropy is, one more time, verified. We perform plots of the post-critical set, as well as calculations of Lyapunov exponents for many orbits, confirming that generically no meromorphic two-form can be preserved for this mapping. These birational transformations in $CP_2$, which, generically, do not preserve any meromorphic two-form, are extremely similar to other birational transformations we previously studied, which do preserve meromorphic two-forms. We note that these two sets of birational transformations exhibit totally similar results as far as topological complexity is concerned, but drastically different results as far as a more ``probabilistic'' approach of dynamical systems is concerned (Lyapunov exponents). With these examples we see that the existence of a preserved meromorphic two-form explains most of the (numerical) discrepancy between the topological and probabilistic approach of dynamical systems.Comment: 34 pages, 7 figure

Total variation regularization for manifold-valued data

We consider total variation minimization for manifold valued data. We propose a cyclic proximal point algorithm and a parallel proximal point algorithm to minimize TV functionals with $\ell^p$-type data terms in the manifold case. These algorithms are based on iterative geodesic averaging which makes them easily applicable to a large class of data manifolds. As an application, we consider denoising images which take their values in a manifold. We apply our algorithms to diffusion tensor images, interferometric SAR images as well as sphere and cylinder valued images. For the class of Cartan-Hadamard manifolds (which includes the data space in diffusion tensor imaging) we show the convergence of the proposed TV minimizing algorithms to a global minimizer

Plus-minus construction leads to perfect invisibility

Recent theoretical advances applied to metamaterials have opened new avenues to design a coating that hides objects from electromagnetic radiation and even the sight. Here, we propose a new design of cloaking devices that creates perfect invisibility in isotropic media. A combination of positive and negative refractive indices, called plus-minus construction, is essential to achieve perfect invisibility (i.e., no time delay and total absence of reflection). Contrary to the common understanding that between two isotropic materials having different refractive indices the electromagnetic reflection is unavoidable, our method shows that surprisingly the reflection phenomena can be completely eliminated. The invented method, different from the classical impedance matching, may also find electromagnetic applications outside of cloaking devices, wherever distortions are present arising from reflections.Comment: 24 pages, 10 figure

Analysis of the Strong Coupling Limit of the Richardson Hamiltonian using the Dyson Mapping

The Richardson Hamiltonian describes superconducting correlations in a metallic nanograin. We do a perturbative analysis of this and related Hamiltonians, around the strong pairing limit, without having to invoke Bethe Ansatz solvability. Rather we make use of a boson expansion method known as the Dyson mapping. Thus we uncover a selection rule that facilitates both time-independent and time-dependent perturbation expansions. In principle the model we analise is realised in a very small metalic grain of a very regular shape. The results we obtain point to subtleties sometimes neglected when thinking of the superconducting state as a Bose-Einstein condensate. An appendix contains a general presentation of time-independent perturbation theory for operators with degenerate spectra, with recursive formulas for corrections of arbitrarily high orders.Comment: New final version accepted for publication in PRB. 17 two-column pages, no figure