Novel topological beam-splitting in photonic crystals

We create a passive wave splitter, created purely by geometry, to engineer three-way beam splitting in electromagnetism in transverse electric polarisation. We do so by considering arrangements of Indium Phosphide dielectric pillars in air, in particular we place several inclusions within a cell that is then extended periodically upon a square lattice. Hexagonal lattice structures more commonly used in topological valleytronics but, as we discuss, three-way splitting is only possible using a square, or rectangular, lattice. To achieve splitting and transport around a sharp bend we use accidental, and not symmetry-induced, Dirac cones. Within each cell pillars are either arranged around a triangle or square; we demonstrate the mechanism of splitting and why it does not occur for one of the cases. The theory is developed and full scattering simulations demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed designs

Affine Hecke algebras and generalized standard Young tableaux

This paper introduces calibrated representations for affine Hecke algebras and classifies and constructs all finite dimensional irreducible calibrated representations. The primary technique is to provide indexing sets for controlling the weight space structure of finite dimensional modules for the affine Hecke algebra. Using these indexing sets we show that (1) irreducible calibrated representations are indexed by skew local regions, (2) the dimension of an irreducible calibrated representation is the number of chambers in the local region, (3) each irreducible calibrated representation is constructed explicitly by formulas which describe the action of the generators of the affine Hecke algebra on a specific basis in the representation space. The indexing sets for weight spaces are generalizations of standard Young tableaux and the construction of the irreducible calibrated affine Hecke algebra modules is a generalization of A. Young's seminormal construction of the irreducible representations of the symmetric group. In this sense Young's construction has been generalized to arbitrary Lie type

Combinatorics in Schubert varieties and Specht modules

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mathematics, June 2011."June 2011." Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 57-59).This thesis consists of two parts. Both parts are devoted to finding links between geometric/algebraic objects and combinatorial objects. In the first part of the thesis, we link Schubert varieties in the full flag variety with hyperplane arrangements. Schubert varieties are parameterized by elements of the Weyl group. For each element of the Weyl group, we construct certain hyperplane arrangement. We show that the generating function for regions of this arrangement coincides with the Poincaré polynomial if and only if the Schubert variety is rationally smooth. For classical types the arrangements are (signed) graphical arrangements coning from (signed) graphs. Using this description, we also find an explicit combinatorial formula for the Poincaré polynomial in type A. The second part is about Specht modules of general diagram. For each diagram, we define a new class of polytopes and conjecture that the normalized volume of the polytope coincides with the dimension of the corresponding Specht module in many cases. We give evidences to this conjecture including the proofs for skew partition shapes and forests, as well as the normalized volume of the polytope for the toric staircase diagrams. We also define new class of toric tableaux of certain shapes, and conjecture the generating function of the tableaux is the Frobenius character of the corresponding Specht module. For a toric ribbon diagram, this is consistent with the previous conjecture. We also show that our conjecture is intimately related to Postnikov's conjecture on toric Specht modules and McNamara's conjecture of cylindric Schur positivity.by Hwanchul Yoo.Ph.D

Topology of Arrangements and Representation Stability

The workshop “Topology of arrangements and representation stability” brought together two directions of research: the topology and geometry of hyperplane, toric and elliptic arrangements, and the homological and representation stability of configuration spaces and related families of spaces and discrete groups. The participants were mathematicians working at the interface between several very active areas of research in topology, geometry, algebra, representation theory, and combinatorics. The workshop provided a thorough overview of current developments, highlighted significant progress in the field, and fostered an increasing amount of interaction between specialists in areas of research

Physics-based visual characterization of molecular interaction forces

Molecular simulations are used in many areas of biotechnology, such as drug design and enzyme engineering. Despite the development of automatic computational protocols, analysis of molecular interactions is still a major aspect where human comprehension and intuition are key to accelerate, analyze, and propose modifications to the molecule of interest. Most visualization algorithms help the users by providing an accurate depiction of the spatial arrangement: the atoms involved in inter-molecular contacts. There are few tools that provide visual information on the forces governing molecular docking. However, these tools, commonly restricted to close interaction between atoms, do not consider whole simulation paths, long-range distances and, importantly, do not provide visual cues for a quick and intuitive comprehension of the energy functions (modeling intermolecular interactions) involved. In this paper, we propose visualizations designed to enable the characterization of interaction forces by taking into account several relevant variables such as molecule-ligand distance and the energy function, which is essential to understand binding affinities. We put emphasis on mapping molecular docking paths obtained from Molecular Dynamics or Monte Carlo simulations, and provide time-dependent visualizations for different energy components and particle resolutions: atoms, groups or residues. The presented visualizations have the potential to support domain experts in a more efficient drug or enzyme design process.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Fermion condensation and super pivotal categories

We study fermionic topological phases using the technique of fermion condensation. We give a prescription for performing fermion condensation in bosonic topological phases which contain a fermion. Our approach to fermion condensation can roughly be understood as coupling the parent bosonic topological phase to a phase of physical fermions, and condensing pairs of physical and emergent fermions. There are two distinct types of objects in fermionic theories, which we call "m-type" and "q-type" particles. The endomorphism algebras of q-type particles are complex Clifford algebras, and they have no analogues in bosonic theories. We construct a fermionic generalization of the tube category, which allows us to compute the quasiparticle excitations in fermionic topological phases. We then prove a series of results relating data in condensed theories to data in their parent theories; for example, if $\mathcal{C}$ is a modular tensor category containing a fermion, then the tube category of the condensed theory satisfies $\textbf{Tube}(\mathcal{C}/\psi) \cong \mathcal{C} \times (\mathcal{C}/\psi)$. We also study how modular transformations, fusion rules, and coherence relations are modified in the fermionic setting, prove a fermionic version of the Verlinde dimension formula, construct a commuting projector lattice Hamiltonian for fermionic theories, and write down a fermionic version of the Turaev-Viro-Barrett-Westbury state sum. A large portion of this work is devoted to three detailed examples of performing fermion condensation to produce fermionic topological phases: we condense fermions in the Ising theory, the $SO(3)_6$ theory, and the $\frac{1}{2}\text{E}_6$ theory, and compute the quasiparticle excitation spectrum in each of these examples.Comment: 161 pages; v2: corrected typos (including 18 instances of "the the") and added some reference