Projective spaces of a C*-algebra

Based on the projective matrix spaces studied by B. Schwarz and A. Zaks, we study the notion of projective space associated to a C*-algebra A with a fixed projection p. The resulting space P(p) admits a rich geometrical structure as a holomorphic manifold and a homogeneous reductive space of the invertible group of A. Moreover, several metrics (chordal, spherical, pseudo-chordal, non-Euclidean - in Schwarz-Zaks terminology) are considered, allowing a comparison among P(p), the Grassmann manifold of A and the space of positive elements which are unitary with respect to the bilinear form induced by the reflection e = 2p-1. Among several metrical results, we prove that geodesics are unique and of minimal length when measured with the spherical and non-Euclidean metrics.Comment: 26 pages, Late

Levels in the toposes of simplicial sets and cubical sets

The essential subtoposes of a fixed topos form a complete lattice, which gives rise to the notion of a level in a topos. In the familiar example of simplicial sets, levels coincide with dimensions and give rise to the usual notions of n-skeletal and n-coskeletal simplicial sets. In addition to the obvious ordering, the levels provide a stricter means of comparing the complexity of objects, which is determined by the answer to the following question posed by Bill Lawvere: when does n-skeletal imply k-coskeletal? This paper answers this question for several toposes of interest to homotopy theory and higher category theory: simplicial sets, cubical sets, and reflexive globular sets. For the latter, n-skeletal implies (n+1)-coskeletal but for the other two examples the situation is considerably more complicated: n-skeletal implies (2n-1)-coskeletal for simplicial sets and 2n-coskeletal for cubical sets, but nothing stronger. In a discussion of further applications, we prove that n-skeletal cyclic sets are necessarily (2n+1)-coskeletal.Comment: This paper subsumes earlier work of the first, third, and fourth authors. 19 page

Existence of globally attracting fixed points of viscous Burgers equation with constant forcing. A computer assisted proof

We present a computer assisted method for proving the existence of globally attracting fixed points of dissipative PDEs. An application to the viscous Burgers equation with periodic boundary conditions and a forcing function constant in time is presented as a case study. We establish the existence of a locally attracting fixed point by using rigorous numerics techniques. To prove that the fixed point is, in fact, globally attracting we introduce a technique relying on a construction of an absorbing set, capturing any sufficiently regular initial condition after a finite time. Then the absorbing set is rigorously integrated forward in time to verify that any sufficiently regular initial condition is in the basin of attraction of the fixed point.Comment: To appear in Topological Methods in Nonlinear Analysis, 201

Perturbative search for dead-end CFTs

To explore the possibility of self-organized criticality, we look for CFTs without any relevant scalar deformations (a.k.a dead-end CFTs) within power-counting renormalizable quantum field theories with a weakly coupled Lagrangian description. In three dimensions, the only candidates are pure (Abelian) gauge theories, which may be further deformed by Chern-Simons terms. In four dimensions, we show that there are infinitely many non-trivial candidates based on chiral gauge theories. Using the three-loop beta functions, we compute the gap of scaling dimensions above the marginal value, and it can be as small as $\mathcal{O}(10^{-5})$ and robust against the perturbative corrections. These classes of candidates are very weakly coupled and our perturbative conclusion seems difficult to refute. Thus, the hypothesis that non-trivial dead-end CFTs do not exist is likely to be false in four dimensions.Comment: 23 pages, v2: published version with improvement

Finite precision measurement nullifies the Kochen-Specker theorem

Only finite precision measurements are experimentally reasonable, and they cannot distinguish a dense subset from its closure. We show that the rational vectors, which are dense in S^2, can be colored so that the contradiction with hidden variable theories provided by Kochen-Specker constructions does not obtain. Thus, in contrast to violation of the Bell inequalities, no quantum-over-classical advantage for information processing can be derived from the Kochen-Specker theorem alone.Comment: 7 pages, plain TeX; minor corrections, interpretation clarified, references update

A Mixed Phase of SUSY Gauge Theories from a-Maximization

We study N=1 supersymmetric SU(N) gauge theories with an antisymmetric tensor and F flavors using the recent proposal of a-maximization by Intriligator and Wecht. This theory had previously been studied using the method of "deconfinement", but such an analysis was not conclusive since anomalous dimensions in the non-perturbative regime could not be calculated. Using a-maximization we show that for a large range of F the theory is at an interacting superconformal fixed point. However, we also find evidence that for a range of F the theory in the IR splits into a free "magnetic" gauge sector and an interacting superconformal sector.Comment: 18 pages, 3 figure

Placing regenerators in optical networks to satisfy multiple sets of requests.

The placement of regenerators in optical networks has become an active area of research during the last years. Given a set of lightpaths in a network G and a positive integer d, regenerators must be placed in such a way that in any lightpath there are no more than d hops without meeting a regenerator. While most of the research has focused on heuristics and simulations, the first theoretical study of the problem has been recently provided in [10], where the considered cost function is the number of locations in the network hosting regenerators. Nevertheless, in many situations a more accurate estimation of the real cost of the network is given by the total number of regenerators placed at the nodes, and this is the cost function we consider. Furthermore, in our model we assume that we are given a finite set of p possible traffic patterns (each given by a set of lightpaths), and our objective is to place the minimum number of regenerators at the nodes so that each of the traffic patterns is satisfied. While this problem can be easily solved when d = 1 or p = 1, we prove that for any fixed d,p ≥ 2 it does not admit a PTASUnknown control sequence '\textsc', even if G has maximum degree at most 3 and the lightpaths have length O(d)(d). We complement this hardness result with a constant-factor approximation algorithm with ratio ln (d ·p). We then study the case where G is a path, proving that the problem is NP-hard for any d,p ≥ 2, even if there are two edges of the path such that any lightpath uses at least one of them. Interestingly, we show that the problem is polynomial-time solvable in paths when all the lightpaths share the first edge of the path, as well as when the number of lightpaths sharing an edge is bounded. Finally, we generalize our model in two natural directions, which allows us to capture the model of [10] as a particular case, and we settle some questions that were left open in [10]

Asymptotic safety with Majorana fermions and new large N equivalences

Using Majorana fermions and elementary mesons we find new massless quantum field theories with weakly interacting ultraviolet fixed points. We also find new classes of large N equivalences among SU, SO, and Sp gauge theories with different types of matter fields and Yukawa interactions. Results include a triality of asymptotically safe theories and dualities between asymptotically free matter-gauge theories with identical fixed points, phase diagrams, and scaling exponents. Implications for conformal field theory and orbifold reductions are indicated