The evolution of vibrational excitations in glassy systems

The equations of the mode-coupling theory (MCT) for ideal liquid-glass transitions are used for a discussion of the evolution of the density-fluctuation spectra of glass-forming systems for frequencies within the dynamical window between the band of high-frequency motion and the band of low-frequency-structural-relaxation processes. It is shown that the strong interaction between density fluctuations with microscopic wave length and the arrested glass structure causes an anomalous-oscillation peak, which exhibits the properties of the so-called boson peak. It produces an elastic modulus which governs the hybridization of density fluctuations of mesoscopic wave length with the boson-peak oscillations. This leads to the existence of high-frequency sound with properties as found by X-ray-scattering spectroscopy of glasses and glassy liquids. The results of the theory are demonstrated for a model of the hard-sphere system. It is also derived that certain schematic MCT models, whose spectra for the stiff-glass states can be expressed by elementary formulas, provide reasonable approximations for the solutions of the general MCT equations.Comment: 50 pages, 17 postscript files including 18 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev.

Probing magnetic turbulence by synchrotron polarimetry: statistics and structure of magnetic fields from Stokes correlators

We describe a technique for probing the statistical properties of cosmic magnetic fields based on radio polarimetry data. Second-order magnetic field statistics like the power spectrum cannot always distinguish between magnetic fields with essentially different spatial structure. Synchrotron polarimetry naturally allows certain 4th-order magnetic field statistics to be inferred from observational data, which lifts this degeneracy and can thereby help us gain a better picture of the structure of the cosmic fields and test theoretical scenarios describing magnetic turbulence. In this work we show that a 4th-order correlator of physical interest, the tension-force spectrum, can be recovered from the polarized synchrotron emission data. We develop an estimator for this quantity based on polarized-emission observations in the Faraday-rotation-free frequency regime. We consider two cases: a statistically isotropic field distribution, and a statistically isotropic field superimposed on a weak mean field. In both cases the tension force power spectrum is measurable; in the latter case, the magnetic power spectrum may also be obtainable. The method is exact in the idealized case of a homogeneous relativistic-electron distribution that has a power-law energy spectrum with a spectral index p=3, and assumes statistical isotropy of the turbulent field. We carry out tests of our method using synthetic data generated from numerically simulated magnetic fields. We show that the method is valid, that it is not prohibitively sensitive to the value of the electron spectral index, and that the observed tension-force spectrum allows one to distinguish between, e.g., a randomly tangled magnetic field (a default assumption in many studies) and a field organized in folded flux sheets or filaments.Comment: Published on MNRAS 200

A Dirichlet-to-Neumann approach for the exact computation of guided modes in photonic crystal waveguides

This works deals with one dimensional infinite perturbation - namely line defects - in periodic media. In optics, such defects are created to construct an (open) waveguide that concentrates light. The existence and the computation of the eigenmodes is a crucial issue. This is related to a self-adjoint eigenvalue problem associated to a PDE in an unbounded domain (in the directions orthogonal to the line defect), which makes both the analysis and the computations more complex. Using a Dirichlet-to-Neumann (DtN) approach, we show that this problem is equivalent to one set on a small neighborhood of the defect. On contrary to existing methods, this one is exact but there is a price to be paid : the reduction of the problem leads to a nonlinear eigenvalue problem of a fixed point nature

The Hopf structure of some dual operator algebras

We study the Hopf structure of a class of dual operator algebras corresponding to certain semigroups. This class of algebras arises in dilation theory, and includes the noncommutative analytic Toeplitz algebra and the multiplier algebra of the Drury-Arveson space, which correspond to the free semigroup and the free commutative semigroup respectively. The preduals of the algebras in this class naturally form Hopf (convolution) algebras. The original algebras and their preduals form (non-self-adjoint) dual Hopf algebras in the sense of Effros and Ruan. We study these algebras from this perspective, and obtain a number of results about their structure.Comment: 30 page

Multi-particle structure in the Z_n-chiral Potts models

We calculate the lowest translationally invariant levels of the Z_3- and Z_4-symmetrical chiral Potts quantum chains, using numerical diagonalization of the hamiltonian for N <= 12 and N <= 10 sites, respectively, and extrapolating N to infinity. In the high-temperature massive phase we find that the pattern of the low-lying zero momentum levels can be explained assuming the existence of n-1 particles carrying Z_n-charges Q = 1, ... , n-1 (mass m_Q), and their scattering states. In the superintegrable case the masses of the n-1 particles become proportional to their respective charges: m_Q = Q m_1. Exponential convergence in N is observed for the single particle gaps, while power convergence is seen for the scattering levels. We also verify that qualitatively the same pattern appears for the self-dual and integrable cases. For general Z_n we show that the energy-momentum relations of the particles show a parity non-conservation asymmetry which for very high temperatures is exclusive due to the presence of a macroscopic momentum P_m=(1-2Q/n)/\phi, where \phi is the chiral angle and Q is the Z_n-charge of the respective particle.Comment: 22 pages (LaTeX) plus 5 figures (included as PostScript), BONN-HE-92-3