28,479 research outputs found
Resource theories of knowledge
How far can we take the resource theoretic approach to explore physics?
Resource theories like LOCC, reference frames and quantum thermodynamics have
proven a powerful tool to study how agents who are subject to certain
constraints can act on physical systems. This approach has advanced our
understanding of fundamental physical principles, such as the second law of
thermodynamics, and provided operational measures to quantify resources such as
entanglement or information content. In this work, we significantly extend the
approach and range of applicability of resource theories. Firstly we generalize
the notion of resource theories to include any description or knowledge that
agents may have of a physical state, beyond the density operator formalism. We
show how to relate theories that differ in the language used to describe
resources, like micro and macroscopic thermodynamics. Finally, we take a
top-down approach to locality, in which a subsystem structure is derived from a
global theory rather than assumed. The extended framework introduced here
enables us to formalize new tasks in the language of resource theories, ranging
from tomography, cryptography, thermodynamics and foundational questions, both
within and beyond quantum theory.Comment: 28 pages featuring figures, examples, map and neatly boxed theorems,
plus appendi
Set Estimation Under Biconvexity Restrictions
A set in the Euclidean plane is said to be biconvex if, for some angle
, all its sections along straight lines with inclination
angles and are convex sets (i.e, empty sets or
segments). Biconvexity is a natural notion with some useful applications in
optimization theory. It has also be independently used, under the name of
"rectilinear convexity", in computational geometry. We are concerned here with
the problem of asymptotically reconstructing (or estimating) a biconvex set
from a random sample of points drawn on . By analogy with the classical
convex case, one would like to define the "biconvex hull" of the sample points
as a natural estimator for . However, as previously pointed out by several
authors, the notion of "hull" for a given set (understood as the "minimal"
set including and having the required property) has no obvious, useful
translation to the biconvex case. This is in sharp contrast with the well-known
elementary definition of convex hull. Thus, we have selected the most commonly
accepted notion of "biconvex hull" (often called "rectilinear convex hull"): we
first provide additional motivations for this definition, proving some useful
relations with other convexity-related notions. Then, we prove some results
concerning the consistent approximation of a biconvex set and and the
corresponding biconvex hull. An analogous result is also provided for the
boundaries. A method to approximate, from a sample of points on , the
biconvexity angle is also given
The convexification effect of Minkowski summation
Let us define for a compact set the sequence It was independently proved by Shapley, Folkman and Starr (1969)
and by Emerson and Greenleaf (1969) that approaches the convex hull of
in the Hausdorff distance induced by the Euclidean norm as goes to
. We explore in this survey how exactly approaches the convex
hull of , and more generally, how a Minkowski sum of possibly different
compact sets approaches convexity, as measured by various indices of
non-convexity. The non-convexity indices considered include the Hausdorff
distance induced by any norm on , the volume deficit (the
difference of volumes), a non-convexity index introduced by Schneider (1975),
and the effective standard deviation or inner radius. After first clarifying
the interrelationships between these various indices of non-convexity, which
were previously either unknown or scattered in the literature, we show that the
volume deficit of does not monotonically decrease to 0 in dimension 12
or above, thus falsifying a conjecture of Bobkov et al. (2011), even though
their conjecture is proved to be true in dimension 1 and for certain sets
with special structure. On the other hand, Schneider's index possesses a strong
monotonicity property along the sequence , and both the Hausdorff
distance and effective standard deviation are eventually monotone (once
exceeds ). Along the way, we obtain new inequalities for the volume of the
Minkowski sum of compact sets, falsify a conjecture of Dyn and Farkhi (2004),
demonstrate applications of our results to combinatorial discrepancy theory,
and suggest some questions worthy of further investigation.Comment: 60 pages, 7 figures. v2: Title changed. v3: Added Section 7.2
resolving Dyn-Farkhi conjectur
Convexity and the Euclidean metric of space-time
We address the question about the reasons why the "Wick-rotated",
positive-definite, space-time metric obeys the Pythagorean theorem. An answer
is proposed based on the convexity and smoothness properties of the functional
spaces purporting to provide the kinematic framework of approaches to quantum
gravity. We employ moduli of convexity and smoothness which are eventually
extremized by Hilbert spaces. We point out the potential physical significance
that functional analytical dualities play in this framework. Following the
spirit of the variational principles employed in classical and quantum Physics,
such Hilbert spaces dominate in a generalized functional integral approach. The
metric of space-time is induced by the inner product of such Hilbert spaces.Comment: 41 pages. No figures. Standard LaTeX2e. Change of affiliation of the
author and mostly superficial changes in this version. Accepted for
publication by "Universe" in a Special Issue with title: "100 years of
Chronogeometrodynamics: the Status of Einstein's theory of Gravitation in its
Centennial Year
Chiral Symmetry Breaking and Chiral Polarization: Tests for Finite Temperature and Many Flavors
It was recently conjectured that, in SU(3) gauge theories with fundamental
quarks, valence spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking is equivalent to
condensation of local dynamical chirality and appearance of chiral polarization
scale . Here we consider more general association involving the
low-energy layer of chirally polarized modes which, in addition to its width
(), is also characterized by volume density of participating
modes () and the volume density of total chirality (). Few
possible forms of the correspondence are discussed, paying particular attention
to singular cases where emerges as the most versatile characteristic.
The notion of finite-volume "order parameter", capturing the nature of these
connections, is proposed. We study the effects of temperature (in N=0 QCD)
and light quarks (in N=12), both in the regime of possible symmetry
restoration, and find agreement with these ideas. In N=0 QCD, results from
several volumes indicate that, at the lattice cutoff studied, the deconfinement
temperature is strictly smaller than the overlap-valence chiral
transition temperature in real Polyakov line vacuum. Somewhat similar
intermediate phase (in quark mass) is also seen in N=12. It is suggested
that deconfinement in N=0 is related to indefinite convexity of absolute
X-distributions.Comment: 45 pages, 20 figures; v2: reduced the size of submission and fixed
references to appendices; v3: minor changes - published for
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