The Berry Paradox

Lecture given Wednesday 27 October 1993 at a Physics -- Computer Science Colloquium at the University of New Mexico. The lecture was videotaped; this is an edited transcript. It also incorporates remarks made at the Limits to Scientific Knowledge meeting held at the Santa Fe Institute 24--26 May 1994.Comment: 13 pages, LaTe

Some Aspects of Classical and Quantum Phases

We study classical and quantum phases in the adiabatic Born-Oppenheimer context. These include a classical astronomical case, the general dual description of the phases, a new "Paradox" connected to scattering Berry phase and its resolution and various elaboration of topological/geometrical/non-abelian phases.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figure

On the "Causality Paradox" of Time-Dependent Density Functional Theory

I show that the so-called causality paradox of time-dependent density functional theory arises from an incorrect formulation of the variational principle for the time evolution of the density. The correct formulation not only resolves the paradox in real time, but also leads to a new expression for the causal exchange-correlation kernel in terms of Berry curvature. Furthermore, I show that all the results that were previously derived from symmetries of the action functional remain valid in the present formulation. Finally, I develop a model functional theory which explicitly demonstrates the workings of the new formulation.Comment: 21 page

Berry phase, topology, and diabolicity in quantum nano-magnets

A topological theory of the diabolical points (degeneracies) of quantum magnets is presented. Diabolical points are characterized by their diabolicity index, for which topological sum rules are derived. The paradox of the the missing diabolical points for Fe8 molecular magnets is clarified. A new method is also developed to provide a simple interpretation, in terms of destructive interferences due to the Berry phase, of the complete set of diabolical points found in biaxial systems such as Fe8.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Service Recovery Paradox in Indian Banking Industry: an Empirical Investigation

The present study examines existence of service recovery paradox in Indian banking industry. The study is taken up in the tri-city of Chandigarh, Panchkula and Mohali. The respondents are categorized into failure and no-failure groups on the basis of their service experience. Failure group constitutes those respondents who have experienced service recovery, and has been further divided into five sub-groups ranging from service recovery++ (service recovery better than expected) to service recovery- - (service recovery worse than expected). Service recovery paradox is examined by comparing service recovery++ group with no-failure group. The study shows evidence for existence of service recovery paradox in relation to satisfaction. It has been concluded that for service recovery paradox to exist, recovery effort has to be exceptionally good and much better than expectation level of the customer. The study suggests that service managers should take service failure as an opportunity to appease customers by providing a much better than expected recovery experience. However, organizations should not plan to create service failure situations because if they falter on imparting the recovery, customer satisfaction may be influenced negatively